by Abra Ebner
I heard the rumble of the approaching bus, my body shaking with more anxiety than I felt was warranted. When the bus arrived, I ran aboard, quickly taking my seat and holding the cage sadly in my hands. I helplessly watched my suffering Ladybird, sadness racking me. Things were not happening fast enough, but I was left floating in the midst of it, having done all I could up to this point. I had to have patience.
At school, I was the first off the bus. I barely noticed the driver looking at me strangely. I ran up the steps and threw the doors open, sprinting down the hall as everyone stared and laughed. I didn’t care. I did my best to hold Ladybird still, but the twig bumped around in the cage. Bursting into Jacqueline’s classroom, I frightened her as she looked up from her desk. She held a book in her hand, and a tear graced one cheek.
She rose immediately, wiping her eye. “Samantha . . .”
I froze, cage in hand.
She took a step toward me, releasing the book she had been reading so it fell onto the desk. “What’s wrong?”
I felt bad for interrupting her, finding myself suddenly in an awkward position. Clearly she had been reading something from her mother. I was a crazy person, my actions out of control.
Jacqueline ushered me toward her. “It’s okay, Sam.” She was nodding, trying to convey that my interruption was all right.
I tried to catch my breath, wanting to cry for the fact that I felt hopeless. The world was ticking, louder and louder. “It’s just . . . Ladybird. She’s . . . I don’t know what she’s doing.” I numbly, hopefully held the cage out toward her, feeling my eyes fill with tears.
Jacqueline approached me and placed one hand on my back as I pushed Ladybird toward her. She squinted, looking at her through the plastic. We both watched Ladybird writhe, growing noticeably tired as the seconds passed.
“I . . .” I felt guilt as I watched her. “I forgot about her.”
Jacqueline lulled me to silence. “Shh . . . it’s okay. Sometimes these things happen.” But she looked as perplexed as I was.
“I know it’s my fault. I don’t know why I’m acting so deranged. Just . . . so many things are happening right now. First my father . . .” I touched my cheek. “But then . . . then Leith came over last night, and I . . . I was happy. I’m a mess.”
Jacqueline stood up straight, looking at me with the most direct gaze I’d ever seen on her. “Leith?”
“Yes, Leith.” I felt myself blush despite my panic.
“Leith Buckhead?” she pressed.
I nodded, looking down at Ladybird. “I knew I forgot to feed her. I tried to feed her on the bus, but . . . it was too late, she was already . . .”
Jacqueline had grasped my arm firmly. The distraction quieted me. “Leith Buckhead was at your house last night?”
Why was she lingering on it? I didn’t care about gossiping over boyfriends at this moment. I cared about Ladybird. “Yes, but Ladybird . . .” I tried to bring her attention back to the major issue at hand, refusing to look at her in my embarrassment, thinking about moments spent with Leith in the dark.
Jacqueline shook me, grasping both my arms firmly in her hands. “Samantha . . .” She searched my eyes, her head shaking as her mind appeared to be piecing something together. “Leith Buckhead . . . he . . .”
“What?” I felt every ounce of me begin to fall like a void had been opened under my feet. Something about what she was about to say was going to change my life forever.
“I . . .” She sighed. “I don’t know what to say. You’re sure it was . . . ?”
My heart pounded faster, stomach quivering with nerves. “Yes, Jacqueline. I’m sure it was Leith. What is it? Tell me.” The same sharp, dreadful feeling I had this morning dominated my every thought.
“I don’t know how to say this, so I’m just going to cut to the chase.” She exhaled hard. “He’s been in a coma since Monday.”
I took a step back. “What?” It wasn’t the same person. It couldn’t be. “No. I’ve seen him almost every day since. That’s impossible.”
“It’s true, Samantha. There’s no way—”
I cut her off. “It was him.”
Jacqueline shook her head slowly, not willing to believe me. “Samantha, listen to me. He fell in the barn, stacking hay with his father. I don’t know if you know this, but he has a heart condition. He has ever since he was born. The fall, it—it damaged his heart to the point that they had to induce a coma and put him on life support. His father called the school late Monday evening informing us of this. We said nothing because we felt it best to wait it out, pray he finds a donor and a stronger heart.”
My body suddenly caught fire. Lingering touches from Leith in the night tingled across my skin, rippling up my spine. His words, his broken heart, it sent feverish waves throughout me. Jacqueline pulled me into her arms, squeezing hard.
“It can’t be,” I spoke against her shoulder, unable to control the tears. “We were together last night. He held me. He kissed me. He—”
Jacqueline pushed me to arm’s length, keeping hold of my shoulders and looking me in the eye. She searched my soul for the truth, and it wasn’t hard to find.
I looked back down at Ladybird, not wanting my tears to be seen. The struggling had grown labored, Ladybird’s movements ticking down to the end I was dreading.
“I . . .” Jacqueline was trying to understand. “You swear?”
I nodded hard, giving her the most direct and honest gaze I could muster. “I saw him, Jacqueline.” I knew I was strange, but I wasn’t crazy. To prove it, I twisted out of her grasp and pulled my backpack from my back. I set it on the table, unzipping the top and retrieving Leith’s red hat from inside. I placed it on the counter next to Ladybird’s cage. “See. He forgot it at my house. People in a coma don’t come climbing through windows in the middle of the night.”
Jacqueline stared at the hat. I stopped talking. To my surprise, Ladybird’s actions increased, and she fluttered her wings and threw herself against the walls of her confines. She was trying to reach the hat in a desperate manner. Her life seemed to depend on it.
I gasped, my hand covering my mouth. To me, everything suddenly made sense. I remembered Monday by my locker when Leith had been there. Ladybird was frantic in that moment, the same intensity toward Leith that she was showing now toward his hat. How could I be so selfish and blind? Mother was not trying to give me something by allowing me Leith. She was trying to tell me something. Leith was dying.
I grasped for the key under my shirt. “I need to see Leith, Jacqueline.”
Jacqueline’s eyes watered, head shaking.
“Please . . .” I broke down. “Please take me.” I touched her hand where it rested on the counter.
Jacqueline stared at me, not sure what to believe.
“I may not be certain about a lot of things, but my time with Leith the last few days was real.” I looked down at Leith’s hat. “It may have only been his soul that I saw, but he was there in some form, asking me for help, trying to help himself by getting close to me because he knew I could keep him alive. Time and time again, he told me he had a broken heart without me, and I saw it, written across his face.” I cursed under my breath. “I was an idiot not to see it. He was literally telling me what was wrong.” I squeezed her hand as our energies burned together. “Listen, Jacqueline, you said so yourself. If we are the fire of life, then I can save him. We can save him.” I looked down at Ladybird. “Ladybird died the day Leith’s heart did.” I felt the coolness of the key around my neck, remembered Ladybird dying in the road, falling to the ground. When I first met Leith, Ladybird came back to life, like a ghost. Leith did too. “I believe her life is mirroring his. She is telling me that I can bring him back. Otherwise, why would any of this be happening to me?”
Jacqueline stared at me for another moment, taking in all I’d said.
“Please.” It was all I had left to say.
Slowly slipping her hand from mine, she finally nodded and reached for her keys. “Okay.”
We walked briskly through the parking lot. We hadn’t even bothered to tell anyone where we were going or why. It didn’t matter, in my mind. I was in a fog, not sure what I was doing, what was true or false. The only thing I could make clear was Leith’s face. It was real. Everything about Leith and what I felt for him was real.
I came to a halt as a car beeped. I stole a glance at Jacqueline. She shrugged, ushering me toward her bright red VW bug.
“Fitting,” I mumbled, opening the passenger door and heaving my bag into the backseat. I sat, rested Ladybird gently in my lap, and buckled up.
Jacqueline started the car. “I want to know the whole story, Sam.” She fastened her buckle, shifted her car into gear, and backed out of the spot. After slamming on the brakes and switching gears again, we flew forward, past cars and onto the main road. For a book-smart girl, she could certainly drive. “From the beginning.”
I bit my lip, grasping at the seat belt across my chest. “Tuesday was the first day I met him outside of the school sphere. I had been visiting an area on his property where a couple of trees grew. I like it there. That’s where I first met him.”
She nodded. “Right. This makes sense. That was the day he fell. He probably liked it there, too, so he went there as a ghost.”
“But Monday,” I went on. “I saw him at his locker as I do every day.” I turned to her. “He has the locker next to mine.”
She nodded, eyes fixed on the road as she ran a stop sign. Things like that didn’t really matter here anyway.
“Ladybird was acting strangely that day. My mother, too, was giving me clues. In my box that day, I had gotten a tree and a ladybug. But then my mother killed it, and I didn’t understand why. It felt harsh.”
Jacqueline looked at me, eyes wide. “Really? How coincidental.” She shook her head in disbelief. “Wow! I must have really thrown you for a loop giving you the ladybug in class, then.”
I nodded. “Definitely. I figured that was my mother again, but it wasn’t the same ladybug though still linked to this whole thing, clearly.” I shrugged. “But anyway, Monday I wandered onto the Buckhead property with my horse. This was the day I discovered the neat, wooded area. It turns out the tree in my box was actually amongst the trees there too. Full size.”
Jacqueline gasped dramatically, looking a tiny bit jealous. “This is so trippy.”
I agreed with her. “So back to Tuesday . . . When I came home from school, Father was mad at me over some dead chickens. He hit me, sending Ladybird to the ground, where she died.”
Jacqueline gasped. “This just keeps getting eerier.”
“I know,” I sighed. “So Ladybird died, and in my sadness, I ran away to the tree. That’s when I met Leith, and seeing him, I . . .” I felt myself blush.
Jacqueline gave me a little smile.
“Anyway . . .” I rolled my eyes. “My fire brought Ladybird back. The rest is just, Leith and I, hanging out like normal teens. There was nothing to indicate that he wasn’t really there! I mean, save a few faint looks in his eye. He said it was the spraying chemicals getting to him.” I shrugged helplessly.
We were screaming down Main Street, whizzing past the bookstore, the bakery, the pub. People we passed watched in confusion.
I shook my head slowly, not able to believe what I was hoping to happen. “What do you think this is going to be like? What do you think will happen?” My voice sounded hopeless.
Jacqueline took my hand. “I guess we’ll find out.”
Her face was like stone—pale, lost in thought, and worried—just as mine was. In my heart, I couldn’t see Leith being anywhere but at our tree, alive as he had been, warm as he had been. I thought of the fish in the water, they way they loved him. I thought of Axon, who was always scared of everything but never jumped when Leith raised his voice, laughed, or fell from the tree. Had Leith really been there? Or was I just seeing it, making him up as I’d made up my mother. But then there were the things they left behind: the hat, the key. They were real. Nothing made sense.
We soon crested the hill that led to the hospital and roared under the railroad track that stretched all the way to North Craven. It ended at a container station where goods were then shipped worldwide. Jacqueline grabbed her cell phone off the console, scanning through it as she also tried to drive.
“That’s illegal, you know,” I reminded her.
She glared at me and tossed me the phone. “Then here. Find a layout to this place.”
“To the hospital?” I held the phone oddly in my hand. It had a red ladybug design on the case, not that I was surprised. My father had never allowed me to have a warm shower, let alone a cell phone. I wasn’t sure what to do with it.
“We’re not going to be able to visit him, not in the state he’s in. We’re going to have to be smarter than that. We’re going to have to sneak in.”
Staring at her determined face, I couldn’t help but smile. She had a dangerous side, and it was now more than ever that I saw her shine. She flicked her red fingernails at me. “It works just like a computer. Go to the Internet tab.”
I did as she said, surely taking much longer than she would have.
“Then search Sacred Heart . . . um . . .” She thought for a moment. “Hospital map. We’re looking for the ICU,” she advised.
I clumsily typed in the keywords, thankful that it seemed to automatically correct any spelling errors. When I pressed “Enter”, a series of images and links came up on the screen. I was surprised by how convenient this was, at last understanding the fad I had long watched from a distance. I squinted to see the images and chose one that looked a lot like the site plans for gothic churches we’d studied in history. The image came up large on the screen.
“It says the ICU is in the left wing,” I reported. But, for whatever reason, a map seemed useless to me. In my heart, I knew exactly where he was.
Jacqueline nodded and I dropped the phone into my lap when the car suddenly swung to the right, weaving around another car in the turning lane before returning to our own lane.
“Okay. So, here’s what I’m thinking. This hospital ICU isn’t very big. There are maybe a handful of rooms. I’ll distract the nurses while you search them.”
We got into the turning lane, waiting at the light. “Okay.” Normally, such a task would send me into a bout of anxiety, but there was a strange calm surrounding me, a pull of determination. I might not know Leith really well, but what I did know of him was everything at the same time. I loved him and everything in my life pointed to the fact that I was doing the right thing. So, why did I feel it was all about to end?
Jacqueline’s body language showed her determination too. Her lips pressed together, her body hunched over the wheel, her foot poised to push the pedal to the floor when the light finally turned green. She turned into the parking lot. For a moment, I wanted to believe this really was a nightmare. To my dismay, I wasn’t waking up.
THIRTEEN
We squealed to a stop as Jacqueline pulled wildly into a parking spot. We both unbuckled and threw our doors open before the engine had fully stopped. At the last second, I grabbed Ladybird, sensing I was going to need her help.
“Act calm,” Jacqueline advised, though she was acting more frantic than I was. She was gripping her purse with both hands, red fingernails digging into the leather.
We walked determinedly toward the sliding doors. Entering with purpose, we acted as if we knew where we were going. Flying past the front desk, the receptionists didn’t stop us or even bother to glance. In a way, I felt as though this were my mother’s doing. Walking down the narrow hallway, we passed rooms with their shades drawn and doors open a crack. I peered hopefully through each until something made me stop.
Jacqueline noticed my apprehension and turned to look at me. She gave me a look that urged me forward, but I slowly shook my head. Up ahead, there was a nurse looking at a clipboard on a patient’s door. She hadn’t noticed us yet, but it was only a matter o
f time. Slowly, feeling what seemed a hundred seconds pass, I turned my head, looking into the room directly to the right. It was as if a string had been tied around my waist, pulling me gently.
I looked back at Jacqueline, my eyes fogging with tears. Emotion overwhelmed me and, as if that weren’t enough, the sudden movement of Ladybird in my hands brought me to the tipping point. I looked down at her. She had used her last bit of energy to move across the cage, her legs reaching for the right side wall in a last dance of determination. Leith was in that room. I knew it.
I saw the nurse begin to turn. My breathing stopped and I ducked to my right before she saw me. I fell into the dark room and slowly shut the door, leaving Jacqueline outside to deal with the nurse. The sound of forced air, rhythmically pumping, filled my ears. Behind me and through the door, I could hear Jacqueline’s voice. The muffled sound mingled with another that I assumed to be the nurse.
I swallowed, forcing myself to look up. I licked my dry lips and realized my lungs stung as I’d forgotten to breathe. I approached the bed, knowing that under all the tubing, tape, and needles, Leith was there. It was an overwhelming notion, a fact that couldn’t be disproved. Frightened, I reached for the key under my shirt for comfort, reminding myself time and time again that this was real, though every ounce of me felt crazy. One foot in front of the other, I got closer. As I did, glimpses of his features were visible—brown hair, tanned skin.
I found myself looking away as tears threatened to take my strength. I glanced down, one hand on the key, the other on Ladybird. Her dancing had ceased. Her life was surely coming to a close. What was I going to do?
I pulled my gaze back to his face. His eyes were shut, and deep circles shadowed the beautiful brightness I was used to seeing. My eyes followed the curve of his brow to his ear and down the length of his hair. A strand lay against the pillow. I allowed my mind to recall the way his hair had felt last night, resting against my chest as he fell asleep in my arms. My hand was drawn to touch it, and I rolled the strands across my fingers, wondering how this could be the same person, but it was.