I sink back down onto the sofa. My mom clutches my hands in hers. On-screen, Jo Furness presses her hand to her earpiece.
“Initial reports suggest he’s suffered internal injuries including a fracture to the spine, but we’re yet to have confirmation of the extent of his injuries or what they might mean for this talented young player.”
This can’t be happening. What does it mean? A fractured spine? Is he going to be paralyzed? I wish I could reach through the screen, grab her by the neck, and throttle her until she tells me.
“It’s too soon to say for certain, but it looks like McCallister’s career, both as a professional hockey player and as a model, may be prematurely over.”
I look up. No. How can she stand there and pronounce something like that as if she knows anything at all about anything? She’s not a doctor. And his modeling career? As if he ever cared about modeling! As if any of it matters except him being okay! I want to throw something at the TV. I grab hold of a cushion and crush it to my chest.
My mom turns to me. “I’m going to book a flight.”
“What?”
“You need to go to him. Whatever happened between you two, you’re still friends, aren’t you? If it were Shay, you’d go, wouldn’t you? You would already be on a plane.”
I close my eyes. Yes. I would go. No hesitation. And yes, I want to go now. I want to be there right this second. This waiting, this not knowing, is torture. But his family is there with him. Lauren is there with him. He doesn’t need me. He doesn’t want me. He hasn’t even bothered to call me, for Christ’s sake.
“You need to go, Emerson. After everything Jake’s done for us, it’s the least we can do. I would go myself if I could.”
I bite my lip. Should I go? Yes. I have to go. My mom’s right. There’s no other option. I can’t just sit here waiting by the TV to hear what’s happened to him. I can’t leave it up to that vile reporter to update me. I’ll go crazy.
They’re replaying the game—the moment of impact—in slow motion and from every possible angle. Every time I see it, I feel like I’m going to throw up. But now it flashes back to that damn reporter again.
I take note of the name of the hospital, lit up behind her. If I can get a flight out of Seattle this evening, I can be there by the morning. I get to my feet. Now I have a plan. It gives me momentum. But as I move to the door, something suddenly catches my eye on the TV. On-screen, Jo Furness has just stopped someone who was walking by on their way to the ER.
“. . . Jake McCallister’s girlfriend, Lauren Willis . . .”
Lauren’s tearstained face appears on camera. I stagger back as if I’ve been punched in the gut. My mom stands beside me frozen, with the TV remote in her hand.
“What?” she says, hitting the volume button. “What do they mean, his girlfriend?”
“Lauren, can you give us an update on Jake’s progress?” Jo calls out. “Is he still in surgery? Have the doctors given you any indication of how severe his injuries are?”
Lauren turns away, holding up a hand to shield her mascara-bleeding face, and heads toward the entrance to the ER.
Jo turns to the camera, then catches sight of someone else walking toward the ER. “And here, also just arriving, is the Boston College ice hockey coach.” She thrusts the microphone into the face of a gruff, gray-haired man wearing a blazer and a cap.
“In your career as a coach have you ever seen an injury as bad as this one?”
He pushes the microphone away with an angry snarl. “No comment,” he barks, and strides into the ER.
My mom switches off the TV. I stay staring at the ink-black screen. I can feel my mom looking at me, a silent question on her lips.
No comment.
Jake
I burst through the surface with a violent jolt as though smashing my way through a thick layer of lake ice. A kaleidoscope spins on the back of my eyelids. I suck in a breath of air, but then, in the next instant, I’m tumbling back into the deep, pulled down this time not by the crushing weight on my chest or the blinding pain, but by limbs that are as heavy as lead.
I surrender, too tired to fight it, and let myself be tugged downward, through the gap in the ice and into the darkness below, letting it cover my mouth, my nose, my eyes. There’s a rapid beeping noise and then a lightning bolt rips through me, yanking me above the surface again. And there I stay, suspended just above the hole in the ice, my fingers dangling over the edge, feeling the tempting numbness of the water. There’s no pain down there. There’s nothing. But up here, a hockey game is going on around me. There’s so much noise. And a puck keeps slamming into my chest, and I can’t move my arms to block it. What’s happening? I try to struggle, and someone murmurs something.
The pain flares hot, excruciatingly hot—like I’ve been doused in gasoline and set alight. The hole beneath me widens as the ice below starts to melt. The cold snatches hold of my fingers and inches up my arm, extinguishing the flames. I roll toward the hole.
I want to disappear down there again, into the silence, into the cold.
Emerson
(Then)
It’s evening when I’m finally able to escape the house. The woods are dark as a grave and cold as one too. Not a sliver of moonlight breaks through the firs and alders. The dank, loamy smell of wet leaves and earth fills my lungs, and I draw it in deep as though I have been holding my breath underwater for the last twenty-four hours and have finally broken the surface.
I break into a run, stumbling over buried roots, ignoring the branches that whip my arms and face, ignoring the cold that slaps my cheeks and makes them sting, ignoring the damp that has soaked through my shoes and socks and jeans.
As I run, I can hear his voice echoing through the trees. He’s chasing me, gaining on me. I run faster. I need to make it to the tree house. I’ll be safe there.
“Em!” he calls my name again. This time closer. “Em!”
It sounds like he’s right beside me.
I push on, sprinting now, desperate to escape him, but I can’t because his voice is in my head and there’s no running from it.
Fighting through a moat of ferns, I make it into the clearing, dart toward the tree house, and start scrambling up the ladder. A hand grabs my foot; another hand grabs my thigh. I yelp, kick out, almost fall, but manage somehow to keep climbing.
Dragging myself onto the landing, I lean over the ledge to look down. There’s no one there. I’m imagining it all. It’s not real. It’s not real. It’s only in my head.
I dig my fingers into the wooden boards I’m lying on—like it’s the deck of a storm-tossed ship—and I hold on tight, until my breathing finally returns to normal and my heart rate begins to slow.
“Em?”
I jolt upright, scanning the forest floor, my heart bashing wildly against my ribs. There’s no one there. Scrunching my eyes shut, I curl into a ball and press my hands over my ears.
“Shut up, shut up!” I scream at his voice in my head.
My skin prickles as if worms are crawling all over my body, leaving dirty, slimy trails in their wake. Another nest of worms writhes in my stomach. Why? Why? Why me? a voice mumbles over and over again, but there’s never any answer. I must have done something wrong. That’s the only thing I know.
Exhausted from crying and shivering from the cold, I finally open my eyes. My gaze lands on a half-empty packet of marshmallows. Have the Walshes been here? Or Jake?
A rustle in the undergrowth makes me jerk around in fright. Automatically, I cower backward into the shadows, holding my breath.
Is it my parents come looking for me?
Is it Jake?
Or . . . is it him?
Please let it be Jake. Where is Jake? Does he know? Would he believe me?
No one believes you; no one believes you, a sneaky voice in my head starts to whisper, quietly at first, getting louder, until it becomes a scream ricocheting around my skull.
I slump onto my side and lie there, not even curling into
a ball, but just staring out into the darkness, letting the cold numb me, until I’m shivering so hard that I can no longer feel the worms crawling over my skin and my teeth are chattering loud enough to almost drown out the whispers.
Emerson
What if he dies? I try to shove the thought away, but I can’t. Of course he’s not going to die, I tell myself, but then the image of Jake lying on the ice motionless as a corpse spears its way into my mind and I curl up tighter, wrapping my arms around my chest and sob harder.
I lie there on the tree house ledge for an hour, maybe longer, staring out over the forest. I remember running here all those years ago, lying in the exact same spot, curled in a ball and crying, thinking about Jake. Just like then, I’m also scared. And alone.
I close my eyes, and I start praying. I’ve never prayed before. I don’t believe in God—how, after what happened?—but now I find myself making bargains with a God I’m a stranger to, to please let Jake be okay. I will do anything, give anything, just so long as he’s okay.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. My pulse spikes. Is it my mom? Is there news? I don’t know if I want to know. Maybe I shouldn’t answer. But it isn’t my mom’s number. It’s Jake’s. I stare at his name flashing on my screen, in mind-numbing shock. What? How? With a trembling hand, I hit OK and press it to my ear. “Hello?”
There’s a pause, someone taking a breath.
“Jake?”
“No,” comes a girl’s voice down the line. “It’s not Jake. It’s Lauren.”
The world stops moving, slams to a sudden halt. For a second, I contemplate throwing my phone into the forest.
“Are you there?” she asks. Her voice sounds thick from crying.
“Yes,” I whisper as dread seeps into every muscle and cell.
“It’s about Jake.”
Don’t say it, don’t say it.
“You need to come,” Lauren says.
Jake
Emerson
It’s midmorning by the time I make it to the hospital, frantic, running on adrenaline—the kind that makes you feel like you’re flying and fills your brain with buzzing.
Shay meets me at the airport. She’s flown in from New York.
“Come on, let’s find a cab,” she says, taking me by the hand as soon as I appear at arrivals.
“Do you know anything? Have you heard?” I ask her. “Is he—”
Shay shakes her head and pulls me across the concourse.
* * *
The intensive care unit is on the top floor. We ride the elevator in silence, Shay gripping my hand. When we exit the elevator, she’s the one who asks a passing doctor where to go. The doctor directs us to the end of the hallway, where a set of locked doors greet us.
“They won’t let you in. It’s just family.”
We turn around. It’s Lauren, though I barely recognize her as she isn’t wearing makeup and her hair is greasy and lank, pulled back into an untidy bun.
“Hi,” she says to me, warily.
“Are you Lauren?” Shay asks.
She nods.
“Is he okay?” I ask.
She nods again. “He’s out of surgery. He was in there for six hours. I’ve been trying to get one of the nurses to tell me what’s happening, but they won’t.”
“Why did you call?” I ask, frustration giving bite to my words.
“When he wakes up, it isn’t me he’s going to want to see. It’s you.”
I frown. “But—”
“You got the wrong idea,” Lauren interrupts, glancing at me fearfully. “When you called that time. I . . . I answered his phone. But we weren’t . . .” She looks away, embarrassed, twisting her fingers together in a knot. “Nothing is going on between Jake and me.” Her shoulders slump and she looks at the ground. “I’m sorry.”
Jake
Beep. Beep. Beep.
It’s the first thing I become aware of. The repetitive beeping of a truck in reverse. Just reverse already! I want to shout, but my lips are stitched shut. I can’t open my eyes, either. Sounds reach me, but they’re from far away, as though carried across a stretch of water.
Water.
My lips are dry. I’m so thirsty. And now that I think about it, my head hurts too. It starts off as a sludgy kind of ache, but then the pain switches on like a light, hitting me with the force of an axe blade. If I could open my eyes, I think the pain would blind me. Where am I? I struggle to remember. And why can’t I move my hands? Or my feet?
I try to focus over the buzz saw slicing chunks out of my skull, but no matter how hard I try, I can’t make any part of my body move.
My pulse fires in response to the panic sweeping through me. The beeping becomes louder, faster. And then I feel the needle grip of fingers pulling me down; the buzz saw eases up, and the darkness grows thicker, denser, more suffocating. The beeping gets fainter and starts to slow.
Panic suddenly claws at me—I don’t want to slide beneath the ice again.
I couldn’t find Em down there.
Emerson
Emerson? Em?”
I look up, startled. I think I had been dozing. Jake’s mom is standing in front of me, rumpled, pale, with dark shadows beneath her eyes. I almost didn’t recognize her. She’s holding a polystyrene cup of vending machine coffee.
“What are you—” she asks, staring at me in wonder.
“I called her.”
Lauren is sitting opposite me on one of the plastic seats beside the water cooler. We’ve barely said a word to each other in the hours we’ve been sitting here. “I thought that Jake would want her here,” she says, standing up.
Jake’s mom studies her for a moment before looking back at me. “Yes,” she says with a smile. “I think you’re right.”
“Is he okay? What’s happening?” I ask, standing up myself, my legs as weak as two blades of grass.
Shay and Jake’s coach have gone to buy us something to eat. But I’m wishing Shay would come back, because I really need someone to lean on.
“He’s still not come round yet,” Jake’s mom says. “They’re keeping him under while they wait for the swelling to go down on his brain. It was putting pressure on his spinal cord.”
“Is he going to be okay?” I ask again.
“Yes, I think so. He ruptured his spleen. He lost a lot of blood. And he had four broken ribs. One pierced his lung.”
“And his spine?” I ask.
“It’s fine,” she says, giving me a weak smile.
“It’s not broken? I say, feeling shaky, as though bubbles have been injected into my bloodstream.
“No.”
Lauren collapses into a seat and puts her head in her hands.
“Do you want to see him?” Jake’s mom asks me.
“Yes.”
* * *
He looks so pale that at first I can’t believe he’s not dead, but then I see his chest rise and fall and all the terror that’s been locked inside me comes pouring out and I think I’m going to burst into tears. I manage not to. Instead, I cross straight to the bed and take his hand. It’s warm—familiar. I ease my fingers gently through his and squeeze. The only thing that’s different is, for the first time ever, he doesn’t squeeze back.
“Hey,” I whisper. “I’m here.”
Jake
(Then)
I’m riding my bike up Toe Jam Hill. The sun’s out. I’m sweating, legs piston pumping as I stand up on the pedals and try to catch up with Em. She’s riding ahead of me, looking back over her shoulder and grinning.
We reach the top, both of us out of breath. We turn around and stare down the almost vertical incline that drops off onto the beach and the water below. Em glances over at me.
“Dare you,” she says, her eyes flashing blue as a kingfisher’s wing.
“Double dare,” I say back.
She grins wider. We both take hold of the handles of our bikes.
“On three,” Em yells. “One. Two. Three!”
And then we both laun
ch ourselves down the hill. Em’s whoops are drowned out by the roar of the wind. We pick up speed—wheels spinning over uneven ground. The glint of water below is getting closer and closer by the second. Em is just ahead of me, but now touching her brakes, and I’m catching up with her, next second side by side with her, brushing her arm, then racing past her and she’s yelling at me. . . .
“Brake!”
But I can’t. I squeeze the brakes, but they don’t work. There’s no resistance. Uh-oh. I glance up. The asphalt rears up in front of me; the blazing blue of the water fills my vision.
Em’s screams get louder.
I’m lifted over the handlebars and I’m flying through the air.
Em
Jake’s mom and I sit on either side of the bed, listening to the steady shushing of the ventilator. We’ve been listening to that noise for almost twenty-four hours. I’ve started to wonder if it will be forever stuck in my brain, like a constant soundtrack of white noise.
“I’m sorry.”
I look up.
Jake’s mom is looking right at me.
“About what?” I ask.
Her cheeks turn pink and she looks away. “About what happened with my brother.”
It takes me a full ten seconds to process what she’s saying, and then I almost pass out in shock. She’s bringing that up now? Here?
“I never wanted to believe it. He was my brother.” Her voice is strained. She darts a glance up at me. “It was easier to think you were a liar.”
My instinct is to stand up and leave the room, but a voice in my head tells me to stay and hear her out.
“It wasn’t an accident, you know.”
“What wasn’t?” I ask.
“He killed himself. It wasn’t a hunting accident.”