Free Sloth by Robin Wasserman Page B

driven away, following the familiar curves until she reached the spot that guaranteed her a quiet place to think. She felt guilty there, as if she were trespassing, especially in those moments when she was overcome by self-pity—it felt wrong, feeling sorry for herself, there of all places. But she couldn’t help it. And as time passed, it became the only place that could help.
    The road curved, and the thin white cross appeared. Beth pulled her car onto the shoulder and parked. She hesitated for a moment, staring through the windshield at the small wooden cross stuck into the brush-covered ground, the withering bunches of flowers gathered around it. It looked almost lonely, dwarfed by the vast emptiness ofthe surrounding desert. From this distance she couldn’t see the name scratched into the wood, but she imagined she could. She had traced her fingers over the letters often enough.
    Beth didn’t know who had erected the small memorial— Kaia’s father, from the few glimpses she’d gotten before he left town, didn’t seem the type. And there were few other candidates. She got out of the car and walked slowly over to the cross, then sat on the ground in front of it, not caring if she got dirt all over her jeans. She’d brought along her ancient duct-taped-together Discman, and now she switched it on, sliding the headphones over her head and tuning out the world.
    The first time she’d come, she had wandered through the brush, looking for signs that something had happened here. And she’d found them—small spots of scorched earth, scratches and gouges in the ground, a smear of rubber on the road, a jagged chunk of metal, twisted and torn beyond recognition. But all of that was gone now; or, at least, Beth no longer had any urge to look. Now she just sat and stared, sometimes at the roughly engraved letters—just KAIA , no dates, no messages, no last name— sometimes at the empty road and still scenery, disturbed only by the occasional eighteen-wheeler barreling through, sometimes at the sky. She chose her music at random, though most of the CDs in her collection were weepy women, singer-songwriters warbling about lost love, so there was rarely much surprise. Today, however, she’d popped in an old Green Day album—something Adam had given her in hopes of giving her some kind of music makeover. She’d never really listened to it. But itwas loud and angry, and today, somehow, it worked.
    It’s not my fault, she told herself, trying to dislodge the mountain of guilt. There was no cause and effect. No connection. She’d drugged Harper; Kaia had crashed a car. It was a coincidence, nothing more. A bad driver, speeding down the road, slamming into the BMW, disappearing. It was an accident—-just bad luck. Not my fault. Harper was fine. Harper was healthy. Whatever Beth had done, there’d been no permanent consequences.
    What happened to Kaia was permanent, but— not my fault.
    She didn’t know how long she’d been sitting there when she felt the hand on her shoulder. She tipped her head back and looked up into the deepest brown eyes she’d ever seen. She took in his warm, crooked smile, the tendrils of dark, curly hair that flopped over his eyes, the smudge of grease just above his chin . .. and then it all came together into a familiar face, and she jerked away.
    “Hey,” he said, his voice warm and gravelly, as if he’d just rolled out of bed. “Sorry.” He sat down next to her. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
    “You didn’t,” Beth said, pulling off her headphones. She couldn’t look at him.
    Reed flicked his eyes toward the cross. “I didn’t know anyone else came here,” he said. “Didn’t think anyone cared.” He spoke slowly, pausing between each word as if part of him preferred the silence. “I didn’t know you two were friends.”
    Beth couldn’t bring herself to say that they weren’t, that Kaia had zoomed to the top of Beth’s enemies list by sleeping with her boyfriend; she