Hannah: I’ll be back in fifteen. Need to be alone.
She replied almost immediately.
Mom: Take your time. We’ll be in the waiting room.
I turned the ringer off and got back into position. Legs folded. Spine straight. Hands resting comfortably on thighs. Chin tucked. Eyes closed. Breathing in. Breathing out. Breathing in. Breathing out. Watching thoughts drift in. Feeling frustrated when I couldn’t get them to drift back out.
I felt a lump in my throat when I thought about Luke, out cold, cheek pressed into his steering wheel. My stomach knotted up when I pictured the panic on my dad’s face the night before. I wanted to cry every time I thought about how Emory told me she didn’t need me and walked away.
I must have been doing something wrong, because my whole body was shaking and my mind was about as quiet as an LAX runway.
But I stayed with it. And after a while, I realized the thoughts were coming a tiny bit slower, and my body wasn’t reacting quite the same way.
“Inhale,” I told myself. “Exhale. Focus on your breath.”
I felt a tiny, relieved smile begin to form on my face. The next breath I took was a little deeper, a little slower. I watched it. I pretended I could see it flow in a circle through my nose and out through my mouth.
Thoughts came and went, and I noticed them. They were still there, but they seemed smaller and less significant now, more like thin clouds than one big interconnected, ominous storm.
And then the timer went off.
I opened my eyes and glanced around the room. I didn’t feel like a changed person or anything, but I did feel a tiny bit calmer. It was nice. I took a picture of those two pages before I returned the book to its spot on the mantel, just in case I wanted to try meditating again.
As I walked back to the waiting room, I thought about what Mom had said earlier; that I should give Emory space and let her come to me when she was ready to talk. It still seemed impossible to do, but deep down, I knew she was right.
As soon as I stepped into the hallway, I felt every head turn in my direction. Under normal circumstances, I would have enjoyed the attention, but I’d spent the last two nights sleeping in a scratchy armchair in a hospital room, and even though I’d taken a shower that morning, my hair still felt stringy, my eyes looked like someone had punched me, and I didn’t completely trust my legs to carry me from class to class.
“Everyone’s looking at me,” I said as I dialed the combination on my locker door.
“Yeah, you’re right. They are,” Charlotte said, looking around. “And…Tess and Kathryn are heading straight for you.”
I didn’t want to talk to Luke’s friends about what happened on Friday night. I was tired of thinking about it. And I was just plain tired. I needed to get through three periods so I could get to lunch, because the only place I wanted to be was in the quiet theater, pretending to be Emily Webb, escaping into her world and blocking out mine.
“Emory, are you okay?” Tess threw her arms around me, then backed up so Kathryn could do the same.
“I’m fine. Thanks for all your texts. Addison and I have been reading them to Luke all weekend. They made him laugh.”
Suddenly, Dominic was there, wrapping his arms around my neck from behind. “I’m so sorry, Emory.” And then he let me go and launched straight into what happened during the game and the bus ride home. “Luke kept saying his side hurt and he was feeling nauseated, but the doctors checked him back on the field and didn’t find anything wrong. He said he wanted to get an X-ray over the weekend. He was convinced he had a cracked rib.”
“He seemed fine,” Tess said. “I talked to him at the party, and I guess he seemed kind of…buzzed….” She trailed off, and I could tell from the look on her face that she was realizing she might have misinterpreted the events of that night.
“He was sitting on the couch for a long time,” Kathryn added. “He looked kind of…pale. I asked him if he was okay, and he told me he was waiting for you to get home. He seemed sort of out of it, I guess, but…”
I remembered that. Tyler, Charlotte, and I were driving home when he texted me and said he felt horrible. His stomach hurt. He was light-headed. I told him it was okay if he wanted to go home, but he said he wanted to see me.
“I would have driven him home if I’d known,” Dominic said.
“We all would have done something, I swear…” Kathryn added, looking at Dominic and Tess for support.
“You had no way of knowing how bad it was,” I said. “Luke didn’t even know.”
Parroting the doctor’s words, I explained what had happened. I told them how that hit Luke took during the game had left a tiny, almost microscopic puncture in his spleen that no one could have caught without an MRI. How his abdomen had slowly filled up with blood the entire time he was on the bus and throughout the party. How, the more he moved, the more that puncture turned into a tear and his blood pressure dropped.
“The lacrosse team has a bunch of cards and stuff for him,” Dominic said. “Coach is organizing a visit to the hospital after school.”
“He’d love that.”
Luke’s hospital room already looked like a flower shop that blew up inside a balloon factory, but I wasn’t about to tell Dominic that. “He’s out of the ICU and in a regular room now, so he can have visitors. They plan to release him tomorrow morning, and hopefully, he’ll be back at school next Monday.”
“I heard you never left his room all weekend,” Tess said, changing the subject.
I rolled my eyes. “One nurse had it in for me. She tried to kick me out about ten times.”
The bell rang.
“We’d better get going,” Charlotte said as she tipped her head toward our math class.
“See you at lunch?” Kathryn asked.
“Can’t,” I said. “I’ve got Our Town rehearsal.”
Tess hugged me again. “Thank you for finding him,” she said.
I hadn’t corrected Luke in the hospital a few days earlier, and I didn’t correct Tess, either.
When the lunch bell rang, I practically sprinted for the theater. I didn’t stop at the cafeteria for a sandwich. I couldn’t even imagine eating anything.
Melanie and Tyler were already on the stage, running through their first scene, and when they saw me, they both stopped mid-sentence. As soon as I hit the top step, half the cast was there, taking turns hugging me, surrounding me with so many questions, I couldn’t even tell who was asking them.
“How’s Luke?”
“What happened?”
“Are you okay?”
I let out a yawn. “Luke will be okay. And I’m exhausted, but fine.”
“You should go crash in the flop room,” Melanie suggested. “We can wake you up when it’s time to go to class.”
My whole body felt weak, and my eyes were heavy. It sounded so nice to crash into that squishy couch and sink deep into its green velvet cushions, but it sounded even better to be with my friends in Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire, in 1901.
The stage was already set up for Act Two—a large platform representing George’s bedroom and another one a short distance away, representing mine. There were two tall ladders in between them. “Homework scene?” I suggested, and the cast moved to action.
I tossed my backpack on top of the pile with the others and climbed to my spot on the high platform. I’d been practicing this scene all week, but the dialogue was bouncy, with lots of back-and-forth, and I knew I’d never get it down until Tyler and I could work on it together.
I reached the top and sat, legs folded in front of me. Tyler sat on the other platform, facing me. I could see his script in his hands, but I knew he didn’t need it. He was keeping it handy in case he had to feed me a line.
Charlotte, who was playing the part of the stage manager, stood at her mark and set up the scene for the audience. She paced the stage as she delivered her lines, and I tried not to be jealous of the solid performance she was giving during a totally volu
ntary, completely casual lunch rehearsal.
Charlotte looked up at Tyler and me and shifted into her non-acting voice. “Okay, now the choir sings, and Simon Stimson says his lines, and then…go.”
Tyler and I sat hunched over, pretending to do our homework. I flipped imaginary pages and wrote with an invisible pencil. And then Tyler whistled.
“Emily,” Tyler said with a wave.
“Oh, hello, George.” I let out a heavy sigh. “I can’t work at all. The moonlight’s so terrible.”
We went back and forth, him telling me the math problem he was struggling with and me giving him hints until he figured it out. The lines came easily to me, until there was a pause in the conversation and it was my turn to kick us off again. I searched my brain, but my line was nowhere to be found.
I looked up at Tyler and motioned for him to feed it to me.
“Choir practice,” he said.
“Right. Got it. Thanks.” That line always made me think of Hannah, and I made a mental note to connect it to her, so I wouldn’t forget it.
Moonlight. Choir.
Grass. Hannah.
I shook out my shoulders and rocked back and forth, settling myself back into place.
“My, isn’t the moonlight terrible? And choir practice going on. You know, I think if you hold your breath, you can hear the train all the way to…”
It happened again. I had no idea what to say next. I fell back onto the platform and stared up at the stage lights hanging on the batten above me. “I’m never going to get this down.” I draped my arm over my eyes.
My brain didn’t feel big enough to handle it all—Mom’s wedding, Hannah, UCLA auditions, Our Town lines, and now Luke. I had no idea how I’d pull it all off.
“Hey.” Tyler was suddenly right next to me with a supportive hand on my back. He must have climbed up there, but I hadn’t even felt the platform jiggle. “You okay?”
“No.”
“You’ve got this.”
“What exactly have I ‘got’?” I asked. “I don’t know my lines, I don’t know my blocking. I just keep screwing everyone up. And for what? The rehearsal? The stage time? At this point, it’s not going to get me into UCLA or anywhere else for that matter.”
“You do realize the message of this play, right?” Tyler asked.
“Sure.” My arm was still over my eyes. “It’s about life on a farm and falling in love and watching the people you love die. So, you know, that’s awesome.”
He ignored the sarcasm. “It’s about being alive. About noticing all the little things, because no one ever knows if it’s the last time they’ll see them.”
It reminded me of our summer plans. Our road trip. Our pact to not think about the end so we wouldn’t miss out on the present.
“Stop thinking about what happened to Luke. And what could have happened, and what almost happened. He’s okay. He’s here. Life goes on.”
I hadn’t let myself cry. Not once. Not during all those hours in the waiting room with Mrs. J when I thought he was dead. Not when Luke’s mom came in to tell us he was going to be okay. Not when I finally saw him, bruised and broken and shaken and weak. I don’t know if it was his words, or the fatigue, or a combination of everything, but when Tyler pulled me into him and hugged me hard, fat, hot tears started spilling down my cheeks all on their own.
“I don’t cry,” I said into his shoulder.
“Oh, you’re such a badass.”
That made me cry even harder.
But he was right. I pulled up that mental image of Luke and me driving along the coast, warm wind streaming through the windows, fingers interlaced and resting on the center console.
We sat like that for a minute, and then I dried my face and took a deep breath. I looked down and saw Charlotte standing below, staring up at me with a worried expression on her face, like she didn’t know if she should climb up the ladder and join us or leave it all for Tyler to handle.
I waved to her. “I’m okay,” I said. And then I looked at Tyler. “I’m done now.” I kissed his cheek. “Thank you, George.”
“You’re welcome, Emily.”
And then I stood up, brushed imaginary dust off my jeans, and rooted my feet in place. “Let’s do it again,” I called down to the cast.
“I’d planned a completely different sermon for this morning’s Monday Chapel, but I’m going to save it for next week. Because over the weekend, something horrible happened to our family. And then something incredible happened.”
Dad paced the stage, stopped right in front of me, and looked down. The stage lights were dimmed so he could see me clearly.
Alyssa wrapped a supportive arm around my shoulder without taking her eyes off my dad. Jack and Logan were staring at him, too, waiting for him to continue. They’d already heard the story—it was all Dad could talk about at church the day before—but none of them seemed to mind hearing about the boy who died in front of our kitchen window again.
“It started with a glass of water.” Dad stopped in the center of the stage. “That’s it. One glass of water.” He let his words hang in the air. “Hannah had no reason to leave her bedroom that night, except for the small fact that she was thirsty.”
Dad went on. He told everyone how I’d bravely opened the car door, helped Luke sit up, checked his pulse, and lifted his shirt to see his injury. He told them how I’d run to get help and called 911, making me sound like a levelheaded heroine when I’d been racing around, panicked and shaking and freaking out the entire time. He went on to explain what happened when he got outside and saw Luke for himself, rapidly losing blood and oxygen, no pulse to be found.
I felt sick reliving the details. It was bad enough that I couldn’t get the image of Luke’s face that night out of my mind. How his skin turned blue, and his hands began to clench and stiffen. Because I had no newer image to replace it with, that was the one that stuck. The one I kept seeing when I closed my eyes. The one that woke me up several times a night.
“That boy died in my arms, with my daughter holding his hand. I know this beyond a shadow of a doubt. He was gone, well before the ambulance arrived.
“But then a miracle took place. In that ambulance, he took a breath, and his heart began to thump, and the color returned to his cheeks. And from what I understand, that was the easy part, because for the rest of the night, he fought with everything he had, through a blood transfusion and a three-hour surgery. The Lord decided not to take him. He decided to give him a second chance.
“He wouldn’t have had that second chance if Hannah hadn’t found him when she did.” Dad locked his eyes on me and smiled. “Luke is resting in the hospital, and they tell us he’s going to be fine.”
Scattered amens came from all around the sanctuary.
“That experience last Friday night has me thinking a lot about death, and what lies beyond this life right here,” he said, finger pointed sharply at the ground. “When our time here is over, we’ll each be face-to-face with God and we’ll have to decide what we believe. You in this room…you’re the lucky ones. Because you know this isn’t the end.
“I’m going to heaven someday.” Dad sat on the step, nodding slowly, meeting eyes with the kids in the audience. “Raise your hand if you are, too.”
I didn’t turn around to look, but I was pretty sure every hand in the room was up. But mine was right where it had been the whole time, flat on my leg, my palm pressed into my thigh, trying to stay quiet and still. I thought about everything I’d been told growing up, and everything I’d read the other night. The world’s leading scientists didn’t believe heaven existed. The major religions of the world couldn’t even agree that it did. Some believed in reincarnation, others believed in an opulent afterlife, and some never even addressed heaven because their focus was entirely on life, not death.
I wanted to raise my hand like I would have so readily done just a week earlier, clinging to the easiest answer, the one I’d believed all my life, but I couldn’t do it. I didn’t know wh
at I believed anymore.
Dad was so certain that everything that happened that night was meant to be. He was so certain that Luke had pulled up to the front of my house and God had led me to the kitchen sink at that exact moment. He was so certain that if Luke hadn’t drawn those breaths in the ambulance, he’d be in heaven right now, looking down at us, and thanking us for saving his soul.
Where did all Dad’s certainty come from? Where had all mine gone? I didn’t want to doubt anymore—not after what happened to Luke—it was simply too much to take on. More than my brain could process. I wanted to know again. I wanted the questions to disappear so I could throw my arm in the air and believe again. But it was as if my hand was glued to my leg.
I couldn’t sit there a second longer. I reached for my backpack and stepped into the aisle, walking fast for the double doors. When I was out in the empty foyer, I spun a slow three-sixty, trying to figure out how I’d gotten there and where I could go. All the classrooms were off-limits during Monday Chapel. The library wouldn’t be open yet. The car was locked. And then I looked over my shoulder and saw the stairs that led to the balcony, and I went straight for them, taking them two at a time.
When I reached the top, I collapsed into the back pew. I could still hear Dad talking, so I grabbed my earbuds from the side pocket on my backpack, jammed the connector into my phone, and turned it on.
It was still open to the meditation session I’d been listening to as I fell asleep the night before. “Focus on the breath,” it said. And so I did. I placed my hands to my sides, palms up, and let my head fall forward. I followed the instructions, breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth, noticing each inhale and exhale.
The sermon must have ended. Through the meditative chimes in my ears I could hear Aaron playing his guitar and people singing along. And then I heard the bell ring. But I didn’t move. I wanted to hide in the balcony all day, ignoring my classes and my friends and everything else. I wanted to forget about everything that happened over the last three days and clear my mind.