Free The Incident on the Bridge by Laura McNeal Page B

we had was far away.”
    Graycie was glad it was a woman who had called. Though maybe a woman would be even harder on her.
    The Elaine person started in again: “You didn’t get distracted by something and miss a person getting out of the car, did you? I mean, what’s hard to figure out here is how a car got on the bridge without anybody driving it. So somebody drove up there, and if the car was empty when we got to it, somebody got out, and somebody went somewhere, and we both know that normally where they go is over the side. Or they dither a lot. You didn’t see any dithering. So maybe they went straight over, and you didn’t see it because it happened so fast.”
    “That’s what I think, too,” Graycie said. She would never look at her phone while she was at work again. She would tell Estelle or her mother to handle it, whatever it was. If Genna was sick, they could do whatever they decided. Meanwhile, Graycie would delete stuff, QuizUp and everything, on her phone, as a personal punishment.
    “Kyle said he was in the bathroom,” Elaine said. “So you were watching by yourself for a while.”
    It had a cold color, the light that was falling on her counter just now. The room felt bugged. Genna was quiet, hunched up against Graycie’s chest. If they decided to check Graycie’s phone, would it all be there in little codes? Dates and times and what she had done at that exact second? The trivia game with Splash in Puerto Rico, it was in there. All they had to do was demand to see her phone.
    “I might have checked my text messages,” Graycie said. “I have a baby. I’m a single mom. She had a cold.”
    Silence. People were silent when they were judging you.
    “So someone could have gone over the side of the bridge while you were checking on that.”
    “Yes.”
    Elaine said nothing.
    It didn’t mean Graycie was the reason the girl jumped. You couldn’t always stop them. Not if they were fast.
    “How long do you think you weren’t watching?” Elaine said.
    “I don’t know.”
    This was a mess. A big mess. A girl had gone over, and they couldn’t find her, so the parents would not believe. It was a hard thing to believe even when you saw it, that’s what Kyle said.
    “I’ll keep in touch,” Elaine said.
    “I’m sorry,” Graycie said.
    “I know.”

T he pain is worst in Thisbe’s left arm. The arm feels cut open when she wakes in a tiny room with a low ceiling and a cushion. She’s on her back, and her hands are stuck together underneath her, which also hurts. Something is tied around her head, her mouth, her tongue. Those are her legs far down, dirty legs, dirty socks. Silver duct tape round and round her ankles and calves. Through the hole in one sock, her big toe is sticking out. Naked. Bright red. Not blood but the red nail polish she picked out when her mother said
I know what will cheer you up
and she took Thisbe downtown to sit in the chair that rubbed little baseballs up and down your back.
    It seems like she should be able to free herself. Rub one foot against the other, point her toes, point them harder, slide her right ankle over the left, then left over the right—but no matter how she turns her legs, the loop is too tight, and when she pulls, she rolls back and forth over her stuck-tight hands, and it’s like pushing a sharp thing farther into her arm. Panic forms a band around her chest that tightens as she twists and fails at getting her hands unstuck. She can’t get enough air or space. The harder she sucks on the wet gag, the less air there seems to be.
    Lie still and think.
    The plastic ceiling is three feet above her face and smooth. Light comes through a little window, the kind on a boat: therefore a porthole. The porthole is scratched and grimy but through the grime the color is blue. Blue: therefore day. She tries to sit up, but that hurts more, and she cries but it comes out a gurgle.
    The way beams of light roll and bubble on the ceiling, the slosh of water, the