We stood just inside the front door. Decker had his hands rammed deep in the pockets of his jeans, which was the only thing I was looking at because I was too mortified to look at his face. Like Decker, I wasn’t much of a crier.
“Okay,” he said, rocking back on his heels. “This might make you mad, but I’m going to do it.” I watched as he shuffled forward, opened his arms, and pulled me into his chest. He held me tentatively, like he knew he was breaking my no-hugging rule, but then I kind of collapsed into him and his arms tightened around my back.
“They think I’m crazy,” I whispered into his chest. “They don’t trust me.”
“They’re just scared,” he said. I heard him both through his chest and from his mouth. And then I heard his steady heartbeat quicken. “I was scared,” he added.
I closed my eyes and felt the last of my tears slide down my face. I took comfort in Decker’s arms and his chest and his scent, the leather from his coat and the spicy soap he’d used since he was twelve. When I didn’t respond, Decker cleared his throat and said, “You’re not going to puke on me, are you?”
I pulled back and looked at him. My face was two inches, maybe three, from his own. I could just lift myself onto my toes and I’d be kissing him. I could just pull his face down to my own and his lips would be on mine. He could’ve done the same thing. He could’ve lowered his head two, maybe three, inches and been kissing me. He could’ve put his hand under my chin and tilted my head upward and brought his lips to mine. But he didn’t. So I lowered my head and stepped back out of his embrace.
I looked out the side window and saw Decker’s mom pull into the driveway.
I let out a deep breath and reached for the doorknob. “Hey, Decker. Thanks for getting me out of the lake.”
He grimaced. “You mean thanks for making you fall in, right?”
“Yeah, you’re right. You were a total jerk that day. But you didn’t leave me, so I forgive you.”
“I did leave you,” he whispered.
“But you came back.” I stepped out into the cold, and Decker just watched me go, his lips pressed together, his hands back in the pockets of his jeans. I pulled the door shut behind me.
“Hi, Delaney,” Decker’s mom called as I stomped across our yards. I waved but kept moving. “How are you feeling?” she asked, louder this time. She shut the car door and leaned against it, pulling her wool coat tight around her suit.
I turned to face her, but kept walking backward toward my house. “Great. Good. I’m fine.” Then I spun around and walked up my front steps.
I prepared myself for another round of confrontation at home, but my parents acted like nothing happened. Mom got the lasagna ready, and Dad read the paper. At the dinner table, I listened to Dad regurgitate numbers and Mom divulge the neighborhood gossip (Martha Garner’s unwed daughter was pregnant and her son called his engagement off—a tragedy on both fronts). Nobody mentioned the fact that they thought I hallucinated a shadow and couldn’t remember opening windows at two in the morning and most likely led to the premature (but only slightly) death of our neighbor.
I thought they had reconsidered our conversation until Mom came up the stairs with a steaming cup of hot chocolate. I closed my math textbook and stuck my calculator in the top desk drawer.
“Thanks,” I said.
She put the mug on a cork coaster and placed another pill beside it. “To help you sleep,” she said. And then she stood there and watched me. She rubbed her hands on the sides of her khaki pants and said, “And to make sure you’re rested for exams Monday.” Clever Mom.
I placed the pill in my mouth and sipped the hot chocolate. I smiled at her until she left my room.
She lied. The pill wasn’t for me. It wasn’t to help me sleep. It was to help them sleep. To keep them from worrying whether I was going to slip out in the middle of the night and wreak havoc. Because I, only child of Joanne and Ron, miraculous survivor of the accident at Falcon Lake, was Not to Be Trusted.
When I heard her door securely latch across the hall, I spit the pill into my hand. Then I went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, washed my face, and flushed the medicine down the drain. I deceived my parents. I became the source of their fear. I was not to be trusted.
It took me a long time to fall asleep. I kept hearing the familiar sounds of my house, but they felt a little off. I heard the heat click on, but then wondered if it always clicked twice before the whoosh of air came shooting out the vents. Had it always been twice? I thought it was once. And the rattling of my window. It jiggled at the bottom when the wind blew, like something was loose. I didn’t remember that happening before. And did the planets always spin counterclockwise around the sun on my mobile? Seems like I would’ve remembered that.
It felt like everything had changed. Everything was different. Like I was in some other place entirely.
I pulled my comforter up to my chin and felt around for the frayed corner, clutching it tightly. I held it close to my face and finally, finally, fell asleep.
Chapter 6
I studied all Saturday morning, trying to cram two weeks of material into my damaged brain. I was translating a passage from French to English, a small headache brewing in the back of my skull, when Decker called around noon. “Let’s go out for lunch,” he said.
“Can’t. I’m studying for French.”
“Seriously? French over food?” Decker didn’t take French (Spanish was more useful, he said). I held the receiver between my shoulder and chin and didn’t stop writing.
“Call Monday after the precalc final.”
“You can’t take a thirty-minute break?”
“I have three words for you, Decker: four point oh.”
“Yeah, well, I have three letters for you: C. P. R. Next time, find someone else to pound on your sternum.”
“Touché.” My French was useful after all.
The phone rang again an hour later, after I’d moved on from French to math. “Delaney?” The voice was familiar, but I couldn’t place it right away.
“Yeah?”
“It’s Janna. I was just wondering if you need . . . do you want to study for precalc together?”
I looked down at the half-completed problems on my paper and the dismal state of my pencil’s eraser. “Yeah, Janna, I do.”
“I’m on my way to the library. Meet me there?”
“I’m leaving now,” I said, packing up my backpack while still on the phone.
Dad dropped me off in front of the single-room library that sometimes doubled as town hall. He gave me money for the pay phone since my cell phone did not share my luck of surviving the eleven minutes submerged in ice water.
I breathed in deeply, feeling immediately at ease. I loved the smell of books. I kept breathing in until I felt too light, like I was inhaling all the knowledge from the books and there was no place for the information to go. I practically floated to the back of the room.
Janna was already hard at work. Her textbook, notebook, and calculator were spread across the surface of one of the two tables pressed against the back wall of the library. There was a guy at the other table with his back to Janna, tapping his pencil on a giant reference book. He looked about our age, but he probably wasn’t because I didn’t know him and I knew everyone our age in town.
“Over here!” she called, much too loudly for a library.
“Thanks for doing this, Janna.”
She blushed a little. “If I missed school because I was in a coma, you’d do the same for me.”
Maybe. I smiled at her anyway.
“So, I think you missed all of logarithms,” she said, pointing to her open book.
She spent the next hour tutoring me. She was a good teacher and I was a quick learner, so we made a lot of progress. When we finished, I closed my calculator and put it in my backpack.
The guy at the next table stretched his arms over his head and put his pencil down. It didn’t look like he’d made any progress in his book. He used the bac
k of his chair to stretch side to side, facing us as he twisted. He had thick brown hair that fell into his ice-blue eyes. Which were jarring given the shade of his skin, a tanned olive.
“I know you,” he said, pointer finger aimed at my chest. He stopped stretching and slid one leg across the seat so he was straddling his chair backward. I really looked at him. He was thick where Decker was lean, muscles for hauling and not for agility. He smiled at me, and his teeth were crooked, like they were packed together too tightly, but in an endearing way. Despite what he claimed, I didn’t know him. I was sure I would’ve remembered him. I kept staring. He wasn’t Carsonlevel cute or anything, but he definitely wasn’t ugly. I kept staring, mostly because I couldn’t quite decide what he was.
He nodded to himself and continued, “Yeah, you’re Delaney Maxwell.”
Janna spun around to face him. She smiled a crooked smile, like she wanted to be annoyed at the intrusion but wasn’t really because she couldn’t stop staring at him either. “And who are you?” she asked.
He cut his eyes to her and said, “Troy, but I wasn’t talking to you.”
Janna did a double take. So did I. Nobody talked to Janna Levine that way. Nobody who knew Carson anyway. “Listen, Troy, we’re kinda in the middle of something,” she said.
Troy looked over the table. “Finals, huh? I’m studying, too.” He gestured toward the books on his table. “Night classes at the community college.”
“That’s nice, real nice. Delaney, you know this guy?”
I shook my head.
“Not yet, anyway,” he said, smiling. “I meant that I know who you are. There was a write-up in the paper last week. You’re the girl who fell in the lake, right?” I fidgeted with the zipper on my backpack. This is what Decker would call unfriendly, but really I didn’t have anything to say. I wasn’t good at small talk. “And you were in a coma.”
“And now she’s not,” Janna said.
Troy didn’t even bother cutting his eyes to her this time. “No, now you’re not. So, you’re all back to normal then? Everything okay?”
“She’s great.” Janna’s words were curt. “Perfect. Delaney, come on, let’s go work somewhere else.” Janna was protective, which was kind of sweet. But I got bossed around enough at home.
So I said, “You go. I’m good here.”
Janna packed up her stuff and walked out front, but not before slowly shaking her head at me.
“She’s fun,” Troy said. “So anyway, how about it? You’re okay? Normal and all?” He tilted his head to the side and quickly scanned me from head to toe.
I folded my arms across my chest. “I’m fine.”
“Because, if you’re not, you can talk to me about it. I’m taking courses, see?” He held up the medical reference book for me to see. “Trying to get certified.”
I looked at the blue cover and back at Troy. “You’re studying to be a nurse?” I smiled. It was funny. I was being stereotypical and judgmental and all those things I wasn’t supposed to be, but there it was. Big guy. Studying to be a nurse. Funny.
He pursed his lips. “Not exactly. More like an aide.”
“An aide to what?”
“A nurse.” He smiled again, but it seemed forced, and this time the crooked teeth looked menacing. Then the tension drained from his mouth and his smile was genuine again. “I work at the assisted living facility in town. They’re letting me work there while I get certified at night. But my point is, I know about this stuff.”
“You know about comas?”
“I know about comas.” He looked out the far window, and tiny lines formed at the corners of his eyes from the glare. He wasn’t smiling anymore. “How about I leave you my number. In case you have any questions or want to talk about anything. Anything.” He picked up his pencil and ripped off a triangle from the bottom of the textbook’s title page. He handed it to me and I took it, but I didn’t plan on having anything to do with anyone who would knowingly deface library property.
“Mr. Varga?” A freshman from my school who, from the looks of it, was experimenting with makeup for the first time, stood over his table with a stack of books in her hands. “I found them for you.” She looked from him to me, placed the books on his table, and speed-walked back behind the checkout counter.
“Mr. Varga?” he leaned forward and whispered. “Do I look old enough to be a mister?”
I shook my head and smiled, but the truth was, he kind of did. Put him in a suit, slick back his hair, he could pass for thirty. But now, in his dark jeans and hooded sweatshirt, with his hair falling haphazardly over his face, he looked my age. “Well, how old are you?”
“Nineteen,” he said. “And change.”
Not my age. “I gotta go. Nice meeting you,” I said, because I may not have been good at small talk, but at least I knew my manners.
“See you ’round, Delaney Maxwell.”
I walked into the front lobby and called Dad. Then I stood in front of the bulletin board and scanned the fliers. A neon pink want ad for a roommate (female, nonsmoker); a poorly photocopied announcement for game night at the senior center; a poster for Wednesday night Bible study at the Baptist church, which, if the announcement was an accurate representation of the event, would be far more exciting than game night.
I pretended to care. I squinted to read the fine print, I smoothed down the folded edge of the bright pink paper, I took out my pencil and traced the words on the faded game night announcement so the seniors would be able to read it. I pretended to care so I wouldn’t turn around and see Troy staring at me. So he wouldn’t know I knew he was watching.
Monday brought snow again, and I wore pajamas to school as was the custom during exams. Decker was leaning against his car, waiting for me. I walked over to his driveway with Mom chasing behind me.
“I’ll drive you, honey,” she called from the doorway.
“Decker always drives me to school.”
“Well, now I will.” She scanned the room behind her, probably searching for the keys while attempting to keep me in her sight.
“Mom, you’re killing me. You already pack my lunch. You cannot drive me to school. You cannot.”
Mom turned a sickly shade of white. “Okay, okay, just wait.” She disappeared inside and reemerged with my vial of pain medication. “Just be safe,” she said to both of us. “And take this, just in case.” I stuffed the medicine into my jacket pocket. “And you”—she grabbed Decker’s shoulder so hard he flinched—“be careful on the roads.” Then she entered the house, but I could still see her standing at the front window, holding back the curtains.
Decker eyed my red flannel button-up pajamas and grinned. “Hey, Mrs. Claus,” he said.
“You calling me fat?” Decker, never one to conform, wore jeans.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Ribs are better.” I twisted my upper body back and forth to prove it.
He nodded his head once. “Ready to derive?”
I pulled a calculator from one pocket of my fleece ensemble and a pencil from the other. “Prepared, as always.”
“God, you’re such a nerd.”
“Embrace it,” I said. Then I got myself into the van before Mom could change her mind.
It was a short ride and the roads were sanded and salted, but Decker drove extra slow. Mom could put the fear in him like that. And Decker knew her well enough to know when to fear and when to smile. Mom started babysitting Decker after his mom went back to work when we were five. She watched him after school every day until middle school, when Decker decided he didn’t need to be watched anymore. Nothing changed. He still came over every day anyway.
So he knew as well as I did, this was a time to fear. By the time we arrived in the parking lot, the good spaces were already taken. While Decker inched through the rows, I searched for a place to store my medicine. I was not about to bring it into the building.
Kevin of ice-rescue lore got suspended last year for bringing topical steroids to school.
The school board made a big fuss over the possibility of kids selling or distributing drugs. Kevin, being brave, took the story to the local news, at which point our school board gained notoriety for being a particular brand of stupid. After all, it was just a skin cream for eczema.
They rescinded Kevin’s suspension five days later, but I was sufficiently freaked out. My permanent record was perfect. All As, advanced classes, no blemishes. I aimed to keep it that way. Somehow, I didn’t think the local news would look as lightly upon oxycodone.
Decker kept a cooler filled with emergency supplies and snacks (also for emergencies, he claimed) between the front seats. I stuffed the vial of pills between the road flares and potato chips while Decker parked and walked over to my side.
The snow was fully snow, not that disgusting mix of slush and sleet that people still called snow, so I walked securely, knowing I wouldn’t wipe out on ice.
Everyone looked at me as I entered the school. Some patted my back, my shoulder, or my head. A few girls tried to hug me, but Decker kind of blocked me. My recent visit with death had transformed me from girl who hangs out with the popular kids to flat-out popular faster than I could say keep off the ice. Sure, I was friendly with the kids from my classes, and most people smiled at me in the halls, but I had never been particularly popular. After the attempted hugs, I didn’t have any great desire to be either.
“I’ll meet you in the lobby after,” Decker said as we prepared to head for separate testing rooms.
Janna came up to us and grabbed my arm. “Come with me,” she said. And then to Decker, “You can detach yourself now.”
When we were out of earshot, she said, “I need to talk to you.”
“Can it wait until after?” I asked. I was trying to keep all the information fresh in my mind, replaying it over and over to myself until it burned an image into my brain.
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