Bending Under Pressure

by Lindsay Paige

  “I’m going to step outside and call my mom real quick, okay?” I say to Keelan.

  “Do you want me to come with you? Do you want my jacket?”

  “No, stay here with our seats. And yes, please.” He takes it off with ease and holds it so I can slip my arms into the sleeves. It’s too big, but warm from his body. “Thanks.” I lean over to kiss his cheek before making a beeline to a set of white doors that lead to the parking lot. I stop short as soon as I step outside. Across the lot, I can see the entrance to the church. Standing out front is the wedding party, waiting for their grand entrance, I guess. I would’ve thought they would wait in the lobby instead or somewhere else inside where it’s warm.

  What makes me freeze though is seeing my dad. Tonya is to his right and Carly on this left. He’s smiling so big; I can easily tell from over here that he’s happy. He glances down at Carly as she says something. He laughs loud enough for it to ring out across the distance. My grandparents are out there with him. Shouldn’t I be there too? I’m still his family. Why didn’t my grandparents tell me? Something cold trickles down my cheek and I wipe at it.

  Stupid tear.

  I’ve done everything but run into Tonya and Carly’s arms. Why isn’t that enough? Swallowing hard, I turn to find Keelan. I can’t call Mom like this. She’d hear how upset I am and I don’t want to deal with it yet. I return my phone to his pocket and drape his jacket behind my chair since he’s rolled up his sleeves to his elbows.

  “Are you sure you want to stay?” he asks, concern pulling his brows together.

  “Yeah, I want to see my dad first.”

  He nods and leaves it alone. A few minutes later, the wedding party is introduced. People clap and cheer, but I can’t bring myself to do it. This isn’t a happy day for me. As far as I’m concerned, this is the day I officially lose my dad. I hate how he even tried when all he was going to do was go back to the way things have been since the divorce. He got my hopes up for no good reason. It would have been easier to deal with the pain and then move on instead of him making promises he had no intention of keeping. Continuing to get my hopes up and then letting me down was just cruel and I don’t know if I can forgive that.

  The meal is served. Chatter is happening all throughout the room with the exception of Keelan and me. I poke at my food until they take it away. I focus on Keelan’s fingers trailing over my shoulder instead of the cake cutting and all the other stupid wedding traditions. Biting the inside of my cheek doesn’t do enough to distract me from seeing my dad dance with Carly when Tonya dances with her father. It’s stupid to keep thinking he’ll come find me eventually. He probably won’t. He probably doesn’t care.

  I shouldn’t either.

  The area deemed as the dance floor soon fills up as the music alternates from high tempo music to slow songs. Two hours into the reception, two hours of seeing my father go around and talk to people, and I’ve yet to have a conversation with him. But then, as he’s inching his way closer to this side of the room, I decide I don’t want to talk to him. I don’t want to face him and pretend he hasn’t hurt me or explode in fury and cause a scene. I turn in my seat toward Keelan.

  The tune is soft and slow right now. It’s the perfect song for me to use being in Keelan’s arms as a distraction. Anything to stop thinking about my dad.

  “Will you dance with me?” I ask quietly.

  His eyes widen, his brows shooting upward. “Dance? Like dance dance? I don’t dance, Hales,” he finishes in apology.

  “It’s easy. You sway in place, that’s it.” He seems skeptical that it’s so easy, and I want to laugh. “You get to hold me close,” I add, hoping that will be enough incentive.

  “I don’t know,” he hedges, but that’s better than a no.

  “Please? I can’t sit here anymore.”

  Keelan takes a steady breath before nodding. “Okay, but just one.”

  He stands and holds his hand out. I take it. He leads me to the edge where there are fewer people. As if we will need plenty of room. Keelan swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbling in his throat. He stands in front of me, unmoving. I giggle at his unease and seemingly dumbfounded expression. My arms lift to wrap around his neck. His arms automatically snake around me to hold me closer. I begin to sway as I rest my cheek on my arm to press my face into his neck.

  “Thank you for coming with me,” I whisper.

  “It doesn’t seem as if I can say no to you.”

  I smile and quickly press a kiss to his neck. “You’re a good dancer.”

  Keelan laughs, his torso rumbling against me. “Yeah, if you say so.”

  “You haven’t stepped on my feet yet, so you must be good.”

  “We haven’t moved,” he points out with a chuckle.

  “I’m still counting it.” I nuzzle my face closer to his neck and inhale slowly. He always smells so good. “I wish I could sneak over and stay with you tonight,” I tell him. Being in his arms all night sounds like the perfect way to end this stupid night.

  His hands glide up and down my back to draw a shiver out of me. “Me too.”

  “Probably not a good thing though, considering last time.” My mind is on the heated landing on second base more so than the fact that we got caught. Kissing is all I want to do for a while.

  “Yeah, probably.”

  The song ends and another slow song starts. I smile when Keelan keeps us swaying. He does lead us back to our seats at the end of it though. Dad and his bride are talking and laughing at something her sister must’ve said. Before I can take a seat, Dad sees me and breaks away from her to come over to me.

  “I’m glad you came, Haley,” he says as he gives me a hug.

  “Me too. It was nice to learn that her family didn’t even know you had a daughter.”

  Dad tenses and I almost wish I kept my mouth shut. Almost. He pulls away to warily look at me. “Haley,” he begins, but I cut him off.

  “I’m really tired of hearing your excuses, so please don’t give me another one. Do you even realize you forgot to have dinner with me a month ago? You didn’t show, didn’t call or text, or anything. You didn’t mention it when you finally did call me days later either.”

  His voice is low as he warns me, “Don’t start a scene. We can talk later.”

  “When?” My tone is more hysterically incredulous than I would’ve liked. “You don’t call, you don’t text, and I can’t ever get you to answer your damn phone!”

  People have started to turn their heads toward us and I feel Keelan place a hand on my back from behind me.

  “You’re angry with me, I get it.”

  “Do you?” I interrupt again. “Because you don’t seem to care, Dad.”

  His jaw clenches and I know he’s had enough. It was always a sign of that I’ve pushed him too far on the rare occasions that I’ve done so. “If you can’t behave and act properly, then you need to leave.”

  I gasp as if he slapped me. I stare at his hard eyes, barely recognizing him anymore. “Fine.” I grab Keelan’s jacket from the back of the chair and look at Tonya. “Hopefully, he won’t cheat on you like he cheated with you while he was married to my mother. But if he does, you deserve it.”

  “Haley!” Dad snaps, but I’ve already started walking away.

  Tears silently fall down my face as we get into the car. I’m grateful Keelan doesn’t try to talk to me yet. Dad asked me to leave. Yeah, I know I didn’t have to bring everything up at his wedding, but it’s not like I’d get another opportunity to talk to him about it. Everything I said was true! I lean my head against the window and close my eyes.

  My mind keeps replaying the entire stupid wedding in my head the whole way home. Keelan sits idling in the driveway for a minute before I pull on the handle.

  “I’m sorry, Hales.”

  “Me too. I’ll text you later.” I kiss him on the cheek and then get out.

  I’m dreading going inside. I’ve had too much time to think as it is and going inside won’t help
stop the thoughts. Before I can change my mind, I quietly sneak into the house, grab my keys, and sneak back out without taking the time to change. Mom and Walter were resting in their bedroom when I left and they’re still in there. I forgot to text her that I was on the way home, so she probably isn’t expecting me soon.

  At first, I don’t know where I’m going. My body is on autopilot as I drive. I come to a stop on Dead Man’s Curve. Yes. Speed is what I need. It’s the perfect distraction. With a deep breath, I flex my fingers on the steering wheel and then grip it tightly. My foot slams down on the gas. My car struggles at first, but soon the needle of the speedometer is climbing higher and higher.

  My heart is pounding in my chest as I start passing eighty-five. The quick glance at the speedometer was a mistake. I scream at the sight of a deer standing in the middle of my path. Without thinking, I swerve.

  When I read books, they always describe the crunching of metal, the feel of the motion of flipping over, or life passing in front of the character’s eyes. It’s nonsense. My eyes close on instinct and the world eerily stops as if time is frozen and all my senses have been stripped from me.

  No sound.

  No motion.

  No feeling my heart thumping crazily against my ribs. No feeling whatsoever.

  Nothing.

  Nothing at all.

  “Oh, wow. Is she doing okay?” Mom asks.

  I just finished telling her what went down at the wedding. “I don’t know. She didn’t talk on the way back. She’s said she would text me later.” I reach into my pocket for my phone and realize Haley never got her phone back. “Well, she would if she had her phone. Can I drive back over there to return it?” I ask.

  We hear sirens of emergency vehicles as they rush past the house. Mom and I frown at each other.

  “Wonder what’s going on,” she says. It’s odd for anything to be happening here, so something is going on for sirens to be heard. “How about I ride with you?”

  “Okay.” I’m not sure I could turn her down anyway.

  My stomach starts churning when Haley’s car isn’t in the driveway. Where is she? The town is so quiet that we can faintly hear the sirens from somewhere down the road.

  “Did she have somewhere else to go?” Mom asks.

  “No. She was upset though, so maybe she’s at the courts.”

  “Let’s find out.”

  I back out and head that way. But when I see fire trucks, ambulance, and cop cars, all their lights flashing from Dead Man’s Curve, I turn there instead. Please tell me she didn’t. Please, don’t let it be Haley.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Making sure it’s not Haley.” About halfway down the road, I see it. Her car is in the middle of a field, lying on the passenger’s side, and is totaled. I hurry to park behind a cop’s car and get out of the car, not even taking the keys from the ignition. Everyone seems to be surrounding something on the ground, so I run there, ignoring my mother’s calls for me. A paramedic moves slightly and I see a flash of blonde hair. “Haley!” I shout.

  “Woah there.” A police officer is suddenly in front of me, keeping me from going to her. “They need to do their job, so I need you to stay out here.”

  I stop fighting him, but stare to where she’s being strapped to a board to be loaded onto the stretcher. She isn’t moving. Shouldn’t she be moving? God, she’s still in her dress. The red stains blotting it make me nauseous.

  “How bad is it?” I hear Mom ask. The officer hesitates to answer her, so she adds, “She’s his girlfriend and I want to be able to tell her mother something when I call her to let her know what happened. Besides, it’s not like you don’t know us, Harold.”

  He nods. “She has several lacerations. Her arm may be broken. We won’t know about any more injuries until she gets to the hospital, though. We can’t ask her if she’s in any pain because she’s unconscious. That’s all we know at this point.”

  “Thank you.” Mom’s hand touches my shoulder. “I’m going to call her mother.”

  They’re carrying her toward the stretcher, where it’s waiting on the road behind the ambulance.

  “Can I ride with her?” I ask the officer. “In case she wakes up and she’s scared? Please?”

  He nods and leads me over to the ambulance. She’s already in the back and Harold lets them know I’m riding with her. I climb in and take a seat next to her. What was she thinking? What happened for her to wreck and land in the field like that? All I can do is stare and watch as they work on her. The closest hospital is twenty minutes away. The ride there is the longest twenty minutes of my life.

  What worries me the most is that she still hasn’t regained consciousness. I’m stuck in a waiting room when Mom arrives only a minute after we get there. Rita and Walter arrive next. They look terrible, between having the flu and now the stress of this. If I wasn’t so worried, I might even laugh when a nurse makes them put on masks, so no one else gets sick. They take them back into the emergency room and Mom and I are left waiting.

  Dad and Cam arrive next.

  It seems like forever before Walter ambles into the waiting room. I shoot up and hold my breath. I’ve been trying not to think about the possibility that she wouldn’t be okay. Right now, Walter needs to confirm that for me.

  “She’ll be okay.” A whoosh of air leaves my lungs as he continues. “She’s beat up, though. They’re going to hold her a while longer. She broke her arm. The seatbelt and airbag seems to have bruised her ribs, but nothing is broken or cracked. She has a concussion and doesn’t remember what happened right now. The police said they only thing they can tell is that she was speeding. She’s really lucky that she wasn’t hurt worse.”

  “Can I see her?”

  “Yeah. We’ll go back in a few minutes.” He pauses, his eyes searching mine, and then he says, “What happened, Keelan?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, things didn’t go well at the wedding, and she was upset, but I dropped her off. She went inside as I was leaving. I was coming back to return her phone, saw she wasn’t there, and we were going to see if she went to the courts. That’s when we saw the cops out at Dead Man’s Curve.” Part of me wants to blurt out how it’s my fault. If I hadn’t taken her racing, she would’ve never been speeding on that road. She would’ve never gotten into a car accident because of it.

  He shakes his head. “What did he do this time?”

  By the time I finish explaining it to him, he’s furious, and it’s time to go to see Haley. I follow him through a heavy door and down a hallway. We turn and he stops outside the third curtain, which is pulled aside. There’s a cast on her arm. She’s in a hospital gown, so I don’t have to see her dress. There are some cuts and scrapes on her arms and face, but I don’t see whatever caused all the blood.

  Haley is staring up at the ceiling, her eyelids slowly opening and closing as if she’s trying not to fall asleep. Rita stands. I can’t tell if she’s happy to see me or not.

  “Walter, will you go home and get her a change of clothes?”

  He nods and leaves. I walk over to her right side since Rita is on the left. Haley’s eyes shift to mine and a goofy, dopey grin lifts her lips. She doesn’t say anything though.

  “They gave her some pain meds, so she’s a little loopy,” Rita explains.

  “Am not,” Haley replies without taking her eyes off me. “Why are you all dressed up?”

  “Because I thought you might like this instead of a University of Virgina shirt.”

  She laughs, but abruptly stops. Her face contorts in pain and she lifts her hand to her head. “That hurt.”

  “Sorry, Hales,” I say with too much seriousness.

  She holds her hand out and I gently cradle it in mine. “Why? You’re cute. I’ll get over it.” Rita and I both laugh at that. Then she blinks and looks confused. “Why are we in the hospital?” Haley frowns as she looks over herself. “What happened to me? Mom?” The fear in her voice breaks my heart.

  “You’r
e okay. You were in a car accident. Remember?” It takes a minute before she nods. “Tell me what happened,” Rita pushes gently.

  Haley’s eyes flick to mine. “I was speeding, and I glanced down and saw how fast I was going. When I looked back up, there was a deer, and I tried not to hit it. That’s all I remember.”

  “How fast were you going?” Rita asks.

  Haley hesitates. “Eighty-five,” she whispers.

  Rita sucks in a breath. “Haley, the speed limit is forty-five. Why would you be going that fast? That’s not just a little over the limit. They could take your license, not to mention how it’s amazing everyone that you didn’t die in that wreck.”

  “I was upset, and I wasn’t paying attention,” she lies. Her brows pull together and she frowns again. “My head hurts. Can’t I have something for pain? When can I go home?”

  “They’ve already given you something. You’ll go home whenever they say you can go home,” she replies curtly. Her mom’s anger falls away, her eyes welling with tears. “I’m glad you’re okay, Haley.”

  “I’m sorry,” Haley says as her voice cracks. “Have you called Dad?”

  “Not yet. I’ve been too busy worrying over you. I’ll call him and let know what happened. Will you be okay with Keelan until I get back?”

  She nods. “I don’t want him to come. If he says he wants to, tell him no.”

  Rita agrees, kisses her forehead through her mask, and then leaves us.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Everything hurts, and I really want to sleep.”

  I press my lips to her forehead, a feather light kiss, and whisper, “I’m sorry.”

  She frowns. “Why?”

  “You shouldn’t have been out there, especially not without me.”

  “Why? So you could be in a hospital bed too?”

  I shake my head. “Maybe not. I would have hit the deer head on.”

  Her eyes do a little roll. Walter comes through the curtains, holding a pair of pajamas in his hands, plus a coat.

  “I grabbed a tank top because I figured it might be easier for you. Then we’ll drape the coat over you to keep you warm. Where’s your mom?”