Offside

  Dad might not have had as much pull in California, but he had enough friends with pull to get me off pretty easy—suspended for the rest of the tournament, which was only one game—whatever—and Dad had to pay a five thousand dollar fine to the league.

  Dennis Johnson was going to be fine, unfortunately.

  I apologized…for disrupting the game.

  Whatever.

  “So why did you do it?”

  Freakazoid Amy Cutter plopped down next to me in the library during study hall. I started the period at the field, but the normal rain switched to a thunderstorm, so I had to come back inside. Amy had been taking it on herself to stop by every couple of weeks and offer me some words of sage advice, which just pissed me off.

  “Do what?”

  “Beat the shit out of some poor soccer fool?”

  “Some people just need to have the shit beat out of them,” I replied.

  The teacher shushed us, and I gave her the finger. She just glared at me and shook her head. It was good to own the school.

  Amy leaned over the table and looked at me through darkly lined eyes.

  “It has something to do with Nicole Skye, doesn’t it?”

  “Fuck off,” I replied. “Why don’t you go lick a rug?”

  “Why don’t you admit you’re pining for her?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “I see the way you look at her.” Amy continued to press. “You know, when you think no one else is looking? And that guy was from Minnesota, and she—”

  “Shut the fuck up!” I yelled at her as I stood up and balled my fists at my sides.

  She just looked up at me passively as I tried to control my breathing, and the teacher continued to mouth off to me. I ignored her.

  “Feel better?” Amy finally asked.

  “No!” I snapped back.

  “Maybe that should be a clue to you,” she said as she stood up. She took a couple steps backwards then turned and left. I flipped off the teacher again, grabbed my shit, and left.

  Lunch hour hadn’t technically started yet, but I walked in to the cafeteria and grabbed a Gatorade anyway then dropped my ass down in a chair near the back door. I opened the bottle, didn’t drink any of it, and just stared out the window instead.

  My stomach hurt.

  “Thomas?”

  Oh fuck, no.

  I stood, leaving the Gatorade and trying to walk around her without making eye contact.

  “Thomas, please…” she called out, but I kept walking, trying to stop myself from doubling over from the ache in my gut.

  She would have been so much better off if she had never met me. I had tainted her life with the vileness of my very existence. I shouldn’t have been here to hurt her or anyone else.

  I’m the one that should have died in that car wreck years ago.

  The world would be a better place.

  I had to agree with Shakespeare, and likened my life to the one led by The Scottish Play’s title role—“a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Somehow, I just didn’t see any reason to it anymore.

  Now, I no longer cared.

  I ran.

  Even with my running shoes, the early morning sheet of ice along the roads was making it impossible to run on the cement, so I stuck to the dead, brown grass, which crunched under my feet with every step. Air came out of my mouth in short, hot breaths—the condensation from the cold air leaving vapor trails all around me.

  My times were fantastic.

  My legs had strengthened, and as I pushed against my thighs, I could feel the ache in the muscles as I propelled myself forward. Down a slight hill then back up again with the evergreens blurring beside me. I ran in quick, steady, monotonous steps.

  Toward nothing.

  School let out early, and I went to the diner for food with a bunch of guys from the team. I wasn’t in the mood, but Jeremy had been giving me shit about not going out anywhere. I didn’t want to have another conversation about me needing to get laid, so I went with him.

  I parked close to the restaurant. I was a little early, and though there were a few people milling about outside, most were just getting there, parking their cars and trying to make snowballs out of the bits of white fluff they scraped off the curbs.

  Jeremy called me over to his car and started going on about Rachel being pissed at him about…something. I wasn’t really listening. My attention was diverted by the all-too-familiar sound of an old Hyundai as it chugged into the parking lot.

  I only glanced over as she pulled into a spot about five cars away from us. The car revved once before it went silent. I could see her through the slightly fogged window with her phone up to her ear, and I wondered who she might be talking to since everyone from school was pretty much here.

  Probably Sophie, and probably about babysitting.

  Okay, so my look was more than a glance. I stared at her as she got out of the car and started making her way across the parking lot. She wasn’t looking at me, though, so I kept watching her as my chest tightened up on me.

  I wanted to go over to her and hold her arm to help her across the ice.

  I wanted to tell her it was all a mistake.

  I wanted to just put my arms around her and tell her I was a fucking moron, and I really didn’t think I could survive without her.

  I just stood there instead, watching her struggle as she held her hands out for balance, and ignoring Jeremy’s rumbling voice, barely reaching my ears.

  “Have you heard a fucking word I’ve said?” he asked.

  “Rachel is sick of going to all the action flicks, and you never let her pick the movie,” I said without looking away from her. I didn’t even listen to the words I regurgitated to him.

  “Yeah, right. So anyway…”

  My eyes moved briefly from Nicole to Clint’s Buick as he pulled into the parking lot going way too fast for the slick roads. With that rear-wheel-drive boat of his he drove, there was no way so much inertia could offset the icy conditions, and he overcompensated and started to skid. The car lurched wildly to the left and then to the right.

  Right toward Nicole.

  I didn’t think.

  I just moved.

  The pressure against my thighs as I pushed off from the ground was actually painful. The screeching sound was blaring through my head, but I couldn’t concentrate on that. All I could see was her face, her eyes wide with shock and terror as she stood immobilized and stared at the car skidding sideways toward her.

  My strides were true, despite the slick surface. I could see my goal—her beautiful, beautiful face. I leapt forward, arms outstretched, grabbed her right by the head, and pulled her against my chest in the most important save of my life.

  We were both flying sideways and then down toward the ground, and I could see the side of the old, red Buick as I brought her body closer to mine, cocooning her in my arms and legs as I braced myself. As the screeching of tires enveloped me from behind, the impact of the steel against my back shoved us both partway underneath another car.

  Shakespeare said, “Pain pays the income of each precious thing.” Somehow, whatever I felt didn’t matter at the moment.

  Now why was everything going dark?

  CHAPTER 24

  SIDELINES

  It was an odd feeling.

  Crushing…suffocating.

  I struggled to pull air into my lungs.

  A strange, unnatural ripping sound replaced the screeching in my ears.

  Everything was black.

  White.

  Red.

  When I pried my eyes open, I was enveloped in a sea of brilliant blue.

  I parted my lips, and they felt dry and cracked. I swallowed and forced out the only words that mattered.

  “Rumple?” My throat hurt, and my mouth felt like it was coated with the plaque of morning breath. I ran my tongue over the roof of my mouth and tasted copper. I swallowed.

  “Thomas?” Her beautiful, confused voice sang t
o me. “What…?”

  “Are you okay, Rumple?”

  “Oh my God…Thomas…Thomas…”

  Numbness in my legs.

  Queasiness in my stomach.

  I fought it down.

  “You…okay?” I repeated, gasping. There was something thick and liquid on my chin.

  “I’m fine, Thomas,” she whispered, and there were tears in her eyes. “Don’t move, okay?”

  Her fingers were against my cheek—warm and soft. She pushed stray hairs from my forehead as the sound of sirens approached. Her touch felt so good, and I knew I was the dumbest asshole in the world to have given this up for so long.

  “I never wanted to hurt you, Rumple,” I told her. A little voice in my head told me I had to tell her—it was important she knew. My side ached, and it felt warm and sticky, which didn’t make any sense in contrast to the cold cement below. I was vaguely aware of a lot of screaming around us—the voices of other students, patrons—maybe the diner manager.

  “Don’t try to talk, baby,” she said. The movement of her fingers in my hair was faster—frantic even. “Just lie still, okay?”

  “You’re so beautiful,” I said. I wanted to wrap my hand around the back of her head and bring her closer so I could kiss her—if she would let me, but my hand wouldn’t move. There was a sharp pain in my back—up high, near my shoulders. Really, I couldn’t seem to get much of me to move at all.

  “Oh, Thomas…your leg…”

  My leg? My legs didn’t hurt—just my shoulders and my side.

  I coughed.

  “Stay still,” she whispered again. Her eyes were all wet. Was it raining? It was too cold for rain.

  “You’re okay?” I asked again.

  “I’m okay, baby.”

  “Good.”

  “Help is coming,” she told me. She was repeating someone else’s words, but I couldn’t make out whose they were. “Almost here.”

  My eyes blurred and closed. The soles of my feet were all tingly.

  “Thomas? Thomas, look at me!”

  I pried my eyes open again, and pain shot through my head.

  “Just keep looking at me, okay?” Nicole said.

  I wanted to tell her I would do anything she said, but my tongue felt thick in my mouth. I coughed, and the bright copper taste returned.

  “Baby, please,” I heard her beg. “Just hang in there, okay? I’m right here. You’re going to be fine.”

  Fine.

  I was pretty sure that was not the case.

  “Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible,” I whispered. My eyes drifted closed again, shielding her face from me.

  “No…Thomas…no!” she cried. “You stay with me, you hear? Stay with me!”

  I forced my eyes open, just so I could see her a bit longer.

  I had to tell her.

  “I love you.” I tried to move my hand up her back so I could touch her face, but it still wouldn’t move. “Since you first touched me…I just didn’t know…what it was. You showed me.”

  “Oh, Thomas…I love you, too,” she whispered back. “Never stopped.”

  She loves me.

  My Rumple loves me.

  There were sirens in the distance, coming closer.

  “I’m sorry I’m an asshole,” I choked out.

  “You aren’t,” she said, and her mouth turned up into a smile though there was still panic in her eyes. “You’re an idiot, and I really want to smack you silly sometimes, but you’re not an asshole.”

  “In thy orisons be all my sins remembered,” I mumbled. There was no way Ophelia could have held a candle to my Rumple, though.

  Pain shot through my head again and blurred darkness stole my vision from me. The sounds of emergency vehicles surrounded us. I tried to open my eyes to see what was going on, but I didn’t seem to have the strength.

  “No! Thomas! Open your eyes! Open your eyes, do you hear me?”

  Darkness.

  “Thomas!”

  Depth.

  “God—no! No! THOMAS!”

  Cold.

  “He’s not breathing! HE’S NOT BREATHING!”

  I could still feel her arms around me and her hand against my face.

  The meaning of Hamlet’s words hit me harder than the impact from Clint’s Buick: “To sleep, perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause: There's the respect, That makes calamity of so long life.” Somehow, I thought all that really mattered was that Nicole was okay.

  Now to see what comes next.

  CHAPTER 25

  INJURY TIME

  Bright, blinding light filled my eyes, but it didn’t hurt. It was just warm, like the perfect spring morning when there’s sun on your back as you walk through the trees. Soft, calm, peaceful.

  Her hand slipped through mine, her fingers so much bigger, they made me feel safe. I had to look up to see her face. She was so pretty—with creamy skin and deep brown hair.

  “Can I stay with you, Mom?”

  “No, sweetheart. It’s not time yet.”

  My eyes narrowed as I looked up into her shining face.

  “But I want to.”

  “I know, Thomas.” Her hand ran over the top of my head. Her touch made my skin tingle, and I smiled up at her before dropping my eyes again. We walked though there didn’t seem to be any path or destination. We just moved alongside each other.

  I looked down at my feet and saw the bright red cleats I wore when I was little. Mom had double-knotted them for me, and I could never untie them by myself. Mom always had to do it for me. After…when I had to tie them myself, they always came untied during games, and Dad would be mad. After…when she was gone.

  I looked up over my shoulder again and into her face.

  “I didn’t mean for you to get hurt.” I felt the sting of tears in my eyes and pressure in my chest.

  “Of course you didn’t, darling,” she told me. “It was an accident.”

  “I’m sorry I forgot my gloves,” I told her.

  “Everyone forgets sometimes, Thomas,” she told me. “And sometimes things just happen. They aren’t your fault.”

  “He said it was.”

  “I know,” she sighed, “but he was wrong.”

  “I kept my promise,” I said softly. “I never forget anything.”

  “I know—but you don’t have to remember it all.”

  “I don’t?”

  “Not anymore, sweetheart.” Her hand was on the side of my face as she stroked my cheek. “You’ve remembered enough now.”

  “One…two…three…CLEAR!”

  A sharp pain ripped through my chest and spread out like a spiderweb through the rest of my body.

  “You have to go back, Thomas.”

  “I want to be with you.”

  “You haven’t completed everything you need to do, Thomas. You still have things to learn.”

  “I want to stay!”

  “Someone there still needs you.”

  “CLEAR!”

  “Rumple?”

  “Go to her.”

  “CLEAR!”

  I was swimming in darkness, and my limbs felt like they were trying to get though some thick, viscous substance without any strength to push it aside. I couldn’t open my eyes. Someone was talking, but I couldn’t make out who it was or what they were saying. They were just meaningless fragments of sentences in my head.

  Extremely serious...several broken bones…kidney failure…

  Flashes of pain ricocheted through my body. Nothing made any sense.

  …Lacerations…shattered left scapula…spinal cord…

  Where was Rumple? Was she okay? She said she was…I didn’t dream that, did I?

  …Scheduled surgery…his spleen will need to be removed…

  Was my mom here?

  …Head trauma…induce coma… best chance…

  I didn’t understand and let myself sink into the darkness. It w
as cool and safe there.

  I opened my eyes, blinking.

  My mouth and throat were so fucking dry, they burned.

  Even through the darkness, I could see the sterile, off-white walls and bland décor of the hospital room. There was a slow, steady beeping sound from a machine on my left.

  I was lying on my back, and my muscles ached. I hated sleeping on my back—I was always on either my side or my stomach. I wanted to roll to one side but didn’t have the energy. I had just enough strength to loll my head to one side and notice the IV line going into my arm. Other tubes and wires for monitors and shit were sticking out from under the blanket that covered me up to my chest.

  I managed to turn my head to the other side to see a small side table with a vase of faded flowers and a stack of greeting cards. Long vertical blinds covered a window, but it was obviously dark outside. The only light in the room was a small, dim table lamp in the far corner next to a reclining chair.

  No one else was in the room.

  There was a cup of water on the side table, and I tried to raise my arm to reach it, but I didn’t have the strength. My hand twitched, and I tightened my fingers into a fist, but even that completely exhausted me.

  A noise coming from the front of the room caught my attention, and the door opened to reveal a petite woman in a hospital smock with brightly colored circles all over it. She walked over to the side of the bed, reached for my IV, and looked down at me.

  “Thomas?”

  I licked my lips and tried to answer, but only a weird croaking sound came out of my mouth. She grasped the cup of water and held the straw to my lips. Once I managed to take a couple of painful swallows, she took it away again.

  “Can you speak now?” she asked softly.

  “Yeah,” I managed.

  “I’m going to get the doctor, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  My head was a little swimmy. I wanted more water, but at the same time, my stomach seemed a little pissed off at the intrusion of the liquid. A couple minutes later, a guy in a lab coat, carrying a clipboard, came and sat down in the rolling chair near the bed. He came up close to me and said his name was Doctor Peter Winchester.