Almost Perfect

  I grunted.

  “Hey,” said Jack, looking at me like he’d just noticed something. “How come you don’t have a date? You should have called that Erin chick you told us about.”

  “Yeah.” Once again, I was having imaginary sex.

  “You know, Stacey’s here alone. You should go …” His cell phone rang and cut him off.

  “Hello? Who? Who? What? Hello? Huh? Who?” He paused, then thrust the phone at me. “It’s for you.”

  Me? Probably my mother. I took Jack’s phone and slunk into the darkness so no one could hear me checking in at home.

  “This is Logan.”

  The female voice on the other end was almost incoherent. It wasn’t my mother. Reception was nearly nonexistent in the quarry, and I had to shout to make myself understood.

  “I can’t understand you! Slow down! Who is this?”

  There was a gasp on the other end. “Is this Logan? Your mom gave me this number. I need your help.”

  It was Tammi. She sounded almost hysterical.

  “Tammi? What’s wrong?”

  “Sage just came home. She locked herself in the bathroom.” Her words came out in a rapid, almost gibbering stream. “She won’t answer, and I can’t open the door. I think something bad happened to her tonight. I … I’m scared. My parents went to the movies and turned off their cell phones. Rob’s out of town, and I didn’t know who else to call.”

  Tammi didn’t say it, and I didn’t mention it. Sage had tried to kill herself once before. Why wouldn’t she come out of the bathroom? Did this have anything to do with our breakup?

  “I’ll be right there.”

  After sprinting all day, I wasn’t exactly in any condition to bike all the way across Boyer, but I made it to Sage’s house in less than ten minutes. Something wasn’t right. The truck Sage drove was parked half in her yard, half in the street. And the headlights were on. I remembered from New Year’s how quickly the battery drained. Sage wouldn’t have forgotten about that unless she was really upset.

  Dumping my bike in the lawn, I pounded on the door. Tammi, hyperventilating and in tears, answered.

  “She’s been in there for an hour. I can’t open the door!”

  My hands got clammy. “She just locked herself in the bathroom?”

  Tammi shook her head. “She snuck out earlier. I … I think she went to meet some guy. I thought you two might be making up, so I didn’t try to stop her. But about an hour ago she came running in. I was in my room. When I came out, she bolted the bathroom door. And look!”

  Tammi pointed to the linoleum by the front door. Little brown spots of blood dotted the floor.

  Shit. I rushed to the bathroom.

  “Sage! Sage, it’s Logan! What’s going on?”

  There was no answer. Tammi began to cry again. I motioned her back, and with a solid kick, broke open the door.

  Tammi screamed when she saw her sister, and for a horrible moment I thought Sage had slit her throat. She was hunched over the toilet, blood dripping from her face.

  I rushed over to her to inspect the damage. The half-clotted blood covered her mouth and nose. She hadn’t done this to herself.

  “Tammi!” I ordered. “Go get an ice pack and some clean towels. Go!” She ran off in tears.

  Sage hardly seemed conscious as I inspected the damage. Her nose was obviously broken. Her lip was split, and her right eye was swelling shut. Inside her mouth, I could see the stump of a broken tooth, the remains of her braces digging into her gums.

  I nearly joined her at the toilet when I realized this couldn’t have been an accident. Someone had worked her over.

  “Sage? Who did this to you?” She moaned and shook her head. Blood splattered on my clothes.

  Tammi stood in the doorway clutching a pile of towels, her freckles standing out darkly against her pale skin.

  “Help me with her, Tammi. She needs to see a doctor.” That was one thing I could do for her.

  Sage didn’t resist as we helped her to her feet.

  “What happened to her, Logan?” asked Tammi. “A car accident?”

  I wished I could hide the unpleasant truth. “Someone beat her up.”

  Tammi let out a yelp and almost stumbled, but she didn’t let her sister fall. We helped her into the truck. I drove, and Tammi sat on the other side of Sage.

  “Moberly Medical Center’s about ten miles from here,” I said as I pulled out of the subdivision.

  Sage had been leaning back in the seat, pressing the ice pack to her nose. For the first time, she seemed aware of what was going on.

  “No!” Her voice was nasal, yet even with her injuries, she made herself sound feminine.

  “You’re hurt, Sage. You need to see a doctor.”

  She shook her head. “Not Moberly.”

  “It’s not that bad of a hospital.”

  “Logan.”

  I looked over at Tammi, and she was shaking her head at me. Of course. Moberly was a tiny hospital not far from Boyer. Sage couldn’t hide her gender from the staff, and you never knew who might overhear.

  “We’ll go to Columbia, then,” I said as we pulled onto the highway.

  We drove in silence for a bit until Sage leaned over and spit blood onto the floorboard.

  “Who did this to you?” asked Tammi.

  Sage shrugged. “A guy.”

  “Who?” I asked. My knuckles were white on the steering wheel. Whoever he was, he would soon be known as the man with no teeth.

  “I met him at that stupid frat party. He gave me his number, but I didn’t call him because I thought I had a boyfriend.” There were no accusations in her voice. Sage was just telling what had happened. “When you dumped me, I decided to get back at you. I thought … I thought that if you knew I went out with someone else, you’d be jealous.”

  Christ, what could I say? “Sage …”

  She ignored me. “So he takes me out to dinner. Takes me for a drive. Tries to kiss me.” Sage stopped and spit on the floor again.

  “You told him, didn’t you?” asked Tammi gently.

  Sage nodded and then grimaced. “I thought that if I was honest at first, then he might understand. The second he realized what I was saying, he smacked my face into the window.”

  I wanted to turn up the radio. I wanted to tell Sage to shut up. I didn’t want to hear more about her beating. It was all my fault.

  “I tried to get out of the car, and the son of a bitch followed me. He fucking tackled me, then really started pounding on me. I kept begging him to stop, but he just smiled and said he was going to fuck me up the ass. I acted like he knocked me out. That’s when he left. Then I had to walk back to where I parked the truck.”

  Girlish sobs filled the cab. It was me. I was bawling. If I hadn’t been such a macho fuck, Sage wouldn’t have gotten hurt.

  “Logan, watch the road!” yelled Tammi.

  “Who was it?” I screamed. “I want his name!”

  There was no answer.

  “Who was it?”

  “Logan,” groaned Sage, “I’ll never tell you. Because if you hurt him, then he’ll know why. And then everyone in the world will know why he beat me up.”

  “But …”

  Tammi frowned at me, and I shut up. We’d discuss this later.

  University Hospital was part of the Mizzou medical school. I figured it was big enough that no one would recognize Sage. I parked in the tiny emergency lot, then helped Sage through the front doors.

  “You register her,” said Tammi. “I’m going to try to get ahold of Mom and Dad. Their movie should be over by now.”

  It was nearly midnight, but the waiting room wasn’t as empty as I’d hoped. An old man sat on a bench, either asleep or in a coma. A black family chatted noisily in a corner. It was impossible to tell which, if any of them, was the patient. Two EMTs wheeled a guy in a neck brace by on a gurney.

  I guided Sage to the reception desk. A middle-aged woman with many decorative buttons on her uniform took our i
nformation.

  “Name?”

  “Sage Hendricks. H-E-N-D-R-I-C-K-S,” she spelled through a mouthful of blood.

  “Date of birth?”

  “September fifteenth.” The receptionist entered the information into her computer as if Sage was applying for a job.

  “What year?”

  “Excuse me,” I interrupted. “This is the emergency room, right?”

  “Sir, there are a lot of people ahead of you.”

  “Will you look at her? This isn’t Jiffy Lube, lady! She’s hurt!”

  “Logan,” whispered Sage. She looked at me through her swollen eye. “I’ll be fine.”

  I seethed as they filled out the huge admission form, though I nearly lost it when she asked the reason for Sage’s visit. We were told to go sit in the waiting area, but almost immediately an orderly arrived with a wheelchair. Sage touched my hand.

  “Go tell Tammi.”

  “Sage, I’m sorry.” My apology sounded so trite. That guy could have killed her, and all I could do was shrug my shoulders and say my bad.

  The orderly wheeled her off. Sage glanced over her shoulder. I think she was about to say something, but when she opened her mouth, she winced in pain. Her chair vanished into the interior of the hospital.

  I found Tammi pacing in front of the emergency room doors. Every few steps she’d get too close, and they’d automatically swish open.

  “They’ve admitted her. Did you reach your parents?”

  Tammi nodded. “They’ll be here soon. Logan, why would someone do that to her?”

  And that was the million-dollar question. Why would someone hurt Sage? She hadn’t hurt that guy. She hadn’t done anything to him but reveal a secret. Why was that such a big deal?

  Why is that such a big deal? Why is it always such a big deal? If I’d been able to get over it, to see Sage as she sees herself, none of this would have happened.

  Someone was standing next to me. It took me a moment to place the towering bald man who was hovering at my side.

  “Mr. Hendricks!”

  He punched me so hard I didn’t feel it. My face actually went numb. I was literally airborne for one second; the crush of my skull on the concrete drove white spikes through my line of vision.

  He loomed over me, a look of pure hate on his face. I couldn’t move. For the first time in my life, I feared I was going to die. Sage’s father was going to stomp me to death, right there in front of the hospital.

  “It wasn’t him!” Tammi was screaming, trying to block her father. “It wasn’t him, Dad! He didn’t …”

  Mr. Hendricks grabbed me under the arms and yanked me to my feet. “Get out of here!” he shouted. “If I see you again, you’re dead! Do you hear me, Logan? Dead!”

  Bobbing and weaving, I stumbled across the parking lot, not paying attention to where I was going. I wanted to get away from Mr. Hendricks, but also, I just wanted to get away.

  I found myself in an unfamiliar area, hospital offices on one side, an empty construction site on the other. I leaned against an orange-and-white barrel until my eyes began to focus.

  This was my fault. All of it. I put Sage in that hospital, the same as if I’d punched her in the face and left her bleeding on the side of the road.

  She’d been upset because of me. She’d wanted revenge because of me. I was even the one who’d taken her to that frat party. All of this happened because of my own stupid self.

  Eighteen years old, and I’d already ruined someone’s life. Sage might not recover from this, at least inside. And I had no idea how to make things right.

  chapter thirty-two

  I WANDERED through the morass of parking garages and hospital office buildings. My skull hurt worse than the hangover from the other day. Every lot, every garage looked identical. When I passed a pickup truck with a tarp in the bed, I considered lying down for a quick nap.

  Eventually, I noticed the Rollins Dining Hall. Behind that was Gillett, Laura’s dormitory. The building was locked up for the night; you needed to swipe your student ID to enter. Luckily, a couple was bidding each other a slobbery good night on the stairs and buzzed me in so they could have a little privacy.

  So what was I going to do, just stagger into Laura’s room with a head injury and no ride home? I thought about banging on Brian’s door. He’d probably still be up, but that might have been a bit much for a guy I hardly knew. I paused in front of Laura’s dorm room, took a deep breath, and knocked. After about thirty seconds, an unfamiliar female voice mumbled, “Who’s there?”

  “It’s Logan.”

  I heard someone get out of bed and walk to the peephole. “It’s some guy. He looks drunk.”

  “Get out of here, or we’ll call the police!” Laura blearily shouted.

  “It’s me, Logan!”

  “Huh?” I heard Laura get up and pause in front of the door. “Logan!” She quickly threw the door open.

  I didn’t pause to say hello as I collapsed on Laura’s bed.

  “Logan! What’s the matter?”

  I opened one eye. Laura and her roommate, Ebony, were staring at me. Laura looked deeply concerned. Ebony looked like someone who’d been woken from a sound sleep by an incoherent stranger.

  “Aspirin,” I muttered. “Water.”

  Laura began rummaging through her medicine cabinet. Ebony approached me with a somewhat less contemptuous expression on her face.

  “Sit up,” she ordered. She then placed her thumbs on my cheek and stared me in the eye.

  “She’s a nursing student,” explained Laura.

  Ebony examined my eye, which had almost swollen shut.

  “Get in a fight?” she asked, gently poking at my scalp.

  I shrugged. Up close, Laura’s roommate was even cuter than in her picture. Longish hair, chocolate skin, and dark, dark eyes.

  “You’ve got a pretty big goose egg on the back of your head. How many fingers do you see?”

  “Three.”

  Ebony waved a finger in front of my face, making sure my eyes could follow it.

  “Your brother will live, Laura. But he needs to go to the hospital.”

  “I can’t,” I replied, swallowing the pills my sister offered me.

  “Why not?”

  “Because the guy who did this is there.”

  Laura was trying to help me to my feet. “Then we’ll go to Boone Hospital, or the VA. C’mon.”

  I pulled away. “Laura, I just need to crash.”

  She sat down next to me. “Will you tell me what happened? What are you doing in Columbia, anyway?”

  “Um …” Ebony sat on her bed, obviously wondering if she was going to get any sleep that night. She let out a long-suffering sigh and grabbed a robe.

  “I think I’ll go stay with Bethany. And you really should see a doctor, Logan.”

  When we were alone, Laura handed me a soda. “So are you going to talk to me?”

  “I …” I suddenly noticed that Laura was wearing a T-shirt that read PHYSICISTS DO IT WITH FORCE. I remembered Mike’s major, and my eyes narrowed.

  “Logan, c’mon.”

  I took a swig of the soda and looked at my sister. Because I’d lied to Laura, Sage was flat on her back in a hospital bed, and I’d just had the shit knocked out of me by her father. I lacked the strength for more lies. I needed advice.

  “Laura.” I didn’t look her in the eye. “You were right about Sage. And … I knew. She was honest with me from the start. I didn’t like it, but … I dunno, I guess she got to be kind of special to me. I tried to tell myself it didn’t matter. But when you found out, I was just so embarrassed. I broke up with her.” There. I’d said it. There was no going back. I think I might have felt relieved at this confession had it not come exactly one day too late.

  Laura didn’t reply. When I looked up, her face was in her hands. “Logan, I’m so sorry. I should have minded my own business. I was just afraid she was lying to you, but I should have known she wouldn’t do that. Why did I have to
go and open my mouth?”

  I gingerly placed my head on the pillow. “I was the one who fucked up. I made Sage into the bad person, and she was the one who told the truth.”

  Laura sniffled. “If you want to get back together with her, we can just pretend this never happened. I won’t mention it again.”

  So Sage had been right. As long as I was okay, Laura was okay. But now it no longer mattered.

  “It’s not that simple, Laura.” I briefly related how Sage had tried to get back at me and ended up in the hospital. I glossed over how her dad had used me as a punching bag.

  “Oh, Logan, I’m so sorry. What kind of bastard would hit a girl? Even a girl like Sage?”

  I thought back to New Year’s and how I’d been a hair away from punching her myself. In this whole sorry episode, I’d done nothing right. I’d had a thousand opportunities to be selfless and understanding, but I’d always been small-minded and cruel. I’d yelled at Sage when I found out her true sex. I’d mocked her at the comedy club. Then I’d slept with her and then dumped her to avoid a minor humiliation. And now she was in the hospital.

  Sage would have been so much better off if she’d never met me.

  “Logan? Are you asleep?”

  I kept my eyes closed. “I’m on my way.”

  “Can I do anything for you?”

  Blackness surrounded me. “Call Mom. She doesn’t know where I am. Tell her I went for a ride with Jack or something. And Laura?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thank you for being understanding. I wish I had your attitude.”

  I felt Laura kiss me on the forehead.

  “Good night, little brother.”

  I heard her make a brief phone call. Then she turned off the lights and crawled into Ebony’s bed.

  chapter thirty-three

  “LOGAN, are you sure you don’t want me to come in and talk to Mom?” My sister and I were dusting down the gravel road toward home. Laura had gotten me up early to drive me back to Boyer. I’d thought about trying to visit Sage before we left, but decided to wait. Especially if her father was still at the hospital.

  “I’ll be okay. Mom’s working the breakfast shift, so she won’t be home, anyway. You told her Jack and I went driving and ended up in Columbia, right?”