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“Cornell,” she cracked out, bringing a trembling hand to her mouth before wiping at her face. But on the dark street, blinded by teary eyes, Cornell’s face was the only thing she saw, and Ali was desperate for him, chasing at full speed.
In the cupholder, her phone was still absent of notifications, but Ali didn’t care that his phone was still off. His voice, she thought, unlocking the phone with one hand while the other gripped the steering wheel. I’ll hear his voice, and everything will be alright. I’ll get home, then he’ll come, and everything will be alright.
Her fingers tremored so hard that Ali nearly pressed the wrong button. “You’ve reached Cornell Crawford—”
“I can’t get to the phone right now,” Ali whispered, lowering the phone gently to her lap, exactly opposite, she realized, of that night when, instead, her hand shook so violently her cell slipped from her hand. In Ali’s brief, frantic search for a small piece of Cornell in a huge torturous moment, she brought a telephone pole down right on top of her car.
“What did you say?” Bobbi asked. “Al?”
Ali looked at the police report, crinkled from her earlier tight grip. She quickly began to smooth out the folds, but it made no difference even when she pressed harder. Go away, go away, go away. But they didn’t, and Ali realized all it took was one tight grip—Graham’s on her, hers on the paper—to make marks so deep, they would forever be embedded.
And yet, she kept trying to smooth the paper out, so it looked just as it had before.
“Hey.” Bobbi reached out, touching her forearm. “What are you doing?”
Ali ripped her arm from her mother’s grasp and began to scream.
