How to Keep Rolling After a Fall (24 page)

I can't help it, and again I'm envisioning him trapped inside the dark, narrow tube, confined, unable to move. Suffering the residual fear of being trapped inside his car after the accident. My knees start shaking again. “Was he … doing okay this afternoon?”

Mrs. Paxton doesn't answer for a minute, taking her time to turn the page of her magazine and intently studying a recipe for pesto salmon. “No,” she finally admits. “He was up all night. I finally moved down to the couch so I could keep an eye on him, or at least an ear out. I heard him throwing up a couple of times.”

Her throat constricts. “Thinks he's such a toughie. Was trying to act this morning like nothing happened. Like nothing was wrong, even though he was shaking like a leaf in the car on the way here.”

I have to swallow back the tears that coat my throat.

Mrs. Paxton gives me a half smile. “I pulled the tech aside and told her to just give him a Xanax to help him relax. I'm not going to let him go through that torture in the name of being macho. I hope he took it, once he knew I wasn't looking.”

The heat being pumped into the room is stifling, and when I shrug out of my jacket, Mrs. Paxton comments. “That's such a pretty shirt.”

I glance down, having forgotten I'm still in my flashy concert attire. “Thanks. I was supposed to go to this … concert thing today.”

“Supposed to?”

“Yeah, um…” I shrug. “My ride left. I came here instead.”

Mrs. Paxton cocks her head, offers me a warm smile, and lightly squeezes my hand.

Shaking my head, I mumble, “It was an easy decision.”

It was an obvious one. Something I hope Pax believes. I'm not giving up things against my will because of him. Sometimes I just want to put him first.

An hour passes. Pax still does not emerge. I chew off every single nail I have, destroying my purple concert manicure. My knees refuse to stop bouncing. When my stomach starts growling, Mrs. Paxton gets me a Dum Dum from the basket at reception, but it only occupies me for three minutes.

Finally, at 4:22, the inner doors open slowly and I catch a glimpse of the footrest of his chair.

I jump to my feet at the same time his mother does, but when she rushes around the corner to meet him, my feet stay rooted to the floor as I remember I don't have the same permission to approach him as she does. She may have welcomed me here, but that doesn't mean Pax will.

Remembering the blank look in his eyes before he turned away from me on the sidewalk after our fight, a knot of fear ties up my stomach. I told him I didn't want to be friends. And he didn't fight me on it. Right now we're not supposed to be anything.

Mrs. Paxton takes the place of the med tech behind Pax's chair and slowly inches him forward, as if transporting something fragile. I catch my first glimpse of his face, my first glimpse in over a week, and a sharp pain nearly takes my breath away. It's not just the longing, the missing. It's seeing Pax like this.

He looks like he's having a hard time keeping his head up, and his eyes are foggy. The purplish half-moons under his eyes confirm his mom's report of his being up all night. His beautiful red lips look painfully chapped.

His mom rubs his shoulder. “You okay?”

He manages a tiny smile for her, even though he can barely keep his eyes open. “Hey, it's over.” His voice is low, the cadence of his words slow and dysrhythmic. “Can I please go to sleep now?”

“Of course. Let's go home.”

Then she pushes his chair toward the doors, in my direction. She stops a few feet before me, and Pax slowly lifts his head.

I suck in a breath. I still can't move.

Pax's eyes find mine. He seems to be having a hard time processing the sight of me before him, and his eyes don't clue me in on his reaction. But at least they don't seem angry. He continues to look at me, eyelids fluttering, a little confused. “Are you for real?” he whispers.

I nod, not sure if I can find my voice.

We stand there in silence until his mom gently asks, “You ready to head out, Nikki?”

That's when it occurs to me I don't have a ride home. I dig my phone out of my bag and hold it up. “I have to call my mom.”

“We can drop you.”

I look to Pax. He doesn't agree or protest, so I nod. “Okay. If you're sure you don't mind.”

It's a silent elevator ride, a silent walk across the parking lot. I follow Pax and his mom to her car, and she opens the door to the backseat for him.

When she reaches for his arm to help him, he shakes his head. “I got this.”

But he doesn't have it, not at all. He's too exhausted, too weak today, and his arms shake uselessly as he tries to lift his body weight out of the chair.

Mrs. Paxton steadies his right arm with her hand. “Let me help you, baby,” she urges quietly. “Just today.”

Pax collapses back onto his chair, giving up the fight, just for today. “Yeah, okay, Mom.”

New wounds announce themselves in my heart as I watch her, as I watch Pax allowing himself not to be strong for once. Mrs. Paxton secures one arm around his back and another under his knees, and then bends to lift him into the car. It hurts, watching this privilege she has, to touch him, to help him. I so desperately want to touch him, to help him, too. It still feels like a part of him belongs to me, even if it doesn't anymore.

So when I see her struggle with his weight, I move quickly to his other side and try to mirror her positioning. He angles his face away from me, toward his mother, and I can't tell if it's out of embarrassment … or anger. But then in the final second before we heft him into the car, my fingers slip and brush against his. Maybe it's wishful thinking, but I'm pretty sure I feel his fingers tighten over mine, just for a second.

As Mrs. Paxton helps him settle into the backseat, I open the front door and climb inside. We pull out of the hospital lot, and it's less than five minutes later that, after glancing in the rearview mirror, Mrs. Paxton nudges my arm and gestures toward the backseat.

I turn around. He's already fast asleep, head back on the seat, lips parted. I can't help smiling at how peaceful he looks.

Mrs. Paxton and I speak in whispered tones as I direct her toward my house. She pulls into our crushed-shell driveway and smiles at me. “Thanks for keeping me company today.”

I glance at her son a final time. He's still out cold. “No problem.”

Then I unfasten my seat belt, moving more slowly than necessary, not really wanting to leave the car. I have no idea when, if, another opportunity to be with Pax will present itself. I open the door and climb out slowly, waving a silent good-bye to Mrs. Paxton before forcing myself to turn and walk inside.

I almost miss the soft words spoken from the backseat. Pax's eyes are still closed, and he hasn't moved. But still, he manages to get them out: “Nikki. Thank you.”

 

Chapter 17

Later that night, I'm hard at work on an English essay, or I guess if I'm being honest, hard at work at trying to distract myself from thinking about Pax. The protective, angry shield that went up the night of our fight is gone, with absolutely no hope of surviving after seeing the way he looked today. The hurt is back—routinely squeezing my heart and cramping my stomach—and a bland write-up of
The Scarlet Letter
is the best thing I can come up with to alleviate the sensation.

Sam's not really helping. She's texting every five minutes so I can “feel like I'm there” at the concert, sending video snippets during favorite songs. When I realize I've typed the same sentence three times, I sigh, save my draft a final time, and send it to my desktop printer. It prints out faint and choppy, so I head down to the old hutch in the dining room to get a new ink cartridge.

Dropping to my knees, I open the cabinet door on the right, where my parents stash extra supplies. When I do so, I'm greeted with a different kind of pain. I've forgotten they also stash birthday supplies in this cabinet—extra streamers in girly hues, spare candles, and, worst of all, my birthday letter book.

Ink cartridge forgotten, I tug at the twelve-by-twelve-inch scrapbook that's wedged in next to Emma's.
Don't do this
, I tell myself, but I stand at the same time, taking the book with me to the dining room table, where I set it down and collapse in a side chair.

My parents have written me seventeen birthday letters apiece. They are handwritten on pretty scrapbook paper, and even though I try to flip the pages without really seeing, phrases jump out at me, in my father's handwriting.

This was our best year yet, princess, wasn't it?

I love you and will never stop!

My heart beams with pride as I consider the young lady you've become.

It's the last line of his last letter, and when I turn the page, all I find is a blank white one behind it. There is no eighteenth letter. And I highly doubt there will be.

Tears blur my vision as I stare at the stupid blank space. It's not like the fact that it's almost my birthday should make things any worse. Yet as I consider tomorrow, my chin starts to quiver uncontrollably and my throat tightens.

I hear a noise from the kitchen, and I slam the book shut and slide it under the table. I'm not sure who to expect—my mom's at the monthly PTO meeting, and Emma's upstairs in her room. I thought my dad was working in his upstairs office, but a second later he appears in the hallway.

I stare at him, willing the tears in my eyes not to fall, and he looks back at me, raising his key chain by way of explanation. “Out of eggs,” he tells me.

Looking down at the tabletop, I nod once. I can feel his eyes on me for several seconds before he turns and leaves.

When he does, I place the book back on the table and open it to the first page. Year one. For my first birthday, he taped a picture of us to the bottom of his letter. A few seconds later, my head falls into my hands and I start sobbing. Once upon a time, the eggs he's going to buy might have been to bake a cake, but that's hardly the case now. Face buried in my hands, I cry and cry, the dam I've managed to construct over the past couple of days collapsing and releasing a torrent. Everything's such a freakin' mess. No matter what I do, it's still all messed up.

“Nikki?”

My head snaps up, and I see my dad framed in the open doorway. Struggling to clear my throat, I swipe at my eyes and try to talk normally, which doesn't really work. “What are you doing?”

Slowly he walks toward me. “Forgot my wallet.”

But instead of heading toward the kitchen to retrieve it, he comes closer still. He stares at me without saying a word. I can't bring myself to meet his eyes, so eventually he asks, “What's wrong?”

“You don't have to do this,” I mumble, rubbing my fist under my eyes to clear away some lingering tears. “I know you don't want to.”

He's silent—he doesn't correct me, and a shuddery breath escapes before I start crying again. “I'm just tired of things being broken,” I blubber. “I'm trying, but it's like…”

I don't even know what it's like, and I end up shaking my head uselessly.

My dad still hasn't moved or spoken, and when I follow his gaze, I see that he's staring down at the same picture that made me cry—the one of me at age one, beaming from ear to ear as I take some of my first steps, assisted. It's my dad standing behind me in the photo, holding my arms in the air, taking great care that I don't fall down.

In real time, my father's teeth are clenched in a grimace, and his sharp inhalation of breath tells me he's pained, too. “C'mere,” he instructs me gruffly, eyes still trained on the picture.

I rise slowly, unsure, and he extends his arms stiffly.

Once upon a time, my body instinctively melted into his bear hugs. It's not like that now. The muscles in my back are tense and tight, and he struggles with positioning his hands around me.

“We're not broken,” he mumbles, somewhere near my ear. “These things … take time.”

Then he pulls away and disappears, and the moment is over before it even barely began.

The tension drains from my body, and I collapse back into the chair in an exhausted puddle. I never would have imagined that it would be easier with my mom. It's not nearly as difficult or painful. Me and my dad … our bond was always the tightest, so why is it the hardest to repair?

Maybe that
is
why
, something inside me suggests.

I look down at our picture a final time before closing the book.

Baby steps.

Hopefully, they're taking us in the right direction, and eventually, no matter how long it takes, we'll get back to a better place.

*   *   *

Despite its teary prelude, my actual birthday starts off pretty well. I sleep through my alarm, but when I finally make it down to the kitchen, I find my entire family gathered around the table. Eighteen candles are ablaze atop a cake, and they immediately break into “Happy Birthday” when they see me. The refrain is kind of subdued, and I think my mom might be singing around some tears, but they manage to get through it. Cake for breakfast on your birthday is a family tradition, and both my parents go to work late in the name of warm cake and cold milk. And my birthday.

It occurs to me that maybe my dad was going to buy the eggs for my cake, even before we “talked,” and I smile at him across the table.

At school, Mr. Myers pushes our history test back two days, which is a good thing, because I really didn't study. And during our lunch date on the auditorium stage, Sam hands me a gift bag that contains a
HATERS GONNA HATE
shirt just like hers. “We can wear them under our uniforms. In secret. Like Clark Kent,” she suggests.

I laugh. “You're nuts.”

Then she pulls out a cupcake and lights a candle with a concealed lighter before ordering me to make a wish and strumming along on her guitar as she sings me “Happy Birthday.”