Drawn

  I pulled off the helmet. “I mean, I get it about Damon. But why me?”

  “I like you.”

  If my eyes got half as big as they felt, they must’ve looked like giant Frisbees.

  He laughed. “Not like that. Don’t worry. I’m not going to try to steal my bro’s girl.”

  “He wouldn’t care.”

  Adam hocked and spit on the side of the road. “Bullcrap he wouldn’t.”

  I stared off at some trees and tried not to cry. Again.

  “Geez, Spooky. Don’t you know anything?”

  “Shut up.”

  “He’s so far gone over you, I kind of want to shove his head in a toilet sometimes.”

  I shook my head, and struggled not to smile. “I think you’re wrong.”

  “I’m frequently wrong, about a lot of stuff, but not about this.”

  “He won’t kiss me.”

  Adam stared. “Seriously?”

  Now the tears started up.

  “He still hasn’t kissed you?”

  My head swiveled right and left all on its own. Why am I telling Adam this stuff?

  He started to laugh, and I wished I were a guy so I could punch hard enough to hurt him.

  “Have you talked to him?”

  “What? I’m supposed to say, ‘Golly, Damon, I sure wish you’d kiss me’? Anyway, he made it totally clear he doesn’t want to.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “You weren’t there.”

  Adam cracked up again.

  “I so want to hit you right now. And him.”

  “Maybe we should go back to the house. I’ll knock him around for you, if you want me to.”

  I reached forward and ripped the key out of the ignition. “No.”

  “Give me that!” He grabbed my wrist.

  “I’m not kidding, Adam. I do not want to see Damon again today.”

  “Okay, I got it.”

  I dropped the key into his hand.

  “Dang, you’re fast.” He put the key back in and turned it. The bike growled. “Coming with me, or going home?”

  A party. I should not go to a party with Adam. It’s a bad idea. I could get in huge trouble. Mark wouldn’t like it. Mom and Dad wouldn’t like it. Damon definitely wouldn’t like it.

  I put the helmet back on but didn’t bother to clip it. “Let’s go. I feel like partying.”

  CHAPTER 35

  Clicking and whirring and a squealing sound, and I’m moving. I’m flat on my back, and I’m sliding through the darkness and there’s something on my face and I can’t scream.

  * * * * *

  It’s dark and I’m in a bed. A hard bed, with a cold, flat pillow, and something squeezes my finger.

  Beep. Beep. Beep.

  My eyes won’t open. They’re glued shut. No, just heavy, weighted with stacks of coins.

  I breathe and breathe, and the air is full of sleep and I drown in it.

  * * * * *

  A warm hand covers my forehead and smoothes back my hair. A voice speaks words I don’t know, soothing, quiet. I float in cotton balls.

  The beeping is my heart.

  I turn my head to the left and to the right, and one of my eyes cracks open, creaks like a rusty hinge. My left arm won’t move. It’s held down, tied. I raise my right arm and it feels like a hunk of cold clay on a stick. I try to move it to my face. My bread-dough fingers graze across a fat wad of something over my temple.

  I call out, and my words slide through honey.

  * * * * *

  “Do you know where you are?” A woman’s voice, very soft, speaks to me with musical words.

  My hand rests in both of hers, and I struggle to open my eyes.

  “Do you know your name?”

  My eyes squint, open as far as they can go. Hazy black and white shapes melt in and out of focus. A nurse, in blue and white scrubs, leans over me.

  “Julie,” I croak in more of a rasp than a voice. My tongue feels three feet thick.

  She smiles. “You like that better than Juliet?”

  “Damon calls me Julie.”

  Humming. “Sometimes you need a new name.”

  * * * * *

  Was it still night, or had night come again?

  “What time is it?”

  The nurse, curly hair piled high on top of her head, examined the IV drip connected to my arm. “It’s two o’clock.”

  “In the morning?”

  She nodded. “How do you feel?”

  “What day is it?”

  She sat down next to me on the bed. I squinted at her hospital badge. Catherine. “Technically, it’s Friday.”

  “Friday morning?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  I lay back into the pillow. “I missed Thursday.”

  “It took a while for your anesthetic to wear off.”

  “Amica’s party is today.” I sounded drunk.

  She smiled and shook her head. “You’re not going to any parties today.”

  “Why am I talking like this?”

  “You bit the side of your tongue.

  I closed my eyes. “There was an accident?”

  She nodded.

  “With Mark?”

  The nurse—Catherine—shook her head. “But he came to see you yesterday.”

  “We left the house. We went to the lake.” I tried to remember what happened after that, but everything went blank and fuzzy.

  “I like the water, too. There’s a beautiful lake I used to go to with my family.”

  “Has Damon been here?”

  “He and his father, yes.”

  “I wasn’t awake?”

  “Not very much.” She put the back of her hand against my cheek, the one without the bandage.

  My head ached, and I yawned. “What time is it?”

  “Time for some more sleep.”

  * * * * *

  I woke to singing.

  Catherine sang Nearer My God to Thee as she spread another blanket over me.

  “You have a nice voice.”

  Outside the window a pink sky hammocked the sun in stripes of purple and orange. “Is it morning or evening?”

  “Morning. Friday morning.”

  “What happened?”

  “You had an accident.”

  Dread roiled inside my chest. “With Damon?” I tried to sit up, but throbs stabbed through my head and joints.

  Catherine came and took my shoulders in her hands. She pressed me back against the pillow. “Not with Damon. With Adam.”

  Adam?

  “I think he found a kindred spirit in you.”

  Red hair flashed in front of my face, tossed by the wind. I held onto him.

  “Huh-uh,” I said. “No. I’m with Damon.”

  She sat down beside me.

  I touched the bandage on my head again. “Is he okay?”

  “Adam or Damon?”

  “Adam, I guess.” I looked out the window and tried to remember something, anything. “You’re sure I was with Adam?”

  “Yes. He’s upstairs.” She sighed. “He’s not quite as okay as you.”

  I closed my eyes.

  “He’s alive, Julie.”

  The heart monitor beeped and Catherine puttered around the room. I laid my head back and closed my eyes. Why did this have to happen?

  Falling and a sound like slow thunder all around my head.

  She slid a rolling table up to the bed. “Sometimes bad things happen to keep worse things from happening.” She moved toward the door. “I’ll send you up some breakfast.”

  “Adam can’t die.”

  She paused in the doorway, then looked back over her shoulder. “There are worse things than dying.”

  * * * * *

  Mom came in just as the orderly put a breakfast tray on my table. He smiled and nodded at her on his way out.

  “Hi, honey.” She came over to my bed and tried to put her hand on my forehead, but I turned away. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like crap.” I unw
rapped a plastic fork and stabbed at a chunk of scrambled eggs. My tongue sort of wallowed around in my mouth like a harpooned whale. I squished the eggs against the roof of my mouth and then swallowed them. A sharp stab, like the slice of a razor blade, followed them down my throat.

  Mom sat down in the chair next to the bed.

  “The doctor said you passed your neurological exam yesterday. He thinks you’ll be able to go home later today or tomorrow.”

  I didn’t remember seeing a doctor or getting a neurological exam.

  “Did you sell our house yet?”

  She huffed, and mad flew across her face for just a second. Then she pressed her lips together and swallowed it. “Let’s just think about getting you better.”

  “What do you care?”

  “A snotty attitude doesn’t help anything.”

  Doesn’t help you, you mean.

  I poured cream and sugar into the coffee.

  She reached for my cup. “They shouldn’t give you coffee.”

  “Don’t worry. I passed all my exams.” My speech slurred, every word jabbed needles into the side of my tongue, and I sounded like a little kid. I blocked her hand with mine and stirred with a tiny red and white straw. “Have you seen Adam?”

  “Why would I see Adam?”

  “He’s here, right?”

  She gave me that I-told-you-so look. “He wasn’t wearing a helmet.”

  My throat closed up and I couldn’t swallow for several seconds. “Yeah. I think he gave it to me.”

  Mom turned away, and looked out the window. “A responsible driver would have two.”

  A responsible driver would have a license.

  She tapped her fingernails on the bed rail. “Can I get you anything?”

  I shook my head.

  Mom sighed. “Juliet, this doesn’t have to be so difficult.”

  I put a spoonful of applesauce in my mouth and looked out the window till I heard footsteps stop outside my room.

  A large man in green scrubs shuffled through the door. A stethoscope swung from his neck, and he flipped pages on a clipboard. “Morning, Juliet. Remember me?”

  “Is this a trick question?” I swallowed the applesauce. “Where’d she go?”

  “Who?”

  “My mom.”

  “Haven’t seen her. I’m Doctor Zurowski. I admitted you last night.”

  “She was just here.”

  He squinted at me, then bent down to stare into my face. “You’re a very fortunate girl. Not even a broken bone.”

  “Lucky me.”

  The doctor pulled a little flashlight out of his pocket and stuck it right up to one of my eyeballs. He flipped it this way and that.

  “I thought I passed already.”

  “Passed what?” He clicked off the flashlight and stuck it back in his pocket. Then he held up one finger in front of my face. “Follow the finger.”

  “The neurological exam.” My l’s and r’s came out like w’s.

  “That’s what we’re doing right now.” He pulled the breakfast tray away and told me to sit on the edge of the bed.

  I reached for the scrambled eggs, but now they looked like oatmeal. “I was still eating that.”

  “It’s not going anywhere.”

  He hit the fronts of both of my knees with a little triangular hammer and my legs each jumped. Then he did my ankles and two spots on both my arms.

  “Weird.”

  “Very good. Stand up.”

  He took my arm to steady me. Stabs shot through my knees, hips and ankles, and I groaned. “Your hands are freezing.”

  “Doctors’ hands always are. Keeps the patients awake. We store them in ice between examinations.”

  I had to stand on one foot, then the other.

  “Close your eyes.”

  “Can I go home today?”

  He moved my arms around then told me to walk across the room. “Let’s not rush it. I’d like to keep you for a day or two. Make sure you don’t need a CT scan.”

  The thin white nightgown I wore fell open in back when I stood up and I reached back to hold it closed. A thick, rectangular bandage clung to my right forearm.

  “Hospital gowns are everyone’s favorite. We order them from Coco Chanel,” the doctor said.

  When I walked past the breakfast tray the paper menu beside it caught my eye. “That says Thursday.”

  “Yep. Thursday it is.”

  “She said it was Friday.”

  “Your mom?”

  I shook my head. “The night nurse.”

  “It’s Thursday all day.”

  “So the accident was last night?”

  He nodded and helped me back onto the bed. “Lay back and let me take a look at that cut on your head.” He came around to the other side and peeled off the bandage.

  “How bad is it?”

  “Fairly deep, but you’re lucky. It’s right inside your hairline. When the hair grows back no one will ever see it.”

  “My hair’s gone?” I tried to reach up to feel it, but he caught my hand.

  “Tut-tut. No touching. We shaved a couple of inches around the wound to disinfect and stitch it. Don’t worry, you’ll be just as beautiful as ever once you heal up.”

  “How’s Adam?”

  Doctor Zurowski scribbled on the clipboard, then looked up at me. “Adam’s your boyfriend?”

  I shook my head. “His brother. Can I see him?”

  “Maybe later. I’ll have the nurse take you up.” He scribbled some more, then hung the clipboard on the end of my bed. “He’s lucky you were there. Very lucky. One might even say blessed.” He handed me a remote control. “The accident doesn’t seem to have addled your brain, but the TV may. Watch with care. I recommend Sesame Street.”

  “I’m fourteen.”

  “Still the best thing on the tube.”

  He left and I pushed the power button. The remote cycled through the channels one at a time.

  A nurse came in. “Doctor wants your dressing changed.”

  “Good. This gown is awful.”

  She snorted. “Not that. The one on your head.”

  The nurse smelled like cigarettes and tore the bandage off like you’d rip one from a little kid’s knee. I yelped and she laughed.

  “Better toughen up, biker chick.”

  “The night nurse is a lot gentler.”

  “Yeah, all the girls like Duane.”

  * * * * *

  When I woke up, Mom sat in the chair again and Dad leaned against the wall.

  “Hey, sweet pea,” he said, and came over to the bed. “How’s your head?”

  “What time is it?”

  He checked his watch. “4:15.”

  “In the afternoon, right?”

  “The sun’s up, isn’t it?”

  “Howard, she has a concussion.”

  I pushed the button that raised the head of the bed, and scootched up. “Thursday?”

  “Friday.”

  “What the heck?”

  Mom slid her chair closer to the bed and put her hand on the rail next to my IV line.

  “I want to see Adam.”

  Dad shook his head. “That’s not necessary.”

  “I didn’t say it was necessary. I said I want to. The doctor said I could.”

  They looked at each other.

  I sat up and felt around the side of the bed for the nurse’s call button. I found it and turned back to tell Mom and Dad to leave.

  No one there.

  “What is going on?”

  Damon appeared in the doorway, hands shoved into his pockets.

  I blinked several times, looked away, and looked back again. “Are you really here?”

  He smiled and nodded. “I’m really here.”

  I bit the inside of my lip. “How’s Adam?”

  “Not that great. How about you?”

  “I keep asking to go see him, but nobody will take me.”

  He pointed his thumb back out toward the hallway. “There’s a whee
lchair right here. Want me to take you?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Damon pushed the wheelchair into my room and locked the wheels. I held my nightgown closed as I shifted from the bed to the chair.

  “Crud. The IV,” I said.

  He shook his head and shrugged.

  I looked down at my arm. Just a short line stuck out, taped to the inside of my elbow. A cap sealed the end, and the IV rack beside my bed hung empty.

  “Damon. What day is it?”

  “Saturday.”

  “Oh, come on!”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It was just Friday.”

  “Yeah,” he said and smiled. That great smile that made my heart flutter. Except this time it didn’t. “Saturday comes right after Friday. Same as always.”

  “No, wait. It was just Thursday.”

  He unlocked the wheels and stepped behind me. “Ready?”

  “The nurses might not like me going out, yeah?”

  “They said it was okay yesterday.”

  Yesterday?

  “He’s about the same. Maybe a little more lucid.”

  My eyes squinted against the bright lights outside my room, and I closed them as Damon pushed me down the hall and around a corner. We stopped and a bell rang. The elevator door opened and Damon wheeled me inside.

  The elevator started to rise and I reached back over my shoulder for Damon’s hand. He took it and squeezed.

  “Damon?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Did I see you yesterday?”

  He came around in front of me. “Julie. We talked for hours.”

  I looked off, into the mirrored wall. A swollen face, half purple and green under a turban-like head wrap, stared back at me.

  “You don’t remember?”

  I shook my head. “What did we talk about?”

  “The accident. Why you were with Adam.”

  “Why was I?”

  The bell rang and the elevator stopped. Damon pushed me out and parked me next to the wall. He knelt down in front of me. “What do you remember?”

  “What did I tell you?”

  He smirked. “I’ll tell you what you told me after you tell me what you remember.”

  My fingers wrapped around the ends of the armrests and squeezed. “I was with Mark, at the lake. We were talking about stuff.”

  “And?”

  I closed my eyes and tried to replay everything. “Adam was there. But I don’t know how he got there, or when.”

  “Motorcycle. Mark said Adam met you on the road when you were about to go home. Adam wanted to talk to you.”

  “I can’t remember anything else.”

  “We talked about this last night, until Duane kicked me out of your room.”

  “Who kicked you out?”

  “The nurse.”

  “Catherine’s my night nurse.”

  He shrugged. “I haven’t met her. Just Duane.”