by Cylin Busby
As I walked up to the counter, I heard Erin’s voice behind me: “He seems so normal … ,” and that made me smile. From what Mike and Allie had shared, I had been the talk of the school a few months ago. It was going to be a big disappointment to everyone in the fall when “coma boy” returned, looking and acting so normal—well, on the outside, at least. Maybe Mike and I should plan something special for the first day, some sort of stunt with a wheelchair or something. He’d be into that. I turned back to look at him and was relieved to see he looked more chill, his arm slung over the back of the booth.
That’s when I noticed her. A girl sitting at the counter with her back to me. I felt my breath catch in my throat.
Her pale shoulders showed through the thin straps of her white sundress.
Long dark hair tumbled down her back, stopping in just the right place, above a small waist circled with a red belt.
Before I could stop myself, before I could think, I put my hand on her, touching her shoulder, her skin warm under my fingers. “Olivia,” I whispered. I would know her anywhere. I wanted to breathe her in.
But the eyes that turned to me, bright and hazel, the face—no. It was wrong, all wrong.
“Hi?” the girl said curiously, looking at me.
I shook my head, trying to wake up from the dream, the vision of what I had wanted to see. “I’m sorry, I thought you were someone else.”
“That’s okay.” The girl turned around again and left me standing there for a minute, unsure of what to do.
“Bro, ketchup!” Mike yelled, and I snapped into action, asking the server for a new bottle, which she handed me without even meeting my eyes. When I sat back down at the table, I was sweating; I could feel my forehead was wet and cold. The conversation went on around me, and I realized my friends had no idea what had just happened. Of course they didn’t. Why would they? They barely remembered that day when I woke up asking for a girl named Olivia. No one remembered Olivia. No one but me.
I looked over at the girl at the counter again. Her hair was right, but the freckled arms—how could I have missed that? Of course it wasn’t her. It couldn’t be her. It would never be her.
As Mike shoved french fries into his mouth, making Erin giggle, I tried to pull myself back into the conversation. But my mind went to what Allie had said, about the tree and the rings inside. I realized all at once that she was wrong. The ring for this year wasn’t light or barely there, it wasn’t a drought. In the tree of my life, this year was a ring dark and deep, embedded further than any other year had been or ever would be. This was the year when I was hollowed out and came back from nothing. This was the year I faced everything and came out of it somehow. I wanted to think it had something to do with me, with my own strength, but I knew that wasn’t true. I hadn’t done it alone. I could never have done it alone.
Sometimes at night when I was at the pool, in the quiet stillness underwater, my mind would go to that place. To the hospital, to the people there. It was as if my heart could travel, over the miles, over the months that had passed, and I was back with her. Through the dark hallways, the sounds of the machines running. The feeling when I opened my eyes and she was in the room, when I had waited for her all day, and then she was there. Olivia. That closeness again. Like it used to be. But then something happens to bring me back, something in the real world. And I come back, and I’m alive; I’m me, but I’m alone. I was still getting used to that. And I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to be okay with it. If I would ever stop missing her. Maybe, maybe someday. But not yet.
Allie noticed how quiet I was; she always did. “You okay?” she asked, looking at me closely.
I picked up my soda and took a sip. “Yeah.” I hoped she wouldn’t notice that my hand was shaking.
“Let’s go!” Mike said, standing up and grabbing the check. “Good times await.”
When we walked outside, I took one last look back at the girl at the counter. Through the glass from the parking lot, it could be her, if you looked at just the right angle. Almost.
I heard my name. Just a whisper.
West.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, let the feeling wash over me.
“You coming or what?” Mike called out. When I turned around, they were waiting for me, by the car. My friends.
“I’m coming,” I said.
As I walked out of the shade and into the sun, the warmth hit my face, my shoulders. I left the darkness behind. As we pulled out of the parking lot, I didn’t look back. I had what I needed, with me. Inside me. Always.
Acknowledgments
This book, although fiction, required medical knowledge that was far beyond my scope. Thank you to my mom, Polly Busby, for her nursing expertise, and to my best friend, Blue Butterfield, for her medical savvy—not everything in the story is exactly medically accurate, but I got as close as possible while still protecting the story of West and Olivia.
Thank you to Karen Moy and Erik Van Rhein for sharing with me their personal story of a traumatic accident that resulted in a coma, and eventual recovery.
For his expertise and information on jail visitation, thank you to Matthew Mizel, director and producer of the documentary On the Outs, and volunteer with InsideOUT Writers.
Thank you to Dr. Narsing Rao and Dr. James Tan.
For sharing her true-life experience, thank you to Wendy Perez, the inspiration behind Allie’s “tree of life” metaphor.
To my agent, Brenda Bowen, much gratitude for taking me on as a client and believing in me. May this be the first of many.
Thank you to Melanie Cecka, friend and editor in one, for shaping my first young-adult novel. And thanks to Victoria Wells Arms for taking this project on and seeing it safely home.
To my writers’ group—Pamela Bunn, Nanci Katz Ellis, and Erin Zimring—thank you for believing in this story from the beginning.
And to my boys, Damon and August, all of my love.
Also by Cylin Busby
The Year We Disappeared
Copyright © 2012 by Cylin Busby
All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages
First published in the United States of America in September 2012
by Bloomsbury Books for Young Readers
Electronic edition published in September 2012
www.bloomsburyteens.com
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to
Permissions, Bloomsbury BFYR, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Busby, Cylin.
Blink once / by Cylin Busby. —1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
Summary: West, a high school senior with everything going for him until an accident leaves him
paralyzed, connects with Olivia, a patient in the hospital room next to his, who seems to
understand his dreams and nightmares but who has a secret.
[1. Paralysis—Fiction. 2. People with disabilities—Fiction. 3. Hospitals—Fiction. 4. Haunted
places—Fiction. 5. Nightmares—Fiction. 6. Love—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.B9556Bli 2012 [Fic]—dc23 2012011232
Book design by Nicole Gastonguay
ISBN 978-1-61963-054-3 (e-book)
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