Every Little Piece (10 page)

Her voice continued to calm me, but her sweet words crashed against me and fell away. They didn’t make it past the words screaming through my head. I opened my eyes for the first time and grabbed her hand. Her skin was warm. My fingers felt ice cold. She gently pried them off and laid my arm back on the bed.

“It’s okay, hon. You were in an accident. But you’re going to make it. I believe you made it out with whiplash, a concussion and bruises from the airbag and the impact.” Her eyes were set against her dark face. She wore her kinky hair super short. She was good. Her job was to calm down the wackos who woke up and realized they were in the hospital and their boyfriend might be dead. But she knew something.

“Seth! Is Seth here?” I managed to whisper. The words scratched at my throat.

“Only your parents are allowed in, and we sent them down for a break. They’ll be back shortly.”

“Seth!” She didn’t understand, and my frustration grew. “Is he here in the hospital?”

She smiled. “Is he your honey? Any other guests, we sent home.”

A tear slipped down my cheek. “No.”

She rubbed my cheek and tucked the blanket around me. Without a word, she fiddled with the machinery.

“I mean. Is he hurt? In the hospital?”

She pressed her lips together as if debating how much to say. That expression sent panic sweeping through me. Oh my God. He was dead. I hadn’t made it in time. Those sirens we’d heard were for him. As I wondered about Seth, horror crept in and squeezed my chest. I could barely breathe. I heard the crunch of metal again and the screams. Kama! And Brin!

I pushed up onto my elbows even though every muscle in my body complained. I barely got the words out. “My friends. In the car. Are they okay?” My voice trembled, and I teetered on the edge. That was what she held back. It wasn’t her job to tell me that my friends hadn’t made it. Dead. I killed them. I had to know.

I ripped out any tubes going into my arm. It hurt like hell. The tape peeled off my skin, ripping all the tiny hairs with it. Every movement sent pain crashing through my head. I stumbled out of the bed. Strong hands gripped my arms.

“Now that’s enough, Haley. You must stay in bed.” She pressed a button on the wall. I knew what would come next. They’d prick me and put me back to sleep.

“No!” I yelled. I had to see the rooms. Maybe they were there, sleeping off a concussion just like me. They had to be. Had to be.

She tried her hardest to force me back to bed. But any pain I’d endured didn’t matter. The pain felt cathartic as it sliced through me. I hauled off and punched her in the face. I screamed, the sobs fighting to break free. I reached the door and whipped it open.

An old man shuffled down the hallway in his walker, his hospital gown flapping open in the back. A nurse scurried over to me from a desk, so I booked it down the hall to the next room. I opened the door. Empty. I rushed to the next door and opened it. A small girl watched reruns of Dora on the television. The next door. An old lady snored in bed. I went from door to door. I stopped outside the last door. This was my last hope, and I didn’t want to open it.

Two male nurses each grabbed an arm. I grimaced, waiting for the needle.

“Don’t touch her!”

My dad stepped forward and wrapped his arms around me. I collapsed against him. The warmth of his shirt smelled like home. His arms hadn’t held me like this since I was a little girl. But I remembered. It was everything safe and loving. I remembered. Together, we sank to the floor, and he just held me.

“I need to know,” I mumbled against his chest. I hoped and prayed the fact that Brin and Kama weren’t in any of the rooms was a mistake. Maybe they were on a different floor. Or they were miraculously thrown from the car. I just needed them to be alive.

“I’m sorry, Haley.” His words were soft but pierced through to my heart. “They didn’t make it.”

I wailed, the sobs breaking through any restraint I had. He held me, and we rocked together in the hallway of the hospital. He ran his fingers down my hair and rubbed my back.

But nothing helped. Nothing would ever help.

Carter and I raced up to the hospital desk in the lobby. The older lady behind it peered at me through her bifocals. I barely got the words out.

“Haley Sparks. Where is she?”

The woman bit her lip, smearing her red lipstick, while studying the computer. “What wing is she in?”

“I don’t know. She came some time last night. Bad car accident.” My voice cracked.

“Oh.” The woman’s face changed from business-like to pity and my stomach curled in on itself. She pointed down the hall. “Emergency wing. But Haley Sparks isn’t allowed to see anyone but family.”

I slammed my fist on the desk. “So she’s alive?”

She gave me a motherly smile. “I can’t say, dear.”

I sprinted over to the emergency wing and pushed through the doors. Carter followed.

“Maybe we should wait in the lobby?” he asked.

“No way. I have to know.” I walked but then ran up to the desk. My breath came out in ragged pants as fear seized my chest. One glance around the room told me Haley’s parents weren’t here. “What room is Haley Sparks in?”

The nurse shook her head. “She was moved to a different floor last night.” She patted my hand. “Fourth floor.”

Carter grabbed my arm and forced me to walk to the elevator. Nervous sweat soaked my pits, and I smelled the odor. I wanted to puke but gritted my teeth as my stomach dropped on the way to the fourth floor.

“You can do this, okay?” He tried to comfort me, but he didn’t know everything that happened.

On the third floor, two male nurses entered the elevator in the middle of a conversation.

“So it was a hit and run?” the one asked.

“I think so. The police were here but haven’t been able to question the girl. I hope they catch the guy.”

“What are the odds of that?”

“Pretty slim. It was high enough that it was from a larger vehicle.”

The nurse sighed. “I feel bad for the girl. She’s the same age as my daughter. She’s got a tough road in front of her, being the only survivor.”

The elevator stopped, and they exited. I slid against the wall until my butt hit the floor. Carter was pale and shaky. Only survivor. I pressed my palms to my eyes. She’d lost her best friends. Hit and run. What kind of asshole did that?

The fourth floor blinked, and the door opened. We stepped out and took shaky breaths. “Let’s go,” I said.

We found the check-in desk but I didn’t see any parents in the waiting area. I turned to Carter. “You go check the cafeteria. I’ll look around here.”

“Sure, man.” He squeezed my arm. “I’ll be right back.” He stumbled away just as much a zombie as I felt.

I waited for a nurse to arrive but only an old man with a walker shuffled down the hall. Every five feet or so, another door, another room, another opportunity to find the truth. Strains of some kid’s show came through one of them. Haley could be behind any one of them.

A heart-wrenching scream ripped out from behind one of the doors. Someone struggled, and machines and carts crashed about. The door flew open, and Haley stumbled out. Tubes dangled from her arms. Pain like jagged pieces of glass splintered off her. The way she jerked forward, reaching out, for someone she couldn’t see. The paleness of her face. The desperation in her eyes. She looked like hell.

I felt the blood drain from my face. I wanted to run to her, but my feet wouldn’t move. She raced to each door, opened it, then moved to the next one. Finally, she stopped just as the nurses closed in on her.

“Don’t touch her!” Her dad burst from the men’s bathroom and ran to her. He wrapped his arms around her and they sank to the floor.

Then she let out a wail that reached in and tore out my heart. More images from last night flashed through my head. A car crash. A hit and run. The front of my mom’s minivan, the twisted and torn metal. I’d been driving drunk.

The realization squeezed my entire body, and I stepped away. The smells surrounded me, the beeping of machines, the white walls. It was too much. I couldn’t hold my girlfriend. I ran away.

I raced down the stairs and collapsed in the lobby.

My knees dug into the carpet. I sucked in air. Carter dragged me to my feet. He wrapped his arms around me, but I pushed him away and sprinted outside. I needed fresh air. I needed the sun. I needed to breathe. And I couldn’t breathe in the hospital.

Outside, Carter caught up to me. “What’s going on? Don’t you want to visit?”

“No.” I walked back toward my mom’s minivan. How had I survived? Last night crashed down on me and the guilt tore at my insides.

Carter tried to talk to me, but I shook him off. “You don’t get it.”

“Then tell me!”

I wanted to tell him, tell him everything. What would he think? The thought of losing my friends to the truth twisted my gut. My secrets needed to stay secret. I unlocked the van and cringed at the sight of the twisted metal. “I mean, Haley needs her family right now. Visitors aren’t allowed. They kicked me out.” The lie came easily. “We’ll come back later.”

But I’d never come back. I didn’t deserve to visit or to comfort her. I deserved prison or worse. Either way our relationship was over. Her love for me would die the second she found out my part in this.

It was better we drifted apart, and she never learned the truth.

The next two days passed in a blur. People entered the room and talked at me. They left and their words slowly slipped away, only random thoughts repeating in my mind, until there was nothing. Dad and Mom rarely left my side. The nurse refused to leave until I ate the cafeteria food. I swallowed it down but tasted nothing but cardboard.

Noah visited and gave me a sad smile, like he understood. He was the only one who didn’t throw stupid false promises at me. That was because he knew my life had changed. Forever. No rewind. No do-over.

Flowers and cards flooded into the room constantly. Stuffed animals. The smell was overpowering and all the cheeriness made me feel sick. Finally, after learning her name was Doris, I told the nurse how I felt. I asked her to take them all away. Throw them in the dumpster. She suggested the stuffed animals go to the kids in the cancer wing. I nodded yes, immediately feeling selfish and worse. I lived while kids in this hospital were dying. They’d give anything to know they’d leave and continue breathing. When all I wanted was to shrivel up and die.

After observation for two nights, they allowed me to go home. But I didn’t want to because then I’d have to face my life. But I went through the motions. I slipped into the jeans and a T-shirt Mom brought for me. I tried for her sake because she was worried. I hugged Doris goodbye. On the way out, they suggested grief counseling. My parents signed me up for at least a month.

Then we were in the car and the familiar sights of our town rushed past. For two days I’d focused on Brin and Kama. But deep down what caused the ache to turn to a throb was the fact that Seth never came to visit. Not once. And I had no idea why. He wasn’t like that. We fought but he was always there for me and would never just not show up.

The next couple of days were surreal. I’d missed graduation so a part of me felt like I got sucked into a wormhole. Like graduation would be next weekend. Mom kept a close eye on me, asking what I needed, bringing me snacks, making all my favorite foods, but she was exhausted. She entered one morning with breakfast in bed. French toast with powdered sugar.