I want to protest how wrong this is. Crow is leaving Yarrow Lake, I will never see him again.
Crow says, teasing, “Now you can cross the bridge, Jenna, What’s to cry about?”
“I don’t want you to go away, Gabriel. Please.”
Crow, about to buckle the strap of the crash helmet beneath his chin, thinks better of what he’s doing and lowers the helmet onto my head. “For you, chérie. In case.” The helmet must look comical on me, it’s so big. The sides come down past my chin. Crow laughs at me, I’m so dazed. He frames my face in his hands. For a moment I think that he will shut my eyes with his thumbs as he did back at the creek but instead he leans down to kiss me.
A warm kiss, on my mouth. A kiss light as a feather.
“I’ll always be your friend, chérie. You know that.”
But Crow, I want to protest, I love you.
Instead I say, in the calmest voice I can manage, “I will always be your friend too, Gabriel. Forever.”
24
I guess I want to live, Mom.
I want to live forever!
25
Jenna! Jen-na!
Mid race I hear her. Pounding the dirt track, I hear her. In the final stretch of the half-mile sprint I hear her.
Jen-na! In the rush of blood in my ears I hear her, a voice distinct among the others uplifted and aroused.
The lead runner flies across the finish line, in her bronze gold T-shirt and shorts—Yarrow High. Second runner flies across the finish line, dark crimson for Canaan High. Third runner, one of ours. And fourth: me.
Out of a field of ten. Fourth place!
Sweaty, panting like a dog. I’m limping and my hair is in my face and I was really losing it in the final stretch, but anyway, I am so happy.
My teammates are hugging one another. Hugging me. Dara Bowen is hugging me. Yarrow High has won the half-mile sprint. We’re giddy, laughing. We’re exhausted but triumphant. The next race, a mile sprint, other teammates are racing, maybe they won’t win. Maybe we won’t win the meet with Canaan High. But we’ve won the half-mile sprint, we’re jubilant.
Aunt Caroline comes to hug me. Not minding my sweaty T-shirt. “Jenna, you were wonderful! What did I tell you?” My little cousins Becky and Mikey are congratulating me too.
So I’m not the slowest runner on the Yarrow High girls’ track team.
I will never be the fastest, but who cares?
Mom didn’t. Aunt Caroline doesn’t.
The team captain, who’s a new friend of mine, gives me a wink. “Hey, J-J, somebody’s got to come in fourth.”
J-J is, like, my new name here. Why, I don’t know.
We’re all so sweaty it’s gross. We need to shower and change our clothes. I’m still panting. Could’ve come in fifth, could’ve come in tenth. Could’ve collapsed at the halfway point—my knee is giving me pain. This didn’t happen! I am so happy.
It’s a warm May afternoon. I am sixteen years old. It’s almost a year since the wreck. I can see the white Honda moving onto the bridge that’s so vast, it seems to open out into nothingness—into the blue. In the sky, snow geese are flying in V formation.
In the sky here, geese are flying overhead too. It’s these geese I have been hearing. Not snow geese but Canada geese. As they beat their wings, they emit strange honking cries that sound like human voices, fading. Why? I wonder. I wish I’d asked Crow, Crow might’ve known.
Crow said the geese migrate north to a colder climate. It’s a sign of spring.
After the meet, Christa Shaw has invited us to her house, which is close by, to celebrate. Maybe, I tell her. Maybe I’ll come join you, in a little while.
About the Author
JOYCE CAROL OATES is the renowned author of many novels. Her first novel for teens, BIG MOUTH & UGLY GIRL, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, followed by FREAKY GREEN EYES, a Publishers Weekly Best Book, and sexy. In 2003 she was a recipient of the Common Wealth Award for Distinguished Service in Literature. A recipient of the National Book Award and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction, Ms. Oates is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey.
You can visit her online at www.joycecaroloatesbooks.com.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
ALSO BY JOYCE CAROL OATES:
Big Mouth & Ugly Girl
Small Avalanches and Other Stories
Freaky Green Eyes
Sexy
Credits
Jacket art © 2006 by Katherine Streeter
Jacket design by Joel Tippie
Copyright
After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away
Copyright © 2006 by Ontario Review, Inc.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
ePub Edition August 2006 ISBN 9780061756153
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Oates, Joyce Carol, date
After the wreck, I picked myself up, spread my wings, and flew away / Joyce Carol Oates. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Blaming herself for the car accident on the Tappan Zee Bridge that killed her mother, fifteen-year-old Jenna undergoes a difficult physical and emotional recovery.
ISBN-10: 0-06-073525-2 (trade bdg.) — ISBN-13: 978-0-06-073525-8 (trade bdg.)
ISBN-10: 0-06-073526-0 (lib. bdg.) — ISBN-13: 978-0-06-073526-5 (lib. bdg.)
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