“Need some help?”
The female voice sounded somewhat familiar, but Morgan couldn’t place it with a face. She’d heard so many voices in the past months that were faceless. “Note to marketers,” Morgan said half-jokingly, “here’s an idea. Let’s put talking shelves into stores to help the sightless choose a product.”
“Not a bad idea,” Liza said. “Do you know what you want?”
“Diet cola,” Morgan answered, hating that a stranger had to wait on her. She should be used to dependency on others by now, but she wasn’t. A rush of cold air hit her face when the girl opened the door. “I’m Morgan,” she said. “Who can I thank for helping me?”
“A fellow student,” Liza said, unwilling to say her name, and hoping Morgan wouldn’t recognize her voice. They hadn’t spoken since that day in their junior year when Morgan had been campaigning for the class presidency. In truth, she didn’t hate Morgan Frierson. The girl had paid too big a price in the explosion, and over the several months that Morgan had championed the school and its students, Liza had formed a grudging respect for her.
The thing between them was Roth. Liza was pretty sure that Morgan didn’t even know this, plus it wasn’t as if Morgan had snatched Roth away from Liza. It really wasn’t Morgan’s fault that Roth wanted her instead of Liza, she tried telling herself. She glanced at the line at the front of the store, saw that Roth was getting close to the register. He was flipping through a magazine and not watching Morgan like a hawk. “Can you make it to the front of the store?”
“Sure,” Morgan said, shaking out her red-tipped rod. “I’m a trained professional.”
Liza steeled herself against a wave of sympathy. Instead a twinge of jealousy flared inside her. She couldn’t help it. She couldn’t shove it down.
Morgan held out her hand. “The soda?”
“Oh, sure.” Liza held the can for a lingering moment, then perversely shook it before handing it over. She regretted it as soon as Morgan took the can and started up the aisle, moving her stick from side to side.
“Let me buy it for you,” Liza called, trying to turn the tide of her action.
“Thanks, but I’ve got the money. I appreciate your help.”
Liza almost ran after her and grabbed the can out of her hand, but a quick glance forward showed her that Roth was next in line and he’d turned to watch Morgan coming toward him.
Liza stepped behind the safety of the shelves, hiding her body and her shame from Roth’s blue eyes.
Outside in the car Roth asked, “You have any trouble finding the soda you wanted?”
“I didn’t find it. Some girl from school was back there and she dug it out for me.”
“I would have helped you,” Roth said.
“I’m sick of people having to help me,” Morgan snapped. “I’m sick of everything!” She tossed her purse onto the floor beside her feet.
He stuck the key into the ignition, letting her vent because he knew she hadn’t deserved what had happened to her. “Want me to open the can?” he asked patiently.
“I think I can handle a pop-top,” she groused, and slid her forefinger under the ring of the top, jerking it backward in one angry motion.
Soda exploded from the can, spewing foam upward, into Morgan’s face, and across the front of her sweater. In an instant two things happened. Violent missing images fell into place inside her head. And blinding light pierced her darkness.
Morgan screamed.
She asks, “What’s that?”
Trent turns his head to look over his shoulder.
A flash of white light erupts, followed by the sound of a boom.
Trent pushes her away from him so quickly she crashes backward onto the tile floor of the atrium, hitting her head so hard she sees stars.
Breathless, she watches Trent’s down-filled jacket burst open and white fluff balloon into the air. Trent’s blood sprays down on her in a mist of fine red rain, and the world goes black.
The images took only microseconds, but Morgan saw them all as clearly as she was now seeing the sunlight gleaming through the windshield of Roth’s car. She covered her eyes with her hands and began to rock and cry.
Her eyesight had returned in a cloudburst of memories that her brain had sought to repress for months. Her eyesight had returned with the terrible vision of watching her beloved Trent die.
Morgan looked up at the tree in her front yard, at a web of branches beginning to burst with new green leaves. Soon the leaves would canopy the branches and shelter the trunk and the ground beneath, where she stood. She hadn’t ventured to the tree in months, not since the winter day she’d learned Trent was dead.
The spring air was chilly, but the snow was mostly gone. Daffodils and a few brave tulips pushed up from flower beds in front of her house. Waves of sadness rolled over her heart as she remembered all the times she and Trent had stood beneath the tree and clung to each other. The image of Trent’s blood spraying down on her may have returned her sight, but it had not quelled her sense of horror and loss. His body had taken the impact of the explosion, and his quick action had saved her life.
“You okay?” Roth asked. He’d walked out to the tree with her, his hands jammed into the pocket of his familiar black hoodie. For some reason this tree had special meaning in her life. He felt like an intruder.
Morgan couldn’t tell him the truth about her and Trent and the tree. It wouldn’t be fair. “Just wishing spring would hurry up and get here,” she said.
She’d returned from a checkup to find Roth waiting for her on the porch.
“Your checkup go all right?”
“Eyes are fine. But I’ll stay with Dr. Peg through the summer. She says my PTSD needs some TLC before I head off to college. She wants me to go away strong.”
“You’re still going?” He knew the answer, but needed to hear her say it.
“Absolutely I’m going. I was going to go when I was blind. Of course, now that I can see, it will be better.”
Roth scuffed the toe of his boot against a lump of hard earth. “Can I ask you something?” He didn’t wait for her answer; he just forged ahead. “If Trent was alive, would you still go?”
Roth rarely weighed his words, but she understood why he wanted to know. “It was always the plan between us. Trent would go off to college and so would I.” She shrugged. “That’s the truth.”
“But you took his promise ring. What was that all about?”
She had locked the ring in her jewelry box when her eyesight returned. “I’m not sure. It was going to be hard for both of us to let go, but I think we both knew college would change us. The ring was a way to hold on to the past. Not always the right thing.”
Roth got her unspoken message—he also would soon be in her past. He released a lungful of trapped air, rocked by what he knew was happening between them, the inevitability of their goodbye.
“What about you?” she asked. “What will you do in the fall?”
“Work with Max. He wants to bring me into his business in a big way.”
“College?”
“Not now. Maybe someday.” He couldn’t face the idea of more studying just yet. He would graduate by the skin of his teeth.
“Speaking of Max,” Morgan said, “can I ask a favor from you?”
He peeled a chip of bark from the tree’s trunk, searching inside himself for a way to let go of her. “What is it?”
She told him.
He raised his hands, backed away. “Whoa! You sure about that?”
“Way sure.”
“Your mother will kill me.”
“I’ll handle my parents. I know what I want. It’s really just a matter of timing with them. Last minute’s usually best.”
“I’ll talk to Max.” Roth knew he should go. Dragging out their breakup wasn’t going to help either of them. “Guess I should roll. I told Carla I’d help clean out the garage.” He turned and walked toward his pickup.
She watched him go, her heart hammering. It couldn’t end like th
is between them. She loved him, would always love him. He had saved her too, and not just because he’d pulled her out of the ruins before the stairs fell. Throughout the months of her blindness, he’d been with her, beside her. “Wait.” From under the shadow of the tree, Morgan ran after him, threw her arms around him.
His arms flew around her and he buried his face in her long red hair.
“I won’t be leaving until August. Can’t we be with each other until then?” Staying together for the next few months was only postponing their parting, but it was what she wanted. She was unsure of what he’d do. Roth could very well walk off, and she wouldn’t blame him. He owed her nothing.
“That what you want?”
“More than anything.”
He felt like a prisoner given a reprieve. He wanted any part of her he could have, for any length of time he could have it. “Convince me.”
She turned her mouth to his. “Just shut up and kiss me.”
He did.
Edison High School’s senior class is proud to announce
the graduation celebration ceremony of
the Class of 2014,
on Saturday, June 14,
at the Grandville Civic Center,
419 Center Street, at two o’clock in the afternoon.
The town of Grandville is invited to attend.
Morgan’s announcement read:
Mr. and Mrs. Halston Frierson, Esqs.
announce that their daughter, Morgan Marie Frierson,
will graduate with honors from Edison High School
on June 14, 2014.
She will continue her education
at Boston College in the fall.
Roth’s, at Carla’s insistence, read:
MAXWELL AND CARLA ROTHMAN
ARE DELIGHTED TO ANNOUNCE
THE GRADUATION OF THEIR SON,
STUART “ROTH” ROTHMAN,
FROM EDISON HIGH SCHOOL
ON JUNE 14, 2014.
Roth had wanted to add “against all odds and the better judgment of the faculty,” but Max and Carla had nixed the suggested wording with laughs. “I never doubted you’d graduate,” Carla told him.
Max and Roth just looked at each other. Both of them certainly had.
In a powder-blue sky, the June sun drenched the day with warmth as the civic center filled up. Inside, dignitaries, government officials, media, parents, friends and family watched as 105 graduates in royal-blue caps and gowns made the march down the aisles and onto the stage. Names were called one by one to receive diplomas. Nine empty chairs sat at the front of the stage under a spotlight, in memoriam, for the people who were lost forever and could not celebrate this day.
After the ceremony Roth stood with Morgan and Kelli, their arms hooked together for countless photos by their families out on the lawn. A giant white tent graced the lawn, where tables overflowed with refreshments. No graduating class had been treated so royally. Grandville was still a small town, but this class was special. They were the survivors, the ones who had endured and triumphed over a tragedy nobody could quite comprehend.
Roth couldn’t stop grinning, especially when he looked at Morgan. Her beautiful green eyes sparkled in the glow of the sun, and she glanced toward him at every chance.
“Over here! Look at me,” Jane called.
The trio turned to face her camera. “How’s your mom doing?” Morgan asked Kelli from the corner of her mouth.
Kelli tipped her head, grinned big for her mother’s camera and whispered, “I think she’s finally growing up.”
“Really?”
“She isn’t dragging me down her high school memory lane anymore.”
“You must be so proud!” Morgan teased.
“I am,” Kelli said, putting her hand over her heart. “All grown up at thirty-seven. I’m going to miss my little girl.”
Morgan erupted into laughter.
“What’s so funny?” Roth asked. He was still holding a half-eaten cupcake thick with blue icing that he’d picked up at the refreshment stand earlier.
“You!” Kelli said, and pointed. “Have you looked in a mirror?”
He glanced between Kelli and Morgan. “Why?”
“Your lips are blue,” Morgan said.
“And your teeth,” Kelli added.
“Ewww,” both girls said in unison.
“Then have a bite,” he said, swiping each girl’s mouth with the gooey blue frosting.
They shrieked but ran into the tent for a cupcake of their own.
“Are you absolutely positive you want to do this?” Max asked Morgan, who sat in front of him in his studio.
“Why do you and Roth keep asking me that? I know what I want.” She shot Roth an exasperated look.
“I’m just saying it’s permanent,” Roth told her.
“A tattoo can be lasered off,” Max explained. “But it’s expensive and painful. Roth and I are just making sure you realize what you’re about to do.”
Morgan nodded fiercely. “I get it. I want it. Now let’s do it.”
Max asked, “You eighteen?”
“Since April.”
He nodded. “The first pass will scab over and heal, then you’ll need a touch-up after a couple of weeks.”
“The U-Haul leaves in three. So we need to start today.”
Max limped to his bookshelves, pulled off several books, brought them to her. “Pick out a design and tell me where you want me to place it. Wording too.”
“I want it here, on the inside of my forearm, because I want to see it every day of my life. And I already know what I want it to say.” She waited for several seconds as a lump of emotion closed off her throat. Getting herself under control, she said, “I want two names only—Roth and Trent, inside a beautiful heart.”
Roth’s gaze flew to her face. “My name?”
“You both saved me from dying.”
He searched her eyes, saw her determination, grinned. “Who gets top billing?”
She laughed. “Why, you do, of course.”
Max readied his tattoo needles and pots of ink while Morgan and Roth pored over the books for just the right heart for her to wear for the rest of her life.
LIZA STOOD AT THE PLATE-GLASS WINDOW of Main Street Café, where she worked, watching the sparse flow of two o’clock traffic. She untied her apron as she waited, her work shift over for another day. She’d been waiting tables at the small eatery since six that morning, as she’d done six days a week ever since graduation. The work was interesting and the regulars friendly. Plus she needed the job.
Outside, the November day was gray and a few stubborn leaves clung to trees in the chilly wind. Almost a year had passed since the school bomb had altered so many lives. The accused bombers were still awaiting trial—the wheels of justice ground slowly. She’d be glad when the “anniversary” was over—the local media were featuring stories already, and the city council was planning some sort of memorial ceremony on the actual date. Kids most affected and traumatized had been contacted and quoted. Morgan’s mother had interceded for her daughter with “Morgan is away and happy at college.” Liza heard that she’d added, “Do not contact her about that horrible day, or you’ll have our law firm to deal with.” Scuttlebutt from café patrons had Morgan staying gone this first Thanksgiving after the bombing. Liza hoped so.
When a reporter had ambushed Kelli in a parking lot at the community college, Kelli had shoved the mike away and snapped, “Why would I want to talk about that day? Please leave me alone.”
On-air reports noted that Mark, formerly one of the best football players in the state, had been sent to a top rehab center known for its successes with paralyzed war vets. He would never play ball again, but he might be able to walk after the center’s rigorous and groundbreaking therapy.
Roth’s interview as the “hero” had been peppered with too much profanity to be put on the air. He’d ended by saying, “Don’t you guys get it? We all want to forget the bombing, not remember it.”
&
nbsp; As for Liza, she had been across the street from the school that day, so she was not on anyone’s radar.
She had reinvented herself too. Her hair had grown out and the bizarre purple spikes were now little more than fading tips in the dark brown mass of curls. Most of her studs were gone too. Only two remained in her ears and one small silver sphere glittered from the side of her nose. The tats that showed on her arm she kept covered with concealing cream. Her hair almost covered the one on the back of her neck, and clothing covered the ones on her left shoulder and across the small of her back. She still loved her body ink but had realized in June that it was time to move forward with her life. That meant looking less like a sideshow, more like the rest of humanity. Individuality came from the inside, not from an outside layer of applications.
She had her own place now, a studio apartment over Mr. Anderson’s garage two streets away—close enough to walk to work. She was saving for a car. She’d used all her graduation gift money for the apartment—first and last months’ rent and a hundred-dollar damage fee. The place was small, with a pullout sofa at one end and a tiny kitchen area at the other. Her mother had helped her hang curtains and paint the walls. Liza wasn’t sure if it had been a gesture of love, or of eagerness for her to move out.
“You still here?” Gracie asked, coming out of the kitchen balancing plates of food for the only two customers in the café. She was four years older than Liza, divorced with a three-year-old daughter, but had become Liza’s best friend. Gracie handled the afternoon and supper crowd. They worked Saturday nights together, often going out for fun after closing up the place at nine if Gracie could get a sitter. Not much to do in Grandville, but it was home.
“I’m going,” Liza said.
“Waiting for that blue pickup to pass?” Gracie asked knowingly.
Liza colored, but kept her face toward the window. “Nosy.”
“You going to do anything about it today? You’ve been watching it drive by for five months and never done a thing about chasing it down.”
“These things take time.” In truth, she was scared to reestablish contact with Roth. She still wanted him more than anything, but she was afraid he might reject her once more. On graduation day, out on the lawn of the civic center, he’d come up to Liza while Morgan was in the refreshment tent, wrapped his arms around her and given her a bear hug. “Sorry,” he whispered in her ear. “I acted like a jerk to you and I shouldn’t have. We still friends?”