I lie back and feel my heart racing. I try to talk, but not much comes out. All I manage is a strangled, “Why?”
“Don’t you try to talk too much, Sugar. I’ll send your parents in.”
I close my eyes. When I open them again my parents aren’t there, but Spencer is. He puts his hand on my arm and gives it a little squeeze, but doesn’t say anything.
“What is it, Yeats?” I whisper with my scratchy voice. “What happened?”
Spencer looks uncomfortable, like he’s found the one circumstance he can’t act his way out of.
“I’m not really supposed to tell you. I promised your parents, but I know how you are, and … ” His voice is soft and when he stops, I feel tears press up against the backs of my eyes. I beg: “Please.” I can’t imagine what he could possibly tell me that would be worse than this not knowing.
He drags a blue chair over, one of the crappy plastic ones they always have in hospitals, and sits down, his hand on my arm.
“We … we had a car accident.”
I try to remember something, anything, and I get that flash again of something flying towards us and that one shard of feeling that something has slithered into me that doesn’t belong there.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
He laughs, but it isn’t a funny sound. It’s a sad one and he turns away. I’ve never seen him like this, and seeing Spencer in pain is the very worst thing, even worse than being in pain myself and the not knowing what’s happened.
“Yeats?” I call to him as loudly as I can, but really it’s still only a whisper.
He turns back to me and I can tell from the way that his mask rises that he’s trying to smile. “I’m fine. Really. I’m fine. Just a little banged up.”
That’s all good news; but it’s obvious there are things he isn’t telling me. Bad things. Things he doesn’t want to say and that I won’t want to hear.
I open my mouth again to ask about Lizzie, but he cuts me off and rests his hand on my arm. “Cal. You need to take it easy. I’m already going to hear it for telling you about the accident. I’ll be back later though, after school, okay?”
“School?”
“Yeah, we’re having an assembly.” He rolls his eyes.
“What time is it?” I ask, although there are a million questions queued up in my brain and none of them involve the time.
“It’s twelve thirty. Lunch time. I just drove over to see you.”
I nod and realize how tired I am from talking and wondering. I close my eyes and don’t even hear him leave.
Six
This time when I wake up, there’s a party in my room. It’s bright and my parents are here with some official-looking guy who stares at me like I’m a puzzle that needs to be solved. I try to keep my breathing steady because every time I start getting wound up, the machines start going crazy.
“I’m Dr. Collins,” official guy says. “And I’m going to try to answer some of your questions.”
This is what I’ve been waiting for.
“Your friend told you there was an accident,” he says. “Do you remember any of it?”
I wrack my brain again, but it’s like there’s a big black hole where that memory should be. “No, not really.” My voice is a still raspy, but a little stronger than it was when I talked to Spencer. “Just being in the car and then being here.”
The doctor nods. “That’s normal. People in traumatic accidents often can’t remember the incident itself. It’s a way the brain has of protecting itself. But if you start to dream about the crash, or remember it and want to talk to someone”—he looks over his shoulder at my parents and I wonder how many conversations they’ve had while I was out of it—“we can arrange for that. And in fact, if any of the information I’m going to tell you upsets you, we can call someone in here to talk to you or stop for now. Are you okay with that, Cal?”
“Sure,” I say, but really I wish he’d get on with it. Across the room, my parents stand like chess pieces with their hands clenched together.
“So, the police report states that the accident wasn’t your fault. The driver of the other car hit the median, causing his car to flip over into your path.”
I nod again, waiting.
He reads off the clipboard. “When the other car hit you, the airbags deployed, but yours failed. The passenger’s bag deployed correctly, which is why your friend only had some superficial lacerations.”
I try to focus to figure out what’s missing. There’s something no one is talking about, but it takes me a minute to realize what that is.
“Lizzie?” I ask. A memory surfaces of her leaning forward from the back seat, almost between me and Spencer. She hates seat belts and the feeling of being constricted. I usually refuse to start the car until she put hers on, but sometimes I just give up. I must have been distracted and didn’t think about it.
The doctor looks back at my parents until my mom nods slightly and walks over to my side to take my hand.
“Honey,” she starts and then takes a deep breath like I’ve seen her do before she launches into her closing arguments in court. “Lizzie … was thrown out of the car.” She looks over at my dad and closes her eyes. “She was very badly injured, Cal.”
I can tell from her expression that she isn’t done and I hold my breath, waiting for the kicker.
“She was in a coma. She passed away two days ago.”
Two days.
My heart stops and I hear a symphony of machines go crazy around me. I gasp for air, but at the same time, I don’t really believe my mom. I’ve known Lizzie forever. I don’t understand the idea of her not being here. Of her not being somewhere.
I wish Spencer were here. I know he’d tell me the truth, that Lizzie is fine. I look around for my phone, but all I see is the doctor stepping closer to me.
“Cal, look at me. I need you to tell me how you’re feeling before we go on because there are some other things we need to talk to you about.”
How I’m feeling? Is this douchebag serious? How the hell does he expect me to be feeling? I look around the room at everyone staring at me, waiting for me to say something.
“I’m … ” I stop because really, I’ve had all of ten seconds to process this and I’m just … I don’t even know what. I’m cold. That’s what it is. I’m shivering like I’m standing out in the snow. And I can’t seem to stop even though my mom is holding my hand on one side and my dad is touching my shoulder on the other.
The doctor looks disappointed. “That’s okay, Cal. I’ll come back later and we can talk more.”
I nod like one of those bobblehead things my dad used to buy me with the huge heads of baseball players on them, the ones you see in the back window of people’s cars. I don’t really know what else to do.
Dad puts his arm around Mom, and they’re looking at me like they don’t know what to say either. “We’re sorry, champ,” he forces out. “I know how close you were to her. How close you all were.”
I know he believes what he’s saying, but he’s wrong. He doesn’t know. Spencer and I have spent all this time, years really, looking out for Lizzie. We thought we were keeping her safe. But we failed. After everything we’ve done—all the late-night calls and trips to get her when things at home got really, really bad—we still failed.
All those times we thought it was her mom and stepfather who were going to hurt her, but now the realization hits me that we were wrong. Although I don’t remember the feeling of the car hitting us, what I’m feeling now is much, much worse because what I’ve realized has edges as sharp as a million knives and it is this: I was the one driving. The one responsible. I killed Lizzie.
“Yeats,” I say, even before I’m able to open my eyes.
“Sorry about yesterday,” Spencer says. “They keep telling me not to stress you out.”
I try to laugh,
but what comes out is more of a sad whisper. “You never stress me out,” I say and he looks away like he doesn’t believe me.
“Tell me. I mean, I need to hear it from you.” As I say it, Spencer’s face falls and I know. I know.
I ask, “How? Did you see her? I mean, after?”
Spencer turns his head so that he’s facing the window, but the shades are drawn and it’s dark enough that I can see his reflection in the glass. He takes a deep breath and when he turns back to me, his face is red and flushed like he’s been running.
“Yeah. Out there. On the highway. Yeah,” he says. “And then here.” I know without asking that he isn’t going to offer up anything else. I need to ask the right questions if I’m going to learn anything, but at the same time I’m not sure how much I really want to know.
“Was she awake? Did you talk to her?” I try.
He looks at me, chewing his bottom lip like he’s trying to find a way to get out of answering. We both know he isn’t going to keep anything from me. Not for long anyhow.
“I tried to get you out of the car, but you were pinned down. Some guys from one of the trucks stopped and they told me that we had to wait for the ambulance. They didn’t think we should try to move you,” he says, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “I didn’t know what to do, so I went to look for her. I talked to her. I held her hand, but … ” He rubs his temples and sighs like he’s exhausted.
“What day is it?” I ask and he looks both confused and relieved to be asked an easy question.
“Friday. It’s Friday.”
I have to focus like I’m doing calculus or something. Really focus to figure out what day the SATs were, but eventually I’m able to sort out that it’s been four days since the accident. Four days since I killed Lizzie. Two days, they said. Two days since she died. Two days that she’ll never have. Four days. The numbers tumble over and over in my head, making it impossible to think straight.
“I’m so sorry,” I squeak out. “I’m so sorry.” There seems to be so much that I should be saying, but I can’t think of anything else besides how damned horrible I feel, and how I want to go back into that medicated ocean and drown and offer my life for Lizzie’s. I know I can’t make that trade, though, and that I deserve every bit of pain I’m feeling.
Spencer lets me go on like that for a while, but I don’t stop until he puts his hand on my arm and squeezes, looking right into my eyes. “What are you apologizing for?”
The answers fly out of me, my mind grasping at anything I could have done to change the outcome. “For not insisting that she wear her seat belt. For driving when I shouldn’t have. For killing her. Damn, I’m so, so sorry.” Now I’m crying. Sobbing so hard that I think I may never be able to stop.
I can hear the machines start to make their annoying noises again and I try to calm down, taking huge gulps of air, because I don’t want the nurses rushing in and mostly because I don’t want Spencer to have to leave.
He sits down on the side of the bed and shakes his head. “Lord, Cal … you didn’t kill her. Don’t even think that. Didn’t you hear the doctor? It was the other driver’s fault.”
I think about putting up a fight, trying to make him realize what I’ve done, when I get a whiff of the aftershave he keeps for special occasions. That’s when I notice what he’s wearing: black pants, black sweater, jacket, even a tie. “What are you dressed up for anyhow?”
Spencer looks down and focuses on the blanket on top of me. He runs his hands over the fabric, pulling out little nibs of blue cotton. “I was at,” he starts, and then his voice cracks and he clears it and swallows loudly. “Lizzie’s funeral,” he says softly and raises his eyes to mine.
Of course. They would have had a funeral. It’s easy to forget that time in the real world is passing. My days have been filled with swims in the drugged ocean, and pain, and random visits from people in white. But out there, people are going to work and to school. People are having funerals for their best friends.
Even though it was my fault, I have a hard time thinking of Lizzie being dead. I can’t stop waiting for her to come barreling into the room, complaining about the hospital food and fighting with the nurses.
“Was it … okay?” I ask. “I know she wouldn’t have gone for any of that sappy stuff from some minister who didn’t even know her and … ” I run out of words. Somehow it feels like it I keep talking, none of this will be real, just some play of Spencer’s that we’re discussing.
Spencer runs his hand through his hair and closes his eyes before wrapping his arms around himself. “It was what it should have been. It was right. I think the whole bloody school was there. It was right and horrible.” He loosens his tie and shrugs. “I sang ‘Norwegian Wood’ of all things. How’s that for a funeral song? But I knew it was her favorite.”
I remember all the times that I’d heard Lizzie begging him to sing it. I think about how it’s a love song but completely unmushy. Just like Lizzie.
He sounded like a fucking angel, too.
My head spins around to see where the voice is coming from, but there’s no one in the room but the two of us.
He sounded like a fucking angel, too. The words ricochet through my head and then dissolve like smoke, until it’s easy to believe that I didn’t even hear them.
“Are you all right?” Spencer stares like he’s worried I’m having a seizure.
I strain to listen for any other weird voices but don’t hear anything. The meds and the stress must be making me crazy.
“I’m fine,” I say. I’m not sure whether I’m trying to convince Spencer or myself. Either way, it’s obviously not true.
But he lets it go. “I’m actually glad you weren’t there.”
“Why?” I ask. It’s a really stupid question. Spencer knows I’ve never been to a funeral. He knows that I probably couldn’t have made it through the service without totally freaking out.
He moves my leg over on the bed and his eyes glaze over a little as he talks.
“Because I wish I wouldn’t have been there. Because it was the saddest thing I’ve ever seen. Because all I wanted to do was to throw myself into the ground with her. Because her mom came drunk and because I still can’t believe that she’s gone.” He sounds like he’s reciting some lines he isn’t sure he’s learned yet.
I don’t know how to respond. So, instead, I ask another stupid question, the kind of thing that Spencer has always been able to answer. “How are we going to get through this?”
He takes my hand and answers without hesitation. “Together. We’re going to get through this together.”
I know he means it. It’s the same thing he used to say to Lizzie, that we were all together and that she’d always be okay because we were looking out for her. But it turned out to be a lie, so, for the first time since I met him, Spencer’s words do nothing but clump together to form a concrete, softball-sized lump in my stomach.
I open my mouth, but I’m afraid to say any of that to him. We’ve been friends so long that I don’t really know how to navigate through everything that’s happening if I can’t take Spencer’s words at face value.
He looks hopeful. He’s expecting me to agree, to tell him that someday we’ll get over losing Lizzie. I can’t push the words out, though. My heart just isn’t in them.
So I take the coward’s way out. Before he says anything else, I close my eyes and push the button for more drugs and give myself over to the medicated pool. Somewhere, there is a faint and distant lullaby being sung badly off key. I focus on that as I let myself slip off into nothingness and hope that my best friend will understand
Seven
I don’t want to be awake, but I am. I don’t want to hear that I’ve had a heart transplant, but that’s what they tell me. I don’t know why they waited to tell me. Actually, that’s a lie. They waited to tell me because they were wai
ting until they thought I could handle it.
And then they must have given up and told me anyhow.
How the hell can you handle the idea of waking up with someone else’s heart inside you? It’s like being Frankenstein. There are a lot of things in this world you can run away from. Your body isn’t one of them.
According to the doctors, my heart self-destructed in a rare and normally fatal series of events. They throw around terms like “traumatic partial aortic rupture,” which means that part of my aorta, the largest vein in my body, was almost ripped from my heart in the collision. They talk about the fact that most people die pretty quickly from this. My usual love of stats fails when they start talking about how eighty percent of people who have this happen in a car accident die before reaching the hospital. When they move on to “coronary artery dissection” and “massive myocardial infarction” I tune out and don’t even ask them to explain what those mean. All I catch is that I’m “lucky that I’m young” and “lucky that I’m in good shape.”
I don’t know how they can use that word. “Lucky” is the very last thing I feel.
My parents have been pretty much living at the hospital. We’ve met with doctors and social workers, nutritionists and physical therapists. It’s the most I’ve seen Mom and Dad since I was in elementary school. And to think, all I had to do was almost die.
The hospital team drills me over and over about what my life will be like. Everything will revolve around exercise, healthy food, routines. It sounds a lot like my in-season regime, until they review the anti-rejection medications I’ll need to take for the rest of my life so that my body doesn’t think of the heart like the foreign object that it is.
They tell me I’ll be on steroids for a year. That on its own means the death of my baseball career in the short term, but I also find out that contact sports could kill me. As a varsity shortstop, there is no guarantee that someone isn’t going to slide into me. That I’m not going to have a mid-field collision.
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