Brilliant
Page 24
All my foreboding comes flooding back and I touch my stomach. “What?”
Mercedes comes forward and links her arm in mine, and we’re standing in front of the big screen television where the Olympic trials are going on. In my hand, my phone buzzes again and then again, and my heart is racing as the footage on screen shows a helicopter taking a body off the slopes. “Is it Tyler? Is he dead?”
“Not dead,” she says, and then they’re showing the run. Tyler waving at the top of the slope, taking off, hitting all the railings and tricks in the first half exactly, and then sailing high from the first jump, high, turning, turning, turning, turning—impossible that a person can spin so many times—in exhilarating perfection. He lands sweetly, leans in for the next jump, and sails even higher, but this time, he clearly hits something on the slope—too slippery or a piece of ice, something—and because of speed, it sends him into a spiraling fall, smashing shoulder, head, then legs, and the board goes flying, and his legs don’t look right—
“Oh, my god.” I cover my mouth, phone clutched tight in my palm, and it buzzes again, and again. I can’t look away from the screen. Over and over they show that brutal landing, his body bouncing, breaking.
Kaleb takes my arm gently. “Come on. You don’t have to keep watching.”
“What happened?” I ask. “Do they know his injuries yet?”
Mercedes says, “They’ve taken him to Denver, flight for life.”
“Bad then.”
She nods, as solemn as I’ve ever seen her.
I look up at Kaleb.
He shakes his head. Drops my arm and stalks off down the hallway, his back stiff and judgmental. My heart drops, but I can’t breathe, or think.
Again my phone buzzes, and I look at it. A line of texts shows up from unfamiliar numbers.
Jess, this is from Alice, Tyler’s coach. He’s asking for you. Said to tell you “hour of need.” He’s in surgery. Can you please come?
Injuries: broken collarbone, right arm at the elbow, maybe some other things.
Head injury is the worst. Not sure how bad yet.
Please come, even if for an hour.
As I’m reading them, another text comes in. Jess, this is Kaitlin. Please come to Denver and sit with us. It will mean everything to him. I am so afraid he’s going to die. He asked for you, said to tell you, HOUR OF NEED.
I close my eyes for one second. How can I go? After I’ve finally solved things with Kaleb and we’re back on track? It’s impossible.
But…hour of need. I told him I would be there if he needed me. How can I break a promise like that? Isn’t the whole point of a promise that you keep it, no matter how hard it is for you to keep?
I look over my shoulder, but Kaleb has disappeared. This time, I’m not going to be all meek and mild. To Mercedes I say, “Do you want to go with me to Denver?”
“Of course.”
“Let me get changed and talk to Kaleb.”
He’s in his room, arms crossed, his face closed when I come in. “I have to go, Kaleb. His coach is begging me. I’ll be back tonight, I promise.”
His mouth is carved of stone. “If you go, we are done, Jess. I’m not doing this again.”
“Don’t do that. Let’s just be reasonable.”
“You’re doing it, not me. Didn’t last night mean anything to you?”
“It did, actually. Everything about you, everything you are is something to me, Kaleb. I love you, not him.”
“You keep choosing him.”
“No!” I cry. “I choose you. Over and over and over again, I keep choosing you, and you are the one who keeps throwing some ugly wrench into it. If you love me, you have to respect me to make good decisions.”
He shakes his head. “You are lying to yourself.”
Tears spring to my eyes, tears of frustration and anger and betrayal. “Kaleb! You can’t mean this.”
He meets my gaze. Stony. Cold.
And it makes me blazingly, insanely furious. “You don’t really love me. You just want a little windup doll to do what you tell her to do.” I back toward the door. “I’m not a doll. I’m a person.”
He rolls his eyes, and it’s so contemptuous, I want to throw something at him.
Swallowing the hot knot of anger, I put my hand on the door. “One more time, Kaleb: I love you. I respect you. I need you to respect my choices and my need to do this.”
He says nothing. Even though I wait for a full minute, maybe longer. We just stare across the space, divided again.
Before I can shed a tear, I leave him, blindly heading for the director’s office so that I can get permission. He was already sending me away, so it won’t matter.
When it comes time to leave, however, I can’t find Mercedes. Stephen and I are waiting in the lobby as I text her. Where r u? I have to leave.
It comes right back. Can’t go. Fight w/A txt me w/news
For a long, searing minute, I think I am the most idiotic person on the planet. I think of Kaleb holding me last night, whispering, “always” and feel so betrayed I want to slice all his clothes to pieces. I guess he meant, “always, unless you make me mad,” or “always unless you have to do something I don’t approve of.”
“Let’s go,” I say to Stephen.
KALEB
It’s nearly midnight and I’ve been pacing, listening for Jess to come in. When a knock sounds at my door, I pull it open with relief, thinking I will—
Mercedes is standing there, a bottle of wine in her hand. “I thought I could keep you company while you wait.”
It’s cold and it’s late. I swing the door open and let her in.
TYLER
The first thing I am aware of is the beeping of a machine. The next is that I am in a hospital. There are drugs enough that nothing hurts.
I open my eyes. There’s Jess, looking red-eyed and bleak. “Hour of need,” I croak out.
“Hour of need,” she repeats, and takes my hand.
It’s enough. I slide back under, into the cocoon of nothingness.
###
Love this book?
Read the last and FINAL chapter of Jess's story in INTENSE, coming your way April, 2015. Who will she choose?
Previous books in the Going the Distance series:
RANDOM, Book One
STOKED, Book Two
EPIC, Book Three.
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About Lark O’Neal
Lark O’Neal has waited tables, dispensed drugs to schizophrenics, loaded trucks, answered phones in a call center and tended bar, but the only thing she ever really wanted was to write novels. She has won many awards for her books, and writes full time from Colorado.