Salvation

by Anne Osterlund

  Another set of headlights blitzed by.

  Salva was the one who had failed. Failed to earn enough scholarship money to go where he wanted to go and study what he wanted to study. Why couldn’t he just be happy with what he’d earned?

  Honk!

  The car swerved. “Relax,” Pepe said.

  Salva couldn’t relax—couldn’t come even close to relaxing.

  He found himself fighting, over and over again the same arguments. With himself. With his father. With Beth. Salva cringed at the memory of her wounded expression. It had sliced into him. Why? Why had she been the one to step right into his path when he’d needed to explode? She wasn’t like other people. She didn’t just brush off insults. He knew that. The walking disaster area? He was the disaster. Stomping on everyone he loved as if they were waiting to be crushed.

  Honk!

  “Christ!” Pepe shouted. “Just pass this guy, okay?”

  Another set of headlights blew around the convertible.

  Why didn’t I tell Papá earlier about Beth? Salva knew the answer. He was a coward. She had been right about that. He should have told his father the truth. Should have reintroduced Beth to Papá weeks ago. Should have listened to my damn older sister.

  His father thought Beth was privileged. The comment hadn’t made any sense at first. But Salva got it now. Papá didn’t know her. He’d seen her in the Cell, and then she’d shown up at his door the same afternoon. As if she hadn’t faced any consequences. And Beth had been wearing that dress. That fancy white dress.

  Again the car swerved.

  It’s my fault. My fault I want what I don’t deserve. That I hurt everyone—

  Bang! Something plowed into the car. He felt the impact in his entire body. They were spinning. Spinning out of control. Everything was a blur. Panic slammed up to his throat.

  His head hit the door. He couldn’t defend himself.

  The car was still spinning. No sense of friction. Or traction. Only absence.

  Salva slid, and his thigh rammed into a barrier. What the hell had happened to his seat belt?

  Bang! Steel crumpled like aluminum.

  And then the pain. There was nothing but pain. No longer any movement. Or sound. Or color. Except the blinding white, red, black splintering pain. At first it was everywhere. His head, his chest. His leg—his leg didn’t feel like a leg anymore. He reached for his thigh, the shattering torn center of agony. And felt bone. Shit! And blood. His hands were covered in blood.

  He still couldn’t see. Everything was dark. He raised his arm to his head. More blood.

  Someone was screaming.

  I should help. He reached for the door, trying to detach his mind from the agony. From himself. His hand slid off the latch. And then he couldn’t find it. Couldn’t sense anything but the pain.

  More screaming.

  And then the smell of gasoline.

  Out. We have to get out.

  He scrambled again for the latch. And the door opened. It was a miracle the door opened. The night rushed in. With even stronger fumes of gasoline.

  Oh God, we have to get out of here.

  Screaming.

  He tried to move.

  And realized the scream was his own.

  22

  TRAUMA

  The phone rang, somewhere beyond the grim darkness of Beth’s bedroom.

  She rolled, burying her tearstained face in her mattress. Just two kids from the backside of nowhere, Salva had said. And that was true. What had made her think she had a right to critique his path for escape?

  A second ring.

  He had gotten what he thought he wanted, and she had waged her disapproval against him. Because she had thought he should want more. A regular Lady Macbeth.

  A third ring. Why was someone calling? The person on the other end should have figured out by now that anyone sane would be asleep at this hour, leaving only the insane.

  Beth covered her ears with her hands. She had flung her pillow against a wall ages ago, then never bothered to retrieve any of the blankets tangled in a heap on the floor. Or to change her clothes.

  Riiing!

  Perhaps it was actually morning and the darkness that saturated her room was only a reflection of her own devastation. She stretched a hand toward her nightstand and shifted her alarm clock, then squinted at the red characters: 2:20 A.M.

  Riii—

  “Yes?” Her mother’s voice was rife with anger. When had she come home? A lamp flicked on in the main room, the periphery of light piercing the bedroom’s shadows. Beth’s body tensed, prepared for her mother to yell, but instead the voice softened. “Who?” A pause. “Yes, but she’s asleep. I can tell her in the morning.”

  Tell me what?

  “Oh, you think so?” The voice drifted away. “I don’t know, Keala…”

  Ni’s mother? Beth sat up. Too fast. Her head spun. Had something happened to Ni? Why else would Mrs. Villetti be calling at this hour?

  Beth scrambled to her feet, then staggered out into the space with the light.

  Ms. Courant looked up from the phone. She seemed to wince. “I’ll ask,” she said. And hung up.

  For a moment, silence stretched.

  Beth’s stomach churned with fear. “Is Ni all right?”

  “Ni is fine.” Her mother’s expression held no comfort. “But she received a disturbing phone call about a car accident tonight involving someone named…Salva?”

  No.

  Beth backed away from the light.

  “Mrs. Villetti says she and Nalani are going to the hospital.”

  Hospital? An image of blood streamed into consciousness.

  “They’re coming by here in five minutes, if you want to…”

  Beth spun back to her room. Her shoes; where were they? She began picking up bedcovers and hurling them onto the mattress.

  The light flicked on above her.

  “They aren’t releasing details yet,” her mother’s voice continued, “but at least one of the accident victims is in critical condition.”

  Critical was serious. Critical was how the doctors had referred to Grandma before she had died.

  Beth dropped to her knees and looked under the bed. There were the shoes.

  She jerked up, hitting her head on the metal frame. Dear God, please let him live. She dragged the shoes out and shoved her feet into them.

  “Beth…” Her mother blocked the doorway. “There was also a fatality.”

  God, no. Please!

  Beth tried to force her way around the barricade. A hand gripped her arm. “Who is this boy?”

  He can’t be dead. He can’t!

  At that moment headlights pierced the trailer.

  Beth tore out of her mother’s grasp and plunged past.

  But the screen door refused to open. The harder she pulled, the more the nightmare closed around her. She pounded the screen, then kicked it.

  “Calm down.”

  Calm down? He could be dead. He could be dead. No! Don’t think that. If you think that, you might make it happen.

  Her mother reached for the latch and opened the door.

  The Villettis’ Blazer had turned around and pulled up to the curb, the engine still running. Beth raced to the vehicle and climbed in the back. Ni switched positions to sit beside her.

  “Buckle up,” Mrs. Villetti demanded.

  Beth’s fingers wouldn’t work. Her friend attached the buckle. Click. It was twenty minutes to the nearest town with a hospital.

  “Luka called,” Ni said. “The team has a phone tree. Pepe’s convertible—I guess it’s totaled. Apparently, there were three vehicles involved, but according to the hospital, the people in the truck and other car only had moderate injuries.”

  Which left Pepe. Pepe or Salva.

  Please, God, please. Please don’t let Salva be dead. He deserves to live.

  It was a selfish, horrible prayer. Of course Pepe deserved to live, too, but Beth couldn’t spare her heart for him.

&nbs
p; We might as well end it, Salva had said.

  It could not end like this. Those could not be the final words she ever heard from him.

  This was her fault. He had argued with his father because of her. Had left Main Street because of her. Had gotten in that car—that beautiful sleek yellow car—because he had been angry at her.

  “We’ll get through this,” Nalani said. “We’ll get through this together.”

  But this wasn’t the kind of thing Beth could get through. Death wasn’t like that. Death took. It emptied your reality, sucking the love out of your world. And left you alone.

  Were these the last minutes in which she could believe that Salva was alive? A cry escaped from her chest. She could not let him be dead. People weren’t meant to disappear from your life without time for you to plan or prepare or realize that no matter how much time you had to prepare it was never going to be enough. Dear God, let him live. Every feeling, every image, every memory she had of him wanted to rush into her brain and feed her plea. He was the boy who had listened when she talked about her grandmother. The one who said “please” when he asked for help. The one who had cried in Beth’s arms. The boy everyone followed.

  Salva was immortal. He couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t.

  Unless she had broken him.

  Unless she had made him breakable.

  The hospital lights scalded Beth’s brain. Cops, four of them, lined the entrance. They could tell me, she thought as she walked through the aisle of black uniforms. They could tell me if he is alive.

  Mrs. Villetti hurried her forward. “Girls, you go to the waiting room,” she said, pointing to a sign down the hall. “I’ll ask for information at the front window.”

  Beth’s gaze shot to the man behind the lined glass. He knows. He has to know.

  Ni took her best friend’s arm and pulled her down the hall, toward a sign.

  Beth halted before reaching it. There were voices coming from the waiting room—voices in Spanish wrenched with sobs.

  Beth could no longer walk.

  Ni’s fingers tightened on her friend’s arm and pulled her through the doorway.

  The sobs grew louder. A Latina woman huddled in the corner, her torso bent, grief shattering her bowed figure. A younger woman had her arms wrapped around the first, dark hair obscuring half her own face.

  But that face was familiar. Salva’s older sister.

  Beth’s body went numb.

  Along the wall stood Mr. Resendez. Stiff. And stalwart. There were no tears on his cheeks.

  “Beth.” A hand closed on her shoulder.

  She jumped, fear ripping through her chest.

  Luka stood beside her. “It wasn’t him,” he said, shaking his head. “It was Char.”

  Char?

  “There were three of them in the convertible. Pepe, Salva, and Char. The guys are in critical—”

  Then a wild scream came from the hall, the female voice shredding Beth’s fragile soul.

  “No!” Pepe’s mother tore into the waiting room, her blond hair in disarray, her body vibrating. A man in a nurse’s uniform followed. He tried to pull her back, but she yanked away, screaming again, this time right at Salva’s father. “I’ll press charges! Your son killed my boy! Her daughter”—she pointed at the sobbing woman—“and my son! If Salva ever comes out of that ER, I’ll see he’s convicted of manslaughter!”

  Mr. Resendez didn’t move. Didn’t argue. Didn’t try to apologize.

  “Ma’am, please!” The nurse was begging. “These people are all suffering.”

  But Beth didn’t hear what else was said. She lost her balance and sank, her back against the wall, to the floor. Her entire body began to shake as she closed her eyes.

  Salva was alive.

  23

  ETERNITY

  Time had no meaning. Beth’s inner clock noted only the entrances and exits of the people in the waiting room. Pepe’s mother had gone, leaving the implications of her tirade. Mrs. Villetti entered to confirm that Salva’s condition was critical. Char’s mother departed, her trembling form sheltered by the protective arm of Lucia, who went with her.

  Then Tosa arrived, sinking to the floor at Beth’s side, his eyes rimmed in red, his arms limp, his face drawn. He looked exactly as Beth felt.

  “Did…did you see them tonight?” she managed.

  He groaned, raising his hands to the sides of his head. “Babysitting. Didn’t see any of them.” He slumped farther down. “My mother calls that luck.” His reddened gaze looked into Beth’s, and she knew neither of them felt any gratitude for not being in that car.

  After that, there was only silence between them.

  He disappeared without her even noting his exit.

  Her mind swam with grim questions. Had Salva’s spine been shattered? Were his organs shutting down? Was he brain-dead?

  A hand gently shook her shoulder. “It’s time to go home,” said Mrs. Villetti. “You need sleep.”

  Sleep? Beth stood but only to sink onto a hard bench. She couldn’t sleep. If she did, she might wake to find Salva dead. Beth leaned her head against the wall and let Mrs. Villetti’s words roll past her.

  At last the woman gave up, departing with her daughter and Luka.

  Which left only the stiff, silent figure of Mr. Resendez, across the room. But Beth clung to the presence of the man who hated her. As long as he was here, she knew Salva was alive.

  Strangers drifted in, no doubt with their own tragedies and concerns. They stood. They paced. They left.

  Then another group of strangers. And another.

  Eventually, Lucia returned. She also sat across the room, next to her father, a Bible gripped in her hands. Her lips moved, reading out loud.

  Beth closed her eyes and began her own hundredth prayer.

  Which her mother annihilated.

  “Beth Courant!” The woman swept into the room, the ties of her shapeless cleaning uniform hanging loose, the collar flipped in the wrong direction. “It’s seven A.M.” Her eyes pinned her daughter’s, and her feet closed the gap. Then she seemed to take in the fact that she had an audience. Every set of eyes in the room was watching. Even Mr. Resendez’s hazy stare. Ms. Courant lowered her voice. “Have you eaten anything?”

  Beth hadn’t even thought about hunger.

  Her mother’s voice rose. “You know I can’t afford to have you end up as a patient at this hospital.”

  You think this is about money? Beth tugged her legs up on the bench and wrapped her arms around her knees.

  “Young lady, I have work in less than an hour.”

  So go to work.

  “I am not your own personal taxi service.”

  Oh, so now you think this is about your schedule? Beth hugged her knees tighter.

  “You get up and get in that car!”

  Beth wasn’t moving.

  Her mother’s eyes flew toward the exit, then back. “I don’t even know who this boy—”

  “I’m staying.”

  Her mother reached for Beth’s wrist. “I do not have time for this. You’re getting in that car if I have to pull one of the cops from the entrance to drag you out!”

  Beth stood. If her mother was determined to have this argument, they would have it. “You want to know who Salva is?!” She shook off her mother’s grip. “He’s the one person who’s been there for me all year, when Ni was too busy with her boyfriend and you were out at your meetings or taking classes or cleaning the hotel all week so you could come back and bitch about how worthless I am. He’s the one who actually thinks I’m worth something. Who cares about what I want. Who thinks I deserve to go to Stanford. Who listens!” Emotion pulsed through Beth’s body at the chance of release. “So if you want to yell at me, that’s fine. But I’m not leaving until I know he’s all right!”

  Her mother backed away, turned, and stumbled around a man in the doorway as she exited from the room.

  A man in a long white doctor’s coat.

  He stepped toward Salva
’s father, who was still staring, eyebrows furrowed, at Beth.

  “Mr. Resendez”—the doctor’s tone was solemn—“I need to speak with you.”

  24

  SILENCE

  The screaming in the convertible didn’t stop. Salva’s own voice had relinquished its volume, but his ears still rang with a scream. Pepe’s, he realized.

  He called out his best friend’s name.

  Only the scream. No other response.

  And Char? Why couldn’t he hear Char?

  We still have to get out, Salva thought. The pain didn’t matter. He had to get out of this car before the gasoline…

  Salva knew he couldn’t put any pressure on his leg. There was just no way. But the door was open, and he didn’t have to climb to get to the ground. If he could just get past the pain.

  The scream grew louder.

  And that was enough. The voice. The agony.

  Salva forced himself to fall.

  There was nothing after that. Only the shrill fire of sensation. He had no idea how long he lay there. Before he saw the body.

  A shadow. But he knew it was Char. Had to be. She must have been thrown from the vehicle.

  She wasn’t screaming.

  The pain that had made it impossible to move before now became nothing, a separate entity blocked off. She was fewer than six feet away. He could make that. He could crawl.

  Using only his arms, he pulled himself up toward her legs. They didn’t even look injured. But she wasn’t moving.

  He hauled himself toward her chest.

  Still no movement. His eyes had adjusted to the dark, and he could see the insignia on her T-shirt, but no blood.

  Again he hauled himself forward.

  Her face—there wasn’t any blood on her face either. Maybe she was just unconscious. He propped himself on one of his elbows, then reached to touch her throat. Couldn’t find her pulse. Or hear her breath. But that didn’t mean anything. He’d barely been able to feel the door latch when he’d pulled it. His fingers slid to her cheeks and around her ears, across her hair. To the back of her head.