Lights Out Lucy

by Elicia Hyder

  “Lucy, do you know what happened?” Doc Carnage asked.

  “Me—Medusa.” My chin was quivering.

  Someone swore. There was yelling on the other side of the room. A few of the girls looked over, but they wouldn’t let me move. The gym door slammed hard against its metal frame.

  “Did somebody call an ambulance?” the doctor asked.

  I reached for her. “No. No ambulance.”

  She looked down at me. “You need a head CT, Lucy. You lost consciousness.”

  “I’m OK,” I insisted.

  “Team rules, kid.” It was Shamrocker.

  “I’ll drive her,” Olivia said. “Don’t call an ambulance.”

  “Is that all right, Doc?” someone asked.

  Doc Carnage nodded. “That’s fine. As long as she goes.”

  Grace helped me sit up. Pain splintered through my skull. I winced.

  Zoey was beside my legs. She caught my mouthpiece before it hit the dirty floor.

  “Glad you were wearing a helmet,” Doc Carnage said as she unbuckled my chin strap. “That was a hard fall.” She carefully pulled off the helmet, then checked my scalp for lumps and blood.

  “Medusa’s gone,” Styx said, appearing next to Olivia. “Maven’s taking her home.”

  “Good!” Kraken barked.

  Several others voiced their agreement.

  “What did I do?” I asked, rubbing the back of my battered skull.

  Styx knelt beside me. “West Adler. You did West Adler.”

  Maybe it was the brain bruise because the information took a second to compute. “Oh geez. West broke up with Medusa?”

  Styx nodded. “Just a couple of weeks ago.”

  The room began to spin again. I dropped my head between my knees to try and hold onto consciousness. “I didn’t know,” I said, panting into the cavern formed by my legs.

  A hand rested on my back. “We know. Olivia said you didn’t tell West you were playing,” Styx said.

  “He didn’t tell you he was dating Medusa?” someone asked.

  “Why would he?” Olivia was quick to jump to my defense. “He wasn’t aware Lucy knew Medusa.”

  I straightened, and my head throbbed again. “He has no idea.”

  “Well, thanks to Jake Barrett making national news, everybody knows now,” Styx said.

  “Medusa lost it when she saw the pictures,” Shamrocker added.

  “That’s no excuse for what she did! Lucy ought to press charges!” Olivia shouted. She dropped beside me. “I tried to call and warn you, but you didn’t have your damn phone!”

  I reached for her hand and squeezed. “It’s not your fault.” I looked around. “And I’m not pressing charges. It’s roller derby.” I found Monica in the crowd. “It’s not a matter of if you get hurt, but how bad and when, right?”

  A few of the girls laughed.

  Doc Carnage examined my eye. “It’s time for you to go to the ER, Miss Jokes. Let me know what they say.”

  “Thanks, Doc,” I said.

  Olivia and Styx helped me out of the room to a chorus of well-wishes from my teammates. If I could still call them that. I’d potentially lost my job, all my newfound friends, and quite possibly my brand-new boyfriend, all in the span of a day. That was some kind of destruction record, even for me.

  I leaned back in the passenger’s seat and rested the ice against my face. My head was throbbing against my skull.

  Olivia got in and started the engine. “Are you all right, Lucy?”

  “Head hurts,” I said, pulling my knees up to my chest.

  “I’m sorry. I’ll be quiet.”

  “No. Tell me what happened.”

  The turn signal on her car sounded firecracker loud in my aching head. “After work Sunday night, I went to Styx’s apartment. Medusa was there. She stormed out when I came in, obviously pissed about something. I was afraid it was because I was there.”

  “So you and Styx were outed too?”

  “Everybody’s so worked up about you, nobody cares about me and Styx.”

  I tried to smile but couldn’t. “You’re welcome.”

  “Ha, ha.” She turned left at the red light onto Wedgewood Avenue. “You and West were tagged in pictures and the video from Jake Barrett’s party. It’s been all over the news.”

  “I know. Up until now, that was a good thing,” I said.

  “Medusa, and everyone else, assumed you knew that she and West had just broken up. She went ballistic.”

  Part of me couldn’t blame her.

  “But I didn’t know.”

  “That’s what I told them. Medusa wouldn’t hear it though.”

  “I wonder if West knows,” I said, watching the buildings zoom by out the passenger-side window. “I don’t even have a way to call him.”

  “You can use my phone,” she offered.

  I sighed. “I don’t even know your phone number, much less his.”

  “Want me to see if Styx has a way to get in touch with him?”

  “No. I’ll figure it out when we get home.”

  “That’s probably for the best. She’s pretty pissed off at him too,” she said.

  “Why?”

  She shrugged. “He broke up with Medusa right after her mom died. That’s a pretty shitty thing to do.”

  I couldn’t really argue.

  “Styx said things were already falling apart with them before Medusa went to New York, but the timing sucked. He flew up there for the funeral and then broke it off with her about a week after she got back.” She was quiet for a second. “I guess that explains why he went MIA on you for a while.”

  I closed my eyes. “What a mess.”

  They took us straight back to a triage room, one of the few benefits of having a potential brain bleed, but then we waited for almost an hour to get the results of the CT scan. That was generally a good sign. Had they suspected anything serious, they would’ve started drilling holes in my head.

  The female doctor who had ordered the head CT scan finally walked into my room. “Good news, roller girl,” she said, looking up from the clipboard in her hand.

  I pushed myself up in the bed a little. “I like the sound of that.”

  “You have a concussion, but your scan was normal. There’s no further brain injury.”

  I relaxed. “That is good news.”

  She scribbled something on my chart. “You need to take it easy for a few days, but you can go home. No driving till the dizziness and headache pass. You can treat it with acetaminophen or ibuprofen. Keep ice on that eye, and get lots of rest, physically and mentally.”

  I groaned. “Not much chance of that.”

  “Take tomorrow off, at least.” She pointed at me. “And no skating for a while.”

  “How long?” Olivia asked. “She’s got tryouts in two weeks.”

  The doctor hugged the clipboard. “Once the headache is gone, you can do light aerobic exercise. If symptoms don’t return, then you can skate without contact. If you still have no symptoms, check in with your regular doctor first, but you should be OK to return to full play in two weeks.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” I said, replacing the ice pack on my eye.

  “I’ll have the nurse come discharge you.” She turned and left.

  “That’s good news. You should be back in time for the skills test,” Olivia said.

  I almost laughed. “I’m not taking the skills test.”

  “Why not?” she asked.

  I held up a hand. “Because it’s Medusa’s team. There’s no coming back from what happened tonight.”

  Olivia stood. “So you’re just going to quit? And let her win?”

  “There are no winners in this, Olivia.”

  She huffed and walked to the doorway. “Whatever.”

  Ten minutes later, a nurse wheeled us out to the waiting room, and what I saw made my breath hitch in my chest. Grace, Monica, Zoey, and Styx all stood from their chairs. “You guys,” I said with a whimper.

  They
all came over and sandwiched me in a group hug. It hurt, but I didn’t care.

  “How are you feeling?” Zoey asked.

  Monica knelt down beside me. “What did the doctor say?”

  “Just a concussion. I’ll be fine.”

  Grace handed me a small bouquet of gas station flowers. “Can we do anything for you?”

  “I just want to sleep.”

  “I’ve got your car,” Styx said. “I’ll follow you guys to your apartment with it, then Grace is going to drive me home.”

  “Thank you.”

  Styx squeezed my hand. “Don’t mention it. We’re family.”

  It seemed like an eternity until I was finally tucked into my bed. “Can I do anything else for you?” Olivia asked as she pulled up the comforter to my chin.

  My eyes were closed, so I pointed blindly across the room. “That box you brought in with my stuff. It’s my new cell phone. Can you set it up for me?”

  “Of course. Do you need it?” she asked, her voice growing faint as she walked to the living room.

  “I need to tell my boss I won’t be in tomorrow. That is, if I still have a job there.”

  Her footfalls returned. “Why wouldn’t you have a job?”

  I sighed. “It’s a long story, and my head hurts too bad to tell it.”

  “Is your boss in your contacts?” she asked.

  “Yeah, and hopefully my contacts will download from the cloud.”

  “I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry. Do you want me to contact West?”

  “No. I’ll call him tomorrow. I can’t deal with it now.”

  Her fingers raked the hair off my forehead. “OK. Get some rest, Lucy. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

  Eighteen

  “Lucy?”

  It was Olivia.

  I pried open my good eye to look at her. She crossed my bedroom and sat down beside me. Her hair was pulled up in a bun, and she was wearing her work clothes. Light was shining through my bedroom window.

  “What time is it?” I asked with a yawn.

  “Almost ten in the morning. I’ve got to go to work soon, but I wanted to check to see if you needed anything before I left. Or I can call in sick and stay home.”

  I rubbed my sore face. “Oh, I need to call my boss.”

  “I took care of it,” she said. “I programmed your new phone last night and called and left a message on Audrey Scott’s voicemail.”

  I vaguely remembered us already having this conversation.

  “How’s your head?” she asked.

  “Sore.”

  “Want me to stay? I can.”

  “No, I’ll be fine. Thank you though.”

  She pointed to the nightstand. “I put painkillers and water by your bed. And some crackers in case you woke up hungry.”

  I smiled. “Thank you.”

  “West came by last night, but I didn’t want to wake you.”

  “He did?”

  “Yeah. He blew up your phone all night when I finally got it to turn on. Then he showed up here around ten. Someone from the team told him what happened.”

  “What did he say?” I asked.

  “He’s really upset. He says he hasn’t talked to Medusa in about a month and didn’t have a clue about any of this.” She picked up my phone off the nightstand and handed it to me. “Call him. He’s really worried.”

  I sighed. I was worried too. Never had I intended for any of this to happen, and there was no way I could see to set it right.

  “And call me if you need anything.”

  “I will. Thanks for everything,” I said.

  She smiled back when she reached my door. “What are best friends for?” Then she was gone.

  There were four text messages and two voicemails from West.

  I opened my text messages.

  Checking to see if you got your new phone.

  Guess not. Call me when you get it.

  I’m really worried. Are you OK?

  Next, I listened to the voicemails he’d left.

  “Hey, Lucy. I just heard what happened at practice. God, I hope you’re OK. Call me back as soon as you can.”

  “Hey, it’s West. I’m coming over, just so I know you’re all right. I’ll understand if you don’t want to see me, but I promise, I had no idea about any of this. I’d never do anything to hurt you. Be there soon.”

  A final text message from him had come that morning. All it said was, Lucy.

  Nothing in me wanted to call. What was I supposed to say? ‘Hey, West. Remember that beautiful, sexy, badass Wonder Woman you were screwing before me? She kicked my ass because I’m pretty sure she wants you back.’ No. I’d call him later, I decided, and rolled over and hugged my pillow.

  Beside me, Stuart, my bright yellow stuffed Minion, was staring at me from the other side of the bed with his lone, big round eye. He was judging me.

  With a painful groan, I reached back to the nightstand for my phone and dialed West’s number before I could talk myself out of it again.

  He picked up on the first ring. “Hello?”

  “Hey.”

  It sounded like he had the wind knocked out of him. “Hey. God, Lucy. Are you OK?”

  “My face hurts and I have a concussion, but I’ll be fine.”

  “Lucy, I’m so sorry. I had no idea about any of this. Please, you have to believe me.”

  “Shh. Headache, remember?”

  “Sorry.” His voice was just above a whisper. “What can I do? Can I come over?”

  I closed my eyes. “No. Please don’t. I just need to rest. And not think. Doctor’s orders.”

  He was quiet for a beat. “I understand. I’ll do anything you need.”

  I smiled and a tear trickled from my swollen eye. “I know. I’ll call you later.”

  “OK. Bye.”

  “Goodbye, West.”

  Before putting the phone down, I dialed one more number. My dad’s.

  “Yello?”

  “Dad?” My voice cracked.

  “Hey, Lulabean. Are you OK, honey?”

  Emotion punctured my chest like a wooden stake. “No.”

  “Lucy, what’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Can I come home?” Tears streamed down my face, and I tried to steady my quivering chin.

  “Of course you can come home. What’s the matter?”

  I sniffed. “I’ve had a really bad week.”

  “I assumed you were having a really wonderful week. We saw you on the news at Jake Barrett’s party. I was excited to hear about it.”

  “Everything’s kinda gone to shit since then.”

  Dad chuckled. He always thought it was funny when I swore. If he only knew. “I’m sorry, honey. Need me to come get you?”

  “No, but I want to come home. The doctor says I can’t drive today, but maybe tomorrow. I’ve got some personal time I can take at work.”

  “The doctor?” Alarm flooded his deep voice. “What happened?”

  “I have a concussion. I’ll be OK. I just can’t drive.” The call waiting beeped on my phone. I looked at the screen. Incoming call. Audrey Scott. “Dad, my boss is calling. I’ll let you know when I’m on my way.”

  “All right, Lulabean. I’ll keep my phone on me if you need anything at all.”

  “Thanks, Dad. I love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  I answered Audrey’s call. “Hello?”

  “Hi, it’s Audrey. I got a voicemail from your roommate saying you were in the hospital. I thought I’d call and make sure everything was OK.”

  “I’ll be fine. Had an accident yesterday and hit my head. I have a concussion, but it’s nothing too serious.”

  “Mercy,” she said. “Is there anything we can do?”

  “Actually, yes. I may need to take tomorrow off too if I can’t shake this headache. I can work from home so we don’t fall behind.” If I still have a job, that is, I thought.

  “That won’t be necessary.”

  Oh, here we go. You’re
fired, Lily.

  “Take as much time as you need. You’ve earned it with all the extra hours you’ve put in lately and with the huge success of Jake’s video. We owe it to you.” She paused. “I owe it to you.”

  Maybe the concussion was more severe than I thought. Surely, I couldn’t have heard her right.

  “We’ll see you in a few days,” she said. “We can get caught up then.”

  “Um…thanks, Audrey.”

  “Thank you.”

  The line went dead in my hand. I stared at the phone for a second, then turned the ringer to silent and rolled over, hugging my pillow.

  The pain in my head had waned to a dull ache by the afternoon, and around two, a knock at the front door coaxed me out of bed. I shuffled out to the living room in my pajamas and paused to check my hair in the hallway mirror. It was probably West at the door. I looked through the peephole.

  Dad.

  He’d come straight from work. His mail carrier shirt was still clean, telling me he’d left before starting his daily route. The buttons down the front were straining more since the last time I saw him, thanks to all the casseroles, no doubt.

  I pulled the door open, and he gasped when his eyes fell on me. “Oh, Lucy.” He rushed inside and gripped my chin to examine my battered face. “Who did this to you? What’s his name? I swear to God I’ll—”

  I put up my hands. “Calm down, killer. It was a girl named Medusa.”

  His head snapped back. “What?”

  I sighed and leaned against the open door. “You came all the way from Riverbend?”

  “Of course I did. It sounded like you might be in trouble. Looks like I was right.”

  I put my arms around his neck and crumpled against his shoulder as all the emotions swirling within me rushed out like water through a broken river dam.

  He rubbed my back. “What happened?” After a moment of snotty sobbing, he reached back and closed the door. Then he took my hand and led me to the living room.

  I sank onto a couch cushion and plucked a tissue from the box on the coffee table. I wiped my eyes and blew my nose with a loud honk. Dad was smiling gently when I looked at him again. “Sorry,” I said. “I have a head injury. I think it’s messing with my emotions.”

  “Why do you have a head injury?” He leaned forward, balancing his elbows on his knees.