Drawn

  “What did we talk about?”

  He looked around and found an abandoned wheelchair behind him. He pulled it forward and sat in it. “We talked about the accident.” He lowered his voice. “And about what happened at my house before you left.”

  That I remembered. My face went hot and my head throbbed like a hammer-struck thumb. “Tell me about the accident.”

  A buzzer went off somewhere and a group of nurses ran past us down the hall.

  “There were cows in the road.” Damon rubbed his thumb across his chin.

  “Cows?”

  “They got out through a broken fence.”

  “We hit a cow?”

  He shook his head.

  “We didn’t hit a cow.”

  Damon took a deep breath and blew it out.

  “Did we hit something?”

  “A cow pie. A massive cow pie.”

  I stared at him and bit down hard on my lower lip.

  “Mark was right behind you. He said Adam swerved between a bunch of the cows, but then hit a big pile of… you know. And the bike went into a skid.

  My hands squeezed the plastic armrests.

  “Are you okay?”

  I pressed my lips together as hard as I could.

  Damon touched the side of my knee. “Is it coming back?”

  Seriously? We crashed in cow poop?

  I closed my eyes. Oh, God. I can’t laugh. Adam is hurt bad, and I can’t laugh.

  Why am I talking to God? God could’ve stopped this. He could’ve stopped all of it.

  Damon’s shoulders trembled. He put his palm over his eyes and shook his head.

  “Damon?” I touched his knee.

  This sound came out of him, kind of like a hiccup. I’d never seen a guy cry before.

  “Damon. I’m sorry.”

  He looked up at me. He had tears in the corners of his eyes. “Julie.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You and Adam scared the crap out of me.”

  I just looked at him, and he looked at me, and I bit down harder on my lip because that was really, incredibly funny.

  Don’t even crack a smile, Juliet.

  Then Damon grinned, the kind that comes out your eyes a second before it shows on your mouth.

  Laughter burst out of me like a bubble from water. It hurt my head, but felt really good everywhere else.

  We faced each other in our wheelchairs and fought not to crack up in the middle of the hall. A nurse walked by and shushed us.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s not funny.”

  Damon sat back in his chair and stretched his legs out on either side of mine. “Yeah, I know. It’s not funny. But it totally is.” He leaned forward and pushed a piece of hair off my forehead. “And I’m really glad you’re okay.”

  * * * * *

  Adam looked like a mad scientist’s experiment.

  His left leg hung from a bar suspended over the bed and his right arm lay wrapped in a huge cast. Tubes came out of his nostrils and mouth, and wires connected his head and chest to machines that beeped and clicked. Jagged black stitches, like railroad tracks, crossed his forehead and cheek. More of them stuck out from beneath the hospital gown that barely reached his other knee.

  I let go of the IV rack I held in my left hand and reached over from the wheelchair to touch his hand. The hand that took the motorcycle key back from me.

  I should have kept it, thrown it into the field.

  I shouldn’t have been on the motorcycle at all. Neither of us should have.

  Wait. I noticed my arm. Why am I connected to the IV?

  “I thought the IV was gone,” I said to Damon.

  “Not yet. You’re still getting saline,” a woman’s voice answered.

  I jumped and twisted around. Catherine held the handles of my wheelchair. “Where’s Damon?”

  “Damon? At school, I imagine.”

  “No. He was just here. He brought me here.” Not this again. “And he’s suspended this week.” At least I can remember that. “And it’s Saturday.”

  She shook her head and a red curl slipped out of the headband she wore. Her hair looked darker at night than during the day. “It’s Friday.”

  I closed my eyes and sighed.

  “You’re having dreams, I think.”

  “Huh-uh.” I tried to fit things into order, but they wouldn’t go, like when two puzzle pieces look like their colors and pictures should fit together, but the curves of the edges don’t match. “And I thought you were the night nurse.” I checked out the window. “The sun’s still up, so don’t tell me it’s the middle of the night.”

  “You’re very clever,” she said. “But I’m always here.”

  “Even nurses don’t work twenty-four hours.”

  “That’s true, they don’t.” She locked the chair’s wheels and sat down at the foot of Adam’s bed. She chewed on her first fingernail. “Look. He’s dreaming.”

  Adam’s eyelids twitched and his eyes raced back and forth beneath them.

  A bird swooped by outside the window, then returned again and sat on the ledge. Its beak opened and I saw the feathers at its throat move, but I couldn’t hear its song.

  Two pairs of footsteps came down the hall, and two deep voices. Damon’s resonated somewhere deep inside me, like the rhythm of my own heartbeat, or the flush of blood through it.

  The nurse smiled. “That’s a gift, you know.”

  “What is?”

  She tipped her head, like I ought to know what she meant, then stood up. “I’ll leave you alone.”

  Damon and his dad came in and stopped short when they saw me.

  “Julie.”

  “Hi,” I whispered. “Hi, Mr. Sheppard.”

  Damon’s dad came over and knelt beside me. “It’s good to see you up. You look a lot better today.”

  “It’s Friday, right?”

  He nodded.

  “Has Adam been asleep all this time?”

  “He woke up for a few minutes this morning.”

  Does he blame me? Am I the reason for this? And I had the helmet. If only I hadn’t had the helmet.

  I looked down at my hands. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered.

  Mr. Sheppard put his hand on my shoulder. “This was all Adam. Not you.”

  “He came to get me.”

  “He’d have been riding either way. He should have left you out of it.”

  I looked up into his face, and felt that weird time-shift again, only multiplied by years. “You look like Damon.”

  He smiled, a dimple next to a half smile peppered with thick black stubble.

  “And you look a lot like Damon’s mom.”

  “No way.” I shook my head. “I saw her picture.”

  “You saw her at thirty-eight. I knew her at sixteen.”

  Damon walked over and kneeled on the other side of me.

  “I’m fourteen,” I said.

  His Dad smiled again and stood up. “Sixteen’s right around the corner. Believe me.”

  Right. Sixteen is two whole years away. Two long, forever years after I move.

  “Can we talk?” Damon asked me.

  I looked at his dad.

  “I’ll get you if he wakes up.” Mr. Sheppard sat in the chair at the foot of Adam’s bed, leaned back and stretched his legs out. He threaded his fingers together over his chest and closed his eyes.

  I nodded at Damon and he wheeled me out. We talked in my room until this guy in a nurse’s uniform told him visiting hours were over. Damon leaned over and kissed me on the forehead.

  And I had to admit, right then I was kind of glad to be alive.

  * * * * *

  I sprawled across the pavement, my temple wet and hot in a pile of gravel. The helmet rolled into the ditch and filled up with brown water and dead leaves that trickled out of a drain pipe. Further down the road the bike lay on its side, tires spinning like the reels of a movie camera. The headlight shone out between the edge of the road and the ditch.

&nbs
p; Cows wandered around us. Their hooves stomped the earth and they moaned.

  Adam faced me, on one shoulder, his neck twisted at a weird angle. Blood erupted from his forehead, soaked his hair and glistened on the road. I tried to call out to him, but my chest pressed against the ground and I choked on the vacuum in my lungs.

  “Juliet!”

  Mark ran to me, and slid on the muck in the road. He landed on his side and reached for me.

  Breath ballooned into my chest and I gasped. The scent of manure burned my nostrils and throat.

  Adam made a gurgling sound and Mark cursed. His eyes round and white, Mark jumped to his feet and looked back and forth between us.

  I don’t care if I die.

  “I’m getting help!” Mark yelled, and his footfalls pounded away. Headlights swept over me and off to the side, and tires squealed as he roared the other direction.

  A winter wind blew across the empty fields. My head ached and dripped, and a sting ripped across it like heat lightning. The sleeve of Adam’s jacket lay torn open and raw hamburger plastered my forearm.

  Go to Adam.

  My body didn’t want to move, and I didn’t know if it even could.

  Adam lay perfectly still, except for the bright geyser of blood that spurted from his head. He would die, if it didn’t stop.

  Damon already lost his mother.

  I sucked in a chest full of air and pushed myself off the ground. My shoulders screamed as they bore the weight of my upper body. My spine clicked in several places and I remembered what I’d always been told about accidents: Don’t ever move the victims before help arrives.

  Though only ten or twelve feet, the distance between Adam and me felt like miles when I tried to get to him. My knees dug into the road through rips in my jeans, and with every move I made ice picks chiseled at my joints.

  A dark, winged thing swooped down and landed on the road next to Adam. It hopped onto his chest and stared at me with black, beady eyes.

  “Get away from him!” I screamed. Blood spattered out of my mouth.

  The crow lowered its head and pointed its sharp beak at me. It screeched once, then alighted and melted back into the darkness.

  After an eternity I reached Adam and propped myself against his chest. His blood pooled everywhere. I’d crawled right through it. Mine dripped off my own face and soaked into his shirt.

  I had to stop the bleeding.

  His ripped jacket fell open over my shredded right arm, and I grabbed the fleece lining and jerked as hard as I could. When I got a hunk of it torn out I wadded it up and lifted it to his head.

  To get enough pressure on it, I’d have to move him.

  I tried not to put my weight on him as I climbed over his chest, but my knee slipped and dug into his elbow. He moaned.

  “You’re not dying here,” I slurred.

  I got on the other side of him and eased his shoulders down to the ground. His hips swiveled and his head rolled back, and I hoped I didn’t cause more damage. His scalp peeled away from a strip of white bone at the edge of his forehead.

  With the hunk of fleece pressed hard against his skull, I knelt and rested my head on his shoulder. I started to pray for help to come, for God to save us. Then I stopped.

  I swallowed another mouthful of my own blood.

  If God even existed, he obviously didn’t give a crap about me.

  CHAPTER 36

  Mark knocked on the door to my bedroom, then came in with a tray. “Hungry?”

  “Not really.” I’d been awake for a couple of hours, but couldn’t come up with any reason to get out of bed.

  “They said they’re going to church.” He put the tray on my desk and handed me a cup of tea. “Separate cars.”

  “Whatever.”

  I checked out the tray. A heel of buttered toast and bowl of cold, dry muesli. I took the cup and rested it on my leg. Outside the window a new dusting of snow sparkled on the sun porch roof.

  “How do you feel?”

  “Achy. Not awful right now, though.”

  Mark sat next to me on the bed.

  “Did you take your pain pills?”

  “Mm-hmm. When I woke up.”

  “Do you want to go somewhere? I can take you to the mall or something.”

  I shook my head.

  “Not up to that, huh?” He reached over to the tray and grabbed an envelope from under the rim of the plate. “Almost forgot. Miss Downey sent this with Pam on Friday.”

  It was postmarked from the state capitol. I turned it over to check the return address. The Art as History contest. I handed it back to Mark. “Third place.”

  “Don’t you want to open it?”

  I shrugged. “I already know what it is.”

  “Mind if I open it?”

  “Go ahead.”

  He slid his finger along the top crease of the envelope and tore it in several jagged chunks. When he unfolded the letter two fifty-dollar bills fell out. “You won a hundred bucks, kiddo!”

  “That’s cool.”

  “You’re pretty blasé about it.”

  “You can have it if you want it.”

  A few days ago he’d have taken it. A few days ago I wouldn’t have offered it.

  He scanned the letter. “It says your submission will be returned to your school’s art department in November.”

  “Okay. Whatever.”

  Mark put the letter and the money back in the envelope and laid it on my desk next to the tray.

  “Can I get you anything else? You want your sketchbook or something?”

  “No.”

  A few flakes drifted down past the window. I wondered if it was snowing again, or just blown from the roof.

  “Want to watch TV? I can bring up the little one from the dining room.”

  “That’s okay.”

  He stood up and just looked at me.

  “What?”

  “I don’t like you like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “This.” He waved his hand across me.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t act fine.”

  I took a drink of tea and it stung where six stitches held the side of my tongue together. “How should I act?”

  “I don’t know.” He twisted his ID bracelet. “Happy you’re not crippled. Upset about Mom and Dad. Ticked off at me. Something.”

  Silvery flakes gathered in the bottom corners of the window, and I guessed it must be real snow. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “What doesn’t matter?”

  “Any of it.”

  Someone knocked at the door downstairs and Mark scowled. “They said they canceled the open house.”

  Maybe I should get in an accident every week.

  He jogged down the stairs and I heard the front door open. I couldn’t make out the voice, but Mark sounded kind of irritated. Then the door closed, and I heard them coming up.

  Mark appeared in the doorway again. “You okay for company?”

  “Who is it?”

  “Hey, Jules.” Pam peered around Mark with her hand on his shoulder.

  I nodded and propped myself up a little more.

  She came in and sat down on my desk chair, and didn’t even try to get Mark to stay when he pulled the door closed.

  “You look terrible,” she said.

  “Thanks so much.”

  “You’re all black and purple and swollen, especially up above your eye. It looks like it really hurts.”

  “Since when do you use the front door?”

  “I didn’t want to scare you if you were sleeping or something.”

  For once in her life, Pam didn’t know what to say. She picked at her fingernails, shuffled her feet, and looked around the room like she’d never seen it before.

  I kind of wished she’d just leave. But at least she cared enough to come.

  “Did you hear they’re getting a divorce?” I asked.

  She nodded. “That really sucks.”

  “We’re a
ll moving.”

  “That sucks even more. When?”

  “Whenever the house sells.”

  I stared out the window while Pam tapped her feet under the chair.

  “We could trash the place so no one would buy it.”

  “Throw a party like yours?”

  “I’d totally help you.”

  “I think I’m done with parties.”

  She scooted her chair closer to the bed. “Speaking of parties,” she whispered. “Guess what I heard about Amica’s on Friday?”

  The party I was supposed to go to. I missed another one. At least this time they couldn’t say I just pretended to be sick.

  Pam leaned in. “Bethany gave it to Drew.”

  “Gave what to Drew?”

  “It!” she hissed. “They did it!”

  “How would you even know?”

  She sat back in her chair and crossed her arms. “Charlie was there, and he told Dale.”

  “And how would Charlie know?”

  “It was, like, this huge make-out party. Then Drew and Bethany disappeared for a while, and when they came back, Drew totally told everybody.”

  “And Bethany was okay with that?”

  Pam made a face. “Charlie said Bethany was kind of crying.”

  “Where were Amica’s parents?”

  Pam shook her head. “Out of town. Amica’s sister was supposed to be in charge, but she left for the weekend, too. So Amica threw a party.”

  “Kind of like you?”

  “Nobody did it at my party.”

  “As far as you know.”

  Her eyes got really big. “Do you know something I don’t?”

  Mark knocked on the door and opened it. “You okay if I go out for a while?”

  “I guess so.”

  “I heard you broke up with Ginger,” Pam said, head tipped to the side in mock sympathy. “Want some company?”

  “Don’t worry about Ginger. She’s already got a new guy,” he said.

  My heart tripped. “She does?”

  He nodded. “Mr. Big-Man-on-Campus College Letterman.”

  “Poor Mark,” Pam said. “You shouldn’t be alone.”

  “Good-bye, Pam.” He closed the door and thumped down the stairs.

  So that painting worked, too.

  Pam sighed and sat back down. “Someday he’ll realize I’m the one he wants.”

  I rubbed my forehead and took another drink of tea. The headache was coming back, and I still had two hours before I could take more pills.

  “Do you want to play cards or something?” Pam asked.

  “No.” I squished my pillow down and lay back. “I’m kind of tired. I think I just want to sleep for a while.”

  “Okay.” She stood up. “I’ll be at home. So if you need anything, just call.”

  “Thanks.”

  She left, and I tossed and turned for another hour. The headache throbbed, like someone pounded a hammer all over the inside of my skull.