by Marie Sexton
“Oh shit, I’m so sorry! I wasn’t looking! Are you hurt?” The driver was already out of his car and leaning over me. I recognized him from around town. His name was Jason. Other than that I didn’t know anything about him.
“I think I’m okay.” Actually, I had no idea. I was stunned and trying to survey the damage. Nothing hurt yet, but that didn’t mean anything.
“I think I better take you to the hospital.”
When I looked up at him, I was surprised to see how scared he looked.
“I think I’m okay.” I was actually more worried about the state of my bike.
“You’re bleeding.” Jason pointed toward my left ear.
I put my hand against my head, and it came away covered in blood which was quickly washed away again by the rain. “Oh shit.” I realized there was blood on my shirt and in the rainy water on the street.
Jason was starting to panic now. “Let me take you to the hospital.”
The pain was starting to come now too. It was either let him take me or wait here for cops and an ambulance. I got in his car.
“THE wound on your head looks worse than it actually is,” the doctor told me. “Of course, if you had been wearing a helmet, you would be home by now with only a few bumps and bruises instead of bleeding in my emergency room.” I knew he was right. Worse than that, I knew that Lizzy, Brian, and my mom were all going to give me the same lecture at least a hundred times over the next few days. “There’s no sign of concussion, so once we’ve got your wounds clean and bandaged, you’ll be able to go home. Do you have somebody you can call to pick you up?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I’m going to get you some Oxycodone—”
“I hate that stuff. It makes me itchy.”
“That’s a fairly common side effect. Would you prefer Vicodin?”
“Definitely.”
“I’m going to give you a little bit now, plus I’ll send you home with a pretty heavy dose to take before bed. But only for tonight. You’ll probably be pretty sore tomorrow but try to make do with over-the-counter pain relievers.”
“You bet.” Everything was definitely starting to hurt, and I knew it was only going to get worse.
They gave me the first round of drugs and then closed the wound on my left temple with something that smelled suspiciously like super glue. Besides being covered with blood, my shirt had been shredded by my skid on the asphalt. They threw it away, painfully cleaned the giant patch of road rash on my right side, spread some kind of goo all over it and bandaged it, and then gave me a blue scrub shirt to wear home.
Cops were in and out, asking me questions. Matt apparently was not on duty. Jason gave me his insurance information and promised to bring my bike by my house the next day. It seemed to go on forever. It was almost nine o’clock when the doctor finally brought me the second dose of Vicodin. “You can take these in a couple of hours,” he said as he handed them to me. I nodded even though I knew I wouldn’t wait that long. He handed me a cordless phone. “Call your ride now. I’ll want to talk to them before you leave.”
I took the pills as soon as he left the room and thought about who to call. Lizzy would be a wreck, crying and trying to baby me. Brian would yell about me being an idiot. Mom would cry and give me a lecture on the same topic.
I called Matt.
“Hey Jared,” he said when he picked up. “Where the hell are you? I went by your house.”
“I’m at the hospital. Can you come get me?”
“Are you okay? What happened?” he asked with genuine alarm.
“I got hit by a car, but—”
Of course he didn’t let me finish. “What! Jesus, Jared, are you okay?”
“I’m fine. But they won’t let me go unless I have a ride home.”
“I’ll be there in five minutes.”
When Matt got there, the doctor took him into the hallway, and they talked for a while. By the time we got in the car, I was already feeling better.
“Please don’t lecture me,” I said as we got in the car. “Just let it wait until morning.”
“Okay.” He said it like it hadn’t even occurred to him. I could have kissed him.
By the time we got to my house, I was dead on my feet. Between the Vicodin and the adrenaline crash, I felt like I could barely put one foot in front of the other. I sat down on the couch, leaned back and closed my eyes. I felt him sit down next to me. Nothing happened for a minute. Or maybe it was an hour.
The whole world was soft around the edges, not quite tangible. I knew I was in pain,
but I was drifting on top of it, buoyed by the drugs, and comfortable back in my own home. I might have slept for a bit. I couldn’t be sure. At some point, I became aware of him again at my side, and then a feather-light touch near my temple, where the cut was. I cracked my eyes open a tiny bit. He was next to me but facing me, one leg tucked under him, looking at the cut on my head. His fingers were carefully pushing my hair back out of the way. My eyes closed again, and I drifted for a while, feeling his fingers moving in my hair. My head still hurt, but his light touch felt nice.
“Jesus, Jared.” Matt said, and it was not his usual bantering voice. It was almost a whisper, very strained, and it surprised me. My eyes opened a tiny bit. He was leaning close, looking at me, and the expression on his face was one I had never seen before. His eyebrows were down a little bit, and his eyes, not very far away from my own, were dark and troubled. His fingers seemed to still be moving in my hair, against my scalp, almost like a caress, but my addled brain wasn’t sure. “You could have died.”
Even in my drugged state, I was surprised by how much raw emotion I could hear in those four words. I had no idea what to say, but what came out of my mouth was, “I’m okay.”
His eyes closed. His fingers were still in my hair but not moving anymore. “Thank God.” I couldn’t get my brain to work. Something about this was strange and wrong, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. He finally opened his eyes, and I must have looked confused, because he suddenly smiled at me a little bit and said, “Just how much Vicodin did they give you?”
“Enough.” I could easily have slept there the rest of the night and was especially reluctant to move away from where his fingers were tangled in my hair, just barely touching my head.
He shook his head at me, still smiling a little, and said, “Come on. Time for bed.”
He stood up, pulled me off the couch, and pushed me toward my bedroom. Once we got there, he said, “Do you have any sweats that might fit me?”
That confused me, but I pointed to a drawer.
“Okay.” He started digging through the drawer. He glanced back over and raised his eyebrow at me in amusement. “Jared, I’m not going to undress you,” he said lightly.
“You’ll have to do that yourself.”
I hadn’t actually realized that’s what I was supposed to be doing. I obediently took off my shoes and socks and pants, and I sat down on the bed. I wasn’t sure what to do next.
Matt came over and looked down at me with the pseudo-smile. “Close enough.” He pulled the hospital shirt off of me. His expression darkened again, that strange look I didn’t recognize, when he saw the bruises and giant bandage on my side. Then he pushed me gently backward on the bed. I turned onto my uninjured side and snuggled down into my bed with relief. He pulled the blankets up over me. When was the last time somebody had tucked me in? My eyes were already closed, and I was drifting again. Some time later, the mattress creaked. I opened my eyes a little. The room was dark, but I could still see him, wearing a pair of my sweats, getting into the other side of the bed.
“You’re sleeping here?” I managed to ask, although I seemed to be slurring my words a little.
“I’m not leaving you alone tonight. The doctor said to call right away if you started vomiting.”
“Will you be here when I wake up?” I didn’t know why that mattered, but some part of my brain apparently wanted to know.
I felt hi
s hand wrap tight around my wrist. “I promise.”
I WOKE up in the morning to the smell of bacon cooking. I was ravenously hungry, my whole body hurt, my mouth tasted terrible, and my head was pounding. I made it into the bathroom, emptied my bladder, brushed my teeth, and started cleaning up. Between the road rash and the superglue, a shower wasn’t even an option. The left side of my face had a massive bruise from my temple to my jaw. Yep, my mom was definitely going to freak out. I would have preferred being hit by another car to facing her.
My memory of the evening after leaving the hospital was a blur of hazy images: pain, but also a light touch on my temple, a hand wrapped around my wrist in the dark. Did he really sleep in my bed with me? Talk about opportunity wasted, I thought as I took two each of Tylenol and ibuprofen.
“How do you feel?” he asked as I came into the kitchen and sat down at the breakfast bar.
“Like I was hit by a Mack truck.”
“Nope.” He put a plate of bacon, eggs, and toast in front of me. “Just a Toyota Land Cruiser.” A glass of milk and a cup of coffee came next. It occurred to me that, with the exception of the coffee, none of this food had been in my house. He must have gone out early to get it.
“Holy shit, I’m hungry!”
“You had Vicodin for dinner.”
“That explains it.” I dug in.
“I called Lizzy and told her you would be late.”
I groaned as I thought about what Lizzy was going to say about the whole thing. “Did you tell her what happened?”
“No.” He sounded amused.
“You want me to get the full brunt of her freaking out when I tell her, don’t you?”
“Exactly.” His eyes were crinkled at the corners, almost laughing. “Plus, I could tell she was dying to know why I was calling from your house at seven thirty in the morning. I thought it would be fun to let her imagination run wild.” That certainly would get Lizzy’s bees buzzing, and I had to laugh. “Mind if I use the shower?” he asked.
“Help yourself.” I was already most of the way through the plate of food. He didn’t head for the shower though. He stood looking at me like he had something to say but didn’t know how. It made me self-conscious enough that I stopped eating and looked up at him.
“What?”
He walked over and stood next to me at the counter. For a minute, he didn’t move. I waited. I was expecting the lecture to start. But then he leaned toward me, put one hand under my hair on the back of my neck, pulled me toward him, and buried his face in my hair. He was shaking. He took one ragged breath, and then his lips brushed my ear when he whispered, “Don’t ever scare me like that again.”
I was stunned. I knew I was his only real friend in town, but I was still surprised at how shaken up he seemed to be. Suddenly I remembered his look from the night before, that strange expression I had never seen before. I remembered the emotion in his voice when he said I could have died. I was overwhelmingly touched by how much he cared about me. It was hard to make my throat work, but I managed to say, “I’ll do my best.”
“Good.” He let go of me, grabbed my helmet off of the counter, and shoved it into my stomach, hard enough to make me wince.
“From now on,” he said. It did not sound like a request.
My first instinct was to protest, but when I looked back up, I saw that look again. The one from last night. Could I really deny him anything? The answer was simple: no. I loved him too much.
“I promise.”
CHAPTER 15
TRUE to form, my family freaked out about the accident, but once they learned that Matt had made me promise to wear my helmet, they let it go. Mom called it a “blessing in disguise.” I tried not to roll my eyes when she said it. I was also relieved to find out that my bike wasn’t badly damaged. And so within a matter of days, the incident was, for the most part, forgotten. And if I wondered a little about Matt’s strange display of affection, I said nothing.
“You look like hell!” I had just opened my front door to find Matt leaning on the doorframe. I wasn’t sure why he even bothered knocking anymore. He looked like he might have fallen asleep there if I had taken any longer getting to the door.
“I just pulled a double shift. I’m exhausted.” He came in and threw himself onto the couch. “Have you bought any food yet? I’m starving.”
“You know I haven’t. But I’m hungry too. Come on, let’s go out. My treat.”
He groaned. “Where we gonna go?”
“Mamacita’s?”
“No. Cherie might be there.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Yes.”
“Since when?”
“Since I quit seeing her three weeks ago.”
That surprised me, but I let it go. “Okay then. How about Tony’s?”
“No. We can’t go there either.”
“Why not?”
“That blonde girl—I forgot her name. She’s always giving me her phone number.”
“Maybe it’s her night off?”
“If it is, then that other one will be there. The one that wears too much of that stinky hippie perfume. She practically sat in my lap last time.”
I was starting to grin despite myself.
“Is there any restaurant in town that we can go to?”
“No!” He groaned.
“Must be tough being the town’s most eligible bachelor.” I was having a hard time not laughing.
“I’m glad you find it so amusing.”
“And you’re not interested in any of them?”
He was looking right at me. He was so tired; all his defenses were down, and I knew he meant it when he said, “No. I would rather be here.” God, that was good to hear, but I tried to keep my tone casual.
“You think if you hang out with the gay guy long enough, they’ll finally start to leave you alone?”
“That would certainly be an added bonus.” His eyes were closed now, his breathing starting to slow.
“It doesn’t seem to be working so far.”
“Jared, shut up and order a pizza.”
When the pizza arrived, I brought out a couple of beers and flipped on the TV. He was still quiet and strangely pensive. I checked the on-screen TV Guide. “We gotta sit through the last forty minutes of The Breakfast Club, but then Wrath of Khan starts.”
“Whatever.”
I wasn’t sure how to handle this side of him. Usually he was so solid, but tonight it felt like he was lost. Like he was waiting for somebody to lead him home. He had hardly eaten any pizza although he was on his third beer.
“Are you working tomorrow?” I asked.
“Day off.”
“Let’s go for a ride. We haven’t been up in a couple of weeks.”
He brightened up a little. “Sure. I could use the exercise.”
He was slouched down, his long legs stretched out in front of him. His head was tilted back, and his arms were stretched out along the back of the couch so that one hand was resting behind my head. Half the time his eyes were closed, and I thought he was drifting in and out of sleep. We sat in silence for a while, and then he said suddenly, “I hate this movie.”
“Because it’s sentimental crap or because nothing gets blown up?” It was supposed to be a joke, but I don’t think he even heard me.
“None of them even know who they are. They’re just acting out their roles. Being what their parents made them. Always trying to be what’s expected. It’s exhausting.”
Somehow I didn’t think he was only talking about the movie.
“I think I envy you,” he said. “You don’t ever get tired, do you? You don’t care what they expect.”
“Whose expectations are you worried about, Matt?”
“Nobody’s. Everybody’s. Fuck, I don’t even know what I’m talking about. I’m so tired.” His eyes were closed again. “Don’t listen to me.”
I was pretty sure he had fallen asleep. I sat there, feet up on the coffee table, staring at the movie wi
thout seeing it, wondering what had happened to put him in this mood. Then I felt a small tug on the back of my head. Then another. I realized it was his hand. He was feeling my hair, gently pulling on my curls.
“Did something happen today, Matt?” He was watching his own fingers as they played in my hair, but I don’t think he was really seeing them. It was possible he hadn’t quite realized he was doing it. It felt nice, and I stayed perfectly still. I was afraid if I moved an inch, he would stop. “Is there something going on at work?”
The tug on my hair stopped. His jaw clenched, and I knew I had hit on something.
“No.”
“I know you’re lying.”
There was no answer for a minute, but then that gentle pull on my hair started again.
“They’re having a picnic. You know, a department thing, everybody bringing their families.”
He stopped, but I knew there was more. “And you don’t have a family?”
“That’s not the problem.” He sighed and took a deep breath like he was going to tell me. Then he stopped short, shaking his head. “Never mind.” He stopped playing with my hair and looked back at the TV like the subject was closed.
“Then what is the problem?”
It took him a while to decide to answer, but he finally said in a quiet voice, “They asked me if I was going to bring a guest. And I mentioned you.”
I was shocked. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“No shit.”
“What did they say?”
“They told me ‘boyfriends’ aren’t allowed.” He sighed again. “I know you warned me. I know I should have seen it coming. But we’re friends, right?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. “I’m not allowed to have a friend? And what if it was more?” I just about choked on my beer when he said that, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Why is it their business? They expect me to go sit at their fucking picnic—alone—and watch them with their happy fucking little families, and I’m supposed to pretend like the one person in this town I give a damn about doesn’t even exist?”