Chasing Spring

  “Sorry, I wasn't expecting passengers,” he said with a boyish smile that wasn't something I was used to seeing on him. His black hair was cropped shorter than I'd seen, making his handsome features far easier to discern. I fidgeted in my seat, placed the backpacks between my legs, and reached over to grab my seatbelt.

  “Thanks for picking me up,” I said, surprised by the vulnerability in my tone.

  “No problem. I usually hang out after school but I left today to beat the rain,” he gestured through the front windshield. “As you can see, I didn't do a very good job of that.”

  I laughed, surprised by the lightness in my chest. This feels right. Easy.

  “Do you want to go grab something to eat?” I asked.

  The question was out before I'd decided whether or not it was a good idea, but I figured eating an early dinner with Trent beat sitting at home and wondering what Chase was doing with Kimberly.

  Trent's eyebrows shot up and then he nodded once, slowly, processing my question. “Yes. Yeah, okay. I know a good place we can go.”

  I sighed and looked out the window, soaking in the musty scent that clung to his car's upholstery. There was a small part of me that felt at home in Trent's car. Trent didn’t shine the way Chase did. No one would judge me for hanging out with him. We were on the same playing field: two misfits in a small town.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Lilah

  Trent took me to a pizza joint off Main Street that was connected to an old arcade. It was the perfect place to wait out the storm as we filled our stomachs with warm cheese pizza and played Pac-Man until our thumbs were sore. The restaurant was empty save for a burly man behind the counter whose beard reached the top of his beer gut. I didn't mind him though; he flipped a switch on a few of the arcade games so that after Trent had spent twenty dollars, we could both keep playing for free.

  I hadn't realized how much time we’d spent there until Trent pulled his phone out of his back pocket and offered a change of venue.

  “There's a get-together over at Blake's house. Do you remember him?” he asked. I racked my brain until I recalled a guy that had graduated from our high school a few years earlier. He'd stayed in Blackwater even after graduation and I'd heard rumors that he was one of the guys supplying Trent and his friends with drugs. I chewed on my lip, trying to decide if it'd be a better idea if I just went home. It was fun hanging out with Trent for a little while, but we weren't really friends and I didn't want to regret getting stuck at a party with him.

  He pocketed his phone and then gave me an innocent smile. “How about we just go check it out and if you're bored or if you want to leave, we'll head out.”

  I crossed my arms and took a deep breath. I was probably overthinking things. I'd go with Trent for a little bit since he'd saved me from walking home in the rain, and then I'd go back to my life and figure out how I could possibly move on from Chase. My stomach clenched at the thought and then before I could stop it, images of him and Kimberly sprang free in my mind. I could see them walking to class hand in hand. I could see her in the stands watching him play baseball with his last name on the back of her shirt. I could see him sitting down for dinner with her family, a perfect group of four.

  I let Trent lead me out to his car, but I didn't pay much attention as he drove toward the outskirts of Blackwater. The roads were a muddy mess from the storm and as we pulled off in front of a doublewide trailer, I feared Trent wouldn't be able to get his car back out of the mud when it was time for us to leave.

  “Ready to go in?” he asked with a cheerful tone.

  I swung my door open and tried to step around most of the big piles of mud on the way to the front door. Trent went ahead of me and mapped out a safe route, but it was no use. By the time we reached the front door, my shoes were covered in mud. I tried to kick some of it off when the trailer’s door swung open and two drunk girls giggled past us.

  “Trent!” they called as they walked by. I smiled to myself, having forgotten the bad boy appeal most girls saw in him. He tipped his head in their direction and then put his hand on my back to guide me inside. The trailer was small and cast in a yellow glow from the old fluorescent bulbs that hung from the ceiling. A tattered, stained couch sat directly next to the door and there were three boys each rolling a joint, trying to race one another to completion. I looked past them toward the kitchen and saw Ashley chatting with Blake.

  It wasn't until I saw her that I realized how underdressed I was for the occasion. I hadn't bothered to put much makeup on before school and I was still wearing jeans and an old Rolling Stones t-shirt.

  Ashley was decked out in a short denim skirt and a white lacy tank top. Her four-inch heels added to her height and when Blake straightened up after pouring her a drink, she towered over him.

  He was just as I suspected: a guy in his late twenties with a slight beer belly and thick, gelled black hair. In other words, he looked like someone who shouldn’t have been partying with a bunch of high schoolers. As I stood, taking him in, Ashley looked up and spotted me. I braced myself for an awkward encounter, but her shock was quickly replaced with a giant smile.

  “Lilah!” she squealed, stumbling in her high heels to reach me.

  I laughed and reached out to help stabilize her as she all but fell onto me. “Hi Ashley.”

  “I can't believe you're here! How did Trent talk you into coming? I thought you only hung out with Chase now.”

  I rolled my eyes and released her arms.

  “I hang out with whoever I want to, and tonight I'm here to see you,” I said, putting on a fake smile.

  Trent tapped my arm and motioned toward the kitchen where Blake was still standing, watching my encounter with Ashley. I wondered if I’d interrupted something between the two of them.

  “I'll go get us some drinks, be right back,” Trent said.

  Ashley took the opportunity and tugged me toward the couch. The guys moved over for us and I let Ashley squeeze in next to them so I could sit on the arm of the couch.

  Ashley took a joint from one of the guys and took a hit. She offered it to me but I held up my hand in protest.

  “Here you go,” Trent said, appearing by my side with a red Solo cup in hand. He grinned wide as I took the cup and peered inside.

  “What is this?” I asked, taking a sniff. There was a faint hint of alcohol but it wasn't too overwhelming.

  “A rum and Coke. I went easy on the rum because I knew you'd give me hell,” he joked, bending down to take a seat on the edge of the couch.

  I smiled and took a tentative first sip, relieved to find that it was mostly coke.

  “Let's play King's Cup!” Ashley said, clapping her hands together with glee.

  Blake pulled open a kitchen drawer to retrieve a tattered deck of cards and then tossed them over to us. Trent caught them midair, pulled open the box, and started to shuffle the cards on his lap.

  Ashley brushed me up on the rules of the game as I finished my first drink. Trent stood to get me another one, but I held up my hand to stop him. I wanted the first one to settle in before I had any more. It hadn't tasted very strong, but I didn't want the rum to hit me all at once.

  “I'll just fill it with water. You need a drink to play the game,” Trent whispered in my ear. I smiled and blinked, feeling a faint lightness in my head, probably from the smoke in the air. Water was a good idea.

  When he returned, I took a few sips as people started drawing cards.

  Ashley reached forward and picked up a two of hearts. “Two, you!” she said, turning and pointing to me.

  “What does that mean?” I asked, trying to recall the rules she'd just explained. My head felt fuzzy and I tried to blink away the confusion.

  “When someone draws a two, they get to point to whoever they want and that person has to take a drink with them. So drink up!” she hollered into my ear.

  I gulped down some of the water, but as I pulled the cup away from my mouth the room spun around me.

&nbs
p; “Trent are you sure there wasn't much rum in that drink?” I asked, looking up at him. The edges of his face were blurred and I squinted, trying to make him out in the fuzziness.

  He smiled and shrugged. “Nope. Not much rum at all.”

  I should have paid more attention to that grin, but it was my turn to draw a card. I reached out to grab a card off the top of the deck and everyone shouted. I blinked my eyes again, feeling the same dizziness overtaking me. When I moved to sit back in my seat, a sharp feeling of vertigo overtook over me.

  I tried to tell Ashley that I had a headache and didn't want to keep playing, but the words came out muddled and slow.

  “What the hell did you put in her drink, Trent?” Ashley snapped.

  The last thing I remembered was the laughter of the three boys rolling joints on the couch. They sounded like a pack of cackling hyenas.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chase

  Springtime had always let me down. The season had an uncanny ability to disappoint me and that year was no different, except for Lilah. That year I had Lilah. Lilah and a drunk dad.

  Kimberly had called me twice during Physics and by the time I’d finally returned her call in the guys bathroom, she was frantic.

  “Your dad was in an accident.”

  “What?”

  “A car accident,” she clarified.

  I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror and asked the question that could forever change my life.

  “Is he still alive?”

  The details were minimal: my dad had been driving home when he’d run his car off the road. An ambulance had taken him to the county hospital where Kimberly’s mom, an ER nurse, had been there to admit him.

  I met Kimberly at the back of the school and followed her out to her car, hoping she'd have a lead foot the entire drive to the hospital. I couldn't think past the idea of being an orphan, of being completely alone. Can someone become an orphan at eighteen or is that a term only used for children? My dad was hardly a dad, but he was better than nothing.

  Kimberly put her car into park and I ran inside the emergency waiting room, scrambling to find someone who could point me in the right direction. There were bright-colored signs everywhere, leading to and from wards and check-in desks.

  I ran to the first desk I saw and tried to speak as calmly as possible.

  “Excuse me,” I said to the nurse. She was multitasking, filling out a chart while on the phone. I didn’t care. “Excuse me.”

  “Just give me a second,” she said, eyeing me with annoyance.

  There was a spectrum between the two possibilities and I didn't know which end of it I should start preparing for. If I prepared myself for the worst, then I couldn’t be surprised.

  The set of double doors beside the reception desk swung open and Kimberly's mom stepped into the waiting room in pale blue scrubs. Without a word, she guided me back to sit in a chair against the wall. Her kind eyes sought mine and she took a deep breath before beginning.

  “I don't want to sugarcoat this for you, Chase. Your father was in a very bad accident. His car flipped off the road and landed upside down in a ditch. The paramedics were called to the scene immediately and the fire department helped pull him from the car. Once they had him in the ambulance, they checked his blood alcohol level. Most people would have been unconscious with the amount of alcohol he had in his system.”

  “He's built up a high tolerance over the years,” I explained, not to defend him, but just to explain that sad fact to her.

  She blinked and kept her eyes closed for a moment before continuing.

  “There's quite a bit of internal bleeding. He's in surgery now so the doctors can find the source and repair the damage as best as possible. Once they have that under control they can focus on the other injuries he sustained.”

  “Did he hurt anyone else on the road?” I asked, needing to know that answer before continuing. I couldn't care about my father's injuries until I knew if he'd injured anyone else.

  “Thankfully, no.”

  I took a deep breath and then sat there listening to her continue to list the damage. It was surprisingly hard to hear it all through unbiased ears. My mind was already spinning scenarios, trying to figure out how it would impact my father. Would he care? Would he change his life? Would he go right back to his self-destructive ways?

  I felt sick at how impossibly selfish he'd been getting behind the wheel of car in that kind of state, even worse so because I knew it hadn't been the first time. I had never felt more grateful for Coach Calloway's foresight in taking me in; this was exactly the kind of thing he wanted to protect me from.

  Mrs. White patted my hand and promised to update me as soon as she had more information. I nodded and let her walk back through the shiny chrome double doors.

  I'm not sure how long I sat there before Kimberly walked in with some Chinese food from a restaurant down the street. I guessed she'd gone to grab something after dropping me off.

  “Here, you should eat,” she said, opening the to-go boxes and preparing a small meal for me. The thought of food repulsed me, but I didn't want to offend her, so I took the plate and set it on my lap, swirling the noodles into a smooth spiral.

  I wanted Lilah to be there. I wanted her to tell me everything would be all right, and even if it wasn't all right, I wanted her to be there so I'd know that at the end of the day I still had the one person I cared about, the only person that truly mattered.

  I reached down for my phone in my pocket, but didn't feel it.

  “I think I left my phone in your car,” I said, already moving to stand with my plate of food.

  “No. Stay, I'll go grab it.”

  Lilah was probably wondering why I hadn't met up with her after school, but gossip spread like wildfire in our town and hopefully someone thought to notify her. Still, when Kimberly handed me my phone, I dialed her number from memory and waited through the rings so I could tell her to come down to the hospital myself. When her voicemail picked up, I hung up and tried calling her again.

  “I'm sure she's eating dinner or something,” Kimberly said, trying to exude positive energy. My gut knew better. My gut needed Lilah to answer her phone.

  …

  By the time my dad’s surgeon called me back from the waiting room, I still hadn’t heard from Lilah. I pocketed my phone and pushed past the swinging doors. Dr. Williams was in charge of my father’s care and I was surprised by how young he looked.

  I tried to keep up as he explained how well the surgery had gone, how likely it was that my father would have a full recovery. They'd gotten the internal bleeding under control and they were going to reset the bones in his forearm and wrist. He had a punctured lung and a few gashes that needed stitches, but Dr. Williams explained that he'd be able to leave the hospital in a few days.

  “Is it just you and your father at the house?” he asked, trying to get a feel for who might be handling my father’s care.

  “Yes, just us,” I answered, leaving out the fact that I hadn't been living with him for the past few months.

  “All right. We'll get him set up with a homecare nurse, but you'll be an important part of his recovery over the next few weeks. He won't need you as much once he's off the medications, but the first few days will be a little rocky.”

  I nodded, recalling all the times throughout high school I'd taken care of him after he'd drunk himself sick. Caring for him after surgery would be no different, really. Dr. Williams started walking down the hallway and instructed me to follow after him. We reached another set of double doors and he scanned his ID and ushered me into the critical care unit.

  Nurses were rushing to and from rooms with metal clipboards in hand and bleak expressions covering their faces. We kept walking deeper down the hallway until we stopped outside room 178. I stood in front of the glossy wooden door willing myself to go inside.

  “You can go on in, but he'll probably be sleeping,” Dr. Williams said, patting me on the shoulder. “His
nurse will come in soon and discuss the recovery plan with you so everyone is on the same page.”

  I nodded and gripped the door handle. Time to face the music. The hospital smell that had lingered faintly in the hallway hit me full force as I walked into my dad’s room. The sterile chemicals practically burned my lungs.

  My dad was lying in a tangle of cords, IVs, and monitors. His face was covered in bruises and scratches. What parts I could see were stark white. I hadn't realized how thin he'd become in the recent months, but his sunken cheekbones emphasized the bruising around his eyes and nose even more. His right arm was hoisted in a sling mounted to a pole over his head, and the left side of his robe protruded out from the padding they'd wrapped around his lungs.

  I wasn’t sure how long I stood there on the other side of his bed in a catatonic state. Nurses flitted in and out of the room, checking whatever they thought needed checking and leaving me alone for the most part. I think they knew I didn't feel like talking and maybe they were relieved by that. They could do their job in peace and then move on to the next patient.

  Sometime later, they woke him up while I stayed rooted to the same spot. The orthopedist needed him awake while he reset his arm. He was groggy when the nurse woke him up and I couldn't understand most of what slipped out of his mouth. It was the ramblings of a lunatic as far as I was concerned.

  When he could focus long enough to see me standing at the foot of his bed, he swallowed slowly and then glanced away, unable to meet my eyes for long.

  Pathetic.

  I watched the orthopedist reset his bones and then wrap his arm tightly in gauze and an elastic bandage before fitting it back into the sling. My father winced and moaned the entire time. I was sure it was incredibly painful, but I didn't have much sympathy for him.

  When they were done, the medical staff left the room and the heart monitor was the only thing disturbing the ominous silence hanging between us.