ed it up and gripped it in my hands, relishing the familiar feel of it - the ridges under my fingertips, lining up automatically in the correct spot, the bumpy texture of it, sending more pleasant memories my way. i flexed my arm and faked a pass, keeping the ball in my hand, but allowing my body to remember the instinct of throwing. it relaxed me and i did it a few more times.

sheriff whitney. i wished mom hadn't brought him up. it wasn't his fault that i associated him with something so horrid, but i did. he was actually a very nice man and was one of the small handful in this town that believed me. of course, he was a man of facts, and my blood had tested clean so - boom - innocent. if only everyone else could be so easily convinced.

he'd visited a few times over the summer, mainly talking with my mother in the living room while i was curled up in a fetal position on my bed. but he did stop in and tell me everything would be fine, and eventually everything would get better. he always put a reassuring hand on my shoulder and spoke in that soft voice reserved for those on the verge of an emotional collapse, which, i suppose i had been. maybe i still was.

i tossed the ball in the air a few times and nimbly caught it. sheriff hadn't charged me with anything. not manslaughter, not reckless driving, not an mip...not even a speeding ticket. the town and even some of the deceased's families (josh in particular), had been in an uproar about that. they all felt i was guilty, and had basically gotten away with murder .the general consensus from the town for me being let go, without even a wrist slap, was my mother. most people felt that i wasn't being charged because the town liked her, had a soft spot for her even. people sympathized with her situation and didn't want her to be punished any farther, for her reckless son's, reckless behavior.

i don't know if that was true or not. i didn't know the legal system well enough to know what the sheriff could have charged me with anyway. all i knew for sure, was that i wasn't being "legally" punished, and i did feel horribly guilty about that.