“No, I do not,” he says.
I groan.
“I know,” I say. “I just can’t stand how weird and possessive I feel right now.”
“Well,” Jay says, looking straight ahead. “How do you think I feel? Sawyer Baskin is looking at you.”
I scan the players and find Sawyer by the bench with his helmet off, and yes, he does seem to be looking at me. He smiles and waves, then turns back to the game.
“That was weird,” I say.
“Does he think you’re a thing now that you went to a party with him?”
“No, there’s no thing. And, not that it matters, but he’s still with Lindsay.”
“Do you like him?”
“No!” I punch his arm lightly. “I like you. Obviously.”
Jay keeps his eyes on the field, but I see a little smile starting.
“It’s too bad we’re not the only people in the world,” he says. “Then we wouldn’t have to get jealous of anyone else.”
“But then we’d have no one to talk about. We’d be bored.”
He laughs.
Kyle gets the ball again, runs with it for several yards, and then passes it to a teammate. I don’t know much, but it seems like he’s doing pretty well. And as much as I’m happy for him, I don’t want to be here anymore.
“Have I watched enough of this Neanderthal game to satisfy Kyle, you think?” Jay asks, as if he read my mind.
“Yup,” I say. “Let’s go.”
THIRTY-NINE
It felt like a whip came from behind me, curled over me, and cracked against my forehead. Life paused, and the world was orange.
—Jessica Roth (lightning-strike survivor)
Jay and I walk back to the parking lot in silence, but it feels normal. The new version of us can still just walk and I don’t feel the pressure to talk or hold his hand or anything. The difference is that I feel this extra warmth and giddiness in my chest.
Clouds have moved in and covered the sun completely, so it’s starting to feel like it’s night instead of four-thirty. The sky is heavy with rain, like a bulging bag of water, and just when it gets too heavy, a seam will burst and out it will all spill.
Jay looks up.
I pull out my phone to check for thunderstorms, but my weather app is loading too slowly.
“That came in quickly,” Jay says. “They must have called the game. People are leaving.”
A crowd moves slowly and casually down the path to the parking lot. No one seems to be in a rush. I don’t see any of the players—most likely they’ve gone into the locker room to change.
My phone buzzes.
MOM: I’m letting Reed stay for the meeting. I can’t turn my back on him right now. He needs us. I know this is hard for you, so if you want to stay at Jay’s, I understand.
I stare in disbelief.
“Hey,” Jay says. “Everything okay?”
I shake my head no.
“My mom,” I say. “She’ll never—”
Suddenly, there’s a crack of thunder so loud, Jay and I both jump a little. My heart races, and I feel that twisting pressure in my lower belly. It’s so familiar, so comforting, in a way. My body reacts to that sound, to the heaviness of the sky as if it’s a starting gun in the race of my life. My mind knows I’m done trying, but my body doesn’t. My body wants to go for it.
“Rach,” Jay says. “Come on. Let’s get in the car.”
He looks back toward school.
“Hold on,” he says. “I see Serena. She may need a ride. Meet you in the car.”
He gives me his keys. I nod and clutch them tightly.
The sky lights up for a second, but I don’t see the bolt. I wait. One-one-thousand. CRASH. It’s so close. Right here. There’s no way to know which direction the storm is heading, so the next one could be right here or a mile the other way.
Maybe if I hadn’t gotten the text from Mom, I could stop myself. But the text brought me right back to the heart of everything. To the real reason I’d chased lightning for so long. She’ll never choose me was what I’d been about to say. I know she loves me. I’ve never doubted that. But the lightning-strike survivors are more important. They need her more. She’ll never choose me over them.
Jay has caught up to Serena and now they’re walking together.
The sky lights up again and then thunder crashes almost immediately. I’m still staring at Jay and Serena, who start running, along with everyone else, toward the parking lot, trying to beat the rain that’s coming down in fat drops. No one seems concerned about the proximity of the lightning. Maybe they don’t realize how close it is. But I do.
Please, please, I think, please come this way. I need you.
I drop my bag in the back seat of Jay’s car, take off my boots and socks, throw them in too, and feel the cold wet asphalt on my feet. I scan the parking lot, settle on an electric pole that juts out from the edge, close to the road. It’s slightly raised, and it’s the best spot I can find.
Jay has his jacket lifted over his head and is jogging toward the car. Serena’s still next to him, holding her arms above her head as if that can shield the rain, but she has no jacket. Her tight little cheerleading sweater is going to get soaked.
They’re almost at the car. Once they get here, I’ll lose my chance. I run toward the electric pole, my bare feet slapping in the newly formed puddles.
“Rachel!” Jay yells, and at the same time, Serena shouts, “Rachel, what are you doing?”
But they know what I’m doing.
“Rachel!” Serena’s voice is closer, but the rain is coming down so hard, I barely hear it. Just as I reach the pole and touch my hand to it, I feel someone grab my other arm, and the sky lights up like it’s on fire and the crash of thunder is deafening like an explosion and then—nothing.
When I open my eyes, I can barely see. Rain comes down in sheets. I’m lying on the ground, on the hard, gravelly asphalt of the parking lot. My head hurts. Was I struck? I don’t feel different other than the pounding on the top of my head, but that feels more like I slammed my head on something. I reach up and move some soaking hair out of my face. I slowly move each arm and leg and wiggle my fingers and toes to make sure everything’s functioning. I stare straight ahead and, through the pounding rain, I see … Jay kissing Serena. No, that can’t be right. He wouldn’t be doing that. Not after everything.
I realize what’s happening as soon as Jay moves his mouth away from Serena’s and puts two fingers on her neck—he’s checking her pulse. Serena has been struck. And she must have stopped breathing because Jay is giving her CPR. I lie there, still, watching. Jay puts his mouth on hers again and a second later, I see her chest heave. Jay pulls away and looks at her face, saying her name over and over. I can’t tell whether her eyes are open but she’s definitely breathing.
“They’re on their way,” a girl’s voice shouts. And then, through the sound of the rain pounding on the ground next to me, I hear sirens coming toward us.
Serena has to be okay. I would never forgive myself if she’s not. This is my fault. Am I okay? Why isn’t Jay here with me now? I’m suddenly so tired. I close my eyes.
I feel hands on my head, on my arm, on my stomach, my legs.
“Rach.”
I open my eyes. Jay is crouched down beside me.
His face is streaming with water.
“Hi,” I say, because I can’t think of anything else to say.
I look over to the spot where he’d been with Serena but it’s empty now.
“Serena?” I ask.
“They’re getting her in the ambulance. She’s awake. She’ll be okay,” he says.
“Because of you,” I say. “If you hadn’t been here—God, I’m so stupid.”
I hear voices close to my ear and someone’s touching my head. Jay holds my hand with both of his.
“You hit your head,” he says.
“Was I struck?” I ask.
“I don’t think so. Serena was. I saw it. I thin
k the force knocked her into you and you hit your head on the pole. But they’ll check to make sure at the hospital.”
He looks over his shoulder at the ambulances.
The rain has let up and it’s just drizzling now, so everyone has stopped shouting.
“You’re gonna ride with these guys. It’s Joe and Yolanda. They’ll take good care of you. I need to go with Serena so I can tell them what happened. We need to watch her breathing and heart rate,” he says quietly.
I close my eyes. I don’t want him to leave me, but I can’t say that because I know he wouldn’t stay. He kisses me quickly on my wet cheek.
“I’ll see you at the hospital. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”
I keep my eyes closed as the techs say “One-two-three” and lift me onto a stretcher. I keep my eyes closed and listen as Jay’s footsteps run to the other ambulance. I keep my eyes closed as I hear the doors on Serena’s ambulance slam and it pulls away. I keep my eyes closed as a female tech’s voice says, “Okay, Rachel, we’re going to lift you into the ambulance now. Just relax, but try not to sleep. Squeeze my hand if you start to get sleepy, okay? You’re going to be fine.”
The ambulance ride is bumpy and my head hurts, but I’m much more awake now. Or “alert,” as the techs referred to me. I can hear the driver radioing the hospital.
“Girl, seventeen, contusion to the head. Looks like a fall or similar trauma. Abrasions. Possible victim of electrical shock from lightning strike.” He goes on to talk about pulse and pain level.
I’m sure I haven’t been struck. I’d felt no jolt, no electrical type of pain, only the bump on my head and yes, now I feel some scratches on my hands and elbows from landing on the pavement. But no lightning. Serena had gotten the lightning. Serena got what I’d wanted. I try to block out the image of Jay with his mouth on hers, but it’s imprinted on my brain. I try to focus on the point—Serena was struck, she could have died. And it was because of me and my stupidity. Chasing lightning.
FORTY
Love begins by taking care of the closest ones—the ones at home.
—Mother Teresa (missionary)
After a gazillion tests and answering the same questions over and over, they bring me back to the ER room where I started out. Mom’s waiting for me in the hallway outside the door. She’s wearing her standard bank outfit—slim navy knee-length skirt, white blouse, tailored jacket, and sensible heels. It always takes me by surprise—Mom in that outfit. She looks like a professional, like a mom, but not my mom, Naomi Ferguson, lightning-strike survivor, knower of soul mates.
“Hi, Mom,” I say quietly.
“Oh, sweetie,” she whispers.
The nurse pushes my bed into its place, then draws a curtain across the room that separates it into two halves—mine and some other future unfortunate person. Mom pulls a plastic chair up next to my bed and takes my hand.
“You okay?” she asks.
“I think so. The doctor has to read the test results.”
“What happened?”
She’s looking so hard into my eyes, it’s like she’s trying to pull out my memory and watch it like a video. I blink. Her stare is too much.
“It was a freak thunderstorm,” I say. “We were at the lacrosse game. They called the game but the storm came so fast, the lightning hit when we were all in the parking lot.”
Mom could never know that I chased the lightning.
“And Serena was struck?” Mom asks.
I nod.
“Were you?”
I shake my head back and forth on the pillow slowly.
“I don’t think so,” I say. “They’re doing more tests—EKG and stuff—to be sure. But I don’t think so.”
Mom’s eyes soften and she exhales loudly. She keeps one hand on mine, raises her other to her heart.
Her voice cracks when she speaks. “Oh my god, if you’d been struck, Rachel …” Now she chokes back a sob. “I would never want you to go through that.”
She leans over so her forehead touches my wrist. Then she kisses the back of my hand.
“Mom? Will Serena be okay?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “Even if she leaves the hospital just fine, we won’t know if she’s really okay. Not for a long time.”
I know what Mom means. The after-symptoms show up later, sometimes even years later. But I don’t like the way she said “we.” Like she’ll be monitoring Serena’s health herself. And suddenly, I realize that she will be. Serena is a strike survivor now. Just like Sue and Ron. Just like Reed. Just like Mom.
I turn my head to the side as a tear slides down my cheek.
“Oh, sweetie,” Mom says. “She’ll be okay—the group and I will be there for her. We’ll make sure she’s okay.”
There’s no way Mom can know how torn I feel hearing that—relieved that Serena will be cared for, and crazy-ugly jealous that she’ll get Mom and the group, and everything I’ve wanted.
I close my eyes.
“You rest, sweetheart. I’ll go find Serena’s mom, and then I’ll be back.”
She squeezes my hand and leaves just as the nurse is coming in to check my blood pressure.
I must have fallen asleep. When I open my eyes, I see Jay standing with his back to me, looking out the window.
“Hi,” I say, but it comes out as a whisper. I clear my throat.
He turns around. He looks tired, his eyes red, his shoulders sloped. He looks older than he is, like an adult with the weight of the world on his shoulders.
“Hey,” he says. His voice is gruff. “How do you feel?”
“Okay. Big bump on my head. Have you seen Serena? Is she okay?”
He nods.
“Her proponin is mildly elevated, so they want to watch her overnight to make sure it’s going down. It’s really just a precaution. She has a burn mark on her shoulder. But her pain isn’t too bad, and she’s awake and talking and everything.”
“I guess that’s good, right? Are you okay?”
He grunts, which I take to mean yes but no. He seems cold, mad at me maybe.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “It’s my fault.”
Now his eyebrows rise and his gaze meets mine briefly, then flicks back down to the floor.
“How is it your fault? Lightning struck in the parking lot of our school just as everyone was going to their cars. Did you make that happen?”
Does he not know that I ran for the electric pole, and Serena came after me and got struck instead of me? Did he see what I’d done?
“I thought you were kissing her,” I blurt out.
He looks up. “Huh?”
“I was so out of it, for a few seconds I thought you were kissing Serena. Then I realized what was happening. And then I got weird and jealous anyway because you went to her first.”
He wrinkles up his nose like he smells something bad.
“You got jealous that I went to Serena first? To resuscitate her?”
“I know. I was so out of it. I shouldn’t have told you that. It was a stupid-crazy thought.”
“Yeah,” he says. “It was. I did what I was supposed to do. I assessed the situation as quickly as possible, and I went to the patient with the most urgent need. If I’d gone to you first, Serena might have died.”
“I know,” I say. “I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry. You saved her life.”
He nods, not with pride or with anything really. Just a slow nod.
“Did anyone else get hurt?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “No. A few people thought they’d been struck because the crash was so loud it knocked them down, and some had burst eardrums, but they weren’t struck.”
His voice cracks on the last word. He bends over and puts his head in his hands. Something is wrong. Something more than Serena and me in the hospital. He sniffles.
“Jay? What is it?”
I sit up, but the movement sends a shooting pain down the back of my skull.
“Uuuuh,” I groan, and immediately lie back.
> Jay lifts his head. “What are you doing? Don’t move.”
“Come here then,” I whisper, the pain starting to subside.
He walks over and sits in the chair Mom had been sitting in.
I reach out and touch his face. It’s damp.
“Are you crying?” I ask. I’ve never seen Jay cry.
“They’re calling me a hero,” he says.
“That’s why you’re upset?”
He sighs, exasperated. Shakes his head.
“They don’t know me.”
“Who?” I ask. Even though Jay doesn’t hang out that much, everyone at school knows him. They’ve known him forever.
“People from school. Parents. Reporters. They’re outside. Newspaper and TV.”
“What?”
“People don’t get struck by lightning very often, Rach. A cheerleader was struck at a high school lacrosse game. She stopped breathing and was resuscitated by a high school junior EMT-in-training who happened to be at the game. It’s a story. And …”
“And what?”
“And I’m K.O.”
“Ugh. Okay. Then this absolves you of that. No more K.O.”
“People are talking about it,” he says. “About what happened before. About what happened today. I’m sure the K.O. thing will be a part of this story, too.”
I nod and hold tight to his hand.
“We’ll deal with it,” I say. “We’ll ignore it. Whatever we have to do.”
Just then the door opens and Mom comes in.
“Is Serena okay?” I ask.
She nods and sits in the chair Jay has just vacated for her. He stays by the door, his back to us. I can tell he’s trying to give us privacy without having to go out there where there might be reporters.
“I’m sorry I let Reed stay this weekend,” she says. “It was very insensitive of me.”
She hesitates, then continues. “But he’s here and … now I’m glad because his experience is helpful and—”
Jay clears his throat. Mom and I both look at him. His fists are clenched at his sides, his shoulders stiff.
“I guess I’ll go see how Serena is,” he says.
“Oh, um,” Mom says. “Reed’s in with her now.”
Soulstruck Page 19