by Nancy N. Rue
“I’m sorry?”
“You’re prom queen,” Hayley said. “They called your name and everybody went nuts — but there was no you.”
She looked so desperate for everything to be okay I forced myself to smile. “So who accepted for me?”
“I did.”
Alyssa took a stiff step forward and held out a tiara that would have outshone Candace’s entire jewelry collection. The effect was dulled by the hospital lights, but once again I made up a smile.
“Who’d have thought, huh?” I said.
“Evidently a lot of people.” Her voice was dry and crackly. “Look — I’m sorry for setting you up. I never thought you’d actually go for it.”
“I don’t think this is coming out right,” Joanna said. Her hand on my arm was clammy.
Hayley rolled her eyes. “Just say it, Lyssa.”
That was apparently the most arduous task Alyssa could endure; she would obviously rather be donating a lobe of her liver right now. Any other time I might have enjoyed it. But this was no other time.
“Apology accepted,” I said. I closed my eyes and hoped they’d take the hint.
“We wanted to take you down because you always acted like you were better than we were.”
The eyes came open. Alyssa swallowed that same wad of bubble gum we all seemed to be sharing.
“It turns out you are,” she said.
I was still staring at her when Hayley turned her head halfway, her gaze on my IV bag.
“It was only ‘we’ at first, Lyssa,” she said. “I told you two weeks ago she was all right, but you wouldn’t stop.”
Alyssa’s face tightened. “I thought it was always ‘we,’ no matter what.”
“Not when we’re wrong.” Joanna looked straight at her. “Then we each have to figure it out for ourselves. And I already did.”
She leaned across me and kissed my cheek. Face crumpling, she turned to go.
“Wait,” I said.
She stopped.
“You take this.” I nodded at the crown, stuck like a lost princess between the plastic pitcher and the box of Kleenex on the rolling tray.
“It’s yours,” Joanna said.
“No,” I said. “You’re the real queen.”
When they had filed out, a sob escaped from somewhere in my gut. It felt as if it were ripping through my incision but I let another one come, and another one, until Sunny was there, with her warm hands holding my face.
“Tyler, what is it, baby?”
“I’m not a queen.”
“Yes, you are —”
“No!” I shook my head, and that hurt too. “It’s my fault Valleri is in there trying to die.”
“No — baby girl, it was Matthew’s fault. And they caught up with him two blocks away from the school.” Sunny sat on the edge of the bed. “He’s been charged with vehicular assault and leaving the scene of an accident.”
“I should be charged,” I said.
“Tyler, you didn’t do anything wrong.”
“The whole thing was wrong. If I hadn’t tried to change everything, none of this would’ve happened.”
“That’s right.”
I jerked.
“For openers, Yuri wouldn’t be getting the help he needs.”
I held back the next sob. “What happened with him? The girls didn’t say anything.”
Sunny smiled. “Nobody saw him run out the back door except Noelle and Fred. Noelle went and got her dad —”
“Her dad was there?”
“Yeah. He was one of the cops.”
“No way.”
“Way. Between you and Noelle — and ol’ Graham — he didn’t have a chance. The police took care of it quietly and nobody in the prom ever knew a thing.”
“I don’t understand. Weren’t they afraid he’d planted a bomb or something?”
Sunny shook her head. “This is the really sad part of the whole thing. When they searched his camera bag, they found a paint gun in there, loaded with red ammunition.”
The sobs started again.
“What, Tyler? What, baby?”
“Valleri could’ve been killed over a paint gun.” I dropped my hand over my eyes. “She might die because —”
“Because Yuri was headed for a breakdown. Matthew and Deidre didn’t know what to do with that.” Sunny pulled my hand from my face. “Yuri’s upstairs in the psych ward. He’s getting help.”
“But what about Valleri? She never did anything to anybody. Why was she even out there?”
“I don’t know,” Sunny said. “When she wakes up, you can ask her.”
“What if she doesn’t? You can’t say she will, because you don’t know.”
“No,” she said, “I don’t.”
“I just need to cry,” I said. “But it hurts too much.” Sunny’s eyes filled. “I could cry for you.” “Valleri would pray.” “We can do that too.” “Hey now, what’s this?”
My father crossed from the door to the bed and stood behind Sunny. He put his hands on her shoulders as he searched my face. There was no avoiding him this time.
“You should go down and get yourself something to eat, baby,” he said to Sunny.
Mom grunted from her resumed post at the IV stand. “Don’t get the tofu thing. It tastes like a makeup sponge.”
Sunny kissed my forehead and left me at the hands of my father. If I hadn’t loved her so much, I would have called her a jackal.
I looked at Dad and decided to get it over with. “You don’t have to say you warned me,” I said. “I already know.” “Did you think that was what I came in here to say?”
“Didn’t you?”
“I don’t think a debate is on her chart,” Mom said to him. “Let’s cut to the chase for once.”
Dad nodded and pulled a chair up to the bedside. My heart headed straight to my throat.
“Is it Valleri?” I said. “Is she gone?”
“She’s still the same,” Mom said. “No worse.”
“But the longer she stays in a coma, her chances of coming out of it decrease. I read that.”
“I think you read too much, Ty.” Dad gave me a half smile. “Bet you never thought you’d hear me say that.”
I plucked at the sheet. “What are you going to say? Would you please just tell me?”
“All right. First, just let me say that going into the school when you were bleeding internally wasn’t one of your best choices. You could be charged with leaving the scene of an accident too, but they’re cutting you slack. There were enough other witnesses — although the police still want to question you at some point.”
I didn’t bother to explain why I had to go into the school. I wasn’t sure I would have bought it myself right now.
“In terms of the prom,” Dad went on, “it did turn out for the best. But not knowing what this Yuri kid had in mind, you should have gone to the police instead of charging in there yourself.”
“I know,” I said. So far he wasn’t telling me anything I hadn’t already figured out.
“That being said, I know now that you were right about one thing.”
Right now, I couldn’t even imagine what that might be.
“You do need to be in a private school.”
My hand startled, and Mom put hers over it. “Easy. You’re going to pull out your IV.”
“You’ll be more focused on your courses, be more challenged,” Dad said. “I know there’s drama in any high school, but I don’t think you’ll have to deal with it at this level.” He patted the mattress. “As soon as you’re up to it, we’ll go over some options. It’s hard getting in for a senior year, but I’ve made some phone calls. Your academic record speaks for itself.”
Mom smoothed her hand down my arm. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it?”
“It was.” I closed my eyes and felt myself sink. “I’m really tired. Can I sleep now?”
But I didn’t drift off. I just waited until Dad left for home and Mom was breathing evenly in
the recliner in the corner. Then I turned my face as far as I could into the pillow, and I cried.
Chapter Twenty
Early Monday morning, I had three more visitors. One was the doctor, saying I had a slight fever and couldn’t go home until it came down. That it could indicate an infection and they weren’t taking any chances.
The other two came out of one of my blurred naps — a dark face and a creamy-white one. It took me a minute to realize they were Valleri’s parents, heads bowed, hands clutching each others’, lips moving. I didn’t know if it was okay to interrupt praying. But I had to know.
“Is she still …”
Mrs. Clare raised her head and moved her hand from her husband’s to mine. “She is still with us,” she said in her soft Frenchness. “We have friends praying around the clock.”
“Were you just praying for me?” I said.
“We were,” Mr. Clare said.
“Why?”
His face puzzled. “Why wouldn’t we, my dear?” No one had ever called me “my dear.” I felt myself caving again.
“You are Valleri’s good friend,” her mother said. “Her best friend. She loves you.”
“But if she hadn’t loved me — she wouldn’t be where she is right now. Why don’t you hate me for that?”
“Oh, no, no, no, no, no.” Mrs. Clare put her hands to my face and rubbed my cheekbones with her thumbs. Her mouth was like a rosebud, murmuring the no’s between presses on my forehead.
“We have no idea why this thing happened,” Mr. Clare said. “We don’t say ‘it was God’s will’ or ‘it was Satan having his way’ or ‘it was planned to teach somebody a lesson’ — nothing like that. And my dear” — his voice caught — “we are certainly not blaming you. We’re just praying that God will show us what to do next and give us the comfort and strength to do it.
That’s all.”
“I want to hear it,” I said.
Mrs. Clare stopped kissing my face. “What do you want to hear?”
I begged her with my eyes. “I want to hear you pray.”
By noon, I was fidgeting in the bed, so they let me get up and walk down the hall, trailing my IV behind me like a reluctant dog on a leash. One trip to the nurse’s station and back and I was wiped out, but I couldn’t sleep anymore. My soul knew what it wanted, and my mind wouldn’t rest until I got it. When Sunny came in right after school, I was on her.
“I need you to get me something from my room at home,” I said. “Would you?”
“Not if it’s schoolwork,” she said. “You’re supposed to rest.” “No. It’s just my — it’s a — okay, it’s a leather book under the cushion on my window seat. It says RL on the cover.”
“Okay.”
“Could you bring it to me? I really need it.”
“Absolutely.” She squeezed my hand. “Everybody and their brother was asking about you. We spent the whole fourth block talking about it.” She grimaced. “Most of the kids are really down. They think Valleri’s accident negates everything else, everything good.”
Yeah. I heard that.
I slid my gaze down to my lap. “Did you see Patrick?” “I didn’t. In fact, Hayley told me he wasn’t even in school today.”
“Is he sick?”
“Don’t know. I can see what I can find out.”
I shook my head. “If he wants to get in touch, he will.”
“Uh-huh.”
I looked at her.
“You sure that’s the way you want to handle this?” she said.
“Handle what?”
“Uh-huh,” she said again and stood up. “I’ll go get your book for you.”
I could feel RL’s warmth even before Sunny handed it to me. I watched her as I took it from her, but I didn’t see any tiny beads of perspiration on her upper lip. “Did you read any of it?” I said.
“Uh, no. It looked private — of course I didn’t read it.”
I opened it and turned it toward her. “What do you see?”
Sunny peered at the page, eyes moving. “ ‘That same day, two of them were walking to the village Emmaus.’ “ She tilted her head. “It’s the gospel. The part right after the resurrection. Is this your Bible?”
“You don’t see anything else?”
“Am I supposed to see anything else?”
“You don’t hear anything?”
“I hear you asking me some pretty strange questions. You sure you’re all right?” She put her hand on my forehead. “You still have a fever.”
“Trust me, it’s not a fever,” I said. “Thanks for bringing this.”
“Is that my signal to go away and leave you alone?”
“No,” I said. “My signal for go away and leave me alone is ‘Hey, Sunny. Go away and leave me alone.’”
Sunny pulled her eyebrows together. “You must be feeling better. You’re getting ornery again.”
I realized as she left that I actually did feel better. Maybe an inch better. Hopefully RL would take me further.
The warm page wasn’t hard to find, and the words began as if they’d been waiting with fingers drumming.
So — you gave everything you had.
That wasn’t what Sunny had read.
This is about you. Do you want your next story?
I do.
Yeshua has been killed, just as he predicted, and he has risen from the dead three days later, also as he promised. But his disciples seem to have forgotten that. They’ve gone into hiding, terrified that they’re going to be next. You can’t really blame them.
No, I couldn’t.
But what they can’t forget is him and the impact he had on their lives. It’s all they can talk about. You know how that is, when something big goes down, nobody can focus on anything else.
It didn’t matter how many times it happened, I still got a chill when this book seemed to be reading my life.
So that Sunday, the day of the resurrection nobody really knows about yet, two of Yeshua’s friends are walking to the village of Emmaus, about seven miles out of Jerusalem. Like everyone else who was involved, they’re going over and over what’s gone down. Right in the middle of the conversation, Yeshua joins them. But they have no idea who he is.
Yet another thing I’d always had a hard time understanding. They’d been with him for, what, three years, and they didn’t even recognize him? By the time I’d gotten to that story in Sunday school, I had stopped asking questions.
Yeshua says, “So what’s this you’re so focused on? Looks like serious stuff.”
One of them, a guy named Cleopas, says, “You’ve got to be kidding me, pal. You must be the only person in Jerusalem who doesn’t know what’s been going on.”
So Yeshua plays along. He asks what he’s missed, and they tell him the whole story, including how confused everybody is by what the women have told them about not being able to find his body and seeing angels who say Yeshua is alive. “Who’s gonna believe that, right?” Cleopas says. He goes on to tell how some of the men went back to the tomb and, son of a gun, it WAS empty. If Yeshua is alive, nobody knows where he is.
I was still working on why they couldn’t see that he was standing right in front of them.
Oh, and get this. Yeshua says to them, “Why can’t you just believe what the prophets said?” And he starts at the beginning, with Moses, and he goes through all the prophets, bringing up every reference to him in the Scriptures.
And they still didn’t see who he was.
Not even. They get to Emmaus and Yeshua starts to walk on, and they say, “No, no. Have dinner with us.” Still totally oblivious, they sit down at the table with him, and then — are you getting this?
I’m working on it.
Yeshua takes the bread, and he breaks it, and he gives it to them — is this sounding familiar?
I could see myself taking the bread from Valleri — I could hear her whisper, Tyler, this is for you, from Jesus.
They saw it too. Their eyes opened wide, and they knew who
he was.
Yes.
And then he was gone.
“What?” I said out loud. “Just when they recognize him, he just disappears?”
Ever felt that way?
“Ya think?”
I pressed my lips together and watched the door. I was going to have the nurses running in here in a minute. When I didn’t hear white tennies squealing down the hall, I turned back to RL.
I feel that way right now. I went to Valleri’s church. I felt like something happened and I started praying and things were turning out right and then —
I put my hand to my mouth, because I was crying and I was talking straight to God.
And then You just seemed to disappear, and all this horrible stuff happened. I mean, what is the point in coming to You if You’re not even here?
The story isn’t over.
The warmth of the page touched me. Like Valleri’s mother kissing my forehead. Like Sunny holding my face in her hands. I couldn’t turn away from any of it.
“Tell me,” I whispered.
The men Yeshua had just broken bread with were finally able to speak. And this is what they said to each other: “Didn’t we feel like we were on fire when he talked to us out there on the road? Didn’t it burn in us when he opened up the Scriptures for us?”
They said that? Please tell me they said that.
They said that.
And then what did they do?
They knew it was true — that Yeshua really was alive.
But what did they do?
They did what you do when you know. They ran and told the others.
I don’t —
Tell the others what you know is true.
RL was then silent. I closed it and hugged it to my chest until the glow went deep inside. And then I rang for the nurses.
It took some convincing to get them to let me go see Valleri. They finally relented when I said I’d go in a wheelchair and would only stay five minutes. The truth I had to tell wouldn’t take longer than that.
Her room was right across from the family lounge, which was standing room only when I rolled past. I recognized some of the faces I’d seen at Valleri’s a week ago. I guessed if Valleri couldn’t get to the church, they brought the church to her.
Mrs. Clare was sitting next to her bed, flanked by two bouquets of balloons, chatting away. My heart leaped — for the first time I realized a heart could really do that — and I thought Valleri was awake.