by Kelly Oram
“She might have a concussion, too,” he said, still grinning at me. Is a concussion funny? It certainly didn’t feel funny. “We should get her to a hospital. Are your parents home?”
“They’re both at work,” Angela replied in a frantic voice.
She came rushing to my side as if she were completely freaked out, but I noticed the way she put her hand down on New Guy’s forearm as she pretended to care about my well-being. I smirked at her fingers clinging to his skin. Obvious much, Ang?
Angela was suddenly glaring at me for some reason, and the new guy laughed. It was quite irritating because the situation was anything but funny. I would have told him just where he could shove that laugh of his, but I started seeing these big, dark spots floating all around me, and sort of forgot that I was annoyed.
Plus, he didn’t fall for Angela’s CosmoGIRL! techniques for getting his attention. He looked down at the hand on his arm and immediately removed it. That earned him a couple brownie points with me until he took her hand and placed it on the shirt he’d been pressing against my head. “Hold this,” he instructed and then got to his feet to let my sister tend to me.
I was going to school him on just how not smart it was to leave a dying girl in the hands of my sister, when I saw him scoop up something huge into his arms, and I remembered what happened. Bruno! How could I have forgotten about Bruno? He totally killed Bruno! He’s a dog killer!
I wanted to yell at him, but he’d already disappeared inside his house. He came back a minute later with keys in his hand instead of a dog, and a new shirt on—to both my sister’s and my disappointment. “You know where there’s a hospital?” he asked Angela, handing her the keys to his BMW.
“Uh, just a mile or two from here,” Angela said, staring at the keys in her hand.
“Good. I’ll get her. You drive.”
The next thing I knew I was being scooped carefully off the ground. My head responded with a vengeance, and I groaned when everything started to go black around me. Unfortunately I didn’t get to pass out because Angela screamed again. “There’s so much blood!”
I could feel the new guy shrug his shoulders beneath my weight and then he said, “I’ve seen a lot worse.”
“You’ve seen worse?” Angela asked, vocalizing my exact thoughts.
New Guy didn’t explain himself, though. “She’s got plenty left. Trust me.”
Angela frowned but New Guy just swept past her, not bothered in the least by my weight—which is a lot more than you’d think considering how skinny I look—and asked her to open the car door for him.
Angela did as she was told, but as the new guy climbed into the backseat with me she asked, “Doesn’t blood stain? You’re going to get it all over your car.” Leave it to Angela to be worried about the car and not her dying baby sister.
I could barely make sense of anything at this point. My head hurt so bad the pain was almost numbing, and I was growing more and more tired by the second, but I could still hear the words he muttered under his breath as he pulled me against his chest, holding his shirt tightly against the back of my head again. The expression on his face grew disturbingly dark and he muttered, “Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“W-what d-do you mean not the first time?” I stammered, a little distracted by the threat of unconsciousness.
His scowl was gone so fast I wasn’t sure it’d been there. “Shh,” he said with a wink. Then he looked up at Angela and barked, “Just hurry, okay?”
The movement of the car only made my stomach feel even queasier. It made it very hard to fight off the unconsciousness that had been trying to overcome me. The world around me seemed to slip out of focus and then my eyelids drooped.
“Oh, no you don’t.” The new kid’s voice was extremely tender, but the pat he gave my cheek, that made my eyes roll forward once again was quite the slap. “No falling asleep.”
Can’t help it, I thought. I’m so tired, and you’re so comfortable. Maybe it was the possible concussion, but this was the closest I’d ever been to a boy that hadn’t just mowed me down chasing after a puck, and I fully intended to take advantage of it. I relaxed in his arms and enjoyed the feel of the chest I was being held against. For someone with such hard-looking muscles, the new kid is surprisingly soft.
New Guy’s chest started to tremble beneath me and I looked up to see him shaking his head with laughter. I’d officially had it with this guy and his being amused with my dying. My anger managed to give me a little burst of energy. Enough to steady my gaze momentarily and growl, “Something funny?”
I thought I sounded pretty menacing, but New Guy didn’t bother to wipe the smile from his face. He just looked down at me and shrugged. “You are.”
I tried to glare again, but I couldn’t focus my eyes enough to do it. I don’t think I lost consciousness then, but maybe I did, because New Guy touched my face again. Only this time he didn’t slap it to keep me awake, he started brushing his fingers back and forth along my cheek.
The warm tingly sensation his fingers left on my skin was something I’d never felt before. Certainly nothing like whenever the J’s tug on my ponytail, or give me an elbow jab, or even when they give me a hand up after they’ve knocked me to the ground. This was different. It was like magic. Wonderful, wonderful magic that made all the pain in my head disappear.
I was sure it was a concussion-induced hallucination, but even still, I was beginning to think it was worth it. That is, until New Guy brushed my hair out of my face and said, “Such shiny, bright, red hair. Gorgeous, just like the rest of you.”
My stomach lurched and it had nothing to do with my head injury. I recognized his words. Hadn’t I thought the exact same ones about him only minutes before? Had I really been talking out loud this whole time? Suddenly, all his amusement made sense. The humiliation was too much for me to handle with everything else going on at the moment, and all those spots in my vision finally lumped into one giant shroud of black.
I only spent one night in the hospital, but I still came home with a raging headache. Between the pain and the painkillers, I was pretty out of it for a good two days. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been drifting in and out of consciousness, but I knew when I woke up this time that I was really awake and was going to stay that way.
My room was bright and airy since my window was open, but the light made my head hurt like a son of a you-know-what. I threw my arm over my eyes and reached beside my bed where I always keep one of those grabby things. Usually I use the grabby thing when I leave my game controller on my nightstand or drop one of my Twizzlers, but today I used it to grab my window shade.
Concussion or not, I have excellent hand-eye coordination and with just one little grab I plunged myself into total darkness. “Hey!” Angela immediately protested.
Angela’s voice is not what you want to hear when you are recovering from a concussion. “Get out of my room,” I groaned since I didn’t really have the energy to yell.
“No way. You have a much better view than I do.”
“View of what?”
“The new kid is playing darts in his garage.”
“Darts? Who plays darts?”
Angela pulled the blinds up again. I would have protested the action except that she said, “Who cares? He’s doing it without a shirt on.”
I got out of bed, found a dark pair of sunglasses, and pushed Angela aside to take a peek. Just as I looked, the new kid flicked his wrist and sent a dart flying into what looked like the direct center of a bull’s-eye. He smiled to himself as he crossed the garage and admired his aim, then he reached for his shirt. I was worried that he was going to put it back on, but instead he used it to wipe the sweat off his face and began guzzling a bottle of water.
“This is even better than Grey’s Anatomy,” Angela sighed, plopping down onto my bed when he disappeared into his house.
“He’s gone. You can leave now,” I said, pushing Angela out of my way so that I could lay back down.
I pulled my covers over my head, but Angela yanked them right back off. “Get up and get dressed,” she told me. “We’re going over there.”
“What?”
“C’mon, while we know he’s home.”
“Why do I have to go?”
“You have an excuse to go over there. I don’t.”
“What excuse?”
“Duh. You want to at least know the name of the boy who saved your life.”
“He didn’t tell you his name? Didn’t you guys spend hours flirting in the waiting room while I was unconscious?”
I laughed when Angela frowned. Apparently the answer to my question was no.
“Shut up! He just never got the chance. As soon as we got to the hospital, he let some guys wheel you inside and then said he had to go.”
“He just left us at the hospital?”
I thought this was strange, but Angela didn’t agree. “It’s not like he could have done anything else. They wouldn’t have let him come back with us because he wasn’t family.”
“Still, to just dump two girls off at the emergency room and not even stick around to see if I was okay?”
“Way to be self-absorbed Ellie.”
“That’s not what I mean. There’s something really weird about that guy.”
Angela finally lost her patience with me and began tapping her foot as she stood over my bed. “Get your lazy butt up right now or I will be forced to sit in here with you all day.”
Ugh. She would do it too. I had no choice but to drag myself from bed.
When I got up Angela narrowed her eyes at me. “Nothing dirty, no jeans with holes in them, and absolutely no jerseys. When you’re dressed, I will do your hair so that we can cover up those nasty stitches. Thank goodness the cut was low enough that they didn’t have to shave half your head.”
“Would you give it a rest? My head is pounding again,” I grumbled. “And it’s not from the concussion.”
“Just hurry,” Angela snapped and slammed my door on her way out.
I went to pull my shade down again so that I could change, and, not that I was looking or anything, but I just happened to notice the new kid reappear in his garage. He examined the dart still stuck in the target, and then pulled something from his back pocket. He threw so fast I didn’t even see the knife until it was lodged in the bull’s-eye in the exact spot the dart had been moments before.
There was no smile on his face as he admired his aim this time. He pulled the knife out of the dartboard and then as quick as the first time, he threw it again. The action was so fast it took me a minute to figure out where it landed. But then I saw a mannequin in the corner of the garage rocking on its stand, the knife sticking out of its throat.
With a gasp, I quickly ducked out of view from the window. I jumped back so fast that I banged the back of my head on my closet door. It freaking hurt, and I yelled like there was no tomorrow.
“What is going on in here?” Angela asked, barging into my room, yet again. She took one look at me and her frown got even bigger. “You’re not even dressed yet!”
“Angela!” I hissed, pulling her out of view of the window. “He’s crazy!”
“What are you talking about?”
“The new kid!”
Angela pulled free from my grip and looked out the window. “There’s nobody out there.”
She was right. I looked again and he’d already gone back inside and had apparently taken his knife with him. “He had a knife. He threw it at that dummy. Slit the freaking thing’s throat. It hit dead center, like he could do it blindfolded.”
Angela rolled her eyes and then pulled the prescription pill bottle off my nightstand. “How many of these did you take?”
“I’m not high on painkillers, you idiot.”
“You sure sound like it.”
Angela let go a frustrated groan and began tugging me out of my room. “I’m not going over there!” I protested.
“Fine!” Angela screamed. “Be a loser! I’ll go by myself.”
“You can’t go over there! What if he slits your throat next?”
Angela crossed her arms and gave me the evilest sneer. “Then you can blame yourself for my death because you made me go over there alone.”
She stomped out of my room and I could hear her as she trotted down each and every stair. Then she slammed the front door. “Angela!” I called down to her from my window in another hiss.
The glare she gave me was enough for me to know that she was not going to listen to me. When she started to head down the driveway, my eyes drifted back to the house across the street and then naturally made their way up to his window. His blinds were down but cracked open the tiniest bit, and I could swear I saw a shadow standing behind them.
What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t just let her go over there alone. The guy was a psycho. First he killed the Haskins’ dog, and now he’s an expert knife slinger? “Angela, wait! Fine! I’ll come. Just… hold on.”
“Ten seconds,” she called up to me.
I threw on the first shirt I could find that didn’t have anyone’s number on it, ignored the no holes in the jeans request, and then carefully pulled my hair back into a ponytail. I, for one, didn’t care if my stitches were showing. Angela rolled her eyes when she saw me, but didn’t say anything except, “Took you long enough.”
“I hate you,” I grumbled and then headed across the street with my sister, against my better judgment, to meet the new neighbor.
We got as far as his mailbox when a car blared its horn behind us. I reached up to grab my throbbing head while Angela whirled around to greet her unexpected company. I have no idea which of her gazillion male admirers were in the car, but one of them hung his head out the window and said, “Ang, babe, we’re all going to the park for some frisbee football. Teddy and Alex are bringing a barbeque.”
Angela glanced longingly back at the new kid’s house. She sighed and then climbed into the car without even a second glance at me. I could here her shrieking playfully as the car sped off. I sighed too, but mine was a sigh of relief.
The whole ordeal left me feeling particularly exhausted, and my head was throbbing. Especially since I’d whacked it again. I headed back home refusing to look over my shoulder at the house behind me, and went straight to the comfort of my dark room. I swallowed one of the pills on my dresser, turned on my fan, then collapsed on my bed and waited for the painkillers to render me unconscious.
I don’t know how long I slept, but when I woke up I was assaulted by sunlight again. “Come on Angela, give me a break,” I groaned, throwing my arm over my eyes.
I reached for my grabby thing again, and with as much ease as I’d done it earlier, I pulled my shade down. I was about to yell at Angela to get out of my room, when a strange voice broke the silence. “Now that was almost as impressive as your high score on Skateboard Pro 2000. I’ve been trying to beat it for three hours and haven’t even come close.”
I looked down to see a shadowed figure sprawled across my beanbag chair playing my X-box and, well, what else was I going to do? I screamed bloody murder. Only when I screamed it nearly made my head explode so it wasn’t all that impressive and turned into a groan rather quickly.
“You know, Ellie,” the stranger, who’s voice suddenly seemed extremely familiar, said with another laugh, “you’re going to give me a complex if you continue to scream like that every time we meet.”
I felt like I should be fearful for my life, but even in the mostly-dark room I could see him grin up at me from beneath those eyelashes that Angela would have killed for. That face should be illegal.
As I continued to lay there, mesmerized by his beauty, his grin turned a little lopsided. “You feeling okay?” he asked. “You seemed a lot more…” he searched for a word and settled on, “…talkative before.”
Slowly, the memory of smacking my head pieced itself together. Though it was near impossible to look away from the gorgeous guy who’d come to my rescue, I threw my arm back
over my eyes. “I was concussed!” I gasped. “My brain was scrambled. Whatever I said, it didn’t count.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said, laughing. “I kind of liked the idea of being gorgeous.”
I was so glad my arm was still covering my face, because I’m pretty sure he would have taken great pleasure in watching me blush. I’d never told a boy I thought he was good-looking before, but since he wasn’t pretending I hadn’t said it, I didn’t see any way that I could deny it. “I’m sure you already know that,” I mumbled.
I nearly had a heart attack when my arm was lifted off my face. I hadn’t heard him get up, or noticed when he sat down on my bed, but my new neighbor was now smiling down at me from an alarmingly close distance. “It’s still nice to know that you think so,” he said in a voice that no guy had ever used on me before—like velvet and hormones mixed together. It sent shivers through me, and don’t think he didn’t notice my reaction.
He hovered above me for a minute, staring so intensely into my eyes that it was causing my heart to do strange things in my chest. When I gulped, his smile widened. “Seth Bishop,” he said with a twinkle in those deep blue eyes of his.
“Seth,” I breathed automatically, and then a second later was able to reclaim my swimming head. A little. I sounded breathless, but still managed to voice my main concern. “What the hell are you doing in my room?”
He was surprised enough by my question that he afforded me my personal space, but amused enough by it that he didn’t go far. “You should be nice to me,” he said, still grinning. “I saved your life.”
It was easier to concentrate when he wasn’t right there anymore. I started to get my confidence back. “And that gives you the right to break into my room and try to beat my Skateboard Pro 2000 record? Which, just so you know, will never happen.”
Now that I could breathe again, I started to sit up. I definitely could have managed on my own but the minute I moved, Seth jumped up. “Careful.” He actually fluffed my pillow for me and then gently helped me lean up a little. When I was situated he asked, “You good? Need me to get you anything?”