by Bruce Ingram
Then I remember Matthew saying something about us driving somewhere to have some alone time, and we got in his car, and the next thing I remember was the airbag inflating and slamming me in the face and chest. I felt like my face was bleeding and my right arm hurt like crazy, and I was screaming, then I just passed out. I don’t know if it was from the wreck or because I was so drunk. The next thing I remember was waking up at the hospital the next morning and Mom and Dad were there, and Mom said, “Hi, sweetie,” and Dad was staring at me with an angry look and didn’t say anything for the longest time and then he said the absolute worst thing he’s ever said to me and it hurt really bad. He said, “I’m very disappointed in you.”
Later that morning, the doctor dismissed me, and on the way home, nobody said anything. I was really stiff and sore, but I didn’t have anything wrong with me except a lot of bruises and abrasions. I slept the rest of the morning and into the afternoon, then my parents “gave me the talk.”
The first thing that Dad asked was why Matthew and I were driving in the opposite direction from our house when Caleb’s house was only a few houses down the street from ours. I told him I didn’t know why. Then he asked, “Were you too intoxicated to know where he was taking you?” All I could say was “Yes, sir,” which was the truth. Next he said, “Do to you have any idea what was going to happen when he got to wherever he was going to?” I paused for a long time and then I realized what Dad was suggesting would have happened, and I started crying so bad that I couldn’t stop.
Finally Dad said, “As soon as you’re able, call or text Matthew and tell him that you two have had your last date and also tell him that you’re grounded for at least a month, maybe two.” Then he left the room. I started crying again, I was so ashamed and Mom started to hold me and was trying to comfort me, but I couldn’t stop crying for the longest time. I hadn’t even thought about Matthew since I woke up in the hospital. I should never have gone out with him the first time. We have nothing in common. Why do I keep messing up and making bad decisions when it comes to guys? Why can’t I ever get this guy thing right? Later after Mom left my room, I texted Matthew and broke up with him. I didn’t call him because I didn’t even want to hear the sound of his voice.
Chapter Thirty-Nine: Marcus
“No thank you, we’re fine, just give them to somebody else.” That’s what Kylee told Mary when she brought us some mixed drinks at Caleb’s party last Saturday night. I’ve got to admit that I was a little ticked at first when she said that—that Kylee would make the decision on whether or not we were going to have something to drink. Last year, I know I would have gone off on her over something like that. But the more I thought about things, I was glad she felt comfortable enough in our relationship to speak for the two of us. I fouled up our relationship last year, and I don’t want to screw things up again.
Before I left home, Dad and Mom both told me that I was not to have any alcohol if any was offered to me. Did they just assume that there was going to be alcohol at Caleb’s party? Later, I told Kylee that I was good with her telling Mary that. She gave me this big smile and an even bigger kiss, so that alone made the whole not drinking thing alright. Coach Dell and Coach Henson have both told their players to remember that we are representing not only the school but our sports teams when we are out in public. And to be careful what we do because if we mess up and it gets on the news or social media it will make the whole team look bad because of the actions of a few.
After we finished watching The Walking Dead, we started chowing down on pizza. The guys started playing video games and the girls rooting us on, but once just about everybody began drinking, people started acting stupid. I mean Mary was going around flirting with just about every guy, even the ones that had dates; and Leigh started heaving and turning pale, and she had to run off to the bathroom to throw up. Matthew started pawing at Elly, and, man, that girl was totally out of it after just like two or three drinks. It was pathetic. Nobody wanted to do anything except say how good they felt or how drunk they were getting.
Since Caleb only lives a couple doors down from my house, Dad had told me to just walk Kylee home when we were ready to go home, and that I could drive her home with him sitting in the front seat because I won’t have my license until next month. I’m tired of not having a license, but at least I don’t have to wait much longer and my driving Kylee home, even though Dad was there, was way better than Dad driving Kylee and me to her house, and both of us sitting in the backseat like we were still kids.
Finally, because the party had totally fallen apart, and maybe I was just imagining things, but I thought I smelled some weed, I decided it was time for Kylee and me to walk to my house—and she was down with that. As we were walking home, I saw Matthew and Elly leave too, and he was all over her while he was taking her to his car. Then they got into his car, and I mean they hadn’t driven like but 50 yards when Matthew slammed into a parked car, almost head on. I mean, dude, how messed up was that. It was pathetic.
Kylee and I ran over to the car, and Matthew and Elly were all covered up by the air bag, and Elly was screaming and Matthew just sat there with this dazed, stupid look on his face like he was still driving. I called 911, and it wasn’t long before the cops and the rescue squad were there. Kylee and I stayed by the side of the car, but we were afraid to try to get Matthew and Elly out of the car. Supposed they were injured or something, Kylee said we could have made things worse by moving them.
Mom and Dad came over to us while we were watching Matthew and Elly being pried out of the wreck and put into the rescue squad van. Dad asked me what happened with this real sharp tone in his voice, but after a while, he could tell that Kylee and I had nothing to do with it and that neither one of us had been drinking.
When Dad was driving us to Kylee’s house, he told Kylee and me how proud he was of us for our quick thinking at the scene of the accident. And when we got to Kylee’s house, he raved to her parents about how mature the two of us had been about the whole thing and then he told Kylee’s dad what a fine daughter she had, and her old man said he was real pleased with her choice for a boyfriend. On the way home, Dad kept praising me for being so much more mature, and he went on so long that it got embarrassing. But then I remembered last year when he was on my case all the time, so then getting so much praise didn’t seem so bad after all.
When we got back to school on Monday, Coach Henson said at practice that Matthew wouldn’t be able to play in our Tuesday or Friday night games, but he hoped he would be back by the playoffs. He didn’t have to tell us whether it was because Matthew had hurt himself in the accident or had been suspended from the team for a week. It didn’t matter which, it was obvious that Matthew had let the whole team down one way or the other. We barely won the Tuesday night home game against a team we should have blown away. Then we got blown out on Friday night when the guy Matthew would have been guarding went off for 25 points. Man, he really let us down.
Chapter Forty: Mia
I was nervous all day Saturday about Camila’s party that night. I was scared that Luke’s granddad would drop him off the same time that Poppa dropped me off, or that Poppa would come in and talk to Camila’s poppa and somehow find out that Luke was going to be there. Or that some kind of way, Poppa would find out that Luke and I have been dating. Finally, I told Mama about what was bothering me—she said she could tell something was wrong all morning—and Mama told me just to call Luke and tell him to get to Camila’s really early or really late, it didn’t matter which, and that would solve everything. So I thought the thing to do was to tell Luke to get there at exactly 7, which was the time the party was to start, and I would stall around at home and pretend that I couldn’t make up my mind about what to wear and make sure that Poppa and I didn’t leave until 7… so that was my plan.
Mama said that was a good plan, but she added that doesn’t solve the long term problem of what we are going to do when Poppa does find out about Luke and me. “Sooner or later,” she
said, “you know your father, he’s going to try to set you up with some boy through his father, and that boy is going to say something like ‘Mia already has a boyfriend, Luke,’ and that boy’s father is then going to relay that information to your Poppa.” And then, she said, Poppa was going to throw an absolute fit at both her and me.
I know all that is probably—more than probably, likely—true but I don’t want to think about it. So many times, we’ve been eating dinner on a Friday or Saturday night, and I just wished that Luke could be there; and for Poppa to see what a good person Luke is and for them to get to know each other and for Poppa to find out that Luke really, really has a lot of potential. But then I remember last spring when Luke and I were working behind the house after school and Poppa wouldn’t even let him eat at the kitchen table with us. When I think about all those things, my stomach just starts hurting really bad because I worry that Poppa would make me break up with Luke if he ever finds out about us.
Luke and I decided to count the party date as our six-month anniversary of us going out. But I feel like we’ve been together even longer, ever since he held my hand for the first time on that snow day last winter. I was hoping that he would remember when our six-month anniversary would be without me telling him, and he did. In fact, he brought the subject up and it made me so happy that he is the type of boy that remembers those types of things. Luke and I are both so tight with our money. We both seem so scared all the time that we’re never going to have any money to spend on each other. I just don’t want poverty to be constantly in the back of my mind. I don’t want to live my whole life like that. I don’t care about being rich, like some of the kids are like Elly, Mary, Marcus, and Caleb, but I don’t want to live my life having these fears that there isn’t enough money to get by, especially if some family member got sick or we had a car accident or some kind of disaster happened.
So Luke and I talked things over about what kind of present we could get for each other, and at last we decided that we would give each other a hand-made anniversary card telling five things each—and no more than that—about what we liked best about the other person. And we would give the cards to each other not long after we arrived at Camila’s house.
I thought for three days about what I should write on Luke’s card and finally the words all just sort of gushed out. The five things were that Luke is kind, that he is sweet to me, and faithful, and that he respects me, and that he is really smart—except in math. I actually wrote “except in math” on his card, and I thought it would make him laugh when he read it—and it did—he just bellowed out a laugh, he thought it was so funny.
Then he gave me my anniversary card. And in it he wrote that I had changed his life for the better, that seeing me always made him smile and feel good about himself, that I was his best friend, that just holding my hand made his day, and that I was just as beautiful on the inside as I was on the outside. I teared up when I read that last thing and then we kissed each other for the longest time, and I didn’t care that everybody at the party saw that.
Poppa had said he was going to pick me up at 10:00 that night, that he didn’t want me falling asleep at mass the next morning, so I told Luke that he had better leave Camila’s around 9:40. When Luke left, he gave me another long kiss; it was just the best night ever.
Never Would Have Thought
Chapter Forty-One: Luke
I never would have thought that the first girl I would be driving somewhere with alone in Granddaddy’s truck would have been Elly, but that’s just what happened on Thursday night. The same week I got my driver’s license, our school had a first round regional tournament game at home. Ms. Hawk said that she wanted Elly and me to cover the basketball game with Elly taking pictures and me interviewing players, cheerleaders, and students about what it was like for the school to go to its first tournament game in years. Elly told me that her father had to work late at the office that night and her mom had to take her brothers to karate practice, and she said she had asked her mom if I could take her to the game and Elly’s mom had said okay.
I can believe that she asked her mom instead of her dad. Her dad looks down on me, I can tell from the way he looks at me and watches me when I come over to mow their lawn. He just looks grim and his face has this sour, pained expression like he has been eating raw lemons all day. It’s like if he doesn’t keep a close eye on me, I’m going to steal something. Yeah, what would I steal from him while I’m mowing—grass clippings or dandelions or something. Not that her mom probably also wasn’t real pleased for me to have to pick Elly up. Everybody at school knows about the wreck that Elly and Matthew were in last month, and how Elly’s parents made her break up with him. I don’t hold that against them, Matthew is nothing but a cocky jock jerk. So, Elly doesn’t have a boyfriend right now to drive her to the game; I guess she’s still grounded.
Thanks to Mia and the self-confidence she has given me, I wasn’t all twisted up in knots being with Elly, like I would have been with any girl in the past, but especially Elly. When Elly and I left her house, I went over what kind of interviews Ms. Hawk wanted me to get done and how Elly and I were to work together—that kind of stuff. But Elly just nodded her head a little and hardly said anything. She had this weird look on her face. It’s only about a 15-minute drive from her house to school, and I was trying to get some feedback from her about how we were going to handle the pictures and interviews, and she still wasn’t talking much, so finally I asked her if she was alright.
She blurted out no and teared up a little bit. Then she said, “I haven’t been in a car with a boy since the accident and Dad said,” and her voice sort of tailed off.
And I said, “Daddy said, ‘You’d better be careful with Luke in the car with you--better keep an eye on him,’ something like that right?”
“Oh, yes, how did you know?” she said, and then she teared up again.
I’m sick and tired of people like Elly’s dad treating me like I’m scum just because of my dad’s past and that my parents didn’t have much money. I hate that type of attitude crap! I’ve lost my mom and my dad this year, my grades are okay except for Geometry, and I’m still standing and doing alright. And I’ve got a great girlfriend and am going to college, and I’m going to be somebody someday. I know I’ve got a gigantic chip on my shoulder about my family and no money crap, but I’m doing the best I can.
So I said to Elly, “I wouldn’t treat you like that. I wouldn’t cheat on Mia. I’ve known you like forever, you can trust me.”
“You’re right, you wouldn’t,” and then Elly added, “I feel much better, thank you, let’s get to work planning this whole thing out.”
And we did. I’ve got to tell you this journalism thing was exciting. Elly and I had gotten special permission from Coach Henson to come into the locker room before tip-off to do interviews and take pictures. I asked questions like, “What are your thoughts about heading into the school’s biggest game in years” and “Are you feeling any pressure.” I felt like a professional journalist and Elly was snapping pictures of everybody I was talking to. Then we went to talk to some of the cheerleaders. I know who Leigh is from being in a bunch of classes with her, so I started with her and then we talked to the senior co-captains. Last, we went into the bleachers and talked to students from every class to get their thoughts, and that was neat, too.
Then the game started, and, wow, it was something. Elly and I got to sit under our basket just past the out of bounds marker, and it was amazing seeing all the action so close up. Jefferson has a really good team, but Marcus and Quintin were fantastic and dealing all night. On one of the possessions, Matthew drove the lane, got fouled, and landed really close to Elly and she got this awful look on her face. I don’t know what happened before or after that wreck she was in with Matthew, but it must not have been any good.
No team led by more than three points the whole game, and with us up by one point with 15 seconds to go, Marcus stole the ball and was going in for a slam and a t
hree-point lead when one of Jefferson’s guards caught up with him and just hacked him from behind. Marcus was in mid-air when it happened and he lost control of the ball and fell awkwardly. His right leg bent funny and his head hit the floor, too. Marcus was on the floor, just writhing in pain and when he tried to stand up, he collapsed again. Coach Henson rushed out on the floor and checked on Marcus, and I could tell from the look on his face that the injury was bad.
The refs should have called a flagrant foul on that Jefferson punk, but they didn’t and Marcus was too hurt to shoot free throws, so Quintin had to. He made the first, but the second rimmed out and Jefferson came down and hit a trey at the buzzer to win the game. The crowd was in an ugly mood because a flagrant foul wasn’t called and then things really got ugly and people were screaming and cursing at the refs. The parents were much worse than the students.
Elly and I stopped at Dairy Queen to get some ice cream on the way home since she wanted some. We talked non-stop there and all the way home about the game and the work we had done. When we got to her house, she said something that made me feel good, “Thanks for being my friend.” I was glad to maybe have helped her out a little.
Chapter Forty-Two: Elly
I never would have thought that Luke would ever have pulled up to my house at night to take me somewhere, but that’s what happened Thursday night for a tournament basketball game. Of course, I never thought I would be skinny enough to wear a mini-skirt this year and have guys asking me out. I’m just as miserable now that I’m thin as I was when I was overweight and had to wear those awful glasses. I’m probably more depressed at times, like right now.