Save Her

Natalie - Chapter 3-1

Natalie - Chapter 3

Natalie and the interrogator sit across the table from each other. The interrogator has the yellow notepad and a pencil.

“Tell me,” says the interrogator. “The book. The passwords. Tell me about those.”

“It was after the accident,” Natalie begins. “After he ran off, the ambulance pulled up, and the paramedics ran out to make sure Mom and I were okay. We said we were, and apparently so was the man I hit because he was already gone. The paramedics looked at each other and asked how hard I had hit him, and when I told them it was at least sixty kilometers per hour, they looked at me like they wondered whether I had knocked my head and become delusional. The car was proof of the impact. My poor little darling car was so damaged like I had hit a big deer. They said they wanted to make sure we were both okay. Mom wouldn’t let them near her and told me I could refuse them, but it was just easier for me to let them shine their little flashlight thingy in my eyes and run their full battery of tedious tests until they were sure I was fine. They confirmed a few times that we hit a person. Yes, I said, a young man. Hit him and ran over him. ‘Natalie!’ warned Mom, but it was okay. One of the paramedics said there’s no way someone could survive that kind of impact without getting broken, which then made me worry that I should not have let him go off how he had. I showed them where I first saw him falling and then back where he was laying under the tailpipe. The skids of the tires showed the exact place I saw him fall in front of me and also showed them the two times the right side of my car lifted off the street as it ran over the man twice. Front wheels and then the back wheels. Rear wheels? What’s the right way to say that?”

The interrogator waits.

“You get the point,” Natalie continues. “Anyway, that’s when I saw it. The brown little book. It was right there nearly under the back of my rear tire, sort of behind it in the darkness of the tire’s shadow. The paramedics and my mom went to the front of the car to see the damage, and that’s when I picked it up without knowing what it was and put it in my pocket. I knew it was his. It had to be. I was pretty excited to find it. Maybe I could find him again? Like maybe there was a phone number? I kept it a secret because I know my mom and she would have taken it. Knowing her, she might have burned it. Ha. Anyway, the police finally showed up. And then I had to go through the whole thing again. The officer looked at the paramedics to confirm I was of sound mind and body. After they confirmed that I was — as far as they could tell — the policeman asked for a full description, which I gave, and then he sent out a bulletin to look out for Drayden. ‘He might be injured,’ the officer said into his radio.

“The whole thing finally ended when my father picked us up and dropped me off at my dorm. I assured them both I was okay and then rushed up to my little room where I pulled his little book from my pocket to give it the full once-over. It was a mess of passwords. I’ve never seen so many in my life. I mean, a crazy amount of letters and numbers and symbols. Totally impossible to remember. I flipped through the whole little thing and was disappointed that his information wasn’t anywhere inside. Livia — you know, my best friend? The one you brought to his horrible place?”

Natalie gets no reaction from the interrogator.

“Yes, well, Livia, my bestest bestie, finally gets home from the library, and just in time because I am literally going to explode if I don’t share the news with someone. I demonstrably tell her everything. My arms are flailing with excitement about how incredibly wonderfully charming and mysterious the boy was, and how he had dropped his brown little book, and how I had quietly picked it up and not told the paramedics or my mom. She says something like she can’t believe goody-goody me had done such a thing.”

Natalie does her impression of Liv. “‘You bad little Brit! Give it! I know exactly what to do with it!’ And before I can say no, she grabs it out of my hands and is flipping through the pages for anything that makes sense.” Natalie shakes her head and smiles in wonderment. “That photographic memory of hers never ceases to amaze me. Next thing I know, she’s grabbing her laptop and getting on his bank’s website. She said she wanted to see just how accurate the book was. ‘Liv, no!’ ‘We have to!’ She said. ‘No!’ I argued back. ‘You think you have to, but you don’t!’ ‘No,’ Liv pushed back, ‘You think you can’t but you should!’ That made me laugh and persuaded me to come over the dark side.”

Natalie senses the interrogator is enjoying the story. Her stoic demeanor is more relaxed.

“I covered my eyes and then made enough of a crack through my fingers to see that his name was Reginald Routton.” Natalie peeks through the crack of her fingers and sees interest in the interrogator’s eyes. “And that he had twenty-five million, one-hundred thousand, thirty-seven hundred and twenty-nine US dollars in his bank account.”

‘“No wonder he was so cavalier,’ said Liv. ‘He’s loaded!’ “Livia was just messing around, but she clicked on the ‘transfer’ link like she was going to move some of his dollars out of his account, and at that point, I moved the mouse to the ‘X’ and closed the website. I couldn’t believe the username and password worked!

“I hid the book from her after that. It was awesome. I hid it so well. Somewhere I knew she’d never look in a million years — inside my book on thirteenth-century art. I cut out a small rectangle like this tall and this wide.” Natalie shows the interrogator just how big. The interrogator is very interested and writes something on her notebook that Natalie can’t see. “And squeezed Dray’s little book in there and put mine exactly back where it was. Liv looked like crazy for it all over the room just like I knew she would. She’s literally the most curious and nosiest person I know. It made me laugh so hard to watch her get so frustrated. She absolutely couldn’t believe she couldn’t find it! Upturning mattresses, looking in folded laundry, looking back into the same folded laundry. I laughed so hard. ‘Hot or cold?’ She wanted to know over and over again. ‘You’re hot!’ I kept messing with her. I think one time she even got actually angry.”

Natalie giggles at the memory.

“Drayden showed up a day and a half after I hit him, but I still thought his name was Reginald, you know because it was Reginald’s name on the bank account.

“He waited for me outside my dorm one morning. Totally surprised me. I mean I did not expect to see him. But there he was. Handsome as ever and catching the eyes of the girls all hurrying out to get to class. I was rushing to the pre-law class that my dad was making me take. That’s what they wanted for me. A lawyer. Believe that?” Natalie shakes her head. “I mean, just no. Not me at all. But that’s my parents for you. That’s the path they basically wanted for me when I got to university next year. But you probably already knew that, didn’t you?” Natalie asks the interrogator.

“Keep going,” the woman across from Natalie says.

“Right. I’ll talk. You just keep doing your thing. Where was I?”

“Drayden surprised you,” the interrogator says.

“Yes. That’s right, I was telling you about my parents. Well, anyway, they — my parental folk — had somehow settled on me getting into law because at least then I’d be able to converse with those who mattered. I told them I could do the same with an art history degree, but my father said: ‘Darling, you’ll be the most boring one at the table.’” Natalie attempted a deep-voiced impression. “That was horrible. Sorry, I’m lousy at impressions. Drayden, by the way, is excellent at them. He can sound like pretty much anybody! It’s really pretty great. Neat talent. One of many. And it’s not even programmed. Just something he can do on his own. So, anyway, back to my father, I totally disagree with him. I mean, really, why are the arts so minimized in today’s educational society? It makes no sense whatsoever. Right? Think about the consequences if someone had said that to Beethoven or William Shakespeare? My god, what a tragedy! Don’t you think?”

The woman nods. It’s a slight and an almost imperceptible nod, but it’s a nod, and Natalie catches it. She considers it a small victory, and one she’ll take.

The interrogator says: “Drayden surprised you outside your dorm.”

“I didn’t mean to get away from the story. It’s just my parents… pre-law… ugh. Sorry. Seeing Drayden again raced my heart,” Natalie says. “He wasn’t hurt! That was the first wave of feeling that washed over me. No internal organs had bled him out after me running him over. What a giant relief. The next thought — and all of this is happening quickly because my thoughts were scattered entirely and my nerves were frayed — is that he had to be back for that little brown book. That had to be it! Grabbing the book and holding onto it, hiding it from the law and the other law — my mom — that was the right thing to do. My mind started jumping ahead. I asked myself what Livia would do. I had to plan this. Just like I grabbed the book and hid it. Now I needed to not let him run away so quickly. I knew I couldn’t go to class. I’d have to skip, and that’s not me at all, but it’s entirely something Liv would do in this situation, so I made that decision. I’d get in trouble for missing class, but I’d figure out an excuse later for my teacher.

“‘Hi,’ he said, pushing his dark brown hair off his forehead, ‘Remember me?’

“‘Hi,’ I said back, as nervous as I’ve ever been. Two girls I knew saw us and giggled on their way out of the dorm.

“‘Listen, I lost a—’”

“‘I have it! Upstairs. In my room.’ And then I started stumbling all over my words and making a fool of myself. ‘Wait no, I don’t mean you should — I can go get it — without you, I mean. I mean if you just stay here I’ll be right back?’”

Natalie puts her forehead down on the metal table and bangs it lightly. “So embarrassing,” Natalie says. “Oh my god, my brain turned to absolute mush! Anyway, he was relieved.” Natalie looks up at the interrogator. They make eye contact. Natalie c***s her head to the side. “One of these days I’m going to win you over. Just watch. Anyway, like I said, Drayden was super relieved.

“‘Thank god,’ he said.

“‘Wait, and I’ll be back in a jif,’ I said before sprinting up the stairs and dropping my backpack hard enough to worry about the laptop inside.

“‘He’s here!’ I said out loud. ‘He’s here!’ Livia exits the bathroom with a mascara pen in her hand and sees me run to my thirteenth-century art book and can’t believe that’s where I hid the little brown book.

“‘Arrrghhh!’ Liv said when she saw where I had hidden it. ‘You destroyed your art book for him?! Wow, he really must be cute. I definitely need to see this guy.’

“She swipes the book from me and rips out of the room before I can stop her. Down the stairs she goes, and I try to keep up, but she’s so athletic with her long legs there’s just no way.” In the interrogator’s eyes, Natalie senses an interest in the story. Like she’s enjoying it. Natalie perks up a little. She’s not sure if it’s the lousy impressions or the details. Whatever it is, it feels like a connection, and Natalie likes it. “By the time I got down there, Liv and Dray were already talking. I heard Dray say:

“‘I think luck landed me in front of her,’ to which Liv replied: ‘Blaghhh, only a cute boy can get away with a line like that.’

“‘Liv!’ I said, hitting her lightly on the arm. And then to him I said: ‘So you really are okay?’

“‘I don’t think you struck me very hard,’ Drayden said. I reached over and touched his hand. It was warm like mine — like anybody’s. The gesture wasn’t me at all, and I felt so proud of my boldness to make any sort of physical contact.