Stand Alone (13 page)

“You tell me if you’re going to faint or something.”

“I don’t faint,” Justine scoffed.

“We’ll, whatever you want to call it when you fall flat on your face,” he snickered.

“Knocked out,” Justine said. “I was KO’d that time, I didn’t faint.”

“Whatever. Tell me if you’re going to take a dive,” he said comfortably.

Justine put her board down and stepped on, to prove that she was fine and wasn’t going to faint. Her head was clearing, but she did still feel a little groggy. She wasn’t about to let Christian know that. He watched her like a hawk for the first couple of minutes, then started to relax. His movements and frequent looks at her told her that he was eager to move a bit faster, at their usual pace.

“Go ahead,” Justine said. “I’m coming.”

He picked up his pace, skating out into the street to do a few tricks, to work his restlessness out. Justine kicked off a bit faster, testing out her body. Everything still seemed to be working. Her muscle memory filled in the areas that her fuzzy head left blank and she gained in confidence. She jumped and ground the curb, and Christian glanced over at her, smiling.

“Keep your eyes in the road,” Justine told him irritably. “Don’t watch me. We don’t want you smushed by any more garbage trucks.”

“Yes, Mom,” he teased.

Justine shook her head. They both skated to their own rhythm, relaxing and forgetting about the close call. Christian moved to the side of the road to allow a pickup truck to pass him. As the truck passed, Christian grabbed the tailgate to skitch a ride. He whooped and motioned for Justine to join him. Justine was already going as fast as she could manage with her spinning head, and she wasn’t going fast enough to catch up to Christian. The truck driver noticed Christian riding behind him, and hit the brakes. The sudden stop made Christian bang into the back of the truck. The driver got out, swearing and walking around the vehicle to get after Christian. Christian laughed and skated away, much too fast for the driver to catch on foot. The driver saw Justine and swore at her too. Justine flipped him the bird, and kept going, not bothering to argue with him. The man got back into the truck and hit the gas, screeching his tires and spraying loose gravel across the road. Justine avoided the spray and kept going. The truck screamed down the road. Justine opened her mouth to yell at Christian, but the words froze in her mouth as the truck headed straight for him.

Christian heard it coming and jumped the curb to get off the road and onto the sidewalk. He was on another steep downhill and was going at a pretty good clip, but he made the jump and the landing easily. He looked like a pro. Christian laughed and gestured at the truck as it flew by him. The truck ran straight through a red light at the next intersection, too busy gesturing and yelling at Christian to even see it. A police car pulled out, siren wailing, and the truck was forced to pull over for him. Christian bombed by the stopped truck, laughing hysterically and looking back to yell at the driver.

“Christian!” Justine screamed.

There wasn’t time for him to look around this time. Going at top speed down the hill and making gestures at the pulled-over truck, he was too distracted and didn’t have enough time to see the small car crossing the road in front of him. Christian hit the car going through the crosswalk. Justine saw him bounce across the hood and windshield of the car and she screamed. She waited for him to get up on the other side of the car and laugh at her, displaying his new road rash or a bump on his head to match hers. Maybe even a broken arm. He had to get up. Christian always got back up, he always made it. He took falls that would have made an Olympic skier wince, and he always got up again, laughing and hooting about what a rush it was.

Justine tried to slow her board and jump off as she reached the intersection, succeeding in bailing for a second time that day into the grass beside the sidewalk. It was more of a face plant than a somersault this time, but Justine didn’t stop to assess any injuries. She scrambled to her feet, leaving her board in the grass, and ran around the car to see Christian.

She fully expected him to be sitting up, laughing at her taking another fall, holding his arm, bleeding at the knees. But he lay in a heap on the road, still and lifeless. Justine ran up to him. The woman who had been driving the car was screaming, saying it wasn’t her fault, swearing about kids skateboarding where they weren’t supposed to be, screaming about her own kids and how they should be protected from delinquents riding skateboards, being so wild and reckless.

Justine touched Christian’s face. His chin jutted out at an awkward angle. His face was covered with road rash. His eyes stared glassily at nothing, and his head
  
…

“Chris? Christian? Oh Chris, no, come on! No! No, wake up, Christian! Wake up!”

The words came out of her mouth but she wasn’t aware of her own screams. She tried to cradle him, tried to pick him up, tried to shake him and wake him. He didn’t move. She looked at his arms and legs for any injuries, held him against her like her own heart could get his pumping again. Then someone else was there, pushing her out of the way, trying to administer first aid.

“Don’t move him, miss…” the policeman made a brief examination. “He’s not breathing. I know CPR.”

Justine sat there on the road, watching the cop blow air into Christian’s mouth, watching Christian’s chest rise with each breath. He was alive. His chest wouldn’t be rising if he wasn’t alive. The cop did compressions, pumping on Christian’s chest to keep his blood circulating.

“No,” Justine wept. “No, no, no
  
…”

“I didn’t see him,” the woman driver protested to the cop. “I never saw him coming. He was going too fast. He just ran straight into my car. I didn’t hit him. He hit me. Ran right into me.”

The driver of the truck was there too, standing there with his mouth open. He had long, greasy, black hair. Justine thought he might be part native. He didn’t say anything, he just stared at Christian. Stared at the tragedy that he had caused.

“It was your fault,” Justine yelled at him. “You tried to run him down! He was trying to get away from you!”

The driver shook his head, mouth parted slightly.

“He was stunting,” he protested in a higher voice than Justine had expected from him. “It wasn’t my fault. I was stopped already. It wasn’t my fault.”

The cop didn’t say anything, just kept pounding on Christian’s chest and blowing into his mouth. Justine put her face in her hands. Not trying to stop the tears, but trying desperately just to hold herself together. She felt like she was physically falling to pieces. She was dissolving right there in the middle of the street, melting away into a whimpering mass of jelly.

“No, Christian,” she moaned.

How long was the cop there before an ambulance finally arrived? A paramedic took over the CPR and he and his partner put Christian onto a backboard, put a cervical collar around his neck, and lifted him on the backboard onto a gurney, strapping him down. Throughout, the paramedic kept up the CPR, counting steadily aloud, a death-defying beat. There was a slick pool of blood on the road where Christian had been lying. The cop stood there in silence for a few minutes, looking gray, watching the ambulance pull away and head to the hospital. He finally looked around, like a sleepwalker waking up, taking in his surroundings a bit at a time. Eventually, he focused in on Justine, sobbing into her hands.

“Miss. Miss, are you okay?” he questioned. “Are you hurt?”

Justine dropped her hands from her face.

“He’s okay,” she said hopefully. “They wouldn’t keep doing CPR and take him to the hospital if he was dead. Right? He’s okay?”

The cop shook his head.

“No,” he said dully, his voice distant, eyes cloudy. “No pulse. No respiration. It’s just a matter of procedure. They’ll keep doing it until a doctor at the hospital declares him.”

“No!” Justine protested, “No way! I saw his chest moving. He was breathing!”

“That was just the breaths I blew into him. I’m sorry, miss…
 
He’s gone.” She saw his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he swallowed. “He didn’t have a chance.”

“What do you mean he didn’t have a chance?” Justine’s voice rose to a screech in her own ears.

The policeman gazed at her compassionately, not answering at first. Justine could still see Christian as if he was right in front of her. His neck twisted at an awkward angle. The devastating head injury.

“He didn’t suffer,” the policeman said finally.

“He can’t be dead,” Justine sobbed. “No, he just can’t be!”

The officer didn’t argue with her. His shoulders lifted in a helpless shrug.

“What can I do for you?” he questioned. “You’re bleeding. Where else are you hurt?”

Justine touched her fat lip, throbbing and dripping down her chin.

“No,” she said. “No, it’s nothing. I’m fine.”

“Come here and sit on the curb. Let me have a look at you.”

Justine worked to get herself to her feet. He helped to lift her up. Justine swayed drunkenly, the back of her head throbbing and sending knife blades of pain through her head and deep inside her eye sockets. She gasped, holding onto him.

“Whoa, there. Come here. Sit down. Put your head between your knees.”

“I’m not fainting,” Justine protested, even though she was. “I don’t faint. I got knocked out.”

“Okay. Just right here. Breathe. It’s okay.”

Justine sobbed, gasping for breath.

“Christian,” she begged. “Tell me he’s okay. He’ll be okay.”

“Shhh,” he soothed, rubbing the back of her neck and her back. “Let’s focus on you for a minute. You took a pretty good spill too.”

“Twice,” Justine gasped. “Oh, man, but Christian’s gonna make fun of me. But he fell too. He fell twice too.”

“Did he? Keep breathing. What’s your name?”

“Justine.”

“Justine. That’s a nice name. Do you live around here, Justine? Can I call your mom for you?”

“No. I don’t want her,” Justine couldn’t deal with Em right now. “I’m fine.”

“Did you hit your head? Did you break anything?”

Justine’s fingers sought the bump on the back of her head, prodding the tender mass gently.

“Right here. It’s
  
…” her own gentle fingers sent another bolt of lightning through her head, terminating behind her eyes. Justine covered her mouth. “I’m gonna—I gotta—” she pulled away from him, crawling a few steps away, and throwing up. She moaned, holding her stomach, holding her head, doubling up into a ball and rocking
  
…

It was a while before she again became aware of her surroundings. The intersection was busy now. Lots of policemen. Someone cradling Justine’s head and holding her pulse. She opened her eyes and saw another paramedic.

“No,” she said. “I’m not hurt. It’s Christian
  
…”

“You’re hurt too. Have you ever had a concussion before?”

Justine tried to nod, and regretted it.

“Yes,” she admitted.

“Well, you might have another. Besides the fact that you’re covered with road rash. You’re gonna be picking gravel out of your skin for weeks.”

“Where’s Christian? I want to see Christian.”

The paramedic talked in a low murmur to someone else.

“Why don’t I take you to the hospital,” he suggested, “and we’ll sort it out there?”

“No. Don’t want the hospital. I’m okay.”

Justine staggered to her feet. The paramedic tried to stop her, but Justine threw off his hands.

“No. Lemme alone. Where’s my board?”

She could barely focus two feet in front of her, but someone put her skateboard into her hand. Justine closed her hands around it, feeling strengthened by the familiar touch.

“Is it okay?” Justine questioned, looking the board over. It would be the perfect end to the day if her board was wrecked. She ran her hand over the wheels to get them spinning. Everything seemed to be in order. “I gotta go,” she said, putting the board on the sidewalk. “I gotta get out of here.”

“You can’t go,” the paramedic told her. “You’re hurt. You’re sick. Stay here and let us get you fixed up.”

Justine shook her head dizzily.

“No,” she insisted. She kicked off and started for home. In a moment, she had left the crowd behind.

A couple of times she thought she saw, out of the corner of her eye, a police car trailing her. But her head was spinning and she couldn’t even think about it, let alone focus her eyes on it or hold a discussion with the police officer if he tried to talk to her. Twice she had to stop and puke again. When she finally got home, she threw up once more into Em’s tulips, and let herself into the house. The doorbell rang a few minutes later, but Justine lay down on the couch and refused to answer it.

When Em got home an hour later, she exclaimed in horror over Justine’s condition.

“I just fell down,” Justine told her. “I’m fine.”

Em insisted on caring for her, cleaning up the road rash and the cuts, applying ice to anything with a lump on it, and chattering away about how Justine needed to take care of herself, and either stop skating or start wearing protective gear. She tried a few times to bully Justine into going to the hospital, but Justine steadfastly refused. She saw the ambulance taking Christian away. He was the one that was hurt, not her.
 

“It’s nothing,” she insisted, “just a few scrapes.”

“You’ve hurt your head. What if it’s serious? What if your brain swells or you have a clot or something? We have to take care of you.”

“Just take care of me here, Mommy,” Justine pleaded. “Just take care of me at home.”

For an instant, she had a clear vision of Em’s face, soft and loving, hovering over her. She never called Em Mommy, and that seemed to do the trick.

“Okay, sweetie,” Em said finally. “Okay, you just lie still and rest there, and Mommy will take care of you.”

C
HAPTER
7

S
CHOOL
HAD
LET
OUT
for summer break, and Justine had enjoyed the first couple of weeks of total freedom like a starving man given water. Today she had been out skating most of the day, but she was keeping an eye on the time. Now she sped home to ensure that she beat Em to the house. Em’s car wasn’t yet in front of the house. Justine glanced up and down the street. No sign of her. Getting out her house key, Justine unlocked the door and let herself in. Inside the door, the mail was lying on the floor under the mail slot. Justine fingered through it. Mostly bills, but there was another envelope, one that Justine had been waiting for. She snagged it and left the house before Em could return home.