The Accident

by Glasko Klein

  He was on his way to the car when his mother rushed out after him in a huff. “Really, Daniel, I don’t know what has gotten into you today. You left your phone on the counter.” She pressed the phone into his hand before he could register what was happening. “You know part of the agreement for you to have this phone is that it has to be with you at all times in case we need to get a hold of you,” she said. “That’s going to be especially true once you’re off driving on your own. What if you get into an accident?”

  Daniel slid into the passenger seat in a daze. This morning had been even stranger than the one right after the party, when he’d woken up sore all over and hoping against hope that the whole thing had been a dream. Maybe it had. That was the only explanation that made any sense. It all could have just been a really long dream. As the school came into a view after a short drive, Daniel decided that it didn’t really matter what was happening—he just hoped that it lasted.

  11

  Daniel was surprised to see Trisha in class. But before he could ask her if she was in trouble, Falcone wheeled his trusty substitute teacher, the television, to the front of the room. Falcone must have been feeling especially lazy, as he didn’t even bother to publicly shame Daniel for missing so much class. At least some things hadn’t changed much since the accident. He smiled to himself as he settled in for whatever cautionary educational video Falcone had selected.

  It was pretty familiar stuff. Shredded cars flipped over on the side of the highway, tearful teenagers describing how they never thought this could happen to them, and the same droning narrator. In fact, it seemed that this video was even reusing some footage from the one they’d watched last Wednesday.

  He wasn’t sure why, but soon he started to feel uneasy. He tried to write it off as a result of his own recent experiences with distracted driving and its consequences. At least they’d done better than the kids in the video. His thoughts were interrupted by Trisha tapping her pencil on his desk.

  “Hey, Daniel,” she whispered.

  “Yeah, what’s up? It’s really good to see you,” Daniel whispered back. Falcone was at the front of the room with his head buried in 10,000 Easy Crosswords! Daniel wondered how many of those books the guy had actually finished. He certainly worked on them enough.

  Trisha looked at Daniel in confusion. “Good to see you too, I guess. Weirdo. Anyway, you know how this has been the worst summer ever?” She jerked her chin at the heap of twisted metal onscreen at the front of the room. Daniel shuddered.

  “Yeah, tell me about it,” he whispered back.

  Falcone let out a loud shush from the front of the room. The two sat in silence for a few moments while a wailing teenager said she wished she’d never tried to put mustard on a sandwich while driving. Daniel was starting to wonder if Falcone had put on the wrong video by accident.

  “No sports, no parties,” Trisha listed as Daniel nodded slowly along, waiting for her to get to the car accident. “No scandals, no new kids to try to figure out, it’s been a total bust.”

  “And that car crash,” he whispered back. “But let’s talk after class—Falcone is getting antsy up there.”

  “Train wreck,” Trisha whispered back. Daniel looked at her with a look of utter confusion plastered across his face. “When something sucks people don’t say car crash,” she whispered. “The phrase is ‘train wreck,’ as in, ‘This summer is a total train wreck.’”

  Before he could think of a response that captured how confused he was, Falcone interrupted them from the front of the room. “Listen up lady and gentleman in the back, I know you might think this whole thing is a big joke, but your parents won’t when they’re peeling you off the side of the road. So if you could please pay attention to the video, I won’t have to dock today’s classroom hours and force you to make them up over the weekend.”

  Daniel felt the color drain from his face at the same moment that his phone buzzed in his pocket. Startled, he leapt out of his seat.

  “Daniel! What’s gotten into you today, son?” Falcone barked.

  “Uh, I’m not feeling well. I have to go,” he stuttered. It was a pretty dumb excuse, but it didn’t matter. All he knew was that he had to get out of there and try to figure out what was going on. Trisha raised both eyebrows as Daniel scooped his backpack off the floor and stumbled out the door.

  Once he was in the hallway, he broke into a run and didn’t stop until he was halfway across the school parking lot, where he doubled over, breathing heavily. His racing thoughts were interrupted by another burst of vibration from his phone. His hand shook as he pulled it out and looked at the screen. There were two new messages.

  What’s up, Danny? Having a nice day out?

  Hey, Danny, why so nervous?

  12

  Daniel didn’t even know where he was going until he reached Alvern Park, where he collapsed into his usual spot on the swings and tried to think. He hadn’t responded to the mysterious messages yet. He didn’t know what to say. All he know was that whoever—or whatever—was on the other end, it definitely wasn’t Charlie.

  But what does it want from me?

  He took a deep breath and pulled his phone out of his pocket once again, then brought up the messages and stared at them.

  A jolt went through his whole body when the phone buzzed again, and he dropped it to the ground. A part of him wanted to just leave it there, run straight home, tell his mother he was sick, and go to bed. Maybe this part was the dream, and if he went back to sleep, he’d wake up on the right day. He stood up and took a step away from the phone, but remembered that he’d gotten these strange messages yesterday too. Going to bed probably wasn’t going to solve anything.

  Whatever was going on, he had to work this out, and the only way to do that would be to respond to the messages. He knelt down in the dirt below the swing set and scooped up the phone.

  Daniel quickly typed out a message, getting straight to the point.

  What are you? What do you want?

  Just like in the grocery store, the response was both instant and impossibly long.

  Does it really matter who I am? I suppose it might to you, but it really doesn’t to me, and I’m the one in control here. As for what I want, I just want to see if you’ll do something different or if you’ll end up going to that party anyway. That’s something we should both be interested in finding out, no?

  Daniel stared at the screen and tried to stay calm.

  “Hey, Dan-o!” Charlie’s voice rang out from across the park. Daniel quickly stuffed his phone back into his pocket and stood up, brushing the dirt from his knees. “Who you texting looking so terrified?” he laughed as he trotted over to the swing set. “Did you get a girlfriend or something? You should have told me, bud—I can totally help you out with that stuff.”

  Daniel ran a hand across the back of his head and looked at his shoes. “Uh, no man, nothing like that. My mom just told me my weird cousin is coming to visit later in the summer, and I’ve got to let him stay in my room with me. It sucks.”

  “Perfect!” Charlie grinned. “Not about your weird cousin, I mean—I remember that guy. He’s the one with the tragic haircut, right? I feel sorry for you, man, but things will be looking up soon, I promise. You’re going to have so much fun this Friday. Maybe we can even do something about that girlfriend situation of yours.”

  “I’m busy,” Daniel blurted out. But Charlie being Charlie, he wasn’t going to let him off the hook with an excuse that dumb.

  “Trisha told me you were being weird today. I hear you bolted out of Driver’s Ed this morning. Bad move—you’re going to have to make up those hours, you know,” Charlie said, ignoring him completely. “Anyway, you never gave Trish the chance to tell you about the best party Mountain Glen has ever seen. Her cousin knows this kid with a huge house out there—”

  “I told you, I’m busy this weekend. And isn’t Mountain Glen pretty far away?” Daniel said, immediately realizing this was the wrong thing to say. Charlie loved
a challenge, especially one that he had a solution to.

  “Don’t worry about that,” Charlie said. He then began to explain the whole plan, which was exactly the same plan he’d had the first time, before the accident: Their cover story basically wrote itself. It wasn’t even illegal. It didn’t matter if his parents had a problem with it if they didn’t find out. “I mean, what could go wrong?” he finished.

  Daniel realized he wouldn’t be able to stop Charlie when he was on a roll like this. He’d have to wait for him to calm down and then try and convince him that going to this party was a bad idea. For the moment, all he could say was, “You have no idea.”

  13

  The next day—which was, to Daniel’s horror, somehow once again Thursday of last week—was the day before the party. Daniel made sure to arrive at Driver’s Ed just as class was starting to avoid talking to Trisha. But after a long, painful rerun of last Thursday’s lesson on parking strategies and the near-constant tapping of her eraser on his desk, Daniel knew he’d have to deal with the party situation head on.

  “Sorry you weren’t feeling well yesterday, Daniel. I hope you’re feeling better,” Trisha said with a sly smile as they left the classroom. Daniel felt his cheeks turning red. She had definitely talked to Charlie last night, so she had to know that he hadn’t actually been sick.

  “Uh, yeah, I guess my breakfast just didn’t go down right. I’m feeling much better now, though,” Daniel said.

  Trisha patted him on the shoulder. “Well, I’m really glad to hear that,” she said.

  They pushed open the doors to the school and walked out into the parking lot, where Charlie was waiting for them, leaning against his bicycle. “Glad to see you’re looking like yourself today,” he said.

  “Yeah, I’m feeling much better,” Daniel said again.

  “Charlie, what a surprise running into you out here!” Trisha said, faking surprise. She gave him a peck on the cheek and got down to business. “Well, since we’re all here, why don’t we go over by the tree and hang out for a minute.”

  Daniel knew that this was going to be it. This was the point when he’d given in before, but things would be different this time. He never liked pushing back too much against Charlie and Trisha when they had their minds set on something, but he knew what would happen if he didn’t stop them from going to the party. He couldn’t let things play out that way again.

  Daniel and Trisha grabbed their bikes from the rack in front of the school, then the trio walked their way around back to their tree.

  “So Daniel, I hope you’re not having second thoughts about the plan for the party tomorrow,” Charlie said as they sat down.

  “You never really let me have any thoughts on the plan in the first place,” Daniel responded. Before Trisha could mockingly ask him about what kind of thoughts he was having, like he knew she was going to, Daniel decided that it was now or never: “And to be honest, I think this whole thing is a really bad idea.”

  Trisha had already opened her mouth to tease Daniel, but she quickly closed it and let her lips fall into a frown at Daniel’s unexpected resistance. Even Charlie was caught off guard, which almost never happened. In fact, Daniel couldn’t think of any time in the last few years he’d seen Charlie with a look on his face other than one of pure confidence.

  Charlie’s surprise only lasted for a moment, though, and he quickly recovered with his usual argument. “A bad idea? I’m not sure I’ve ever had one. What are you so worried about?” he asked.

  Daniel thought of the thick smoke from the airbags filling the wrecked car and the pain of the seatbelt jamming against his shoulder. He thought of Charlie groaning in pain with a broken arm in the driver’s seat and being taken away in an ambulance. He thought of the awful silence of waiting in the police station for his parents while Gloria texted away, probably telling everyone she knew how stupid Daniel had turned out to be.

  “What if the party gets busted?” Daniel said. It would have been so much easier if he could just tell them what he knew—that tons of things could and would go wrong if they went to the party, and that by the end of the night they’d all wish they’d never gone. But they would never believe him, even if he explained the whole thing. He still wasn’t even sure he believed it himself, although at this point he didn’t really have another choice.

  “Then we’ll just go home,” Trisha said. “You get in trouble for throwing a party, not for being at one.”

  “Great point, Trisha,” Charlie said. “Nobody is going to be trying to get us in trouble just for showing up at a party some other kid is throwing, and if it gets broken up we’ll have one more exciting story to tell than we do now.”

  Daniel let out a frustrated sigh. “And how do you know that? Have you ever been at a party that got busted? Have you ever been to a high school party at all? Because as far as I know, you haven’t. I don’t want to risk all of us getting in a ton of trouble just so that we have something to talk about. I know this summer has been a drag, but that doesn’t mean we have to go out and do something stupid.”

  “Hold on a second there, Dan-o,” Charlie said, starting to get frustrated. “You’re not suggesting that this is a stupid plan, are you? Because only stupid people come up with stupid plans. I know you’re not calling Trisha and me stupid here, but I just want to make sure.”

  Trisha was still frowning deeply, leaning back into the bench. “We’re just trying to help you out here, Daniel. I mean, that’s mostly why we want to go to this party anyway. It’s not like we don’t notice you moping around when Charlie and I take you with us on our dates to the movies.”

  Daniel’s ears turned red. This was not going the way that he had planned. “So those are dates now? All you had to do was say something. I just thought we were hanging out, like we always do. Well, I’m sorry that I’ve been ruining your dates. Next time just don’t invite me and you won’t have to worry about it.”

  Charlie stood up. “Maybe we won’t, and maybe we won’t invite you to this party after all,” he barked. “I’d hate for you to get in trouble, so why don’t you just stay home tomorrow and we’ll tell you all about the party next week? If we’re not in jail, I mean.”

  “I’m just really worried something bad could happen. What if we get into a car accident?” Daniel said, starting to get desperate. “I don’t think any of us should go to the party.”

  Charlie picked up his bike, and Trisha stood up too. “So Charlie’s a bad driver now, and we’re both stupid? Real cool, Daniel,” she said, picking up her own bike.

  “Look, you’re the ones who aren’t being cool—you’re not respecting my opinion, and you’re trying to make me feel guilty for speaking my mind!” Daniel said angrily. “Go ahead and go to the party if that’s what you really want to do, but I won’t be joining you.”

  “Fine,” said Charlie, rolling his eyes. Without another word, he and Trisha rode off on their bikes, leaving Daniel sitting alone and wondering if he was doing the right thing.

  14

  It wasn’t the first time that Daniel had gotten into a fight with Charlie, but it was the first time it lasted for longer than a few hours. Trisha was still mad at him too. And if he was being honest, he wasn’t very happy with them either.

  The next morning, they spent an unusually uncomfortable session of Driver’s Ed sitting next to each other in silence. When it was over, Trisha hurried out of the room before he could finish getting his things together. Later that afternoon, he texted them both, but neither of them responded.

  Still, he wasn’t going to the party, and he hoped against hope that this would be enough to change everything. He’d done his best to warn them without looking like he was losing his mind, but now it was up to them. They still had time to change their minds. And if not, maybe his absence would still make a difference.

  The reason we got into the accident in the first place was that we were in the back seat distracting Charlie, he thought. If Gloria and I aren’t with them, Charlie will have n
o reason to turn around while he’s waiting at the stop sign. Charlie’s foot won’t slip off the brake and the car won’t roll into the intersection, so he and Trisha won’t almost get hit by a pickup truck or end up crashing into the fence post. Nobody is going to wind up in the hospital, and nobody is going to end up in any serious trouble.

  Daniel’s phone vibrated in his pocket, jolting him free of his thoughts. Maybe Charlie came around already, he thought, grabbing his phone and taking a look at the screen. There was one new message. It wasn’t from Charlie.

  Very interesting.

  Daniel felt uneasy, but he also couldn’t help feeling a little bit as though he had won. Whatever was on the other end of the mysterious text messages had wanted to see if he would still go to the party, and he had followed through on what he said he was going to do—he’d done things differently this time. He tapped out a response, smiling a little bit.

  I told you I wasn’t going to go to the party.

  As always, the response was instant and unnerving.

  That’s true, and I wasn’t sure that you’d have it in you. So what are you going to do now?

  Daniel had been so focused on trying to avoid going to the party that he’d forgotten about everything else. It was an interesting question. He might have managed to avoid ruining his whole summer, but that also meant that he still had his whole summer ahead of him. And Charlie and Trisha would probably be mad at him at least last through the weekend, whether or not they ended up going to the party without him.

  It had been a long time since Daniel had needed to come up with weekend plans on his own. Maybe Charlie and Trisha were right about one thing—he’d started to rely on them a bit too much when it came to figuring out what he was going to do with his time.

  At least he had a pretty good idea about how the rest of the weekend would go, having lived through one version of it already. His only regret was that in this version he wouldn’t run into Gloria outside the library, which meant that he probably wouldn’t have the chance to get to know her better until next year. And by then she would almost certainly have forgotten all about him and honors geometry.