Echo: Chapter 1

The first time I heard Rosalie speak, we were 12. I was sitting on the cold concrete bench waiting for my bus, eager to go home and play a video game before my mom got home and made me buckle down and do my homework. She was standing by a pillar under the awning next to me. Her long blonde hair blew in the wind, and her arms were wrapped around herself in her black jacket. Her body shook, and her eyes had a distant, far off look in them, almost glazed over in how deep of thought she was. Suddenly she turned and sat down next to me. I raised my eyebrows at her. She fidgeted next to me, chewing on her bottom lip and tilting her head, almost as though she were listening to some conversation I couldn’t actually hear. I decided to break the ice.

“You’re Rosalie Sorento, aren’t you?” I asked politely, despite knowing exactly who she was. She was the weird girl, the one that had no friends. The one that didn’t speak. She ignored me, as though I hadn’t spoken, and studied me for a minute. I gave what I hoped was a flirtatious smirk.

“Wanna take a picture? It’ll last longer.” I teased her. She again, ignored me. I let out a sigh, resigned to sit next to the strange girl in awkward silence. Finally, her soft voice spoke.

“I’d like to see you. Away from here.” she told me, her quiet voice almost hoarse, as though she had been screaming for hours. I tilted my head.

“Would you really?”

“Yes.” she answered, almost immediately. It was my turn to tilt my head. This girl didn’t know me from Adam, I was convinced, but she still wanted to see me? I was skeptical. She wrote down an address. “Meet me here, in ten minutes.” I didn’t have a chance to answer her before she scurried off, coat still wrapped tight around her, as though she were never there. Ryan, my best friend at the time, took her place, questioning look firmly in place. I didn’t wait for him to ask; I told him what happened. His laughter was immediate.

“Dude, she totally wants you! You should go, lord knows when you’ll get the opportunity to get laid again!” he said loudly, causing several of the older kids to stare at us. I had no idea what laid was, but it was apparently key to being popular. I wanted to be popular back then. I agreed with him and asked how to reach the address. Less than ten minutes later I was walking up the steps of the abandoned gas station, looking around for the mysterious, silent blonde. I sat and waited, for what felt like hours but I knew could only have been 20 minutes or so. At least I thought so. I was horrible at telling time without a watch. I gave another glance around, worrying my lower lip in a way that reminded me of Rosalie. Where was she? This was the right place, right? I checked the paper, and sighed, resolving myself to stay only a few more minutes. Soon, though, a familiar car came pulling in. I felt my face pale. This was NOT who I was expecting to see.

“Mom?” My mother came tumbling out of her car, gathering me in her arms and sobbing. I hugged her, but didn’t understand the hysteria. Had I really been gone so long?

“Mom, really, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you. But I’m ok, see?” she took several gasping breaths, her grip on my coat tightening.

“Michael. Michael how did you do it? How did you get out?” she asked, finally, sounding more out of breath than she would have if she had run a marathon. I frowned. What in the world was she on about?

“How did I do what?” I asked, confused.

“Get out of the wreck.” she answered, pulling away to dart her eyes across my face. “How did you get out of the wreck?”

“What wreck?” I was more confused than ever. There was a tingling that had started at the base of my skull, covering my body with a sort of numb feeling that made the cold disappear. Mom’s panic began to slowly fade from her eyes, replaced with the confusion that I felt.

“What wr---? Honey, didn’t you get on your bus?” At the shake of my head, I expected anger to spring up in her eyes, but was met with only stark relief. “Thank God! Thank God you chose today to rebel!”

“I wasn’t rebelling.” I answered her defensively. “Mom, what the hell happened?”

“There was a crash darling.” she answered me gently, wiping her eyes with her long fingers. The tingling had turned into a full blown buzzing, that had me shivering and afraid for the first time in this conversation. Mom grabbed my shoulder, studying my face as if she were afraid I would spontaneously disappear. The relief was still swimming clearly in her eyes. “A car ran a red light at 60 mph, and hit the side of your bus. The whole thing went up in flames. There were no survivors.”

I thought about her words for days. “There were no survivors.” Then why did I survive? What made me so special? Every thought I had, after turning it upside down and inside out in my head, went back to that few minutes before the bus arrived at school. To Rosalie’s far away look in her eyes. To the quiet whisper of her voice. The almost frantic way she looked at me. The more I thought about it, the more I realized. She knew. Somehow, this little slip of a girl knew I shouldn’t have been on that bus. She knew the bus was going to crash. She saved my life.

It wasn’t until the following Monday that I was able to find her again, hiding in the back of the library. She looked up at me, and I would have had to have been blind to miss the very visible relief that flashed through her eyes.

“You’re here.” she said simply, her voice barely above a whisper. I nodded, sitting myself down beside her.

“Thanks to you.” I answered, just as quiet. She flinched.

“We can’t talk about this right now.” she said in almost a panicked whisper, her bright eyes looking anywhere but at me. I felt my temper flare.

“The hell we can’t.” I hissed at her, anger taking hold of me quick as desperation for answers set in. I gripped her arm, squeezing firmly. “Tell me how you knew!”

“Ah!” She cried out, jerking her arm away from me and cradling it to her chest. I frowned slightly; had I really grabbed her that hard? I reached for her slowly. She shied away.

“Please don’t.” she whispered. I ignored her, grabbing her hand softly and rolling up her sleeve. Burn marks and scars littered her skin, some in the shape of finger prints. I turned her arm over, unable to turn my eyes away from the horrors her skin showed. Older marks were a bit lighter than the obviously newer marks. One wrapped around her wrist in a raw red that almost looked like it was done that morning. I raised my eyebrows.

“How did…?”

“Please don’t ask.” she shivered. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Please don’t touch that.” she trembled as I traced my fingertips along the puckered skin of a rather large scar across her forearm. It was definitely a burn scar. I had one myself, across my thigh from an embarrassing incident with a wood burner. But what I couldn’t wrap my mind around was the finger shapes that extended from the middle of the angry red mark. This was like a red hot hand had wrapped itself around her forearm and held on. I traced it again, ignoring the whine that spilled from her lips.

“Tell me about it.”

“One day.” she whispered, pulling her arm gently from my grasp. I let her go, not wanting her to feel trapped. “One day. I can’t right now.”

“I’ll wait.” I told her. And I intended to.

But for the next 5 years, Rosalie Sorento disappeared.