The Running Dream (5 page)

The sun is brighter now.

Our sleepy neighborhood is stirring, waking up.

And then, with a gasp, so do I.

I
ROLL OVER
and check the clock; check the chair.

4:28
AM
.

The chair’s empty.

I told Mom she didn’t have to stay nights anymore. That I was okay. I said it with conviction.

She wanted badly to believe me.

Almost as badly as I wanted her to.

It’s easy to see from the dark circles, the haunted eyes—she needs me to be okay. “I’d switch places with you, Jessica. In a heartbeat.” She said it when the doctors explained that my leg was hopeless, and I know she’s thought it every day since.

She’d give up both her legs to give me back the one I lost.

There’s no doubt in my mind.

But she can’t, and I hate that she’s been sleeping in the chair.

So she’s gone and I’m alone.

I feel trapped.

Scared.

Angry.

And so I cry.

Silent tears burn, then pool in my ears.

But they don’t change a thing.

I wipe my eyes and check the clock again.

4:32
AM
.

It’s my eighth day with no leg.

An eternity.

F
IONA VISITS WEARING BLACK LEGGINGS
and a flowing purple top.

And heels.

They’re low, but still, heels.

Definitely not typical Fiona-wear.

“Were you at church?” I ask, sitting up.

She nods. Solemnly. And now I see that her eyes are rimmed red.

“Lucy’s memorial service,” I say with a small voice. “I forgot.”

She pulls up a chair and dissolves into it. “It was awful. Well, everyone said it was moving and beautiful and perfect, but I thought it was awful. They had a huge blowup picture of her, and flowers everywhere, and people got up and told funny stories about her, and they had her ballet slippers from sixth grade on display, and her favorite scarf wrapped over the podium. I kept staring at the picture. I wanted to look somewhere else, but I kept staring at it.”

I pass her Lucas the bear. She hugs him fiercely and starts sobbing. “Why did she have to die? Why, why, why?”

She’s not expecting an answer, and that’s good because I sure don’t have one. I rest my hand on her shoulder knowing I should be grateful I’m still alive, but somehow I’m not. I know it’s selfish, but I can’t help thinking that Lucy is the lucky one.

For Lucy there’s no pain, no rehab, no learning to live disabled.

There’s no anger or self-revulsion.

For Lucy there’s just resting in peace.

F
IONA APOLOGIZES FOR CRYING
, then hugs me and tells me how glad she is I’m alive.

My secret thoughts feel even more selfish.

Then she switches gears. “Oh! Oh, oh, oh!”

“What?” I ask with a laugh. Her eyes are enormous, and I know what this means:

Gossip.

“Guess who was turning to Gavin for comfort at the memorial service?”

“Turning to him for
comfort
? So it’s someone who was friends with Lucy?”

“No! She totally snubbed her!”

“Okaaaay …” I look for clues among the ceiling tiles, hoping she’ll just tell me, but Fiona’s big into twenty questions and I’ve only asked one. “So … it’s someone on the team?”

Her head bobbles like crazy.

“A sprinter?”

She shakes her head.

“Mid-distance? Long distance?”

Shake, shake.

“So she does field events?”

Nod.

“Long jump? High jump? Discus?”

Shake, nod, shake.

It strikes me like a bolt. “Merryl?”

“Yes!” she gasps. “Can you believe that? Merryl Abrams after a guy who’s not a jock.”

“Are you sure she wasn’t just, you know, mourning Lucy?”

“No way. It was classic Merryl-on-the-move.” She scowls. “You should have seen her hanging all over him! Like she’d die or faint or, or … 
explode
if he didn’t hold her together. I heard her say, ‘I can’t bear the thought of that horrible, horrible day!’ ” She pulls a tortured face. “Can you believe that? She wasn’t even on the bus!”

Which was true. The meet was an invitational, and Merryl hadn’t qualified—something that didn’t bother her a bit. Everyone knows that Merryl’s on the team so she can put “team participation” on her college applications next year, and track is the only sport that doesn’t cut.

“Gavin’s too smart to fall for that,” I tell her. “And what happened to Darren?”

She shrugs. “She got tired of him? Who knows.”

“But … 
Gavin
? Talk about switching party affiliations.”

Fiona snorts. “Gavin may not be a jock, but he
is
the mayor’s son, and he’s hot. Especially since he grew that chin scruff.”

“Wait. Gavin has chin scruff?”

She nods. “It looks seriously good on him, too.”

“This is really lifting my spirits,” I grumble.

“I’m sorry! I’m just telling you because it’s so Merryl, and so ridiculous. Like he’s going to fall for her manipulations?” She takes a deep breath. “So when are you getting out of here? I am sick of school without you!”

My stomach suddenly tightens. Dad’s talked about me going back to school, but I can’t picture it. It scares me to think about facing all those people. Seeing everyone walking. Watching them hurry up and down steps. Knowing that after school all my friends will meet at the track to run.

I look away. “Dr. Wells says I’ll go home soon, but I don’t know about school.…” My voice drifts off pathetically, so I say, “I’ve been thinking that I should do some sort of home-school program.”

“A home-school program? Like on the Internet? No way. No
way
. That would be, like, the
worst
thing for you!” She leans forward. “Look. I’ll push you. You can do this!”

At first I think she means she’ll push me to get back to school. Push me to face the world. But the pit of my stomach understands what she really means. “You’ll push me … in a wheelchair?”

“Of course! There’s no way you can cover that campus on crutches. And it’s going to be a while before you get your fake leg, right? So I’ll deliver you to all your classes. It’ll be easy!”

Lucas has somehow wound up back with me, and I find myself hugging him, feeling totally panicked.

I’ve barely figured out how to use the bathroom on my own.

How will I ever manage school?

T
HE STAPLES ARE OUT
. Dr. Wells says I’m his fastest-healing patient ever. “I’m proud of you, Jessica. You’ve done an amazing job.”

I want to shout, I haven’t done anything! I’ve just existed!

And I want to hit him.

Hard.

I want to hit him for sawing off my leg.

Hit him for being so cheerful and acting like I’m a star patient when I’m really just an angry, pathetic whiner.

Then he says the magic words.

The ones I’ve been longing for.

The ones I’m terrified of.

The ones I thought might never, ever come, and are now suddenly here too fast.

“You are ready to go home.”

“Today?” I ask, and it’s a choked sound. Somewhere between dying and gasping for life.

He nods. “Assuming you pass all your PT requirements.”
He looks directly at me. “You can manage your care and cleaning; change your own shrinker?”

I nod.

“You can walk across the room on crutches, go up and down four steps, transfer from standing to sitting, and fall safely?”

These are all things the PT has been making me do. I’m still wobbly, but I can do them, so I nod.

He smiles. “Then you’re going home.”

I know I should thank him, but the way he says “home” throws me. I’m suddenly picturing a pair of ruby slippers. Slippers I can’t click together because … because I can’t. And even though they’re just in my head … just something from a movie … they glitter in my mind, and I’m suddenly desperate to click my heels together and wake up in my own bed.

With my own dog.

And both legs.

“There’s no place like home,” I whisper when he’s gone. “No place like home.”

But there are no ruby slippers.

There is no waking up.

There’s just me and my ugly, useless stump.

I
’M DRESSED IN SWEATS
with the extra material of the right leg pinned up, and I’ve just demonstrated “fall safety” to a physical therapist I haven’t worked with before, when my mother appears.

“Are you okay?” she gasps.

“Fine,” I tell her, then demonstrate “recovery” by standing up. “Just passing my final exam.”

“You’re coming
home
,” she squeals, dancing in place. Then she grabs the parked wheelchair and practically shoves it under me, kiss-kiss-kissing the top of my head, just like she did when I was little.

“You must be Jessica’s mom,” the PT says with a smile.

“That I am!” she says. Like being my mom is the best thing ever.

He chuckles. “Well, I’m happy to report that your daughter has mastered all the necessary functional goals for release.” He scribbles on the sheet he’s been quizzing me from and says, “From now on we’ll be seeing her at the rehab facility.” He hands my mother a couple of brochures and a small
stack of papers, and after some pleasantries to me about keeping up the good work, he’s gone.