(Never) Again

by Theresa Paolo

  “Does it hurt?” Gently, I ran my finger along the contour of his cheekbone.

  “A little, but I’ll be fine.” I turned away and unlocked the door. His hand wrapped around my waist and he turned me towards him. “Liz. I’m sorry.”

  “For what?” I asked, knowing there were a multitude of things he could be apologizing for.

  “Zach told me I was being a dick. So I just wanted . . .”

  I held up my hand. “Wait, you talked to Zach?”

  “I didn’t know how I got the black eye. Woke up, saw myself, called Scott. He filled me in. Later Zach showed up.” I must’ve looked surprised because Joe rested his hand on my shoulder. “I thought he was going to throw another punch, even though I’m not fully sure why he threw the first one. But he came to talk shit out. We agreed it was a misunderstanding and that was that.”

  Only Zach would punch somebody and then show up the next day to work it out. Whatever. I still wasn’t talking to him. I didn’t care if Joe could forgive him. Joe couldn’t even remember the night in question.

  “Do you want to come up?” I asked.

  He rested his hand on my cheek. “Band practice. Just wanted to make sure we’re cool.”

  Of course. It was just as well though. I had a spot on the couch with my name on it. “We’re cool.”

  He kissed my forehead and took off. I thought everything was good. No more drama. But nothing would have prepared me for what came next.

  Chapter 16

  Once I got inside, I threw my books on the counter and headed straight to the fridge. I was craving a bowl of cereal. Luckily, the milk still had a couple days before it expired. I grabbed the biggest bowl we had. I deserved it.

  Vegging out was the perfect remedy for my crappy weekend. I switched the TV on, but the news seemed to be on every channel. I wasn’t used to being home so early, so I assumed it was normal.

  As I changed channels, I replayed the weekend in my head. I thought about calling Josh, but hesitated. He was the one who had left without a goodbye.

  After flipping through channels I found a rerun of One Tree Hill. I leaned back into the couch and shoveled spoonfuls of cereal in my mouth. Halfway through my cereal, my show paused for a commercial break. The words “BREAKING NEWS” flashed across the screen.

  Breaking news never piqued my interest, simply because breaking news didn’t occur in my life or my town. It was probably another horrible terrorist attack in another country far away from me.

  The bowl was cradled in my lap. One hand held the spoon, the other the remote. My finger was on the button, ready to change the channel, when the words in the bright red box caught my attention.

  Shooting at Springfield University. 6 people confirmed dead. 17 injured. Story developing.

  Cereal and milk spilled from my spoon. I blinked. Once. Twice. Three times. I must not have been reading it right. Springfield University was one of the best in the country. It’s the reason Josh had chosen it.

  Josh.

  I dropped the spoon in the bowl and reached for my cell. Thank God for speed dial. My hand shook and with each ring my stomach twisted in sickening fear.

  “You got Josh. Leave it for me at the tone.” The phone slipped from my hand and splashed down in a pool of milk. Everything around me became a blur of sound and color. I was lost in the sound of blaring sirens coming from my television.

  I drifted in and out of focus, teetering somewhere along consciousness. I tried to watch the television, but I couldn’t see past the building wall of tears. I tried to listen to what the reporter said, but my thoughts were too loud.

  I don’t know how much time passed, but eventually there was a knock at my door. It was all so surreal. At first I didn’t even hear it, but whoever was there was determined to get in. I placed the bowl on the coffee table and opened the door in a zombie-like state.

  “I just heard the news. I came straight here. Have you heard from him?” Zach’s hands rested on my shoulders. My eyes burned. My heart raced. I couldn’t move.

  “Lizzie?”

  His voice traveled through me, getting lost in the numbness of my mind.

  “Lizzie! Snap out of it.” My eyes widened. My vision cleared.

  “He’s not answering his phone,” I said.

  “Jeez,” Zach said. “Come on, get inside. Have you called your parents yet?”

  “I don’t know what to do.” My head snapped up. “What if he was shot? What if he’s dead?” The numbness passed as panic set in. Hot, salty tears streamed down my face. I couldn’t hold myself up anymore. My back fell against the wall and my body slumped to the floor.

  Dead.

  I didn’t want to think the possibility. I didn’t want to face it. The thoughts weighed heavy on my head until it fell forward into my arms. My body rocked back and forth uncontrollably, tears burned, the room spun, and I felt like I was falling.

  “Zach . . . I can’t do this. I can’t do it alone. Don’t leave me.”

  Warm, strong arms wrapped around me. His hand ran soft strokes down the back of my hair as he whispered in my ear, “I’m not going anywhere.” With all the energy I could muster I looked up at him. I had only seen him like this once before: on the day he sat with me for hours in the kitchen after my grandfather passed away.

  Through blurry eyes I could see concern had overtaken his face. He didn’t know what to do any more than I did.

  Everything that happened next was a blur, the actions melting through my mind like Dali’s clocks. Zach walked me back to the couch. He assured me everything was going to be okay, but I knew they were just words.

  He pulled me close again, tucking my hair behind my ear before grabbing the cordless phone and disappearing into the kitchen.

  I didn’t want to look at the TV, but at the same time my eyes were drawn to the chaos on the screen. Replays of officers surrounding the building, bodies wrapped in black bags being carried out on stretchers, yellow police tape, and people crying.

  Everyone was crying.

  The video shrank to a small box at the bottom of the screen and a reporter began to speak. “The shootings took place in the Kramer Science Building on the west side of the campus. It is believed the first shot occurred around one fifteen.”

  I went to breathe in, but my breath got stuck in my throat. My teeth chattered. My nose twitched. My body became stiff. And the tears spilled out.

  The science building.

  No!

  Josh had told me he had a science test. That’s why he left so early. Not because he wanted to avoid seeing me. He left because he had a test in the afternoon. With the party, he hadn’t had time to study. He was going back to his dorm to study for a few hours before he had to be in class for . . .

  His science test.

  I knew something was wrong. I could feel it in my core. I knew without a doubt that Josh was in the building when the shooter fired. Whether he was hit or not I wasn’t sure. But I knew he had been there.

  My heart pounded against my chest. The sounds from the television disappeared. All I could hear were my thoughts. Every worst-case scenario ran through my head, the images stamping themselves deep into my mind.

  “No, you don’t understand—this is an emergency.” Zach’s voice was the only thing breaking through my thoughts. He shouldn’t have been the one trying to reach my parents. I should have been calling them. Tracking them down.

  They trusted me. This was my responsibility. If something happened to Josh, my family would crumble. Mom would never be the same. Dad would never be the same. I would never be the same.

  I was never a religious person. I wasn’t raised going to church, but in that moment I needed something to hold on to. I needed hope. I needed a reason to believe miracles happened. I needed to believe my brother was not one of the seventeen injured, or worse, one of the six dead. Even if my gut t
old me otherwise.

  “Yes, sir. Absolutely.” Zach’s voice entered my thoughts again. He sounded relieved. I could have gotten up. I could have walked into my bedroom to listen more closely to his conversation. Found out whom he was talking to. But I couldn’t move. My body was still numb. My legs felt like cinder blocks, holding me in place.

  “She’s here. We’re at her place. No, she’ll be okay. Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it.” He continued to talk. “Yes, sir, absolutely. You’re welcome.” His voice faltered and I was left with nothing to hold on to.

  I closed my eyes and tried to pull myself together. I owed it to my brother to be strong. He was always the strong one. I had always relied on him, but I needed to be a team player.

  Zach knelt in front of me. “Liz.”

  I tried to break through the numbness that consumed me. Tried to be strong, but I couldn’t speak.

  “Lizzie.”

  Hearing him say my name as only he said it gave me the strength I needed to fight the fear consuming me. Zach wasn’t going anywhere. He would be there to catch me if I fell.

  “Yeah?” The word came out much softer than I intended but it came out.

  “Your parents weren’t answering their phone, so I called the cruise line, but they were no help. I tried your parents’ cell phones again, and I finally got your dad. He was on the phone with the police.” Reflexively I grabbed Zach’s arm and waited for the words that had potential to break me.

  All the pent up anger and regret I had towards Zach did not exist in that moment. He was all I had. I wanted him to say it fast. Get it over with. Like ripping off a Band-aid.

  “Josh is alive, but he did get hit.” My grip tightened around Zach’s arm. If I was hurting him he didn’t show it.

  Josh wasn’t dead, but he was one of the seventeen injured. How bad were his injuries? He’s alive, but was he going to be okay?

  “Liz, listen to me.” Zach placed his hand on my shoulder. “He was shot in the leg and the bullet hit an artery, so they have to do emergency surgery. That’s all your dad could find out. He’s at Springfield Memorial Hospital. Your parents are trying to get a flight out of the Caribbean—that’s why your mom wasn’t answering. She’s on the phone with the airport. Liz, your parents aren’t here. You need to go and be there for him.”

  Immediately, I got up from the couch, grabbed my keys and headed to the door. But as quickly as my hand gripped the doorknob, it was pulled away.

  “Where are you going?” Zach walked in front of me, blocking my exit.

  “To the hospital,” I said with no emotion in my tone. I was like a robot going through the motions.

  “Liz, you can’t drive.”

  “I have to. I need to get there. Josh has always been there for me.” I tried to push past him, but he was much stronger than me. He didn’t budge.

  “I’m not arguing that, but we want you to get there in one piece. We don’t need you lying in a bed next to him.” Zach took my chin in his hand. “I’m driving.”

  “What about Mimi? I don’t know when we’ll be back. You can’t leave her alone.”

  “I already called the facility and spoke with Cheryl,” he said, releasing my chin. “It’s taken care of.”

  “Are you sure? What if—?”

  “Lizzie, we’re not playing the ‘what if’ game right now. Grab what you need and let’s go.”

  Any other day I would have fought him, but I was emotionally drained and too exhausted to argue. So I did as he said. There was nothing in the house that I needed, though. What I needed was two and a half hours away.

  I needed to see my brother.

  Chapter 17

  Light turned to dark. My numbness was turning into panic. My brother had been shot. He could have been killed. The thought of Josh lying in a pool of his own blood sent my leg into spasms.

  “Lizzie, he’s going to be okay.” Zach’s hand rested on my knee. The warmth from his skin and the tenderness in his touch brought the shaking to a halt.

  “I know.” I didn’t, but I needed to believe it was the truth.

  “Then relax. He’s in the best place he can be right now. They’ll take care of him.”

  As true as it was, the people at that hospital were still total strangers. My brother was getting rushed into emergency surgery and there was not a familiar face with him.

  “I could have lost him,” I said, struggling to get the words out.

  “But you didn’t.”

  “But what if I had? What if he was one of the six dead? What would I have done? He’s my brother, Zach. My only brother. It’s always been me and him.”

  Streams of tears rushed down my cheeks. I thought I’d pulled myself together, I thought I was okay, but in the back of my mind the fear of losing him was still there. I didn’t know the extent of his injuries—for all I knew, he might not be alive by the time I got to the hospital.

  The Jeep swerved. Up until that point I had been unaware of the passing cars, completely oblivious to the fact we were even in a vehicle, but the sound of horns sent my attention to Zach.

  What the hell was he doing?

  The left lane moved farther away as Zach maneuvered three lanes over, pulled onto the shoulder of the highway, and threw the Jeep in park.

  I couldn’t form words. All I could do was stare. Had he completely lost his mind?

  “Come here,” he said but I continued to stare. Tears spilled from my cheeks onto my jeans. His arm reached out to me and it was all the invitation I needed. I fell against him, needing to be comforted in a way only he could manage.

  “He’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay. You didn’t lose him. Look at me.” He rested his hand under my chin, guiding me until my eyes focused on his. “And you are not going to. Okay?” There was something deep within his eyes that made me believe him.

  “Okay,” I whispered, too exhausted from tears to speak louder.

  “You good?” He raised his eyes to me as he bent his head. And when he smiled my answer came quickly.

  “I’m good.”

  He wiped a stray tear away from my cheek. “Good, because the one thing I hate most in this world is seeing you cry.”

  Zach pulled back onto the highway, but he didn’t remove his hand from my knee. I could have removed it for him but it was the only comfort I had, and I wasn’t about to do away with it. It’s funny. I spent so much time hating him, convinced he was out to make my life a living hell. In reality, he was the only one other than Josh and Sadie who was there for me.

  Even when I didn’t think I needed him.

  The rest of the drive was quiet. Mostly. Zach tried to get a karaoke session going at one point, but neither of us could get into it. I had too much on my mind, and even though Zach acted as if everything was okay, I could still sense the fear that lay deep within him. I could see it in the way he held the steering wheel. His fingers were tightly secured around the wheel and the determination in his grip told me that there was no room for error. He needed to get to the hospital just as badly as I did. He needed to see Josh for himself. And until he did, that tension wouldn’t lessen.

  While his left hand had a death hold on the steering wheel, his right hand rested on my knee, tension-free. In a way, it was sweet how he was trying to hide his fear. No matter what the scenario was, he would always do what he thought was right in order to protect me.

  “We’re here,” Zach said.

  I glanced out the window to see a large white building that looked more like a five-star hotel than a hospital. The hospital was surrounded by police cars and news trucks. Reporters leaned against them, drinking coffee and waiting for more details on the big story. When Zach pulled the Jeep into the parking lot my heart raced, my stomach knotted, and it was all I could do to keep from throwing up.

  Zach got a ticket at the gate before pulling into a sp
ace. Could you believe you had to pay to park at a hospital? What the hell was up with that? Normally it would have sent me into a ten-minute speech naming the top ten reasons why it was utter BS, but today my mind didn’t have time to focus on something so pointless.

  It took me a minute or two to get myself together before I could get out of the car. Despite my best attempt at keeping them at bay, the tears started again. I dabbed my eyes with my sleeve before Zach reached over me and retrieved a napkin from the glove box.

  “Thanks,” I said and took it in my hand.

  “You’re welcome. Now, what did I tell you about crying?” He closed the glove box then turned his attention to me.

  “Sorry.” I swiped the tissue under my eyes to absorb the tears.

  “Don’t be,” he said with a slight smile. “You can do this, Liz. You are one of the bravest people I know.”

  “That’s a crock of shit,” I said with a weak laugh.

  “No, it’s not. You’re a tough chick. Always have been. When life knocks you down, you wipe your butt off and get right back up. Nothing can keep you down.”

  Except for you, I wanted to say. Except for you.

  He was right. I hated when he was right. But I couldn’t deny the truth. I was a pretty tough chick. My only true weakness was him.

  “Let’s do this,” he said as he got out of the car. He came over to my side, opened the door and stuck out his hand. I took a deep breath, slid my hand into his and walked with him towards the building. Zach might be my only weakness, but at the same time, he gave me strength.

  Talk about an oxymoron.

  “Miss! Miss! Do you know any of the victims?”

  A wall of reporters rushed towards us. Zach’s hand tightened on mine. The only thing separating me from the vultures were two uniformed police officers and easily removable yellow caution tape.

  “Did you lose someone?”

  My feet stopped moving and my body stiffened as the words hit me like a brick. I wanted to scream, to tell them all to shut up, but my mouth and brain were on two different planes.