Authors: Avery Sawyer
“To another school?” I pushed my hair behind my ears, intrigued. I thought I was the only one who didn’t love Color Week. Even Reno thought it was okay because he could usually get away with playing games on his phone while he pretended to help out.
“Yeah. Some place where sixth graders are too old to spend entire days coloring pictures. I’d rather work on my blog.”
“Ha. I’m, um, not really a spy. I just came over to get away from Hadley screaming ‘Come on, you guys! This is important!’ I'm, um, Robin.”
The girl snorted appreciatively. “Emily.” We did the hand-shake thing and watched people in her homeroom threaten each other with dripping paintbrushes.
“Check out Justin Holmes.” I nodded in his direction. “Hugging that many people in one hour is gross. I think he does it to see which girls are wearing bras and which ones aren’t.” I thought about the school-wide scoliosis screening the week before. The boys were separated from the girls and we had to pull the backs of our shirts up over our heads so nurses could get a good look at our spines. I was shocked to notice that some of the girls in my class had the kind of bra I’d never considered buying, in all colors of the rainbow. Even black. Mine, all three of them, were white.
“Totally. And did you notice he’s always saying to people, ‘Dude, that’s so
true
.’” Emily giggled again. It made me feel braver. I didn’t usually talk to people I didn’t know for this long. Make that
ever.
“Aughhh!” She grabbed my arm. “Bra-seeking behavior at two o’clock!”
I looked. Justin was clutching a girl who was wearing leggings under her jean shorts. We both giggled. The girl in question was
definitely
wearing a bra. At least, she should have been. Justin didn’t need to check anything.
“He better stay away from me,” I said, crossing my arms.
“You want to leave for a little bit?” she asked. “I figured out that if you tell your homeroom teacher you’re going to get more paint from the art room, they don’t even notice if you disappear for like a half hour. We could totally make it to Dunkin’ Donuts and back by then.”
“Best idea ever.”
She got two Boston Creams; I got two Strawberry Frosteds.
It was a good day.
CHAPTER 7
LIFE OR DEATH
“Sweetheart, I’m sorry I wasn’t here when they came in.” Mom was horrified that she was filling my prescriptions when Good Cop and Bad Cop paid me a visit. “Don’t even think about them. The doctors say you can go home. And you’ll go back to school, and Emily will get better…” she smiled at me, but her eyes were full of fear.
Mom was very concerned about My Future. She was already sending away for college brochures and asking me all the time what I could see myself doing. It drove me freaking crazy. I always told her I could see myself lying on the beach and
not
contributing to society. Ever.
“Tell me what the nurses are saying,” I mumbled, determined to figure out what happened. I felt a lot better, but Emily still hadn’t woken up. “Was I awake when you got to the hospital the night we fell? When do they think Em will wake up?”
I pressed one of my hands against my head. Emily had texted me that night.
Meet me @ Fun T in 20
. I remember digging my bike out from our storage locker and seeing that the tires were flat. I couldn’t figure out how to put air in them in the middle of the night, so I’d ridden it like that, feeling like a loser. But I’d made it.
A dark cloud passed over her face. “Honey, I wish you’d stop. The doctors say stress isn’t good for your head.”
“Mom!” I shouted. I sat up straight and threw the box of tissues at the window. It made a really loud sound. She gasped, shocked. “Emily—my
best friend
—is in a coma and I want to know what happened. Tell me!” My breathing was ragged and I felt frightened. I don’t think I’ve ever thrown anything before, even when I was really mad. Nothing felt right. I wanted to climb out of my head, out of my skin, out of the hospital.
My hands fluttered at my sides and I started smoothing the blankets with them, over and over. If guilt was an object, I knew it was a stone that sat right on you, pinning you down, showing no mercy.
Mom swallowed, waiting to see what I would do next. When my breathing slowed down, she opened her mouth and spoke in a low voice. “I don’t know. You stopped talking to me about your life a long time ago. When I got here that night, you were unconscious. The doctors were deciding if they needed to do surgery. It was the…” She choked and had to start again. “It was the worst night of my life and I’ve had some pretty bad ones. I didn’t know…I didn’t know what was going to happen. Your head, sweetheart. This isn’t a joke. You have to calm down; it’s not safe for you to get so upset.” She stroked my hair, her eyes desperate.
I laid back, limp. I honestly didn’t care that it was the worst night of her life. What about
me?
What did she think the night was like for
me?
For Emily? “I keep having this feeling,” I gulped, “that I have to remember something.” It was like something inside of me was whispering, “
Keep trying, you know what happened, tell the truth
.” I hugged my legs and rocked back and forth, trying not to go completely hysterical.
We fell. We fell. We fell.
“Robin, Emily is getting the best possible care. There isn’t anything you can do other than get your own strength back so you can be there for her when she wakes up. Please.” She kissed my cheek and pulled my fingers apart. I’d been literally wringing my hands as I rocked. Until then, I hadn’t even known what that meant.
CHAPTER 8
SLEEP IT OFF
After a few more tests, Doctors Kline and Corwin (Kerlin?) said the contusions on my temporal lobe were healing and what I needed most was lots and lots of sleep, which I could get just as easily at home as in a hospital bed. I’d have to come back twice a week to do therapy.
Hallelujah, they’re letting me go home.
I didn’t tell anyone that when I tried to dress myself, I put on the shoes Mom had brought in for me before I put on my jeans. It didn’t matter. I just wanted to get out of there.
I asked Dr. Kline about Emily as he did a final check on me before my release. He repeated what I’d already heard. She was in serious, but stable, condition in her coma. No change. The doctors weren’t sure why she wasn’t waking up and they weren’t sure how much brain damage she’d sustained. The unspeakable truth seemed to be that things were very, very bad. “Can I see her now?” I asked. “Please?”
“I’m afraid not, Robin. It’s only immediately family in the ICU.” He took the blood pressure cuff off of my arm. He handed me a stack of books about TBIs. I opened the front flap of one and saw a bookplate: From the Library of Dr. Jonas Kline. “When you get back to your regular routine, Robin, you might find that things you never had to think about before are more challenging.”
“No shit,” I said, thinking about how I’d tried to get dressed in the wrong order.
He raised one eyebrow at me. “Some of my patients have found it helps to write themselves notes or lists to avoid getting confused.”
“Notes?” I didn’t understand what he meant. My vision was odd again. It was as if I could see around corners, as if everything had gone flat, as if I was watching myself from above. I rubbed my eyes and tried to concentrate on what the doctor was saying to me.
“Yes. Maybe you can get a little notebook to carry around in your pocket. Or use your phone,” he suggested. He pulled out his own phone then and showed me his grocery list. He liked chunky peanut butter.
“I don’t know...what my phone is. Where, I mean. But okay. Thanks,” I said. I wanted to tell him I understood what he meant, but forming another sentence was too much work.
Dr. Kline left the room and I pressed on my eyes with the bottoms of my palms.
Maybe if I just concentrate hard enough.
I chose a spot on the wall and focused on it, trying to let my mind both relax and work. I could picture Emily; I could see her tell me something. But then she danced away like it was a joke, like it didn’t matter. Like we’d all live forever without even trying.
CHAPTER 9
SOMEONE GET THIS GIRL A MOOD RING, STAT
“Your chariot awaits, baby bird,” Mom said, pointing to the rusty Honda Accord in front of us. “I don’t trust the bus drivers in this town not to jostle your head, and I don’t want to fight with the insurance company about cab fare being covered,” she said. “So I borrowed it from Max.”
I looked around through squinty eyes, happy to feel the hot midday sun on my shoulders. I realized I was supposed to say something. I’d only heard the last word she’d said. “Max?”
“The manager at the Happy Bean. Where I work, remember?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I know.” A sinking feeling gathered in my stomach. I felt depressed, which was the opposite of how I expected to feel when I was released from my freezing hospital room. It just felt wrong—hugely wrong—to be going home when Emily wasn’t leaving too. The only information I could get out of one of the nurses was that Emily had undergone surgery to repair part of her skull.
I mumbled “thank you” to the nurse who’d pushed my wheelchair out the front double doors. I slowly got in the car.
“I promise I’ll stop doing that. You’ll remember everything in your own time, sweetie.” Mom kissed my forehead and handed me dark sunglasses to wear: the black, blocky, old lady kind. She started the car. “You ready?”
“I guess.” I looked straight ahead, trying not to cry. “I don’t feel good.”
“I’ll go slowly. It’ll be so nice to be able to sleep in your own bed. You’ll see.” She gave me a quick squeeze and pulled out of the hospital parking lot like the whole car was filled with uncartoned eggs.
I rolled the window down and let my arm rest on the car door. I was glad to have the ugly sunglasses: even with them on, the sun was too bright. A calm breeze skimmed across my golden arm hairs. I smiled a little, surprising myself. A flood of joy hit me, pushing away the despair of a moment ago.
I made it. I’m alive.
I began to giggle like a crazy person, which was probably what I was.
What was wrong with me?
My mom slowed the car down, concerned, and pulled over when she saw tears streaming down my face and dripping off my chin. I gulped for air, choking, snorting, trying not to move my head too much as I laughed. The snort set Mom off. She began to giggle too and grabbed my hand.
We both wiped our eyes and looked at each other, giggling again. She reached for the radio knob to turn up the quiet song I hadn’t even noticed. Paul McCartney’s voice filled the car. Mom began to sing and I didn’t say anything, even though the music was almost louder than I could bear and it was embarrassing, somehow, listening to her singing along with the radio even though there was no one else in the car.
The scenery slowly changed as we headed east. I read every single street sign I could see, as tourist shops met concrete with weeds shooting up from the cracks.
Every few hundred yards, there were billboards for
All U Can Eat Seafood
or
Discount Theme Park Tickets
. Chain restaurants and brightly painted hotels turned into beaten-up places with FOR RENT signs in the windows. It wasn’t pretty. There were homeless people, rednecks driving rusted-out trucks with confederate flag bumper stickers, tourists in rental cars getting lost and trying to pull U-turns, and strip malls with half the windows empty.
I glanced at Mom a few times. She has all these books about the history of Florida and what things were like when everything was first planned and built down here. I think she sees our town not as it is but as it was, when it was new and shiny and magical, and full of orange groves and newly planted palm trees and hotels built to look futuristic and amazing. When the news says something about yet another drug dealer getting shot on Orange Blossom Trail, or my school having abysmal test scores, or realtors cautioning people not to buy a condo in Crime Hills, she turns it off. She likes to talk about the year we had an annual pass to the Magic Kingdom, about the day I rode
It’s a Small World
fourteen times in a row and everything was perfect.
After about fifteen minutes crawling behind a pearl-colored Escalade, my mom steered the car into the driveway of our apartment building. It had eight doorbells, but I knew that only two other units had people in them. Snowbirds—old people from Minnesota—would come after Christmas and fill up two more. A terra cotta pot sat near the entrance. There were no flowers in it, but a scraggly palm tree grew in a square of dirt nearby.
The inside of our apartment was dark because the vertical blinds were drawn, to keep the heat out. I looked at the dirty dishes in the sink and the pile of waitressing aprons, and the college books with titles like
Anthology of English Literature
and
Statistics
stacked up on the kitchen table. My mom set the flowers that had been in my hospital room next to them. I felt uneasy again, even though I was glad to be out of the bright sunlight.
Is this really it?
“I’m so glad you’re home, honey.” Mom pulled me close for a hug.
“It’s okay,” I said, pulling away. I’d reached my limit; I wanted silence. “I’m fine.”
She nodded and scurried around me, straightening up. “I got your favorite cinnamon rolls.” She opened the refrigerator and showed me a small plate of the thick, frosted dough from the diner on Emory Avenue. “I thought you’d be happy to have one after hospital food.”
“I ate hospital food?” I had no memory of hospital food.
“Um, yes. Well, a little. You didn’t like it. You’ve never liked bland food.” Mom looked disturbed, but shook it off. “Oh, Robin. You don’t…never mind.”
She cut one in half—they were pretty big—and we shared it, standing up in front of the sink like we were breaking the rules. It tasted extremely sweet to me, and not in a good way. I’d have to check one of those brain injury books later to see if whacked out taste buds were a symptom of brain damage. Was anything
not
a symptom?