The Valley and the Flood by Rebecca Mahoney (10 best books of all time TXT) 📗

Then a light, faint at first but growing steadily brighter.

And inches from my toes, the screech of brakes.

My back foot turns wrong as I try to run, and I hit the pavement backward, palms first. The streetlights around me burst open. And when I blink, it’s midafternoon, and I’m sprawled in the middle of the street, nose-to-nose with the grille of a car. The driver leaps out, and the first thing I see is the insignia on his shirt: lotus valley sheriff’s department.

I twist around, and Morningside Drive whirls overhead. I blink hard. And it stays right where it is.

Four THE APPOINTMENT

THERE ARE BITS of pavement stuck to my skin, dug into little divots. I run my palm under the water until the skin isn’t flecked with black anymore, and then I peel back my sleeve where my forearm hit the street. The fabric isn’t torn, but underneath my arm is scraped up to the elbow. Nice to know this fifteen-dollar shirt is more resilient than I am.

I glance back up at the mirror, at my dark, ringed eyes and the dirt streaked across my clothes. But my reflection isn’t looking back out at me. She’s looking down at her scraped, angry-red palms.

And she’s wearing different clothes.

I jerk back from the mirror. But so does my reflection this time. She blinks back at me, startled, wearing my clothes again. I lift my hand—clean and unscratched—to wave. And she doesn’t miss a beat.

Post-traumatic stress disorder. The full name doesn’t sound that bad. Reasonable, even. The kind of thing that can be fixed with yoga, or a massage, or some good, solid Me Time.

It’s when you boil it down to its acronym that things get tricky. Four little letters and subtext for miles.

I don’t use those four letters. What happened, happened to Gaby. Just because she’s not around to feel the fallout doesn’t mean I have any right to it.

But I do know what’s happening to me.

In the most basic and recognizable ways it is cold, hard physiology. A body hardwired to sense danger in a quick movement, or in someone standing too close, or in a series of obstacles between you and the way out. But there’s specificity to each sensation. The hot cement in your chest, the wild and reeling beats of your heart, the dizzy spin of the world. You never have to reach far to remember the worst moment of your life. Your body remembers for you. It remembers with every cell.

But my body can remember all it wants. My brain isn’t going back there with it. For everything I’ve felt over the past year, I’ve never felt anything I would describe as a flashback. This thing that’s happening to me, it hasn’t been controllable, not yet. But by now it should be predictable.

Then again. When I shut my eyes, I still see last night, in the Summers’ narrow kitchen. I still see Nick, standing in the center of my vision, smiling that smile. After what happened—after what almost happened—maybe I can’t expect predictable anymore.

He’s certainly on your mind, isn’t he? That was what that girl had said.

I squeeze my eyes shut and press my nails once, light but insistent, into my palms. Not what I need to be thinking about. Not now, not ever.

Easing my phone out of my pocket, I pull up my text messages and flip back to when my therapist texted me his number and charitably pretended he hadn’t already given it to me five times. In case anything comes up, it says. Every one of those five times I nodded, smiled, and silently resolved that if anything came up, I’d handle it myself.

I shove my phone back into my jeans. I’ve read all about flashbacks, what they’re like. Disjointed, impressionistic, almost physical. They’re not literal time travel. Not like that road. Not like the mirror, just now.

I know my diagnosis. I’m not sure this is part of it.

There’s another knock on the door. “Miss?

“Yes!” I say, stepping back from the sink. “Just a second!”

I turn to grab a paper towel. And I pause. Opposite me, blemishing the wall of the perfectly clean, perfectly orderly bathroom, there’s a boarded window.

You will find a window that is not a window. The girl had said that, too.

I open the door and step back out into the lobby. And I have about two seconds to get my bearings before the deputy sheriff’s wide, concerned eyes are inches from mine.

“You’re sure you’re all right, miss?” he says. I don’t think he’s moved since I went into the bathroom. Guess it’s a slow day on the Lotus Valley, Nevada, crime beat.

“Very sure,” I say. “I really appreciate you letting me clean up here, but I should be heading out now, so—”

“And I’ll get you on your way as soon as possible!” he says. “If you could just step into my office over there, we can get started on your statement—”

“Am—” I blink. “Am I in trouble?”

“Oh! No! Of course not!” he says quickly. “I’m citing myself.”

“For what?” I say.

“Reckless driving, of course,” he says.

I blink. “You’re serious.”

“I injured a pedestrian,” he says with a firm nod.

I go for a straight face. It’s hard to tell how successful I am. If Gaby were here, we’d be leaving this station with money for new clothes, fresh coffee, and emotional distress. For a second, I’m tempted.

“Listen, Deputy—” It comes out sharper than I intend. The deputy, whether he meant to or not, is firmly situated between me and the front door.

“Oh, please,” he says, oblivious. “Call me Jay!”

“Deputy Jay,” I continue, raising my voice a little. Someone in the foyer keeps ringing the front desk bell. “I wasn’t paying attention, and I wandered into the road. I don’t think this is really—”

“And it may well be unnecessary, miss,” he says earnestly, seemingly unbothered by the now-constant ringing over his shoulder. “But with the sheriff out of town, I have to make sure all of this