Nightmare's Daughter

by Aurora Smith

  Isaiah was going to love this.

  I had no doubt that my friends were all watching this and taping it with their cell phones. My frozen face would be on YouTube in hours. The title, no doubt, would be something amazingly creative like, “Christian Diving.”

  The guys who’d wrapped me had to tug a few times but eventually got my extremely tight, wet pants off. Weird. But I instantly felt warmer. I curled up into a ball in the Caddy’s long back seat, wrapping the big blanket as tightly around myself as I could. A frozen goth burrito.

  “Mike,” (ahh, it was Mike) some grownup said to Mr. Perfect, “You’re going to have to drive the van and get everyone home. You can come to the hospital afterwards.” He had his hand on Mike’s chest, holding him away from the car, and was talking fast. Not fast enough if you asked me.

  “I think I should take her.” Mike’s brow was knit. His voice was concerned, and he stood there shuffling the snow back and forth with his feet. I bet he felt guilty for being so useless while his girlfriend was drowning. But he looked wet and cold himself, and no one was even paying attention to him except to get him out of the way. I had to give it to the guy, he did try when no one else was. Granted, he was a complete idiot and almost killed them both, but he obviously cared for the girl.

  “Mike, buddy,” the counselor must have realized Mike’s concern as well, “I have to take her, it’s my job. Please just take everyone home.” He didn’t wait for an answer from the guilty teen, just walked around to the driver’s side of the car and started to climb in. Mike, eyes still furrowed, leaned into the back seat, to talk to his ice queen before she vanished.

  “Don’t worry, there is a hospital a few miles away,” he said with slight panic in his voice. He knew he was in trouble. Mike had been responsible for his gal and, with his own dumb actions, got shown up by one of the town rejects. Yours truly. Superhero reject.

  “I’m no-ot worried,” I heard her say through frozen lips. Mike’s shoulders relaxed a little but he glanced in the rearview mirror twice before pulling back from the car, trying to figure out what to say or what to think about me. Thankfully, he wasn’t able to come up with anything.

  Another counselor settled in the front, buckling quickly. Random hands slammed the back doors shut from the outside. I nervously flattened my hair against my face then realized I was pretty much leaning on the girl next to me, who didn’t even seem to notice. She looked really bad.

  “Put the blanket around your neck and head,” I told her. “That’s where most of your body heat escapes.” Thank you, PE class.

  She opened her eyes and looked at me but didn’t move. She probably couldn’t. She just lay at an awkward angle against the seat, shivering sporadically. Her lips were blue and her eyes were bright red. The white down comforter was actually a nice touch, very patriotic. I freed my arms and pulled the blanket around her face till nothing but her eyes and nose were sticking out.

  “Try to relax,” I said to her, “shivering and locking up your muscles uses up energy and you need that to keep warm.” She didn’t respond, but a corner of her frozen eyebrows wrinkled into a “yeah, right” smirk. Might have just been muscle spasms, though.

  I couldn’t remember, ever in my whole life, talking this much to one person. Even though she hadn’t responded, I could feel her trying to control the shivering and relax. It took a few minutes but she seemed to loosen up a little. We sat there in silence as the huge vehicle lumbered toward the hospital. My seatmate kept going in and out of shivering spells. The passenger counselor turned around every once and a while to check on us. Never saying anything. We were still breathing.

  I closed my eyes and wondered what on earth I had just done. I couldn’t believe all that had actually just worked. A knife and a belt, seriously? How was I alive right now?

  “Hi,” I heard a whisper coming from the seat next to me. She was looking at me, I could feel it.

  “Hi,” I answered back quickly.

  “Thank you.” She was still whispering. I could barely hear her through that comforter.

  “It’s okay,” I shot back, willing her to shut up. When I woke up this morning I never would have thought that I would be riding in a car, basically naked, talking to the prettiest girl in school. Overload. I snuck a glance at the abominable snow girl.

  She smiled at me. The blanket had slipped down so I could see her whole face, though she was holding it shut around her neck. She had a pretty smile.

  I closed my eyes and I tried to hunch my blanket over my head. Disappearing was my goal, but the dumb comforter wasn’t doing very well at swallowing me whole like I wanted it to.

  “Are you ok?”

  This girl really wanted to talk to me. “I can’t feel my toes.”

  She laughed. She had a loud, obnoxious laugh that sent sparks flying thru me. I had heard it before and my body had the same reaction to it then. Both the counselors spun around to look back at us, startled by the laugh. They faced the road again when they saw us talking to each other. They seemed relieved.

  “I’m Lucy.” I guess she didn’t realize I knew who she was. I just nodded at her. A little hand poked out from the folds of her blanket, ready for a shake.

  “I just saved your life, I think we have passed the point of shaking hands.” I sunk deeper into my blanket. There had to be a trap door in this car somewhere. Didn’t mobsters drive Cadillacs?

  She let her arm fall and her head went down a little. I felt bad for refusing her. It wouldn’t have hurt to shake the girl’s hand, it’s not like she didn’t deserve it or anything. She was just trying to be nice, and besides, she was one of the only people at school who never looked at me like I was a walking plague. I tried taking my hand out of my blanket-cage but apparently I had succeeded in disappearing. She looked back up at me, eyebrows lifted hopefully, when I moved. Stupid down-comforter cocoon.

  I felt the cloth that was wrapped around my neck and face move slightly, and then there was pressure on the top of my head. Immediately, I stopped moving, afraid of what was happening. I looked over and saw that her bare arm was completely out of her blankets. The girl put her fingers through the back of my hair and stopped at the base of my neck. I was torn between snapping at her fingers like a wild turkey or completely melting through the non-existent trapdoor in this non-Mob car.

  “Thank you,” she said again, looking straight at me, forehead bent toward me. And she gave my neck the slightest pull for emphasis. This chick would not allow herself to be ignored or shrugged off. My throat had mysteriously lost all moisture, so I just nodded to her. It was either accept her thanks or get strangled, apparently.

  She tucked back into her blanket, closed her eyes and put her head back against the seat. I felt myself being drawn to her. She didn’t shy away from the way I looked, or flinch when she touched me. I felt a wall around a little room in my heart beginning to collapse; I tried to mentally reconstruct it but it continued to crumble. This was the most absurd thing that could ever happen to someone like me. I save some beautiful girl from drowning in a frozen lake, with a crowd of well-meaning people looking on (doing nothing), and then she turns around and cuts through every mental defense I’d built over years in, like, two seconds. Soulful eyes and the threat of death by strangulation are my kryptonite, I guess.

  “Yeah, you’re welcome,” I said quietly as the Caddy slid into the ER parking lot.

  She kept her eyes closed, but smiled.

  If you liked this expert from My Stupid Girl, it’s currently available at Amazon.

  About the Author

  Aurora Smith is a bombshell. She’s super spiritual and never does anything wrong. Ever. She spends her free time training her show-dog, Nicodemus (a Great Dane), to ice cupcakes while barking along to the National Anthem. She lives in a mansion in Washington state (a huge mansion). She has some kids and a spouse and they’re pretty cool. You can find her on Facebook if you want to be a stalker. You can get updates from Aurora at http://redmybooksandlosetenpounds.blog
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