Miracle

by Elizabeth Scott

  I woke up with a start, something hot stinging my eyes and throat.

  I lay there for a long time, trying to go back to sleep, but I could hear the trees rustling outside and I didn’t like the way they sounded. Plus whenever I closed my eyes, I saw a bright red sky.

  After a while it felt better to just make myself stay awake, to stare up at my dark ceiling. To remind myself I was at home, in my room.

  To remind myself I was alive.

  ELIZABETHWRITES.COM

  I sat there and wondered again why I’d lived. Why I didn’t even feel like I was here.

  Megan is a miracle. At least, that’s what everyone says. Having survived a plane crash that killed everyone else on board, Megan knows she should be grateful just to be alive. The truth is, she doesn’t feel like a miracle.

  In fact, she doesn’t feel anything at all.

  Then memories from the crash start coming back. Scared and alone, Megan doesn’t know whom to turn to. Her entire community seems unable—or maybe unwilling—to see her as anything but Miracle Megan, except for Joe, the beautiful boy next door with a tragic past and secrets of his own.

  All Megan wants is for her life to get back to normal, but the harder she tries to live up to everyone’s expectations, the worse she feels. This time she may be falling too fast to be saved. . . .

  ELIZABETH SCOTT is also the author of Bloom; Perfect You; Living Dead Girl; Something, Maybe; The Unwritten Rule; and Between Here and Forever. She lives just outside Washington, D.C., with her husband, firmly believes you can never own too many books, and would love it if you visited her website (elizabethwrites.com), followed her on Twitter (twitter.com/escottwrites), and became a fan on Facebook (facebook.com/elizabethwrites).

  Jacket design by Jessica Handelman

  Jacket photograph copyright © 2012 by Kamil Vojnar/Trevillion Images

  Author photograph copyright © by Matt Mendelsohn

  SIMON PULSE • Simon & Schuster, New York

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  ALSO BY ELIZABETH SCOTT

  Bloom

  Perfect You

  Living Dead Girl

  Something, Maybe

  The Unwritten Rule

  Between Here and Forever

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  SIMON PULSE

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  First Simon Pulse hardcover edition June 2012

  Copyright © 2012 by Elizabeth Spencer

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

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  Designed by Angela Goddard

  The text of this book was set in Adobe Caslon.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Scott, Elizabeth, 1972–

  Miracle / by Elizabeth Scott. — 1st Simon Pulse hardcover ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Rising senior and star soccer player Megan Hathaway, unable to remember

  the plane crash of which she was the sole survivor, feels like an empty shell and loses all interest

  in her life and her friends, but unlikely friends help her face life as a “miracle.”

  ISBN 978-1-4424-1706-9 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-1-4424-1708-3 (eBook)

  [1. Survival—Fiction. 2. Aircraft accidents—Fiction. 3. Post-traumatic stress disorder—Fiction.

  4. Family life—Fiction. 5. High schools—Fiction. 6. Schools—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.S4195Mir 2012

  [Fic]—dc22

  2011008655

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Acknowledgments

  As always, many thanks to my editor, Jennifer Klonsky, for her amazingness, and a huge thank-you to everyone else at Simon Pulse and Simon & Schuster for being the best at what they do and for always making me feel like my book matters.

  Hugs to the best copy editor around, Stephanie Evans, and to Robin, Beth, Diana, Ann, Jess, Amy, and everyone else who read through all the drafts and told me that I could do this.

  Jay Asher, thank you for taking the time to read this book, and for then giving me such an amazing gift.

  A shout-out to the best mailing list members any author could dream of: Brittany Conlon, Lexi Welch, Jenny Davies, Adrianne Russell, Brittney Tabel, Katrina Schofield, Christi Aldellizzi, Kaitlin Lyngaas, Vong Bidania, Nancy Woodford, Vanessa Ealum, Julie Kao, Samantha Townsend, Lucile Ogie-Kristianson, Mahlail Shahid, Andrea Burdette, and Hannah Joy Herring.

  Finally, a very special thank-you to Yani Hernandez, who I think deserves a week of her own.

  One

  When I woke up the sky was burning.

  It was orange-red with flames, breathing hot all over me, and thick black smoke bloomed like clouds. I rose to my knees and the sky grew hotter and closer as water poured over me. I knew I should turn around, that there was something behind me. I didn’t know how I knew that. I just did.

  I didn’t turn around, and in front of me, through the bright flame of the sky, I saw a hint of green. I started walking toward it. Smoke was winding itself inside me, slipping down my throat every time I breathed.

  My eyes hurt. My lungs hurt. I hurt. My feet caught on something and I fell.

  My eyes were open, wide open, but I couldn’t see anything.

  After a while, it just seemed easier to close them. So I did.

  Two

  When I opened my eyes I saw light. Bright white light, so strong it made my eyes burn. I didn’t know where I was, but then I smelled a weird yet familiar scent, disinfectant and sweat and used Band-Aids mixed together, and knew I’d fallen asleep in the hospital.

  Great. What had David done now?

  I tried to sit up. I couldn’t. It hurt too much. I hurt too much.

  There was an IV in each of my arms. I could see them stuck into my skin, taped into place well below the sleeves of my hospital gown.

  I was the one in the hospital.

  Why was I in the hospital? Had I gotten hurt dur
ing the last scrimmage at soccer camp? I’d been careful through every game there even though I’d known it meant I wouldn’t get the best player award. I hadn’t wanted to start the season with an injury.

  I heard someone crying and tried to sit up again. It hurt even more this time. My head felt like it was filled with rocks. The crying got louder and then Mom was leaning over me, a huge, shaking smile lighting up her face. It looked strange, wrong against the tears.

  “Mom?” I said, or tried to. Apparently there were rocks in my mouth too.

  “Oh, Megan,” Mom said, and her voice was weird, shaking just like her smile.

  “Oh, Megan,” she said again and behind her I saw a bright burning, knew that just past it—my mind went blank, frozen with something I didn’t have a name for, and I stared at her, hoping she’d let me know why I was here. Let me know what had happened.

  She put her hands on my shoulders, gently, touching me like I was made of glass. I could feel her fingers shaking. I could see that she was shaking. “George,” she said, sobbing now, and then my father was there, his face creased with sleep.

  “Meggie?” he said, and then he was hugging me so tight I could hardly breathe, squeezing me while he muttered, “It’s a miracle. You’re a miracle,” over and over again.

  I didn’t know what was going on. Mom and Dad were both crying, which scared me because Dad never cried. The day he and Mom first brought David home from the hospital his eyes were red and he kept clearing his throat, but he didn’t cry. I did, and I was only seven and didn’t even know what was wrong with David. Dad did, and he still didn’t cry.

  A doctor came in while Mom and Dad were still hugging me. I didn’t recognize him and I should have because I knew every doctor in the Reardon Emergency Clinic. David practically lived there, first because he was sick all the time and then because he was always unable to ignore a tree that shouldn’t be climbed or a patch of ice Dad hadn’t scraped off the driveway.

  The doctor didn’t act like a doctor. He acted . . . strange. Too nice, and he kept saying my name like it was more than a name, like it meant something. “How’s this light, Megan?” “Is it too bright, Megan?” “I’m going to take your blood pressure now, Megan, okay?”

  I couldn’t even focus on what he was doing, I hurt so much. I just kept hearing him say my name, over and over until it didn’t even sound like a word.

  “Remarkable,” he said when he was done, smiling at me, and then turned to my parents. “She’s in great shape. Some contusions, some bruising, and of course she’s going to be sore for a while, but other than that—well, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Was he crazy? “I don’t feel like I’m in great shape.” My voice still sounded almost as bad as I felt.

  Mom laughed, a strange high-pitched giggle that sounded like it was hiding a scream. “Sweetheart, you’re in amazing shape. Just a few cuts and bruises—nothing worse than you’ve gotten during a soccer game.”

  She looked at the doctor. “I told you she’d be fine.” Her voice sounded sure but brittle, and in her eyes I saw something that looked almost like fear.

  The doctor nodded, looking at me and then at my parents again. “Well, Mr. and Mrs. Hathaway, while it does appear that her injuries from the crash are minimal, I’d like to consult with some specialists before making any decisions.”

  Crash? I was in a car accident? Oh God, Jess. She must have come to pick me up at the airport. I didn’t remember it at all. Why didn’t I? Was Jess—? I looked at my parents’ tear-streaked faces and felt my heart clench.

  “Is Jess okay?”

  Mom blinked, the expression in her eyes shifting to something even more frightened for a second before it was smoothed away. “She’s fine, sweetheart. Why wouldn’t she be?”

  “Can I see her? What about her car? Is it totaled?” Jess loved her car.

  “Megan,” my father said, taking my hand as the doctor peered down at me, shining a light in my eyes. “Sweetheart, you were in an accident. But not with Jessica. Your plane crashed. You remember that, right?”

  “What?”

  The doctor clicked off the light. “In the Round Hills,” he said. “In the forest. I hear you’re real familiar with it, living out in Reardon. I guess that helped get you through it.”

  “Through what? I don’t remember being on a plane that—I don’t think I was in a . . .”

  I rip open the tiny bag of pretzels with my teeth and stare out the rain-wet window at the clouds, which are gathering thick and dark. I saved the pretzels till now because the last part of the flight is so boring. Once you cross into Clark County it’s all trees. The only reason Reardon even has an airport is because of the Park Service. Stupid forest. I remember how, on the flight out, when we took off the trees seemed so close to the plane, kind of like they are—

  I shook my head. And then I started to cry.

  Three

  I’d been in the hospital for almost two days, and I wasn’t in Reardon at all. I was all the way upstate in Staunton, in the LaMotte Memorial Medical Center, which I’d heard of because Rose from church went there after she got diagnosed with breast cancer. She died there too, last winter, and getting her body flown back to Reardon took days because of snowstorms. I didn’t know why I kept thinking about that, but I did.

  I couldn’t remember the crash.

  I said I did, though.

  I said I did because I got tired of the doctor asking me if I did, of Mom and Dad looking worried, fear in their eyes as they clutched at me and smiled, wet-eyed. I thought about David and how they already worried so much about him. How they kept saying I was fine like they needed it to be true.

  I thought saying I remembered would make things better.

  It didn’t. The doctor came in less but Mom and Dad kept looking at me, kept smiling so much and so hard I was afraid they’d strain something. Every time I moved, Mom would let out a little sigh and then squeeze my hand. Dad kept hugging me.

  It started to freak me out because they were acting like I’d become someone else, like I wasn’t just Megan, their daughter, anymore. And they wouldn’t leave me. Not to call David (“He’s fine! We talked to him while the doctor was with you!”), not to get something to eat (“We’re fine! We grabbed a sandwich earlier! The hospital cafeteria is very nice!”), not even to get some fresh air (“We just want to be here with you! Our (pause for smile and/or tears) miracle!”). I finally told them I wanted to go to the bathroom just to get some time away from them.

  They had to help me walk there, and I was surprised at how far away it seemed, but kept going as they both peered anxiously at me while smiling and telling me how well I was doing. How fantastic I was.

  The bathroom itself was small and a strange industrial yellow but the door locked, and I was finally alone.

  Mom and Dad had both been in there. Mom had her makeup bag sitting on the back of the sink, and Dad had propped a razor and a can of shaving cream on top of it too. He’d also left a folded newspaper on top of the toilet tank. I picked it up, and my face stared back at me.

  Girl Survives Plane Crash, Walks To Safety

  By Gina Worshon

  In what can only be termed a miracle, a survivor of Flight 619 somehow walked out of the Round Hills National Forest and then flagged down a passing motorist.

  Megan Hathaway (pictured right), a rising senior at Reardon High and star soccer player who was returning from training camp when the plane crashed, waved down Joyce Johnson on her way to work.

  “I don’t normally stop for hitchhikers,” Mrs. Johnson said, “but this girl was standing in the middle of the road. She didn’t even have shoes on. I thought maybe she’d been attacked.”

  Miss Hathaway was pronounced dead by the Sheriff’s Office over thirty-six hours earlier, and her parents, arriving in Staunton to learn of their daughter’s final moments, instead found out she was alive. Miss Hathaway is currently at LaMotte Memorial Medical Center, where she is being held for observation. She is expec
ted to make a full recovery.

  Flight 619 crashed in Round Hills National Forest shortly after it began its descent toward the Reardon airport. Rescue crews were sent out but ran into problems battling a thunderstorm. It took them over twelve hours to reach the plane and when they did, according to the party leader, Staunton’s own Sheriff Andrew Green, they found no survivors.

  “We did all we could,” Green said when asked how Miss Hathaway hadn’t been found. “No one should have been able to walk away from that crash. Miss Hathaway truly is a miracle.”

  Right below that was another, smaller article. Memorial Service Unites Families in Grief. I started to look at it, but my eyes froze as soon as I read:

  Family, friends, and members of the community all turned out to remember Flight 619 victims: Park Service employees Walter Pelt, 24, and Sandra Lee, 27, as well as Clark resident Carl Brown, 52, and pilot Henry Roberts, 65.

  Victims.

  The dead.

  I dropped the paper on the floor. I opened the door. Mom and Dad were right there, waiting for me. After they helped me back into bed I asked them what happened to the clothes I’d been wearing.

  Mom looked at Dad. Dad looked at Mom. At first I thought they didn’t want me to see them but as they looked at each other, then at me, I realized they’d been waiting for this. That they wanted it.

  Dad went over to the far side of the room and picked up a plastic bag. He carried it just like he did the Bible when he was the lay reader at church and it made my skin crawl. He put the bag on my lap.

  It was open, and inside were my shorts and my shirt. They were filthy. I didn’t want to touch them.

  I looked at Mom and Dad. They were watching me, waiting. I pulled the shirt out of the bag. It smelled like forest, like dirt and the sharp bite of the pines that grow around here, and there was a dark brown-red stain on it, dried blood. I wondered how deeply I’d been cut, and where. I looked down at myself but I was just a blur, hospital gown, toes tucked in tight under blankets. I tried to remember my face, my neck, myself in the bathroom mirror, but it wouldn’t come.