Salvation

  And then he knew. He knew she was dead.

  Because he was holding her brain in his hands.

  Salva woke to the headlights, burning his eyes. He flinched, and felt his mind explode. An electronic noise pulsed within his brain. Beep, beep, beep. It clashed with the screaming—the screams that had been Pepe’s. Until they had stopped.

  The lights withdrew, turning to a single tiny bulb. Then a stranger’s voice. “Can you tell me your name?”

  What a stupid question. Salva groaned. His scalded eyes took in a long silver stand, with tubes. The hospital. Not this nightmare as well.

  A figure in a white coat was leaning over him. “Salvador, can you squeeze my hand?”

  Another stupid question. It was his leg that felt like shit.

  He closed his eyes, prepared for the accident to return.

  Beep. Beep. Beep. The noise refused to stop, like an ambulance backing up. He didn’t want it. Didn’t want that sound.

  A second voice. “Salvador, can you tell me what year it is?”

  The end. Of everything.

  “I need you to respond.”

  He didn’t want to respond—didn’t have the right. He belonged in the nightmare. But the voices sliced over him.

  “I don’t know. There was nothing in the CT, but I don’t like that he’s not talking.”

  “You wouldn’t be talking either if you were on the drugs he’s on.”

  “You don’t think we should wait?”

  “How long? That leg is messed up.”

  “I don’t like to put him under if he was out for concussion.”

  “Not concussion. Shock. His pressure was trashed. The kid is strong. I still can’t believe he was out of that car.”

  “I don’t want to take him into surgery if—”

  Surgery? The word ripped through Salva’s charred brain. They thought they were going to fix him? He didn’t deserve to be fixed.

  His eyes closed, and he returned to the convertible.

  The darkness locked him in. He could hear the screams, feel the blood. His hand slipped off the door latch again. Trapped.

  His father’s voice interfered, a cascade of Spanish. “Por favor, dame tu perdón.”

  Why would Papá need forgiveness? Salva rolled his head away.

  “He will not talk to me.” The voice switched to English. “We had a fight.” A fight? That had come before Salva had forfeited the right to speak. Papá continued, “Maybe his sister.”

  Don’t—

  They let in Lucia. Her voice flowed past Salva, around him, beyond.

  Again he fell into the crash. In the dark. With the scream. Reaching for the door.

  “Beth.”

  The name severed the sequence.

  “She’s his girlfriend,” Lucia was saying. “Maybe if she came in—”

  No! Not her. Of all people, Salva could never see Beth again. He forced out the word. “No.”

  “That’s it,” said one of the voices. “Prep him for surgery.”

  Night had fallen by the time Beth returned to the trailer. Ni had come for her and driven her home, though neither of them had much to say. Beth still didn’t know any details. The doctors spoke only to family, but Salva had been moved to intensive care. Which meant she had had to leave the hospital overnight.

  His status had been upgraded from critical to guarded, and that news would have to carry her.

  She opened the screen door. To darkness.

  “Sit down.” The voice came from the shadows.

  As her eyes adjusted, they took in a still figure on the far end of the couch. The telling sound of ice clinked against glass.

  Stiffly, Beth moved to the empty end and sat.

  The shape of a scotch glass lifted from the edge of the couch to Ms. Courant’s lips. “I spoke with your teacher, Ms. Mercy, today.”

  Who? Then Beth realized her mother meant the Mercenary.

  Again the ice clinked. “She called to ask about you.”

  A chill ran along Beth’s shoulders.

  “She says this young man, Salvador, is quite extraordinary.” The ice began to rattle. “Almost worthy of dating my daughter.”

  What?

  “Apparently, Ms. Mercy feels you are the most exceptional student she has ever taught.”

  Why are you doing this?

  “She says this Salvador is taking the hardest classes at Liberty. That he is first in line to become valedictorian. And that everyone in the school is aware of how much he cares about you.” The rattling of the ice continued. “I guess if the entire school knows about your relationship, and I don’t, then…that must be my fault.” Ms. Courant offered her daughter the scotch glass.

  And Beth took it, desperate to stop the rattling. She sniffed the remnants of the liquid. Nothing.

  Her mother’s voice shook. “I know I haven’t been home much this year. That we haven’t…I haven’t been here for you. And I’d like to claim it’s because I was trying to pull things together, but the truth is…you’ve always done so well without me, I didn’t want to mess that up.”

  Beth took a sip from the glass. Water?

  Her mother sighed. “My father told me a long time ago that I would never amount to anything, and I seem to have proven him right.”

  Another swallow. It was really water.

  A trembling hand stretched across the open space on the couch, then pulled back. “I should have told you,” Ms. Courant continued, “how proud I am of you. And if I have made you feel worthless, then that is my fault. Not yours. You are my daughter. You always put your heart into everything you do. You always put others first, and today”—the voice broke—“I should have seen…I should have seen that that’s what you were doing, but when Mrs. Villetti came over this morning and told me she had left you at the hospital, I was so scared…I wanted to hit her. Because how could she leave my daughter alone to deal with something like this? And I knew it was really my fault because I should have been the one who was there for you, and I didn’t know how to be.”

  Slowly, ever so slowly, Beth reached across the space and touched her mother’s hand. “Mom?”

  Her mother engulfed her in a fierce hug. “I love you, honey.”

  And Beth knew she had meant every word.

  25

  SPEAK

  Salva stared at the graphite sketch, slashed by sunlight, on the hospital room wall. One would think the budget could afford a print by van Gogh. Or Monet. Or someone who at least had the sense to paint flowers in color. For a place where so many people drew their dying breaths.

  Though Char hadn’t drawn hers here. The girl he’d shared a seat with on the bus when he was eight, the one he’d escorted to school for their first day of junior high, the one he’d spent most of the year ignoring and who’d verbally slapped him upside the head a month ago for underestimating his best friend: she had been dead before she’d ever reached the hospital.

  Unlike Pepe. According to the newspaper, he had still been alive until an hour and twenty minutes after his arrival. Sometimes people made the mistake of thinking Pepe’s toughness wasn’t real—that he just used it for intimidation. But Salva knew better—knew his best friend could take out half an offensive line on his own. Pepe had always been the one with the guts. And he’d proven it. In the end.

  The article—the one the cops had given Salva an hour ago when they’d come to interrogate him—had included a photo. Of the convertible. The crushed front passenger’s side. It was a miracle Pepe had been able to scream.

  Salva had forced himself to read the article and assimilate the other details of the wreck. The truck and trailer they’d been passing that had wound up jackknifed in the middle of the road and taken out a power line. The car that had plowed into the convertible, leaving the driver trapped behind the wheel. Though, apparently, the guy had been able to walk once he’d been carved from his seat.

  Unlike Pepe.

  The cops had left without their statement. They had claimed they needed
one, with Pepe’s mother threatening to press charges. But Salva knew better. Silence should be enough to confirm that the whole crash was his fault.

  His father entered the room without permission. For the millionth time. Apparently, patients had no rights when it came to la familia. Earlier this morning, Talia and Casandra had been allowed in. Why?! Salva had wanted to yell. There was nothing for them to see. No one to look up to. He hadn’t wanted them here, staring wide-eyed at the brace around his leg as if that were somehow the cause of his dissolution.

  They’d announced that Miguel was coming home. Another why? In some futile attempt to prove that la familia still existed? Or because it was now clear which son was the greater failure?

  “There was a phone call for you last night,” said Papá.

  And I’m supposed to care? Salva let his father’s words run past him. The sketch on the wall seemed to grow uglier as he studied it. There were holes between the slash marks. The petals looked as though they had been severed.

  “The man said his committee wants to interview you for a scholarship,” Papá continued. “Is this possible?”

  No. The stems in the drawing had thorns. Sharp. And pointed.

  “Hijo, answer me.”

  Sí, Papá. If you give out the orders, everyone will have to obey. Charla will go to college. Pepe will behave. I won’t be guilty.

  “Your sister told the man we had an emergency, but he said the committee has to make a decision this week.”

  Go away, Papá.

  “Which means you have to call them, hijo.” His father held out a scrap of paper with a phone number written on it.

  Salva thrust away the number. He didn’t deserve a scholarship. He didn’t have the right to talk. What was the point of speech if you didn’t use it when you should? I don’t deserve to be alive. When would the doctors and his father and everyone figure that out?

  Beth returned to the hospital to learn that Salva had been moved from intensive care to the medical/surgical floor. And that she had been left off the approved-visitors list. No doubt the decision of Mr. Resendez. Her mother had driven her to the hospital and stayed for the first hour, which should have helped. And hadn’t. Salva is healing, Beth told herself as she waited on the thinly cushioned chair in the waiting room of the medical wing. That should be enough. But it wasn’t. She couldn’t be certain. Couldn’t know. Couldn’t truly believe he would recover until she saw him with her own eyes.

  She pulled her knees up toward her chest and buried her face in them. He’s alive. He’s alive. He’s alive.

  “So…you’re Beth.”

  Her eyes flew open, and she looked into the forthright gaze of Salva’s older sister. Lucia stood above her, holding out a granola bar.

  Beth declined the offer by shaking her head.

  The other girl sat down at her side. “Sometimes my brother can be so dense.”

  What?

  Lucia tugged on the wrapper of the granola bar. “Oh, I know you must think I’m a horrible sister, but I don’t see why he didn’t just introduce you to all of us—after Papá got over his temper. But Salva can be such a coward.” The wrapper split open. “It’s a miracle he ever got up the guts to ask you out. Every other girl he’s dated was someone that one of his friends recommended.” She peeled down the shimmery paper.

  “When he was little,” Lucia continued, not pausing long enough to take a bite, “he didn’t even have friends because he was so shy. Then after we moved here, Pepe conned him into sneaking a snake into the church. Salva was too scared to refuse. And that’s how they got to be close.

  “You know he wouldn’t even try out for the football team in middle school? He was so sure he wouldn’t get picked. Tosa and Pepe had to go to the coach and ask him to invite Salva personally.”

  “H-he doesn’t like losing,” Beth whispered.

  “No.” The other girl’s voice dropped. “He’s never been good at losing anything.”

  Like his friends.

  “H-how is he?” Beth whispered.

  “He has a broken femur. The bone came right through his skin, and he lost a ton of blood; but he went through surgery okay.” The granola bar fell idle on Lucia’s lap. “His head was also bleeding when he first came in. They couldn’t do any tests right away because he was in shock. When they ran the CT, it didn’t show anything. The doctors don’t think he has brain damage, but he’s not…talking.”

  Two figures in dark uniforms tromped past the open door.

  “Bastards.” Lucia shuddered. “They were in Salva’s room this morning, without even asking Papá’s permission. Not that Papá would talk to them. You’d think the cops would back off after the test came back saying Salva hadn’t been drinking.”

  The sound of the boots faded, leaving Beth in shivers. “Do you…do you believe Pepe’s mother will really press charges?”

  “Pepe’s mother is grieving,” Lucia murmured. “The police ought to realize that. My brother is a human being. He made a mistake. And his friends are dead because of it. Isn’t that enough punishment for anyone?”

  “Hija.” Mr. Resendez entered the room and shot a disapproving glare at his daughter and her companion. Then he began to pace, his words rushing into more Spanish.

  Beth made herself remain at Lucia’s side. It would be wrong to abandon the person who had finally answered her questions.

  Though the older girl appeared to be holding her own for a half-dozen exchanges. Then she switched to English. “I don’t know, Papá. You’ll have to ask him.”

  The response was brusque.

  “Well, he won’t talk to me either!” she argued.

  Her father flung his arms into the air.

  “No sé,” Lucia replied, glancing over at Beth, then back at her father. And back again. “Why don’t you ask her?”

  Instantly, Beth regretted the decision to stay.

  The other girl didn’t appear to notice, though her attention now fully centered on Beth. “Do you know where my brother applied to go to college?” she asked.

  “Of…of course,” Beth stammered, then reeled off the names of the in-state colleges.

  “And those are all the schools?” Lucia asked. “You’re certain? It’s not possible he could have applied to more?”

  “Lucia!” her father snapped.

  “¿Qué, Papá? Maybe she knows—”

  “What could she know?” Mr. Resendez replied.

  Beth felt the blood rush to her face. This man had no right to belittle her. Or to keep her from seeing his son. “There were three others,” she blurted. “I dared Salva to apply to three other colleges.”

  Mr. Resendez froze.

  “You did?” Lucia was grinning.

  Beth dropped her chin, knowing if Salva hadn’t told his family, there must have been a reason.

  “Where?” the other girl demanded. “Where did he apply?”

  The error had already been made. Might as well tell the entire truth. “Harvard, Princeton, and Yale.”

  “That’s it, Papá!” Lucia said. “Yale University really wants to interview my brother for a scholarship.”

  Yale.

  Mr. Resendez was staring at Beth. “Why would you do that?” he asked. “Why would you dare him to apply somewhere so far away when you also tell him not to take the scholarship at State?”

  “I told him not to settle for it,” she replied. “Your son is the best student at Liberty High. He’s gifted. Brilliant. Any school should be grateful to have him.”

  There was silence.

  At last Mr. Resendez sank down into a chair, his head tilted back, his gaze toward the ceiling. “He has to call the scholarship committee. But he won’t. It’s like he’s…broken.” The man’s hands lifted to cover his face. “I don’t know what to say to him. He needs—”

  “His mother,” Beth whispered.

  The hands fell, and the silence was intense.

  She bit her lip. “He…he said his mother could fix people.”

 
Dark eyes lifted, pain raw within them. “He spoke to you about his mother?” Mr. Resendez’s voice cracked.

  “He said she loved to sing,” Beth whispered.

  Silent tears spilled down the man’s face.

  “You,” he said at last, blinking fiercely. “You need to talk to him.”

  “But Papá…” Lucia whispered. “Salva said—”

  “Exactly.” Mr. Resendez rounded on her. “And that’s the only thing he has said since the crash.” The man turned back to Beth, not giving her the chance to ask questions. “If you could dare my son to apply for this school and persuade him to reject a four-year scholarship to another one, then maybe you can get through to him. And convince him to complete this interview.”

  Beth’s heart thundered.

  His trembling hand stretched, taking her own. At last the larger meaning came flying into her chest.

  He was going to let her see his son.

  A knock tapped on the hospital room door, followed by the sound of footsteps.

  Not again. Salva nailed his gaze to the graphite flowers.

  This time the visitor didn’t speak.

  There came a soft, very light rustle on the left side of his bed.

  And then a hand on the back of his own.

  He jerked away. No one had touched him like that since…God, no. She should not be here!

  He tried to order her to get out, but the words stuck at the barrier in his throat.

  His eyes dropped, following her fingers as she touched the scrap of paper on the bedside table, the paper with the scholarship phone number. Then she reached again for his hand.

  He tried very, very hard to remain stiff. To convince himself that if he didn’t respond she would leave.

  Like everyone else.

  But Beth wasn’t everyone.

  Her arms came around him.

  He couldn’t let them—couldn’t let her hold him. She would hate him when she knew the truth. But perhaps that would be better. His words broke through the invisible barrier. “It’s my fault.”

  The arms tightened.