by Pat White
Us.
Me.
I’m quiet as I sneak through the house, not wanting Mom to trail me to make sure I look both ways before crossing the street. I slip out the front door and speed walk toward the library. I don’t even look at J.D.’s house. He hates me.
I shouldn’t care.
But I do.
Which only proves how messed up I am.
My cell vibrates with a Taylor text: Greg suspended from FB!
The sidewalk shifts beneath my feet.
“Shit,” I swear. I rarely use the “S” word.
There’s no denying the bombing will happen. Everything’s clicking into place.
I get to the library and realize I forgot my card. I approach the Information desk. A young woman, with a nametag that reads “Ava,” smiles up at me.
“Can I help you?”
“Hi, I forgot my card and need to use the computer.”
She recognizes me. I can tell from her expression.
She’s probably thinking, it’s the poor girl who was hit by a car and is mentally challenged. Can’t even remember to bring her card to the library.
“No problem.” Ava leads me to a terminal in the corner.
“Thanks.” I wait until she’s out of sight and start my Internet search on “Brain Injury” and “Hallucinations.” As I click on each link I grow more frustrated. There’s nothing about how to stop hallucinations in relation to TBI’s.
Yet there’s plenty of material on long-term effects of brain trauma, like depression leading to suicide.
“Great,” I mutter.
Someone slaps a manila envelope across my keyboard. I glance up into J.D.’s eyes, then quickly look away and grab my sunglasses.
J.D. sits at the computer terminal next to me. “Sorry I didn’t deliver your notes yesterday. I was at the hospital with my brother.”
I gasp as I stare at the manila folder. His brother…
I’m powerless, helpless. I’m sick of this feeling. I can’t keep living this way. And I want to live, without depression or confusion or wicked hallucinations.
I want to live without experiencing the pain someone is going to feel ahead of time, then feeling it again when the traumatic event actually happens.
The ache in J.D.’s voice tears at my heart: I need to see my brother!
I grab the envelope and bolt out of the library, away from the truth: there is no cure for my hallucinations.
I march up the hill, my thoughts spinning in circles which will no doubt trigger a migraine. I’ve been lucky so far, haven’t had one since school started.
Lucky? Duh.
I’m even more frustrated and confused than I was last night. This morning I’d hoped to do research and figure out a way to stop the visions.
My hope was obliterated when J.D. showed up to apologize for not getting me my notes sooner.
I was at the hospital with my brother.
My breath catches in my throat as I practically sprint uphill.
“Hang on!” J.D. calls from behind me.
I don’t want to talk to him. I can’t handle looking into his eyes and seeing his pain, hearing how the guards had to tackle him, how his brother might…
Never be right again.
Like me.
I’m all wrong.
“Catherine!”
“Stop following me.” I get to a dip in the hill where the greenbelt meets the street.
J.D. grabs my arm and pulls me into the thick mass of trees. I can’t fight him. I’m about to fall apart as devastating emotions strip me of my defenses.
Once we’re hidden from passing cars he turns and releases me. “What are you so upset about?”
“Your brother—”
“Broke his wrist. Why, what did you,” he pauses, “think was going to happen?”
I wave him off. Relief makes me want to cry for a completely different reason.
“He’s okay,” he assures me.
But I’m not. The hospital HULU replays itself in my mind: J.D. rushing through the halls crying out for his brother, the stretcher being wheeled into the elevator with his brother’s unconscious body strapped to it.
J.D. falling apart.
“You got there in time?” I ask.
He cocks his head in question. “Yeah. Detective Ryan rushed me over there.”
“He’s really okay?”
“He’s fine.”
I nod and take a deep breath. “I have to go.”
I need to get away from J.D. before I burst into tears, tears I’ve been fighting all week because of the chaotic nature of my thoughts, my life.
My broken brain.
I turn to leave.
“I reminded him to wear his helmet,” he hesitates, “because of you.”
I frame my cheeks with my hands. It’s okay. I did something good. I saved his brother from a life of mental torture, the kind I suffer through every day.
Maybe all is not lost.
J.D. steps in front of me and tips my chin up so I’m looking into his eyes. “Wanna talk?”
I step back. “Why?”
“Cuz I think you’ve got a lot to say and no one to say it to.” He smiles. “Welcome to my world.”
A smile eases across my lips. “I guess we could do coffee.”
“Probably not a good idea to be seen in public with me.” He reaches for my hand. “Come on.”
I glance at his fingers; a touch I know won’t burn or itch. I must have taken too long to respond because he withdraws his hand. “This way,” he says, starting up a trail.
I catch up to him and slip my fingers into his. I don’t look at him, but sense his surprise. He’d probably offered his hand to steady me on the bumpy path.
I’ve taken his hand for a completely different reason.
I decide I’m not crazy for feeling this way. We are a lot alike—helpless and alone, haunted by our secrets.
We don’t talk for a few minutes and I welcome the silence. Whenever I’m with my girlfriends they chatter non-stop, like they’re afraid of the quiet.
“Hang on,” he says, letting go of my hand. He climbs up a steep ridge and turns to me. “Come on.” He offers his hand again and I hesitate. If I lose my footing and fall back on my head…
“I won’t let anything happen to you.”
I glance briefly into his turquoise eyes. I believe him.
“Okay.” I grab his hand and push with my feet.
Pulling me up onto the ridge, he guides us to a cluster of boulders. He motions for me to sit on one of the rocks and he joins me, sitting so close our thighs touch. The physical contact feels amazing. I take a deep breath and look beyond the forest where the Cascade Mountains span the horizon.
The view is breathtaking. “Wow.”
“Yeah.” A smile of contentment curls his lips. “I forget about my messed up life when I’m up here.”
“You come here with your friends to smoke pot?” I ask.
His smile fades.
“I shouldn’t have said that, sorry,” I offer.
“It’s okay. It’s what everyone thinks.” He pins me with intense eyes. “Just like everyone thinks you’re back to normal.”
I glance away. “Everyone but you.”
“I’m pretty good at reading people.”
“No kidding. My friends, my parents, even my doctors think I’m well on the road to recovery and yet you, the kid who…” I hesitate.
“Nearly killed you. Go ahead and say it.”
But I won’t.
“How can you be so good at reading me, yet everyone who knows me so well has no idea what a mess I am?” I ask.
“I’ve learned to pay attention to the little things.”
“Because of your dad?”
He shrugs. “I guess.”
“Why don’t you tell the cops that he hits you?”
“What, and get thrown into foster care and split up from my brother? No thanks. Besides, no one wants me.”
“Don’t say
that.”
“Why don’t you tell anyone about your…” He doesn’t finish.
“Hallucinations. I call them HULU’s.”
“HULU’s. Huh.” He considers. “What does your doctor say?”
“Can’t tell him.”
“Why not?”
“My first HULU was of my doctor smacking his wife around.”
“Whoa.”
“And my parents will completely lose it if I tell them I’m hallucinating. I had one about them,” she paused, “committing me, I think.”
“That sucks.”
“Yeah, well, maybe it would be best. Have the doctors go back into my brain and figure out a way to stop this.”
“They don’t like to go digging around if they don’t have to.”
“What, you’re an expert?”
“I’ve done some research.”
There’s only one reason he’d research my condition. He cares about me. Or does he feel guilty?
I don’t want what we’re sharing right now to be about guilt.
“They finally told me the truth,” I offer, “that I was walking in the middle of the street when you hit me.”
He doesn’t answer at first. With a nod, he looks at me and cracks a sad smile. “Not quite in the middle, but in the street, yeah.”
“God, I’m so stupid.”
“Me stupid too,” he says.
“I was so mad at you.”
“Was?” He ventures a glance my way.
I shrug. I must be insane, but this feels right. “You take good notes.”
“Ah.” He smiles at me.
I like his smile. It’s warm and genuine. I haven’t seen a lot of those lately. Kids and teachers, even my parents can only seem to eek out that forced smile, the one with tight lips and shuttered eyes.
“Don’t,” he says.
“Don’t what?”
He glances at the mountain range. “Look at me like that.”
“How am I looking at you?”
He shrugs. We both sense something’s happening here. I don’t know about him, but it scares the crap out of me. I should be feeling this way about a guy like Greg, who seems perfect but isn’t, or someone higher up on the food chain, as Taylor would say.
“What’s it like? The HULU’s?” He looks straight at me.
I focus on his hair falling across his forehead. I’m so glad I’m wearing my sunglasses. It would be way too tempting to stare into those gorgeous eyes.
“It’s like I’m falling and then,” I pause, “you’ve had nightmares, right?”
“Yep.”
“It’s kind of like that. I’m there, but no one can see me. I can hear everything and see everything. I even smell things.”
“You saw Billy get hurt, didn’t you?”
“Not exactly.” My gaze drifts to my Celtic ring. “I saw you.”
“What was I doing?”
“You were at the hospital. Crying.”
“Bullshit.”
“He didn’t just break his wrist in my HULU. It was…worse.”
“You’re telling me you can see the future and change it?”
I jump to my feet, nervous energy swirling in the pit of my stomach. “I’m not sure what I see.”
J.D. stands as well. “What happened to Billy in your HULU?”
“No helmet.” I cross my arms over my chest. “Suspected brain trauma.”
“But you changed it. You told me to remind him to wear a helmet. So you can change the future.”
“I don’t want that kind of responsibility.”
“We don’t want a lot of stuff we have to deal with.”
“Yeah, like knowing Greg Hoffman is making Molotov cocktails,” I blurt out.
“What?”
“Why do you think I was running away from the party last weekend?”
J.D. shakes his head. “I knew that guy was evil. And you’re his girlfriend.”
“Hang on, jerk. I never said ‘yes’ to going out with him.”
“He acts like you did, hanging all over you at school, acting like your personal hero.”
“Act. That’s the key word.”
“What’s he going to do with the cocktail?”
“Get revenge on the people who got him benched, like Mr. Cooper.”
“What!” He grabs my shoulders. “Where? School? The Community Center?”
“I don’t know. I just saw him making it.”
“You’ve got to tell someone.”
“Great idea, Einstein.” I yank away from him. “I’ll walk into Burke’s office and announce that Greg Hoffman is a psycho who plans to bomb the school. He’ll ask how I know and I’ll say: I saw it in my daydreams. Brilliant, Pratt! They’ll lock me up in the psych ward. Or is that what you’re hoping for so you don’t have to be my school slave anymore?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” He puts up his hands. “You need to calm down.”
He’s right. I’m losing it as the wave of anxiety pulls me away from rational thought.
“You can change this, like you changed Billy’s accident,” he says.
“I didn’t change what happened to Billy. You did.”
“Because of you. You can stop Hoffman.”
“I thought I could. It was looking pretty good until yesterday when you and Greg got into a shoving match, and Cooper got him suspended for three games. I think that’s the trigger. Greg gets suspended and wants revenge.”
“He thinks he’s going to get away with it?”
“He’s a charmer. He thinks he can get away with anything.” “What are you going to do?” he asks.
“Not sure. I guess the best way to stop him is to keep up the pretense, act the loving girlfriend so I can figure out his plan.”
“No,” J.D. says with a determined look in his eyes. “We’ll figure out another way.”
“We?”
“Break up with him Monday. First thing.”
“And I’m doing this because…?”
“Because I said so.”
“Uh, okay, Dad.”
He gently grips my shoulders. “Promise?”
“What the hell, Pratt?” I try to pull away but he holds firm.
“He’ll hurt you if you get too close. You have to stop leading him on.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
“Catherine, please?” he whispers, leaning close, his breath warming my cheek.
And then he kisses me.
Chapter Eighteen
I’ve kissed guys, sure. They’ve tasted of peppermint Tic Tacs or cherry bubble gum or even cigars, like Greg.
But nothing’s tasted like this.
Or felt like this.
J.D.’s lips are soft and warm. The taste is indescribable, like chocolate, only better.
Heat floods my cheeks and drifts down my neck. It slowly spreads across my shoulders and down into my chest.
For the first time since the accident I feel completely grounded.
I feel safe.
I’m plummeting into some kind of altered state, but not because of a terrifying hallucination. Although I’m not looking into his eyes, I can picture the myriad of colors, shades of blue, green and gold. J.D. has beautiful eyes. I slip my hands around his waist and interlace my fingers.
I belong right here in his arms. I know this, deep in my heart.
A faint moan rumbles against his throat. I part my lips slightly, wanting more of something.
More of him.
Suddenly he breaks the kiss and steps back, holding me at arm’s length. “This can’t…no.”
He’s out of breath as if he just ran uphill.
“No?” I question. I’ve never felt a stronger “yes” in my life.
“That was,” he hesitates, “I’m sorry.”
He breaks the hold and studies the ground as if he can’t bear to look at me. It’s not because he’s worried about me having a HULU. I sense that he’s ashamed.
“You don’t have anything to be sorry about,” I offe
r.
“That was wrong.” He climbs down the ridge and motions to me with his hands. “Let’s go.”
I’m confused and hurt. How could he think the one thing that feels right in my life is so totally wrong?
“Come on.” He holds his arms up to support me as I climb down.
Here’s my chance to touch him again.
Get close.
Maybe sneak another kiss.
Am I losing it?
I turn around and hold onto a tree root as I lower one foot, then the other. At the last second I let go and he steadies me with hands on my hips.
I turn and look into his eyes. “What’s the problem?”
He shakes his head, lets go of me, and walks away.
“Hey, wait.” I catch up to him and grab his wool jacket. I’m not letting go.
He turns, slowly, as if he fears looking at me. But things have changed. I won’t look too deeply into his eyes and expose his secrets. He’s got to know that, right?
He’s also got to know how much I enjoyed the kiss.
“That was not wrong,” I say.
“Yeah, it was. I’m a horny teenager and you’re a confused Princess with a traumatic brain injury.”
His words sting like a backhanded slap to my cheek. My fingers spring free of his jacket. I hate being reminded of my condition.
I actually thought he understood me. Accepted me.
“Correction: you’re an asshole, horny teenager.” I shove him aside and follow the trail back to the street.
“What are you going to do about Hoffman?” he calls after me.
“I’ll handle it.” By myself, as usual. I’ll stick with Plan A, which means kissing a cold-hearted psycho when I want to be kissing J.D.
The guy who is-was my enemy? Oh hell, I don’t know what he is anymore.
“I don’t want you being alone with him.” He catches up to me.
“Whatever.”
“Catherine, I mean it.”
I stop short and turn to him. “You can’t have it both ways, J.D. Either you care about me or you don’t. You can’t kiss me and say it was just hormones one minute, and then demand I stay away from Greg the next. Make up your mind.”
“I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Then why did you say it was a mistake to kiss me? You don’t think that hurt?”