“No.” He coughs and blood spatters against the white snow. His nose is bleeding—ugly and disgusting, but manageable. It doesn’t look broken. They hadn’t hit his face, so he must have smacked it going down. “Not the skate park. Can’t let them see you. Get me out of here.”
The words sputter from his lips in halts and starts. He leans hard against me and my knees buckle a bit. He’s heavier than expected. “Just get me to the ER,” he says, “and grab my board.”
If he’s worried about his skateboard, I figure he’ll live. I retrieve it and—why the hell I do it, I have no idea—slip the baggie of pills into my coat pocket. Weaving, we limp our way under the bridge, leaving a blood trail that’s quickly covered with fresh falling snow.
***
At the hospital, the smell of strong disinfectant dredges up serious memories of being here with Grandma. Orderlies rush Daniel into an exam room behind stainless-steel doors. I follow close, because his hand won’t let mine go. They strip Daniel, carry off his clothes, and ease him back onto the bed, covering his purple/blue bruised body with a blanket.
The ER doc says, “Thank God you had a cup.”
Athletic cup, right. Time to leave. Daniel’s arm snakes out and pulls me next to him. “No. Stay.” The sea of pastel scrubs parts, letting me in.
The mechanical readouts alleviate the doctor’s initial concerns. Eventually, they leave, saying they’ll be back to take him to X-ray. Daniel says, “Your phone. I need it. They took mine.”
I hand him mine and he tries to punch in the number, but his fingers won’t behave. I take the phone after his third attempt and ask, “What’s the number?” I punch dial, it rings, and hand it back.
He gasps into the phone. “I’m at the ER. They’re going to ask questions.”
There is a mumbled reply.
Daniel whispers, “I don’t think so.”
A loud “good” follows. I catch my phone as it slips from his fingers and shove it into my backpack. That hadn’t been a Mommy-I’m-at-the-hospital type call. The baggie retrieved from the snow burns a hole in my coat pocket.
He says, “You took it, right?”
I shrug my shoulders in a what?
“You picked up the stash, right?”
It’s time to run away like any sane person should.
Something in his voice twists my gut as he says, “It’s not what you think. Don’t say anything.” He wipes blood off his face, smearing it everywhere. The sheets are coated with it. “Kami, I’m not a drug dealer. A police detective’s coming. He’ll explain.”
Police detective? Then the orderly is back. “You’ll have to wait in the lobby while we take Daniel to X-ray. When he’s finished, we’ll come get you.”
No, you won’t. My duty is done. I’m out of here.
Nabbing my hand, Daniel yanks me down until his breath rustles against my ear. “Please wait. That’s all you have to do. Wait until he gets here. He’ll explain.”
Mundane stuff sucks me in. The nurse looks at me like I should know and says, “Does he have an insurance card?”
Daniel says, “In my wallet. Jeans.”
The nurse opens the cabinet and searches the black plastic bag where they’ve put his stuff. It reminds me of my locker yesterday morning. Ages ago. When she finds the wallet, she hands it to me.
Mundane stuff—keep drug deals held at bay. Mundane stuff—insurance cards. Mundane stuff—I can do insurance cards. I must be in shock. I’m on repeat. Drug deals, assault, ER rooms—it’s all too much.
They wheel Daniel to X-ray. In my pocket that drug baggie burns. The orderly leads me back through the ER doors, sitting me down at the front desk. Flipping through the wallet, I find the Blue Cross card and hand it over. The twenty-four-hour news babbles behind me on the waiting room TV. I should run out the front doors, get in EB, and disappear from Drug Dealer Daniel’s life.
My phone vibrates. It’s a text from Sandy, actually tons of texts from Sandy. Her most recent true-worry post says, Text me or I’m calling the cops!!! Three exclamation marks. Or your folks. WTF? Swiping back, the first time-dated text is an innocuous, where the hell are you??? Three questions marks.
What to say? There’s snark option: Delayed. Drug deal. Or maybe the factual: Hospital. Nah, neither works. She’ll leave the game and come here. I don’t want Sandy tied up to this mess. That left deceit; I punch a reply. Sick. C u Monday. Guilt from lying to my BFF rolls over my skin like slime.
“All done, Kami.” Out of my fog world, Nancy Cabot’s mom, the ER reception lady, sits at the desk holding Daniel’s insurance card out to me. She’s explaining the HIPAA privacy law brochure to me. She was my Brownie scout leader in grade school.
Had she forgiven me for dumping John Deere green paint on her carpet? We’d been making signs for a Fareway Grocery cookie sale. It wasn’t on purpose, but I had been steamed at Nancy.
Mrs. Cabot looks up over my shoulder, jerks her chin toward the double doors, and pushes the door release at her desk. A deep gravelly voice from behind me says, “Thank you.” Twisting around, I see a broad, tall back disappear through the double stainless-steel doors. His neck is thick and his hands red. It’s the comic book villain from the MA parking lot.
I stuff Daniel’s insurance card in his wallet and put it in my backpack. Mrs. Cabot leans forward. “Kami, what are you doing with him?”
Freaking zombie ate my logic brain. Only explanation.
She says, “This isn’t like you—hanging around a drug dealer? What will everyone think?” She’s right. No matter what she says about privacy laws, this will get out.
I stand, but it takes a lot of effort. I’m disoriented, and in my head, squishy thud sounds of boots drilling into Daniel recycle over and over. Luckily, my less-empathetic hungry stomach growls to interrupt the horror show. It’s loud enough for the whole waiting room to hear. Concentrate on Mundane Stuff. Eat. The vending machines are down the hall and around a corner. We’re intimate friends after Grandma’s cancer bouts. I opt for the familiar pretzels and a soda.
My cell buzzes with Sandy’s reply to my lying text. Crud! Gr8 game. Gavins ticked. !Finally! Wants to ask you out!!! Three exclamation marks.
Wow. Gavin is Gavin Blackston, Gavin with the Emerald Green Eyes. After Kiss-and-Smoke Trevor, I’d binge-flirted with Gavin, whom I’d known forever, without success. Sandy said he was shy, but I decided he’s too drop-dead gorgeous to be straight.
Famished, I rip open the pretzels and plop in a chair. Smart brain wakes up—so zombie hadn’t snarfed it all—maybe it just drugged me. It says: Get in your car and run. Answer: Can’t. And smart brain doesn’t know why. That’s scary. Then, like my sanity, the pretzels are gone. Digging for more change in my backpack, I buy two more bags.
My cell shows 9:10. If nothing crucial is wrong with Daniel, he’ll need a ride back to his car.
Get in EB and run. Smart brain is on repeat.
Four
When I return, Mrs. Cabot isn’t at the ER front desk. Waiting room people pace or are collapsed in chairs with their heads down. I’d done both so many times waiting on word about Grandma. This town needs two hospitals. This one has too many memories. One couple looks up at me and their grief-stricken faces turn horrified. Looking down, I see Daniel’s blood all over my coat and probably all over my face too. I can smell it. Great.
The ER doors are locked from the other side. Luckily, a grinning doctor comes out—good news for someone. She recognizes me, letting me through. “He’s back in the same room.”
Before turning the corner, I hear Daniel say, “Kami isn’t involved. She followed me. That’s all.” I freeze in place.
The responding voice is deep and gravelly—Gravel Voice. “Then why does she have the drugs? We have to get them back. We account for every pill and the name of everyone who touches them. That is our agreement. You told us you didn’t
know your supplier’s name, and you didn’t recognize him in our mug shots. You told us you don’t have any way to contact him. Okay, I’ll buy that. But you were supposed to tell me when you had your next meet. That’s our agreement. We don’t charge you if we get your supplier.”
Daniel is a snitch for the cops! I try to get my head around that one.
“This looks bad, Daniel. It looks like you’re making a deal behind our backs.” Gravel Voice demands, “And why does this Kami have your drug stash?”
Daniel gets mad at Gravel Voice. “I couldn’t pick them up! I keeled over. Kami grabbed them. Talk to her. Tell her what’s going on. She’ll give them back. She’s smart. She’ll keep quiet.” He stumbles over his next words, “And it wasn’t a planned meet. I was just there to do my thing with my board and ran into trouble.”
Silence. Then more silence. I look around, but pastel scrubs are all busy. No one notices me listening to a conversation that I obviously shouldn’t be hearing.
The gravelly voice sharpens. “Okay, I can buy that, but if this Kami isn’t interested in drugs, then why did she follow you? Face facts, Daniel. She’s heard the rumors and wants to buy.”
Me? Buying drugs? That kind of rumor kisses MIT goodbye.
“It’s not like that.” Daniel says, but he could be more convincing. “She saved me. Without her, I’d be in surgery.”
“Listen, Daniel. You weren’t supposed to go without me. I’m your backup. We can’t trust anyone. Besides, it’s too dangerous. Look what happened tonight. If she’s not part of the drug scene, keep her out of this. And you don’t ever do this again, unless you notify me. If you don’t keep me in the loop, I can’t keep you safe.”
So Daniel’s half-sister had used his drugs. Inside my coat pocket that small baggy turns radioactive. Not waiting for Daniel’s answer, I shove my way back through the ER doors and scan the waiting room like an injured animal looking for a bolt hole.
My logic brain wakes up with a vengeance and says, Get out of here. But first I have to get rid of those drugs in my pocket. How? Just hand them to She-Who-Wants-to-Buy-Drugs guy and say, Sorry misunderstanding. Leave me out of it, isn’t going to happen. I don’t want him recognizing me. Mrs. Cabot is back on gatekeeper duty.
I mentally tick off my goal: Give the drugs back without being seen and make it crystal clear I’m not involved with drug schemes and never will be. How?
I ask Mrs. Cabot, “May I have an envelope and some tape?”
With a perplexed look, she gives me both. I nab a bunch of those HIPAA privacy notices printed on stiff paper and head into the ladies’ bathroom. Someone is in a stall crying. Not everyone is okay back in the ER rooms. Memories of Grandma crowd in as I duck into the last stall, lock the door, knock down the toilet-seat lid, sit on it, and pull out the baggie with the loose pills inside.
Mrs. Cabot will take care of everything. I’ll ask her to give them to Daniel, but can’t just put the drug baggie into the envelope. Mrs. Cabot will feel them and tell everyone. Taping the loose pills onto a stiff privacy notice and folding it several times for good measure, I fold that inside another privacy notice. The bundle goes into the envelope. I test it and can’t feel the pills inside. Now what?
Simple and clean; Gravel Voice is going to see this. I pull the pill bundle out again and write on it; Here are your damn drugs. STAY. AWAY. FROM. ME. Find your own way back to your car.
I am not kissing MIT good-bye over Drug Guy—snitch or not.
Leaving the bathroom stall, my bloody coat reflects in a floor-length mirror. I yank the parka off and cram it through the floppy garbage can lid. It doesn’t fit into it well. For some stupid reason, it’s like stuffing it into my chaos locker. Then I scrub my face and hands, getting rid of blood traces. My hair’s covered too, but it will have to wait until I can wash it.
Legs trembling, I walk up to Mrs. Cabot and hand her the sealed envelope. “Can you get this to Daniel?”
She gives me a saccharin sweet look as I head for the exit. Maybe she doesn’t remember the green paint. She calls after me, “You can’t go without a coat. Did you throw it away?” That’s proof that I’m not the first person to stuff a bloody coat into a hospital waste bin. “You’ll freeze to death. It could have been cleaned.”
“No, I don’t want it. I don’t want anything to do with any of this. It was all a huge mistake.” I run out the front door despite the falling snow and freezing temps.
EB fishtails as I peel out of the parking lot, shivering in the cold. Her heater is a here-again, gone-again system. Most of the time in winter, it chooses not to work. It’s a gone-again night. Mrs. Cabot is right; no coat in subzero weather is stupid and dangerous.
At a nearby discount store, I buy one and some mittens. In the checkout lane, I reach into my backpack for my wallet and my hand closes on Daniel’s. Crap! The guy just won’t get out of my life! How is he getting home without taxi money? Our town does have a taxi—one. He hadn’t called his mom or dad from the hospital; he won’t do it now. I pay for the coat, rip off the tags, and slide it on with Daniel’s wallet still in my hand.
Outside, snow is treacherous underfoot and I trudge to EB, climb in, and turn her on. Wouldn’t you know it, this time the heater blasts into my face. As EB warms, I open his wallet: driver’s license, shiny new high school ID, a worn-out one from his old academy, some money, and a credit card. Logic brain says, Don’t see Daniel. X him out of my life. Stupid brain says, Just give it to Mrs. Cabot.
Five minutes later in the hospital parking lot, I see Daniel getting into a black SUV with She-Wanted-to-Buy-Drugs. It’s the unmarked cop car. Like our one taxi, we have one unmarked. Everyone knows what it looks like.
Before getting in the passenger side, Daniel looks up and sees my car stop under the street light. EB’s blinding electric blue must be screaming out. He leans down, obviously says something, closes the door, and watches his handler’s car pull away.
I drive up to him. EB’s tires make that crunching sound on the deep snow. For a moment, we look at each other through the windshield. Then Daniel climbs in, hugging his injured side. He gives a painful gasp as he settles into the seat. He can go without a seat belt; I’m not fastening it for him.
He says, “You had my wallet. I couldn’t hire a taxi, so I asked that guy if he’d give me a ride.”
LIAR. “This is it, Daniel. I drop you off and we’re done—your car or home?”
“Car.”
I let him have my best you-are-a-fucking-liar look. “So you’ll drive high? They gave you drugs for the pain, right? Oh, wait. Maybe you used your own.”
He has the good grace to turn away and stare out the window before he says, “Home. It’s south of town. After my DUI, she moved back from Branson.” Branson’s near Des Moines and probably why we never met for martial arts class back when I was taking lessons here.
Home is a nice condo association south of town, but it isn’t Jamison rich by a long shot. So he lives with his mom, not his wealthy dad. When I pull up to it, he tries to say thank you.
“Don’t. It’s over, Daniel. You got my note and the drugs?” He nods. “Then get out of my car.” As he does, I see his wallet on the armrest beside me. “Wait.” He turns back and I throw it. Catching it, he exits out of my life for good.
***
Mom and Dad aren’t home—not surprising. My game nights are date nights for them. I hit the shower and the water drips red from Daniel’s blood. Then I make hot chocolate, curl up on the huge armchair, and press play on the TV remote. Daniel haunts me, but around midnight I shift to Gavin wanting to ask me out. On the TV, Cary Grant struts his stuff in the end of North by Northwest. Gavin’s chin is like a young Cary Grant. He’s over-the-top-to-die-for attractive in a conservative straightlaced kind of way—Robert Pattinson prep-school sexy, and definitely not in my RL league—more fantasy league. Sure, I’d flirted, but I never thought he
’d bite.
Then Direct TV pops up an old Die Hard movie—yippee kay yea, and I can’t find the remote. I’m too tired to move. Daniel’s a dead ringer for a younger Bruce Willis. Not handsome or sexy, but still hot. My gut wrenches as Willis walks over broken glass in his bare feet. I appreciate the reality of that scene. After seeing Daniel beat up for real, TV/movie reality will never be the same. You don’t jump up like nothing happened.
Mom and Dad come home. He says goodnight to me, kisses Mom, and heads upstairs. They’re always doing that. Kissing. Touching.
Mom makes popcorn and we watch the rest of the movie. “How was the game?”
Ouch. “I didn’t go.”
She gives me the mom look. ‘What gives?’
Now what? The easy route is my Sandy lie—I’m sick, but I’m not doing that. Lying is one of our few rules. In return, they don’t judge my occasional stupidity. They even try to hide their parents-know-best looks.
Avoidance. Yeah, go for avoidance—the softer lie. “Mom, what do you do when things get completely weird?”
Mom chews on her lower lip just like I do. Must be genetics. That might be a good science project—what is genetically hardwired and what behaviors are learned? Yeah, anything besides thinking about Daniel, ER rooms, and illegal drugs.
She says, “What kind of weird? Is it time we visit the doctor about…”
“Oh, God. No!” She’s referring to getting me birth control pills when I’m serious about a guy. That would be simple compared to this. “Someone is involved in some really bad stuff and he could get seriously hurt. I want to help him, but…I don’t think there’s anything I can do.”
“Oh. Maybe Dad…” Dad’s the touchy feely; Mom likes the practical stuff like birth control.
“No, not Dad. He’ll go on and on about what is morally right and what isn’t. Then what’s legal and what isn’t. He’ll insist I tell him and I can’t do that. It isn’t my stuff to share.”
Chaos Theory Page 3