Blind Side

by K. B. Nelson

  I should sleep on the couch. It’s the right thing to do, but there’s this tiny part of me who wants to see the exact moment his eyes snap open, to see the unedited look in his eyes, to hear the words that’ll come out of his mouth before he’s had time to rehearse them. But most of all, I want to revel in knowing that his mind is in overdrive trying to figure out where the hell I’ve been.

  My heart jumps when he rolls from one side, and onto the other, wrapping his arm around me in the process, and then parking his body close to mine. He nuzzles his head against my neck, and I melt from the inside. I burn with guilt and anger, sadness and despair. I hate him, but I love him, and depending on my particular mood at any given moment, it makes things easier or harder. Usually harder.

  He groans in his sleep and his body contorts. One leg is thrown over mine, and then there’s a quick jerk of his head as his eyes peel open.

  “Where were you?” he mumbles, still half-asleep.

  “Out.” I roll over onto my side, facing away from him and cradle my head against my hand. “I stayed with Ashley.”

  “Why were you there?”

  “I… Uh.”

  “Jesus Christ,” he groans as he throws himself upward in bed. “What did you tell her?”

  I roll back over to face him, his eyes are half-open, but they’re laser-focused on me. “What are you talking about?”

  “You know damn well what I’m talking about.” He spins his feet off the side of the bed and jumps into a pair of jeans, his taut ass disappearing behind dark denim. He turns to me and shakes his head while biting into his lip, fighting to hold his tongue. “Does she know?”

  “Of course not,” I scoff and climb off the bed and onto my feet. “I know the situation. I’m well aware of the score.”

  “This isn’t easy for me.”

  “As you’re aware, this is fucking elementary Algebra to me, Honest to God, I can’t think of anything off the top of my head that I’d rather be doing first thing in the morning than fighting.”

  “Three months,” he cautions me. “That’s all I asked for.”

  “Why don’t you remind me again, Coach?”

  “Stop calling me that.”

  “Fuck you,” I scoff.” “Three months this. Three months that. As if it’s that easy.”

  “It shouldn’t be too difficult.” He darts around the bed and rushes toward me. He smells of sweat, cigarettes, and holy whiskey. “Or have you forgotten that you used to love me?”

  “I still do,” I whisper and turn to exit the conversation. “I wish I didn’t.”

  “Sing me a new tune, darling.”

  “You cheated.” I twist back to him and jab my finger at him. “Why is it that I have to bear the brunt of your infidelity?”

  “I made a mistake.”

  “A mistake is forgetting to tie your shoes in the morning, or marrying your high school sweetheart.”

  “You are unbelievable,” he scoffs and swipes a dirty white tee off the foot of the bed.

  “You don’t accidentally trip and impale some whore with your cock. That’s not a mistake.”

  “I was going through a hard time.” He pulls the shirt over his head

  “Oh my God,” I cackle. “And I’m the unbelievable one? I was in the fucking hospital.”

  “I thought you were going to die.” When he’s finished dressing, he passes me and grabs his keys off the dresser. “I was scared, and I was drunk—“

  “Sing me a new tune, honey.”

  “See that right there?” He shakes his head. The keys that he’s holding too tight in his hands begin to cut into his skin. “That’s what you do. You can’t handle the shit that’s thrown at you, so you throw it right back to me.”

  “Please tell me you’re not planning to stay conscious all day, because I’d rather honestly die than have to stay in this house and listen to your incessant rambling all day.”

  “What happened to that girl I used to know?”

  “She almost died in that car accident, and then you finished her off when she came home.” I point to the half-drank bottle of whiskey beside the bed. “Drink away, Coach.”

  And with that, I’m out the door and slamming it shut behind me. It’s going to be a busy day, leap frogging from one tragic memory to the next. My marriage first, and then comes the next stop on my self-destructive tour.

  8

  When I’m incognito, I could be anyone. Anyone but Stassi Hamilton. I don’t remove the sunglasses or the baseball cap as I reach for the glass doors of Ridgefield Medical. I swing the door open, and keep my head down as I walk down the short hallway that bleeds into a lobby. I bypass the information desk and press on until I reach an elevator down a narrow hall.

  I press the button marked with an upward arrow. As soon as the doors open, I step into the elevator and turn around just in time to see a tall young man join me in the elevator right before the doors come to a close. He’s outfitted in a blue pair of scrubs. His name is Trent, and I’ve known him since I was seven. We were neighbors for years until he moved away sophomore year. Now he’s back in town with a beautiful wife and an education, and he’s my only access to the boy I sacrificed everything for.

  “You’re late,” he huffs under his breath and cranes his head to face me. “We don’t have long.”

  “Sorry about that.” I cross my arms over each other as the elevator begins to rise. “It’s been a rough day.”

  “I couldn’t tell.” A warm smile hitches across his lips and he leans his back against the elevator, with his palms gripped tight around the steel bars. “Once we get up here, you have five minutes and then I’m pulling the plug.”

  I look to him with a harrowing look in my eyes as my stomach floods with despair.

  “No.” He sees the writing on my face and moves to correct himself. “That was a poor choice of words.”

  “I thought you meant…”

  “His parents just phoned the front desk. They’ll be here soon.” He glances down at the watch on his wrist and initiates a deep, nervous sigh. “You know I could lose my job, right?”

  “I could come back tomorrow.”

  “No.” He waves me off with a forced smile. “They’re terrible people.” The elevator comes to a sudden halt and the hydraulic doors slam open. His palm lands upon my back and he guides me out of the steel enclosure and down a hallway. “Three knocks and you come out immediately.” We reach the end of the hallway, where two rooms are placed adjacent to each other on opposite sides of a corner. “Don’t make me drag you out of there.”

  “Thank you, Trent.” I place my palm on his shoulder before pushing my way through the wooden door, and closing it gently behind me.

  Nathan lies in the bed, with a ventilator pumping air into his lungs. The room is cool and chilly and I wrap my arms around my body to warm myself, but it doesn’t seem to help much at all.

  A decorative blue gown is draped over his thin body, peeking out above a plain white blanket. His dark hair is pushed back, but rebellious strands hang across his forehead. He’s clean-shaven like he always seems to be, but this isn’t the way I remember him.

  He used to smile. A tall kid with a laugh that could light up a classroom, even though he was far from being a member of the popular crowd. Now, all there is, is silence. His hair was dyed, sometimes a different color each day of the week. Now, he sports the hair he was born with. The same hair that was always too simple for him. He was a colorful kid with a colorful wardrobe, and now the closet adjacent to his bed houses only one pair of jeans, a tee, and a hoodie.

  The noise of the various machines is enough to drive me crazy. The ventilator huffs like well-oiled hydraulics. Green and red lines chase after each other on a set of monitors, with head-splitting beeps once each color passes an arbitrary finish line and begins anew.

  The faded yellow curtains are drawn shut, wavering in the breeze of the air conditioning unit parked underneath a long window that spans the length of the room.

  I s
tand at the foot of his bed, trying in vain to push away the thoughts of guilt. As a sane human being, I know there’s nothing more I could have done to prevent this. All evidence points to the narrative that he’d be dead without my intervention, but evidence is oftentimes muddled by human contamination, and never surrenders to matters of the heart.

  Maybe he’d be better off dead, rather than lying in a hospital bed for eternity waiting for the impossible day in which he’ll wake up. If I wouldn’t have jumped into his car, Nathan wouldn’t be in this condition, and I wouldn’t have lost my child. If I could build a time machine and go back, I would. That’s not to say I’d change anything, because the truth is I don’t know if I’d have the strength to change a damn thing. I’d still be there at the end of the game, watching him as he stumbled into his car, and the choice to not intervene isn’t one I can see playing out, because back then I cared too much, which ultimately led to my demise. Now, I care too little and I honestly don’t know which one is worse.

  I remove my hat and sunglasses, and place them on the sink. I work up the strength to swing to the side of the bed to take his hand in mine and hold him tight, to pray with him in silent solidarity, to let him know someone still cares, to let him know that somebody will never give up on him the way so many supposed adults in his life had.

  In my wildest imagination, I’ve seen this scene play out a thousand times on the silver screen. All it takes is a gentle squeeze of the hand, or a beautiful admittance of love. Fingers twitch. Eyes open. There’s a happily ever after.

  But his fingers don’t move and his eyes don’t open.

  The hydraulics pump.

  The monitors beep.

  Nurses and staff bustle down the hall outside the door.

  “You need to wake up,” I whisper and caress his forehead with one hand. “You need to wake up to prove these people wrong. They say you’re never going to wake up.” I grip my fingers tighter around his hand. “So wake the hell up.”

  No response. There never is.

  “I’m tired of fighting, Nathan.” I pull away from him and take a seat in an uncomfortable chair beside the bed. “But I fight because there’s still one thing in this world worth holding onto. That’s you.”

  The ugly truth is that I’d probably be six feet under if it weren’t for the imaginary story in my head; a story which ends like it does in the movies. He’s not my lover, nor has he ever been despite the town whispers. But I feel connected to him the way a parent is connected eternally to a child. I remember the first time someone told me I should become a teacher. I was in the seventh grade, and I was more focused on helping a fellow student pass their math exam than attending a mid-afternoon school dance.

  Two things have changed since then; I hate math, and I don’t have that compassion—that internal want and desire to help others—in me anymore.

  “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” I bow my head down and cradle my face with clammy hands before rising back to my feet. I can’t stay in one place. My nerves are too frayed, always afraid that someone could come through that door at any given second. “You’re supposed to be somebody to someone in this world, and I wish like hell you could be. I wish a lot of things. I wish that you were given a better hand in life, because you deserved it.”

  Knock.

  Knock.

  Knock.

  After the third knock, I know my brief time is up, but I’m not ready to leave yet. “You’re going to get better because you have to. Do you hear me? You’re going to wake up because your story is far from over. You’re going to live a long, happy life, and you’re going to look back at this damn town the same way I used to. It made you stronger, but it was never home.” I brace my hands on the railing of the bed. “It can’t be, because people like you and I don’t belong here. We never did.”

  Knock.

  Knock.

  Knock.

  My eyes shift to the door, and then back down at Nathan one last time. In these rushed moments, I become unraveled with the first tear marching down my cheek. My palm shakes, and my lips purse. “The strongest act of revenge is proving to the world that you’re strong when they’ve always called you weak.”

  Tears begin to well in the corners of my eyes, pooling at the creases. I adjust the blanket on his cold body, and hunch over his bed. I plant a soft kiss against his forehead. “It gets better, Nathan.”

  When I finally break away from him, I do so in haste. I run the back of my palm against my eyes, erasing the tears, but they’re just like chalk on a green chalkboard. I position my hat over my head and slide the sunglasses over my eyes. I pull the door open and Trent grapples my arm, twisting my body so that we face away from the way we came in.

  “I told you three knocks,” he growls against my ear as he guides me down the hallway. As Trent ushers me down the corridor, I peer over my shoulder to see Nathan’s parents, wearing a haunted shade of grief on their faces. They have no right to grieve.

  Their actions, and the actions of my husband, together created the perfect storm. Their choices snowballed into the ultimate tragedy where all four of us lost a child, and the two of us who were innocents caught in the crossfire are the ones who lost everything.

  Why didn’t we die? It would have been easier. Right?

  9

  Friday mornings serve as the precursor to absolute numbness. In a mere few hours, the entire town will assemble around an aging football field, watching young men navigate a thrilling game, and hopefully inch one step closer to a state championship—the highlight of many of these young men’s lives.

  Excitement fills the air here at Ridgefield High School, and every other damn high school in the region. Staff and students alike are dressed in school colors, an almost mandatory display of school pride. It’s not much different than patriotism; you’re expected to comply without question. Football is what we live for. It’s what we breathe for. Sometimes, it feels like it’s what we’re dying for.

  My heels click against wooden floors as I rush down an empty hallway. Purple and white lockers, alternating in color, pass by me in a blur as I hurry toward the end of the hall. The bell rang two minutes ago, so I imagine my classroom has turned into complete anarchy in my brief absence.

  I stop to catch my breath before pushing the classroom door open and making my way to my desk. I drop my purse on the floor and position myself to the center of the chalkboard. I grab a piece of pink chalk and scribble a quote on the board:

  “Life can be enviable. If not, better to be dead.”

  “Anyone who can tell me who uttered these words without looking at their phones will receive an automatic passing grade on our next test.” I glance around the room, waiting for someone—anyone—to take interest in the topic at hand, and approach a student perched at his desk in the front row, with a varsity jacket slung over the back. “Jason, do you have any guesses?”

  “I could care less.” He groans and taps his fingers on the desk.

  “Typical.” I force a smile. “The next time you want to show off for your friends and show how much you really just do no care, use the following phrase, I couldn’t care less.”

  “I couldn’t care less.”

  “Brilliant.” I take a step backward. “Now, I’d really start paying attention if I were you. What we’re going to cover today is going to be a great boon for when you eventually have to retake this course next year, when you’re nineteen.” I turn my attention to address the entire class. “Does anyone else want to take a guess?”

  “Hillary Clinton?” a student from the back row questions, and by the look on his face, I’d say he’s well aware of how off base he is.

  “No, Scotty. The last time I checked modern women do not speak this way.”

  “Michelle Obama?”

  “Let’s shift away from first wives. Though the women who uttered these words was a wife, among other things.”

  “Rose Dawson?” Another student questions, followed by a snicker.

  “If
any of you had read the syllabus, you might have guessed correctly.” I turn my back to the students as I scribble on the board:

  Medea

  “It was Medea who spoke these words.” I park myself on the edge of my desk and dust chalk from my hands.

  “That chick dude?” Scotty questions with a bemused look.

  “Tyler Perry?” I shake my head. “No. Medea is a famous Greek tragedy written by a man named Euripides.”

  “Do we have to read that?” Jason groans from his seat, and tosses his head back, pretending to snore.

  “It’d be advisable, Jason. At some point, you’re going to have to learn a thing or two. You can’t depend on football carrying you through life when you’re benched every other Friday.”

  “You used to be the cool teacher,” he pouts and folds his arms over each other.

  “I used to care.”

  “And then Nathan happened,” he mumbles under his breath, but it’s loud enough that I can hear him.

  My throat tenses. My jaw clenches. “Go to the office,” I scowl at him.

  “Hamilton—“

  “You heard me!” I snap, and look away from him as he hurries from his seat, throwing his bag over his shoulder. The door slams shut behind him. I take a few moments to myself on the edge of a panic attack, all the while knowing my students are watching me as I try to process emotion, and as I try not to break.

  My feet land on the tiled floor. “If anyone else has anything they want to say about Nathan, they can go get chatty with the school psychologist, or they can choose to keep it to themselves. I’ve been accused of many things, but none of them are true. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be standing in front of you today.”

  Jules, a shy, timid girl raises her hand in the back. I nod in her direction, signaling it’s okay for her to ask a question. “Do you think he’s ever going to wake up?” It’s been a year, and some of these students have shown they’re not complete psychopaths, that they have the ability to care. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t resent them though, because caring in the aftermath of the accident isn’t the same as caring before. Back then, caring could have changed things, and now all it is, is an empty sentiment.