“Here you go.”
She took it from me, frowning.
“You seem pale. We should get you back to bed.”
I shook my head. “Not yet.” I reached
out, and ran my fingers over Ryan’s cheek, tears welling in my eyes.
“You shouldn’t be lying here,
Ryan. What happened to you? Wake up and tell me!” I screamed the last few
words, shaking.
My mother walked over, put her
hand on my shoulder. She tried to pull me away. “Let’s go. You don’t need this
right now.”
I glanced up at her, and ignored
the tears streaming down my face.“Someone thinks this is my fault.”
“This is not your fault. Let’s get
you back to your room now. You don’t need this,” she repeated.
My mom pushed me down the hallway
in silence. I thought that seeing Ryan’s body would make me feel better, but
now I had more questions than answers.
I came back to my hospital room to
find Ryan’s best friend, Nick Majors, sitting in a chair by the window. He
looked like he’d be more comfortable in a bar with his long blonde hair, worn
blue jeans, and tight black shirt. I could see a little bit of a tattoo peeking
out of the edge of his t-shirt.
“Hey, there you are. I thought
maybe I had the wrong room or something. I hope you don’t mind, but I got a
little hungry, so I finished your Jell-O. I hope you didn’t like lime,” he
said, pointing to the tray that was now sitting empty by the bed. “I have to
say that the food here definitely sucks.”
I sighed. I wasn’t in the mood to
deal with Nick right now.
“I see that I’m going to have to
talk to the nurse about who they let come into this room now. What are you
doing here, Nick?” I rolled myself over to the bed, set the brake so that it
wouldn’t move, and tried to hoist myself back into bed.
“Do you need any help?” he asked
and before I could answer, he had his arms around my waist as if I weighed
nothing. “There you go,” he said covering me up.
“I guess I’ll go now.” My mother
came over, kissed the top of my head, and walked towards the door.
“Mom, you don’t have to leave.
Nick can go.” I said hoping that she would get the hint.
She didn’t. “No that’s okay. I’ll
leave you to visit with your friend.” I rolled my eyes at the word friend, but
she must have not seen because she left anyway.
“I thought you might want some
company.” Nick pulled a chair next to the bed.
“Actually, I really just wanted to
be alone. I just got back from seeing Ryan’s body and something weird
happened.” I stopped. I hadn’t meant to say the last part.
“What happened? Did he jump and
yell gotcha or something?” Nick joked.
“That’s stupid. I don’t know if
I’m nuts or what, but when I was down there I got a strange text message about
the accident.”
He frowned. “Oh really? What did
it say?” he asked.
“I can’t quite explain it, so I’ll
just show you.” I grabbed my cell phone from my lap where I’d been holding onto
since the morgue. I scrolled to the right one and handed over the phone.
He didn’t say anything at first,
but suddenly he started laughing. “Why are you laughing?” I asked my voice
wavering.
“This. It’s either a wrong number
or someone is trying to mess with you. I wouldn’t take it too seriously. I
wouldn’t tell anyone, though. They’ll just think you’re crazy and transfer you
to the psych ward.”
“You’re probably right.” I leaned
my head against the pillow. “Why are you really here, Nick?”
“I just thought that you might
enjoy some visitors. Elisabeth called me earlier and told me that she stopped
by the other day and told you about her and Ryan.”
“Yeah, she did. She came in acting
like the diva she is; as if I should feel sorry for her that Ryan was dead. He
was my boyfriend, not hers. She must have forgotten when she was….” The thought
trailed.“Wait, you knew about them and didn’t tell me? Did anyone else know?”
“I don’t know. I only knew because
I caught them. You need to know Ryan wasn’t the guy you thought he was. He did
stuff that he didn’t tell you.”
“And here I thought we told each
other everything,” I whispered, my voice catching in my throat. I wasn’t going
to cry, not in front of Nick.
“No. It’s not that. Ryan started
drinking.”
I sighed. “I figured as much when
I smelled alcohol on his breath at graduation. When did this start?”
“A few months ago. He wanted to
keep it from you though. He really didn’t want to end up like his older
brother.” He stopped.
“Ben?” I questioned.
“Yeah. He told you he had a
drinking problem, didn’t he?” Nick asked.
“I don’t remember. I just know
that he told me he had a brother that died. He didn’t really give me many
details. I didn’t ask, either.”
“Well, he was seven years older
than Ryan. He died of alcohol poisoning when we were ten years old.”
“I guess he finally told Elisabeth,
too. They’d been spending a lot of time together lately.”
I glanced over at him. Elisabeth
had said the same thing, but I thought that she was just trying to make me mad.
I guess not. I needed to know the truth.
“Was Ryan really cheating on me?”
I questioned. I needed to hear it from someone else to believe the truth.
“Don’t worry about it. He wasn’t
the Ryan everyone knew. You have better things to worry about, anyway, like
getting better. Leave it alone.” Nick made me want to know the truth even more.
“I just want to know if my
boyfriend was cheating on me. It’s an easy question. Why won’t you tell me?”
“You said that Elisabeth already
told you,” Nick said.
“She did. I just don’t know if she
was telling the truth.”
“She was. I’m sorry. Ryan cheated
on you.”Nick looked angry.
“Thank you for telling me the
truth.”
“He didn’t deserve you. I
thought he was my best friend, but he could be a jerk at times. You deserve someone
who knows how to treat you right.”
“Thanks. I know that he had his
moments, but I loved him. We were together for four years. In high school
relationships, that’s nearly impossible. He must have been doing something
right.”
Nick got up out of the chair, its
legs scrape against the floor, interrupting the silence of the hospital, “All right,
I’ll go. I just thought that you deserved the truth from someone.” He shuffled
out of the room.
The empty tray sat by the bed.
Nick had left a tiny bit of Jell-O and I was busy scraping it from the cup when
Dr. Summers walked in. He had a worried expression on his face.
“I’m glad to see that you ate all
of your food.” He smiled. I didn’t feel like telling him that Nick ate most of
it.
“I wanted to talk to you
about…relieving some stress to someone here at the hospital. You’ve been
through a lot the last few days and I think that it would help to talk to
someone.”
A shrink. He wanted me to talk to a shrink. Did he think I was
crazy, too?
“I don’t think that’s going to
help me,” I said sighing. He just gave me a sympathetic smile.
“I’ll let you think about it for
awhile. You can stop by whenever you wanted or needed to talk to someone. No
pressure.” He came over and prodded for a few minutes. I winced when he pressed
too hard on my right rib.
“You said no pressure. That hurt.”
“I meant with coming to see
someone. Your ribs still seem a little tender. Have you had any more headaches
or trouble remembering things?”
“No. No headaches.” I didn’t want
to tell him about the strange texts, though. If Nick was right, he would put in
the psych ward in a second.
“We’re still going to keep you
here for a few more days. I don’t think you’re ready to go home just yet.”
“Thanks.” He left the room a few
minutes later and I laid my head against the pillow. I pushed aside the
material of the hospital gown and glanced down at the bruises all over my
body. They were a dark purplish color, which would fade over time. I’d gotten
enough bruises as a kid that I looked like a walking disaster. I was a klutz
with two left feet.
I just wanted this whole thing to
be a dream. I wanted to suddenly wake up and Ryan would be here with me. I knew
that wouldn’t happen though. I decided to do something I hadn’t done in a few
years. Pray.
I took a deep breath. “Why me? Why
did I survive and Ryan didn’t? I don’t understand it.” I hadn’t expected an
answer. Frankly, if I had gotten one I’d be totally freaked out. A few minutes
later, there was a knock at the door.
I glanced up and saw Bryn standing
in the doorway. “What happened to your face?” I exclaimed. Bryn reached up and
touched her cheek.
“Oh it’s nothing. You know how
klutzy I can be, right? I woke up with a migraine headache the other night and
I misjudged the way back to my bed and ran smack into my closet door. Now I’m
all black and blue.” She couldn’t look me in the eye. She was lying.
“Come sit down. “ I patted the bed
beside me.
“Okay,” she said quietly. I didn’t
understand why everyone was acting like I had some contagious disease. I’d only
gotten into a car accident.
I stopped. “Did something else
happen that you aren’t telling me about?”
She sighed. “Elisabeth told me
that she came to visit you the other day and she left in tears because you two
got into a big fight. She was devastated when she heard about the accident, we
all were. She just wanted to see if you were okay. You forget that we lost a
friend, too, when Ryan died.”
“I’m sure she just wanted to
relieve some of the guilt that she was feeling from sleeping with my boyfriend
behind my back. You don’t have to keep it from me anymore. She told me and Nick
confirmed it.”
Bryn was quiet. “She said it only
happened once. “
Hearing it again from Bryn made it
even more real. We’d been friends since freshmen year and she’d never lied to
me. The worst part wasn’t that Ryan had been cheating on me, granted that was
pretty bad, but what hurt the most was that my friends knew he was doing it and
nobody told me.
I turned to her. “I don’t know what
hurts more. Hearing that Ryan cheated on me or knowing that you all knew he was
doing it and nobody had the guts to tell me. I feel so betrayed right now.”
“Ryan wasn’t cheating on you. It
was… it was Elisabeth. I wanted to tell you, but she begged me not to. I knew
she was messing around with someone’s boyfriend, but I didn’t know who until it
was too late,” Bryn said her voice going up a few more octaves.
“What do you mean Ryan wasn’t
cheating on me? Yes, he was. He slept with Elisabeth while we were still
dating. That is considered cheating in my book. I don’t want to talk about this
anymore. I just want you to go,” I told her calmly.
Bryn got up and turned towards me.
“Oh, Ryan’s parents got home last night. They planned his funeral for Thursday.
They want to get it done as soon as possible.”
“Is it because of Ben? Ryan’s
older brother?” I asked
“I don’t know. How did you find
out about Ben?”
“Ryan told me about him last year.
Now things are starting to make more sense.”
“What is?” Bryn asked.
“Ryan flipped out on me when I hit
the car next to me with his car door the other day. He said that his dad would
kill him for it. I guess Ben was heavy into drinking and other stuff and his
dad didn’t want him to be the same way. That’s why he was hard on him.”
“Maybe. I don’t remember Ben that
well. He was just Ryan’s older brother. I guess I’ll see you Thursday, though,”
she said, walking into the hall.
Later, the nurse came in with the
lunch tray, checked my vitals, and then left. I just stared at the wall. My mom
came back to see me around dinner time. I was sitting up in bed, TV on, not
really paying attention to what was on. Instead, I was thinking up sadistic
ways to hurt Elisabeth and make it look like an accident.
“What’s wrong?” my mom asked,
straightening out the covers.
“You just got here. How’d you know
that something was wrong? I didn’t tell you.”
“I always know. I’m your mother.
Now spill it, tell me everything.” She pulled the chair closer to the bed. I
took a deep breath and began telling her about Bryn’s visit.
My mother took my hand. “I don’t
know what to say. I have to confess your father and I never really liked Ryan
in the first place. He always acted so entitled to everything. We only let you
two date because we thought if we forbade it, you’d just try harder. I thought
that you’d get sick of each other.”
“I thought that it was going to
last. I know that’s silly since we were only in high school, but I hoped that
we’d get married someday. You always hear those stories about girls who marry
their high school sweethearts.”
“Don’t worry, honey. You have
plenty of time to think about marriage. Your father and I want you to just
enjoy yourself. You start college in a few months and that’s a big step. You’ll
be the first one on my side to go. I had to delay it because of your
grandmother and then life just got in the way after that.