“Jake, stop,” River said, looking at me with hard eyes.
And then the crowd that occupied the room shifted, and through the bodies, I saw her, standing back near the door. Samantha.
My stomach knotted and I felt nauseous. My throat tightened and I suddenly felt like I couldn’t breathe.
I didn’t care that most everyone in my school was seeing me like this. Most of them didn’t matter, and I didn’t care what they thought about me.
But I didn’t want Samantha Shay seeing me like this.
Something started beeping on the monitor attached to my IV tower and a nurse suddenly pushed her way through the crowd.
“Your pulse is getting a bit higher than we’d like it,” she said as she checked the machine, pressing her fingers to my wrist. That was just making things all the more humiliating. I wanted nothing more than to curl up in that chair and disappear. “You should get some rest. All of you should probably say your good-bye’s.”
I finally met their eyes, seeing the fear and uncertainty in each of their faces. They were looking at me like I might explode or die right then and there. Again, I felt like the word MUTE was carved into my throat, blood and gore dripping from the letters.
“Hang in there, man,” Rain said as he stood. He gave me an awkward hug, as did Carter, his cast feeling heavy and hard on my back. River’s hug at least felt real. I wanted to die as countless other’s either waved good-bye or gave an awkward embrace. But with each one I pulled more and more away. I didn’t even return the hugs after River’s. I started to glaze them all out.
“Bye, Jake,” a sweet voice said as bodies filed out the door. My eyes rose to meet Samantha’s. She looked at me sadly, but for once, it felt like she was really seeing me.
Something in me hardened.
It had taken nearly getting decapitated for Sam to finally really notice me.
I didn’t even say, or rather write or wave good-bye as she gave me one more sad look and left, closing the door behind her.
Screw them all.
Especially Samantha.
2 1/2 years ago
1 month ‘til the beginning of junior year
“Would you take our picture?” Carter asked, his voice hopeful, as he shoved the camera at an unsuspecting tourist.
“Sure,” the man said, clearly a bit annoyed but trying to force a smile. He accepted the camera.
Carter draped an arm around Rain and pointed out to Indian Island with the other. He gave me the look of death, like “just go along with it”. I tried really hard not to roll my eyes. “Going along with it,” I pointed out toward the water and plastered a big, fake smile on my face.
“One… two… three.”
“Thank you,” Carter said in a very feminine voice that made Rain scoot away from him as fast as he could.
The guy just raised his eyebrows at the three of us and continued toward town.
Carter immediately busted up laughing and the three of us kept walking down the narrow sidewalk.
“This is lame,” I said, shaking my head and pushing my sunglasses up.
“Let’s be German next,” Carter said. “I come from far country, you show me good American time, yeah?”
“Seriously, you’re not going to find any tourist girls to hook up with,” Rain said, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his shorts. “It’s all old, rich ladies in the summer.”
“No, it’s not!” Carter protested as he scrolled through the pictures on his camera. “There was Gloria from Maine last year!”
“There is no Gloria!” Rain and I both said at the same time.
“She’s not real,” Rain said, shaking his head and laughing. “You totally made her up.”
“Where’s the proof?” I said, my eyes scanning the crowded streets and sidewalk. It was amazing how many people flocked to our tiny island in the summer.
“Gloria was real,” Carter said, his jaw tightening, just as it always did whenever “Gloria” was brought up. “And that night was magical.”
“Magical is right,” Rain said as we crossed the street. “As in not real.”
“Oh, oh! Twelve o’clock!” Carter said, nodding his head at an older couple coming down the sidewalk straight for us.
“Come on, man,” I moaned. “This is mean.”
“No, it’s entertaining,” Carter said, getting his camera ready. “Excuse me!” It was too late. Carter was a German traveler from a faraway land. “You take our picture?”
“Ah,” the man said, his face lighting up. “
Welcher Teil von Deutschland sind sie?”
Carter’s face blanched, obviously panicking. “Uh, never mind.”
He took off running down the sidewalk.
The couple watched as he ran off, then glanced back at me and Rain with confused expressions.
“Excuse our friend,” I said with a sigh.
“He was in a car accident recently,” Rain said, his voice totally serious. “He’s been a bit… off, ever since.”
Without waiting for them to question us further, me and Rain took off after Carter, the both of us trying to hold our laughter back.
“Ah, crap,” Rain said as he checked the time on his phone. “We’re supposed to pick River up from Diana’s house in like two minutes. Where’s Carter?”
By now we’d reached the park in the middle of town. Considering it was Saturday, that meant it was filled with booths and tents for the farmer’s market. Hippy gardeners, potter’s, jewelry makers, glass-blowers, and other entrepreneurs spread themselves out across the expanse of grass. And the entire place was flooded with tourists.
Rain and I started wandering the aisles, poking around for Carter.
“You two look like you’re looking for someone,” a familiar voice said through the crowd.
I looked up to see Samantha, a basket over one arm, holding a big floppy straw hat down on her head with the other. She wore a breezy, white summer-dress and bright pink flip flops.
She looked amazing.
“You seen Carter?” Rain asked, speaking when I seemed to lose my ability to do so.
“Yeah,” she said, a brilliant smile flashing on her face. “I saw him near the food tents, talking to some girl.”
Rain and I exchanged a look.
“Take us there?” I said, feeling like I might pass out from how nervous I felt asking such a simple question. I was turning into a freaking joke around Sam.
“Sure,” she smiled again. “Come on.”
Sure enough, we found Carter, talking to some skanky looking girl who had to be at least twenty. I had to give him credit, he had her laughing, even if she was way too old for him.
“Come on,” Rain said, dragging Carter away. “River’s waiting for us, and you do not want to enrage my Amazon-warrior sister.”
“Seriously?” Carter protested as Rain pulled on the back of his shirt. “I told you I’d find a tourist to hook up with!”
“I don’t think you’ll be hooking up with her,” Sam said as she glanced back toward the girl. We all looked back at her to see a very muscled guy wrapping his arms around the girl. The guy’s eyes met Carter’s and his jaw flexed and his nostrils flared.
“Run,” Rain said. Without another word, he and Carter took off in the direction of Carter’s truck. I just shook my head as I watched them go.
“Isn’t that your ride running for his life?” Sam asked as she stopped at one of the produce tents.
“I met them at Teazers,” I said, picking up one of the apples Sam was studying. Pulling out my wallet, I paid for two of them. I handed one to Sam and bit into mine.
“Thanks,” she said, flashing another warm smile that made my knees want to give out. “Have you tried the horchata from the Mexican food stand?”
I shook my head as I swallowed the bite of apple.
“It’s divine,” she said, and we headed back in that direction. “It’s going to ruin you though. All other horchata is going to taste disgusting after you try this.”
I chuckled as I followed her. “Ruin me.”
12 days since the accident
No more Air Force…
Things got quieter over the next week. John and Jenny went back to college, from Jordan on down they went back to the island. Even Dad had to get back to work. It was just me and Mom. And a million nurses, a million physical therapists, and one psychologist.
Mom had tried staying with me that first therapy session. She said she wanted to help me learn how to cope with my new “lifestyle.” I liked the psychologist a little more when she wouldn’t let Mom into her office.
But it was all the same crap that I had expected to hear when I learned I was going to be visiting her. Life was going to be hard, but I still had a lot to live for. I shouldn’t give up and I shouldn’t give up on my dreams, but maybe adjust them.
Blah, blah, blah.
All I heard was pity and a lot of rehearsed lines.
I was told I would be released by Saturday, a full twelve days after the accident. Then on Thursday I started burning up with a fever of 104, and they decided to hold me prisoner for a few days longer.
Despite being in a children’s hospital, I almost didn’t mind. The world inside the walls of the hospital were a bit like an alternate reality. Almost like I was only unable to speak within those walls. As soon as I stepped outside of them, reality was going to finally sink in, that this was real, and my voice wasn’t going to come back.
I didn’t mind holding reality off.
Because not being able to talk for the rest of forever felt like an unbearable amount of time. I couldn’t even comprehend it.
Even though I was in the hospital, and even though I had just had a life-changing event happen, Mom didn’t let me completely pretend I didn’t have to do school work anymore. She’d called each of my teachers, had Dad bring down all my school work and books, and every afternoon after the vampires were done with me, she drilled and hounded me until my homework was done.
There’d been a note from Principal Hill that we’d talk when I was ready to go back to school about adjusting my schedule.
Great. Special treatment. Just great.
It didn’t take long to fill that first notebook, the one Jordan had given me. My messy handwriting stained the pages, big and blocky so everyone could read it easily. Several pages were ready to fall out, after being flipped to so often. Pages that said things like “thank you”, “I’m tired”, and “where’s the remote?”
Mom dared to leave my side for about an hour one day and came back with a stack of fifteen notebooks, a rainbow of colored covers.
I just shook my head when she set them down.
My paper voice.
It both seemed that Monday came all too fast, and couldn’t get there soon enough. But at ten in the morning, Dr. Calvin came in and told us I was going home that afternoon.
My bandages were also ready to be removed.
I sat on the bed with my hands pressed firmly between my legs so no one would see them shaking as Dr. Calvin sat on a stool in front of me with latex gloves on his hands. I couldn’t look at his face as he started to remove the bandages. I just stared at the ceiling tiles, determined I was going to find at least one cobweb.