Chapter 24
I wake up, blinking at the harsh lights stinging my eyes. An antiseptic smell tickles my nostrils, threatening to make me sneeze, and a persistent beeping noise is coming from somewhere above my head. Someone’s fingers are curled around mine, and I shift my eyes to the left to find Mom staring at me, tears staining her face as she squeezes my hand.
“Oh, Zip. Honey—” That’s all she gets out before I start bawling, mostly out of relief. I have no idea where I am or what I’m doing here, but I know right this minute, for whatever reason, I’ve never been so happy in my life to see my mother and so I don’t care that I’m blubbering.
“Mom.” I sniffle, and she brushes some hair off my forehead, pain shooting through me. “Sorry,” she says as I wince. “I forgot. Habit.”
I raise my hand to my temple to find a quarter-sized knot, and as if pressing on the spot jogs my memory, I picture my head hitting the driver’s side window as the car skidded to a stop next to the river. Lifting myself up on my elbows, I find my beautiful Prom dress replaced by a cotton hospital smock that barely falls to my bruised and scraped-up knees. My shins, calves, and feet are a maze of cuts and scrapes, and I realize the antiseptic scent making my nose itch must be coming from me. Wires trail from underneath the smock, and my eyes follow them behind and above me where they end at a heart monitor, the jagged lines on the screen telling me that—for the moment anyway—I’m still alive.
“Lie down,” Mom gently commands, touching a button on the wall next to the bed. “You’ve got a concussion from the accident.”
The accident. My mind rewinds through the high-speed getaway from Frank Dozier, to Kieran and me running to the car, to Frank’s sunburst tattoo, and to me punching Frank in the nose…
I shift my gaze to my right hand but find only fingertips, my fingers taped together and the hand itself buried under an ice pack, all that looks remotely familiar the charm bracelet around my wrist. “My hand,” I almost scream, sitting all the way up this time, but a searing pain in my chest knocks me back.
“It’s probably not broken.” Mom reads my mind. “Just bruised up. They were waiting for you to wake up to take X-rays, but unless they find out it’s worse than they think, you’ll be shooting baskets again in a week or so. We’ll probably have to keep the fingers taped together and ice it every once in a while after we get home.”
The curtain parts and Dr. Partchett, who’s been with the hospital for years and went to high school with my mom, comes in and asks me how I’m feeling. “Groggy,” I tell him.
“That’s normal,” he says, mostly to Mom. “After we send her down for X-rays, we’ll keep her overnight to be safe, but I don’t see any reason why she shouldn’t be able to go home sometime tomorrow morning.”
Mom nods as Dr. Partchett shines a pen light in my eyes and pokes and prods around on me a bit before leaving us alone again.
“Where’s Kieran?” I ask.
“He’s here,” Mom assures me, and before I can interrupt her with my next question, she adds, “And he’s fine. He’s got some cuts and bruises, but they checked him out and discharged him a while ago. He tried to come in and sit with you, but the nurses wouldn’t let anyone stay with you but me. At any rate, he told me he wasn’t leaving, so unless Carlie and Jim dragged him home, I’m guessing he’s out in the lobby somewhere.”
I start crying again, relieved he’s not hurt but also concerned that we’re in a lot of trouble, depending on what Kieran told his parents and my mom about what went down earlier. “Mom…about tonight…did Kieran explain…”
Mom takes my good hand in hers again. “He said the power went out at the Stanley Farm, so you two left to…to go be alone.” She darts her eyes away and scrapes her teeth across her lower lip, something she only does when she’s upset at someone, and I’m guessing the “someone” in this case is Kieran. “It was so dark at the river you misjudged your speed heading down and tried to pull off to the side to keep from going in the water.”
My insides burn on hearing Kieran’s lie. Even though his story is so much less complicated than the truth, I can’t help but be embarrassed that Mom probably thinks we were headed to the river to hook up and I ruined everything because I suck at driving. “So are you mad at me?” I ask, tears welling in my eyes.
She surprises me by smiling. “I’m half-tempted to send you to California to become a stuntwoman. Forget this wanting to be a sports reporter nonsense. If I’d been in the same situation, my car would be on the river bottom right now.”
I laugh a little, but the pain in my chest and head turns the laughs into moans. “Careful,” Mom warns. “I’m glad you’re going to be okay, but regardless, you’re grounded until school’s out and you leave for your dad’s.”
“Thanks.” I forget and laugh again, the burning pain returning almost immediately. “Why does my chest hurt so bad?”
“The seatbelt. You’ll have a nasty bruise there. They hooked you up to the heart monitor as a precaution. Try not to move around so much.”
Nodding, I attempt to recall details from after my automotive misadventures, but nothing comes. “Mom, did Kieran say what happened after the wreck? I don’t remember.”
“Well, he said you kind of keeled over in the car and he had to crawl over you to get out because the passenger door was messed up. He thought you probably had a concussion, so he was trying to walk you around to keep you awake, but then he had one of those moments when he kind of loses muscle control, I guess?” Mom tilts her head at me as if she’s looking for confirmation that Kieran’s muscle weakness actually happens, and I nod to get her to continue. “He couldn’t hold you up and you both fell—that’s probably when you got a lot of the bruises and cuts on your legs, although some of them might be from the wreck, too. I guess he was able to recover enough to call for help.”
I shut my eyes, tiny flashes of the evening coming back to me, especially the moment when Kieran and I were speeding down the county road and he told me his phone must have fallen out of his jacket. So unless he found my phone in the car when we were at the river…
“Honey? You okay?” Mom asks.
“Yeah,” I whisper, the memory—or maybe the dream—of another person with us after the accident returning to me. “Was there anyone else around when the ambulance showed up?”
“No. The paramedics found the two of you alone. Why?”
“Not sure,” I tell her, forcing a smile. “Just confusing parts of the night, I guess.”
“Partchett said you might be kind of mixed up for a while. It’s normal.”
If this is normal, I don’t like it. I’m woozy and nauseous and…and…my stomach rumbles, and I’m afraid I’m going to throw up. Mom senses what’s about to happen and reaches for a bedpan on the table next to the stretcher, but I’m only able to spit some bile into the kidney-shaped plastic.
“You probably don’t have anything left in your stomach,” she notes. “The concussion made you throw up all over your dress.”
Hearing I puked on myself does little to settle my nausea, and I spit up again. “Where is my dress, anyway?” I ask, looking around.
“They cut it off to examine you,” Mom says, shaking her head. “It’s a lost cause.”
For some reason, probably because my head’s such a mess, tears spring to my eyes at this news. I rewind the evening in my mind once again and sort of remember dropping my sandals in the grass next to my car at the Stanley Farm, but I don’t think I ever picked them up again.
“I lost my shoes, too,” I whimper.
“Like you were ever going to wear those again anyway,” Mom huffs with a flick of her hand.
“And the car. Oh, my God—your Camaro. It was a classic,” I whine, evidently needing to list everything I’ve lost or messed up tonight.
“You know, we probably needed a new car anyway. We’ll go shopping once you’re up to it, get something nice and modern this time—with airbags.”
“It’s a total loss?”<
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“Well, the back seat’s a little closer to the front seat than it should be, so probably.” Her comment makes me tear up again, and she stops joking around. “Zip, who cares about the car? I can replace a car. I can’t replace you. You’re all that matters.”
I lose it, crying so hard I don’t realize Kieran’s slipped through the curtain. “They told me I could come back before they take you for more tests,” he says, and I wipe my eyes with my good hand so I can see him. He holds his dusty jacket to him, but his tie and vest are missing, his white shirt and black pants stained with dirt from our post-Prom activities. Mom stands up and slides behind him, putting her hands on his shoulders. “I’ll leave you two alone,” she tells him. “But just for a few minutes, okay?”
“Okay.”
Kieran collapses into the chair next to the stretcher as Mom leaves. He reaches out to hold my hand as she had been doing before, only he closes his eyes and raises my hand to his lips, and I sense the tiniest bit of warmth spreading through me at his touch.
“I can’t believe you’re still here,” I whisper, although I have no idea how long we’ve been at the hospital.
“I told anyone who would listen I wasn’t leaving until I saw for myself you were okay. Besides, I didn’t want to leave without thanking you.”
“Thanking me?”
“You’re my hero.” He smiles, his mouth only millimeters from my skin, his breath warm across my knuckles. “You probably saved my life tonight.”
“I nearly killed you tonight. Sounds like I messed up the car pretty good. I’m surprised you’re not hurt.”
I pull my hand away from his so I can touch the white tape bandages masking cuts on his cheek and on the bridge of his nose, the flesh bruised and irritated around them. Kieran takes my hand from his face and kisses my fingers. “A few cuts and bruises. No big deal. I’m more worried about you. How are you doing?”
“Not great, but apparently I’m going to live,” I joke. “And from what I hear, you saved me, too. Mom says you tried to keep me awake and called for help.”
Kieran shifts his eyes to the other side of the examination area, and as soon as he does, I know. I know what I’d wondered about at the river, what I’ve been struggling to piece together since Mom told me Kieran was the one who called the ambulance. I half expect to follow Kieran’s stare and find Morgan Levert standing in the corner, as if this scene is straight out of To Kill a Mockingbird and he’s the Boo Radley to my Scout.
“Morgan was with us, wasn’t he?” I whisper in case Mom or someone else is listening.
“You remember?” he asks, turning wide eyes back to me.
“Vaguely. What happened?”
Kieran looks around as if he’s expecting to be interrupted at any moment. “I was helping you walk and my muscle weakness thing kicked in—”
“I sort of remember that.”
“Yeah. I sat you up and tried to go back to the car to find your phone. I must’ve passed out, because when I woke up, I’m lying next to the back tire and he’s with you. I thought I was seeing things.” He grips my hand. “And I just kind of stared at him for a minute, because I was so blown away, you know? He looked just like I drew him.”
“What’s he doing here?”
“No clue.” Kieran shrugs. “He said he wished he had time to explain. When the ambulance started getting close, he put you in my arms and ran off into the woods. For a while there, I was half convinced the whole thing didn’t happen.”
“Did you tell anyone?”
He shakes his head. “No way. It’s bad enough Frank was here, but Morgan showing up, too? My parents would have movers at our house by tomorrow morning.”
The mention of Frank reminds me to ask, “What happened to Frank? I was so confused after we wrecked—”
Kieran stares down at our joined hands. “When I looked up after I crawled out of the car, Frank’s car was in the water.”
Just as I thought—Frank, being unfamiliar with the area and with his car bouncing up and down off the gravel, wouldn’t be able to see the river coming up ahead as we barreled down the path, wouldn’t be able to hit his brakes fast enough to keep him from launching off the final rut and into the river.
“The car was going down while I was walking you around,” Kieran says, sounding almost guilty. “By the time the ambulance showed up, it was completely under.”
I let this information sink in. Frank Dozier is probably dead, which truly, honestly, wasn’t supposed to happen. My plan was to pull the Camaro off to the right while Frank’s car went into the water, submerging the front end but not much else, buying me enough time to turn my car around and head back up the hill to safety. Smashing up Mom’s car and Frank sinking all the way into the river were obviously severe miscalculations on my part.
All I wanted to do was get away from him. I never meant to kill the guy.
My head weighs a thousand pounds, and as much as I try not to, I shut my eyes for a second and have to force them back open. “You’re tired,” Kieran points out. “I should go before your mom or the nurses come in and chase me out anyway. But I’ll come over tomorrow if you’re up to it, okay? We’ll talk more then.”
“I’d like that,” I tell him, wishing he could stay, wishing he could curl up with me in my hospital bed because I’m afraid after a night like tonight, I might not see him again if he leaves. “I’ll call you as soon as I get home.”
“Okay,” he says before pressing his lips to my hand as my mom pokes her head through the curtain. “Kieran,” she whispers. He lets me go, sniffling as he stands up. Tears burn my eyes, and I’m amazed I have any left. I watch as he slides past my mom out into the public areas of the emergency room, leaving me to hope I can fall asleep tonight so tomorrow can get here faster.