“Why did you frame us?” I asked, since we were just dancing around the field. Might as well get some answers before the attack. “What benefit did you get out of it?”
But Chris just laughed. “What makes you think I was involved?”
“Because I’m not an idiot.”
“Not a complete one anyway,” he answered, tilting his head at me in consideration. “Fine, I confess I was involved. But I wasn’t the mastermind of this scheme.”
That caught me off guard. I tried searching his face for any clues of lying, but with the awkward lighting, all I could make out were hidden features that gave away nothing. All that was clear was the obnoxious smirk that was planted firmly in place.
“Who?” I asked.
Chris just scoffed.
“Who?” I demanded, voice growing louder.
But he just shook his head. “What makes you think I’ll give you information, Collins? You’ll have to pay. I prefer cash.”
It was my turn to laugh. “Guess I’ll just have to beat the crap out of you to get some answers.”
I hardly finished my sentence before I lurched forward, breaking the distance between us and punching him right in the jaw. He stumbled back, surprised, and clutched his chin. He swiped the back of his hand across his lip and when he drew, observed the blood that glistened there. His head snapped towards me, a feral look in his eyes as he swung at me.
I was able to dodge his first swing, but his second got me in the gut, earning a splutter and a cough. But despite the choking sensation, I threw my fist at his nose, hearing the satisfying crunch of bones under my knuckles. When I withdrew my hand, blood was splattered across my fingers, but I didn’t care. Instead, I kept forwarding.
Chris looked furious as he smashed his fist in my direction. But instead of avoiding the blow, I moved in the wrong direction, allowing better contact as his knuckles connected with my throat, causing the suffocating sensation to return. And while I was in a state of vulnerability, trying to regain my breath, Chris caught me in a headlock and squeezed my neck until I was gasping for air.
I was starting to struggle. My strong start was starting to fade and Chris was starting to advance on me. Grabbing his forearm that was wrapped around my neck, I used his weight against me and managed to throw him over me until he landed painfully on his back. I watched as he gritted his teeth from the blow but quickly recovered, shoving me backwards until I was on the ground with him.
We wrestled on the grass, throwing punches and shoving each other. Blood was flowing and it was all over me, but I wasn’t sure if it was mine or his. Soon enough, we made our way back towards the car park, kicking gravel as we tried to take each other down.
I managed to get a pretty packed blow at Chris’ shoulder, but he got me in the ribs as I bent on my knees in pain, trying to suck in a painful breath of air. While I was down, he kicked me to the ground. My hands dug into the gravel, bits of rock digging into my skin so hard I was sure it had ripped a layer of skin.
But that gave me enough willpower to get up and take another swing at Chris. It was a stronger hit, one that caused him to stumble. I took this as an advantage and pinned him to the hood of my car, grabbing his shirt with one hand and giving him another solid punch.
Chris rolled his head back, seeming unfocused, but when I got his attention again, he smiled psychotically. Even with his busted lip, he smiled as wide as he could, causing the split to become more opened.
“You’re wasting your time with me,” he said.
I was so distracted by his obnoxious grin that I didn’t realise he had the upper hand. In one quick motion, he flipped us until my back was against the hood of my car and he had a fistful of my shirt. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, he pulled an army knife out of his pocket, flicked it opened and pressed the tip under my chin.
“It amazes me how you can be such a high school star,” he said, glaring at me as he pressed the knife harder against my chin and gently scraped it across. It wasn’t enough to draw blood, but it would definitely leave a mark.
“What I don’t understand,” he continued, “is how you haven’t figured it out yet. You’re a footy legend, a straight A student and a community hero. How can you not know by now?”
“Know what?” I dared to ask, but it was a bad move. Chris slipped the knife lower until it pressed against my throat.
“Who it is!” he exclaimed, obviously exasperated. “The facts are all laid out on the table, Ryder. I suggest you figure it out fast.”
Then, there was the shattering sound of glass smashing. My eyes looked down to see Chris as he kicked one of my headlights. Before I could stop him, he kicked the other until we were swallowed by darkness. Then, the knife seemed to be off my throat. I reached my hands out, trying to search for where he was, but someone hit the back of my head and I blacked out.
Thirty Eight
I didn’t have to open my eyes to know where I was. The strong aroma of disinfectant and cleaning products filled my nose in an intoxicating mixture. Being in a hospital meant that someone would be questioning my injuries and I was in no mood to explain. So, I kept my eyes shut and tried extremely hard not to flinch when someone’s warm fingers brushed against my forehead.
“What happened to him?”
It was Nora. Her voice was as warm and sweet as honey, concern dripping from her tone. It was hard to tell what time it was without giving away my consciousness, but I already felt guilty knowing she was there with me, no matter the hour.
“I don’t know. But he smells like Chris.” Caine.
“No… he smells like chemicals,” Nora corrected him.
“I meant the situation seems like it’s directed at-” Caine paused, then sighed irritably. “Never mind. It’s too early in the morning for my patience.”
Nora seemed to stay quiet, her warm fingertips still sliding across my forehead to brush the hair from my face. She was close, I could tell. I could feel her breathing and smell her minty breath.
“This is getting way out of hand,” she finally said and I felt her fingers slide away.
“Tell me about it,” he answered and I could picture him rubbing his temples in sign of a migraine. “But we’re neck-deep. It’s too late to back out now.”
“Have you told the police about the phone call?” she questioned, voice low.
Caine paused. “No. I have no evidence.”
“Tell them anyway. Maybe they’ll look into it and find something,” she suggested.
But Caine seemed to stand his ground. “No. Look, I know what I’m doing.”
Nora dropped it after that and I heard her shift in the chair beside me. All conversations seemed to fade and the sound beat of the monitors was soothing. The repetitive beep slowly calmed me into sleep.
~♥♥♥~
Again, when I woke up, I didn’t open my eyes. Instead, I stayed alert to get to know my surroundings. At first, there wasn’t much sound. I figured Nora and Caine had either fallen asleep, went to get food, or returned home to sleep. But then I heard the shuffling of feet at the foot of my bed as a phone rang.
“Hello?”
The voice sounded quiet but it definitely belonged to Chris. I had the urge to leap up and snap at him to leave, but I was intrigued by the voice on the other line. So I kept as still as possible and listened.
“Yeah, it’s me. I’m at the hospital.”
He paused and waited for a response.
“I don’t know if I can do this anymore.”
It might have been the painkillers, but I swore I heard panic in his voice.
“This is getting way out of hand. Yes. Yes. I know. I said I know. Look, a lot of people contributed into this thing so maybe our tracks will be covered. I agree. How did we even get into this? Oh, yeah, that’s right.”
He gave an uncomfortable laugh.
“God, we must be desperate. Exam pressure must be getting to us. These exams are just a load of crap. Mm. Yeah. No. Collins won’t say anything
. Trust me - because he doesn’t want to draw attention from the police! He won’t confess anything. He won’t. Dude, take a pill and calm down, he won’t tell. Okay, okay. If he does, we’ll redirect attention to that guy. You know, the guy. No! Not that guy. The other one.Nora’s sister’s boyfriend.Yeah, that one. What do you mean why? Because it was his lighter that was used!”
I suddenly felt sick. All this information just kept coming and I wasn’t sure I could keep it down. At any point, I felt like I would just open my eyes just to lean over and throw up on the floor. But I wasn’t going to be a wimp, so I swallowed.
“Wait, I have another call… Crap! It’s her…” Chris sounded like he was going to throw up. “The bitch is on the other line. I’ll call you back later.”
Then I heard him exit the room before I could find out who she was.
~♥♥♥~
The third time I woke up, I opened my eyes before I could concentrate on anymore conversations. The bright, artificial light was blinding and it took a moment to adjust my sight, but when I finally did, I found that I was alone.
And that I really needed a bathroom break.
So I climbed out, grabbed my drip and dragged it away. The bathroom took five long minutes of searching for. I admittedly took a few wrong turns and bumped into some concerned doctors but I didn’t want to feel any less of a man than I already did. I mean, I was wearing a gown. And there was no way I was going to bruise my pride by confessing that I was lost and asking for directions.
Eventually, I found the toilet, did my stuff and walked straight out. On my way back, I passed the children’s wing – that’s how lost I was - and passed some sick kids. I felt extremely guilty as I walked past, seeing them with tubs down all places, thin and pale looking. I made a mental note to come back and hand out balloons.
As I reached the end of the corridor, I was about to round the corner to go back to my hospital bed – if I could even find it again - when I passed a room filled with cards, balloons and stuffed animals. It seemed just like any sick kid’s room, but then I saw my school emblem sewed onto one of the bears, along with a dozen get-well messages and signatures.
This wasn’t just any normal kid. It was the one with the hearing loss that got injured during the school fire.
The door was shut but the curtains were pushed back. I didn’t feel like I had any authority to enter so I lingered outside her window. Bandages wrapped up her left arm, from her shoulder to her wrist and the left side of her face, but despite her burns, she seemed happy. She sat in her bed, with a food tray in front of her, scooping red jelly into her mouth and then returning to shuffling a deck of cards.
Suddenly, she looked up. She had the biggest and brownest eyes I had ever seen. The girl seemed to stare at me, emotionless…waiting. Hesitating for me to react before she could show any emotion. I suppose she was being cautious. I really wanted to ask if I could go inside, but as I lifted my hand to point towards the door for permission, I chickened out and instead, gave her a small wave. It took her a while to mimic the action, but she finally did.
Then she went back to eating her jelly. Sighing, I turned and made my way through the maze of the hospital until I found my hospital bed. But I wasn’t alone. Patrick was sitting in the chair, checking his watch and patiently tapping his foot.
“Ryder,” he said, when I approached. He grabbed the drip I was dragging and helped me until I was back in the bed like a helpless child.
Then he settled back in his chair. “Nora and Eve are getting snacks for you.”
My stomach growled involuntary at the sound of food. I hadn’t realised I was so hungry until that very moment. I nodded and settled back against the arrangement of pillows. There were a million thoughts running through my head because of the conversation I overheard earlier. But the more I thought about it, the more I started to question whether it was a dream or not.
“Do you know about the fire at school?” I blurted, before I knew it.
Patrick looked at me and nodded. “It’s all over the local media.”
“Where were you when it happened?” I asked slowly. “When the fire happened.”
I tried to keep my voice as calm as possible. I didn’t want to sound accusing because Patrick was a great guy and I didn’t think he’d be involved and although Chris Baker was an unreliable source, he seemed to have more answers than me.
“At your school actually. I was doing a fill-in for one of the year eight music classes,” he answered.
So he was there.
“Do you know who did it?”
“Sorry, kid,” he answered. “The class I had was right before lunch, so I was getting ready to go home when all the commotion happened. I was in the car park by the time they made the announcement.”
Nora and Eve came in at that moment with a tray stacked with hospital cafeteria food. The sweetest part of all was the kiss from Nora though. For the next half an hour, there was a lot of talking. I did most of the listening while I ate my food, but I couldn’t concentrate a lot of the time.
I was too busy trying to figure out this mystery.
~♥♥♥~
Nora eventually had to leave for school. I spent most of the day sleeping, and when I wasn’t, I was wandering around the hospital, passing the children’s wing as I pretended to go to the bathroom. At one point, a nurse kept catching me and eventually approached me to tell me there was a bathroom located much closer to my room. In other words, she was politely telling me that I was disturbing the children and I should go away.
I didn’t return to the bathroom after that incident. I went to sleep instead.
Nora arrived straight after school though, bag hung over her shoulder. She triumphantly held up two jelly cups, one green, one red. “I come bearing gifts.”
She dropped onto the end of my bed, kicked her shoes off and sat cross-legged. She handed me the green cup and a plastic spoon before opening her own.
“You treat me well,” I said, digging my spoon into the dessert.
“That’s not all,” she said, balancing her jelly on her knee as she reached over and picked up her bag. “I got study notes for you and your homework. But I knew you wouldn’t really be pleased with the homework, so I ran to the store and picked up some chocolate.”
“What kind of chocolate?” I asked, ignoring the fact that I had homework to do. Maybe if I didn’t acknowledge the problem, it would go away.
“Macadamia, of course.” She handed me the bar.
Instead of taking it from her hand, I reached out and gently took her wrist, pulling until she was tucked safely under my arm. “Best girlfriend ever.”
“Brownie points for remembering,” she said. “Bet you can’t remember my favourite chocolate?”
I didn’t hesitate. “Trick question. You don’t really like chocolate. You like gummy lollies and caramel popcorn.”
“Lucky guess,” she muttered, but a smile crept its way onto her face.
I kissed the top of her head.
“You totally ruined my jelly by the way.”
I looked over at the red mess now all over the floor and laughed, holding her tighter. “We can share mine.”
“Okay,” she answered, wriggling out of my arms. “But I really have to finish this essay. It was due last week and I don’t think I can extend it any longer.”
Nora crawled her way back to the end of the bed and started pulling out folders and pens. She stretched her legs onto the space she had recently vacated and started concentrating on her paper. I watched as she studied. Occasionally, she’d open her mouth without her eyes leaving her notebook and I’d reach over and give her a scoop of jelly. Sometimes, when I leaned over, I’d catch the corners of her lips in a kiss. She never looked up, but she always lit up like a firefly. It made me smile.
When she finished writing her essay, she wordlessly moved onto something else. I knew I should have mirrored her actions and started my own study, but I started getting sleepy. The jelly cup was now longgone and
I had eaten a good amount of the chocolate. My stomach was full and I was happy.
“So, what have you been doing here all day?” Nora asked, typing furiously at her calculator.
“Wandering around,” I answered honestly. “I found that girl’s room.”
“What girl?” she said distractedly as she chewed the end of her pen.
“The one who got injured during the fire.”
“Rebecca?”
“How’d you know her name?” I asked.
“We had an assembly today. She was mentioned. I feel so awful about what happened to her.”
I groaned. “Tell me about it. Whenever I pass her room, I feel so damn guilty.”
Nora placed her pencil down and looked at me. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Ryder.”
“I know,” I answered. “But I still feel like shit about it.”
She smiled weakly and thought for a second. “How about we send her a little anonymous gift?”
I liked that idea. “What should it be?”
“Well, she’s probably really bored in her room. How about we buy her a box set of DVDs to keep her entertained until she gets better. I’d imagine she’s already got a crap tonne of flowers, bears, cards and balloons.”
I stifled a yawn. “She does.”
I was starting to get extremely tired. My eyelids were heavy, so I allowed them to close and sank back into the pillows. Nora noticed my fatigue.
“Sleep, okay?”
“No, I’m okay,” I lied, trying to open my eyes, but they wouldn’t.
“Ryder.”
“Nora.”
“Go to sleep.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“Lay down with me.”
I heard her shuffle around, felt the movement of her study being pushed away, then the familiar weight of her body as she situated herself into my arms. I pulled her close and blindly kissed her forehead.
“Talk to me until I fall asleep?” I asked, although it came out extremely slow and sleepy.
And she did. She whispered nonsense into my ear, told me secrets and stories, promises and memories. I can almost guarantee I fell asleep with a smile on my face.