Spencer's Face (Buckeye Hawks) (13 page)

“Hi, girls.” Zane called out
as he stood in front of us.

Spencer rubbed my arm with a
smile. “Hi.” He said to me with a smile.

I realized that he probably
didn’t know Patty and Denise. “Hi. Do you know Patty and Denise?”

He shook his head.

“We’ve seen him around, and
we’ve definitely seen him on the field. Especially tonight.” Patty said, almost
with enthusiasm.

“Well, Patty and Denise, this
is Spencer.” I introduced them all.

Everyone said hi to each
other, then Zane got antsy about leaving for the party. He was in a very good
mood and ready to drink some beer to celebrate. Everyone laughed at him, then we
all got into our cars and left for the party.

I followed behind Zane to the
party. As I was following him, I saw headlights from an oncoming car. It kept
swerving to our lane then back into its own lane again. I slowed down just in
case. Sometimes guys played stupid games in cars that I didn’t want any part of.
I’d never known Zane to play those games though. Usually he was really
responsible with his driving.

Just then the car coming
toward us hit Zane’s car head on. I screamed and slammed on my brakes. I must
have turned the steering wheel at the same time, because my car started
spinning in circles off of the road. Everyone in my car screamed at the top of
their lungs. We kept spinning. As we were spinning, I could see Zane’s car and
the other truck rolling in opposite directions, but both away from us.

Finally our spinning stopped.
We were all shook up, but held in by our seatbelts. Somehow, we still had to
pull ourselves off of each other. We all jumped out to go check on Zane and Spencer.
When I got there, I could see that their car was really smashed up. I’d beaten
everyone there.

“Call 911.” I yelled out to
Sandy who was still running up to the car.

“I’m already on it.” She
yelled back.

The other girls came running
up as well.

“Oh my god.” Patty screamed
out when she ran up closer. “Are they…?” she stopped.

The car was upright. I stuck
my hand inside the broken window to see if Zane was breathing. He was. He shook
his head, and started yelling out in pain. It hurt him to shake his head.

I ran around to Spencer who
still wasn’t saying anything. I put my hand on his mouth to see if he was
breathing. I felt breath coming out of his nose, but he was out cold. And,
worse, he was cut up really bad. His face and his chest looked like raw
hamburger meat almost. His shirt was almost shredded off of him. Part of his
upper arm was bloody too. Where was that ambulance?

The scene was utter chaos.
The girls were screaming and Zane was yelling about his leg being broken.

“Be still, Zane. Just don’t
move.” I tried to tell him.

He kept cussing. Sandy,
Patty, and Denise all tried to calm him down.

Should I call their parents?
Yes, I should. I didn’t ask for Zane’s permission, I just dialed his mother.
After several rings, she finally answered. I told her what had happened and
told her where we were.

Patty went to check on the
other truck to see if they were okay. It turned out to be one of the adults,
Fred, who partied with us almost every week. He had a girlfriend with him. He
was in pretty bad shape.  His girlfriend got out of the truck though. She was
fine, we thought.

I called Spencer’s home
number. Janel answered. “Janel. This is Taylor. I…” I had no clue how to finish
that sentence.

“What’s wrong?” Janel almost screamed
into the phone, panicked.

“Spencer’s been in a car
accident. The ambulance is on its way.”

“How bad is he hurt?”

“It looks bad, bloody. He’s
not conscious. He’s breathing though.” I stumbled out the words.

Janel lost it and started
sobbing.

Todd took the phone from her.
“Where are you?”

I told him where we were, then
he hung up the phone.

About twenty minutes later,
the ambulance showed up, as did Todd and Janel. They came running to Spencer’s
side of the car. When Janel saw Spencer, she started screaming and crying. Todd
held her close. Everything was hectic. Paramedics were working on Zane and Spencer,
and pulling them out of the car. Janel and Todd were next to Spencer, holding
his hand. The girls and I were standing back, watching the whole ordeal.

“Was there alcohol involved?”
one of the paramedics asked.

Everyone looked at each
other.

“No. None of the kids were
drinking.” I finally answered. None of them were, yet. “I don’t know about Fred
though.”

“Where were you guys going?”
Todd asked.

I thought quickly. “To Zane’s
house. He wanted to show us a new game.” I usually didn’t lie very well, but I
think I pulled that one off. I didn’t want Todd and Janel to know that we were
on our way to a party to booze it up. Not that Spencer was going to drink, but
I didn’t know if he shared that information with them or not.

The paramedics hoisted Spencer
into the back of the first ambulance. They made Zane wait on the second one
that still hadn’t made it yet. He was still yelling and cussing, still in a lot
of pain. Janel rode with Spencer to the hospital. Todd followed in his own car.
I waited for the second ambulance to get Zane, then I took the girls home. My
car drove kind of funny but it drove. We had to drive really slowly.

--

The next morning, I had my
dad look at my car. He found several loose lug nuts on the wheels, which he
tightened for me. He usually made me change my own tires, but he was being nice
to me today since Spencer was hurt. I headed off to the hospital. I didn’t usually
drive in Phoenix very often, but I knew where the hospital was. I went in and
found the intensive care unit, where the nurses told me Spencer was. Once I got
up there, the other nurses told me that I couldn’t go in because I wasn’t
family. I waited outside the unit in the waiting room, hoping to see Todd or
Janel come out.

An hour later, Todd came out.
I stood up to greet him. He reached out and hugged me. “Thanks for calling us
last night.”

I nodded. “How is he?”

“He’s still unconscious. He’s
going to be fine though. His face and his chest are really messed up. He’s
going to need some plastic surgery, but nothing is broken, and there are no
internal injuries. He’ll heal.  He’ll be fine in a month or so.”

“I guess that’s good.” I said
softly. I couldn’t think of anything else to say to him. I was always at a loss
when it came to these kinds of things.

“It could have turned out much
worse. Janel panicked because that’s how her sister and brother-in-law, his
parents, died.”

“I know. He told me.”

“You two are pretty close.”
He said. I could tell it was more of a question.

“We’re good friends, I
guess.” I said. I wasn’t sure how to answer the question. I mean, we’d never
even gone out on a real date.

“I got the feeling there was
more there than friendship.” He said. It was another question, I could tell.

“So did I.” I said to him
uneasily. I didn’t know him well enough to be talking to him about this stuff.
“Maybe he didn’t think so.”

“He thought so.” Todd
reassured me. “You’re all he’s talked about at the house for the last couple of
weeks. It was good to see him so happy.”

I smiled. That was good news
for me. “Can you tell him to call me when he wakes up? I’ll come back up.”

“I’ll do it.” Todd said then
gave me a little hug. I hugged friends all the time, but it was awkward hugging
a grown man. My dad rarely hugged me. We weren’t a hugging family.

--

A few days later, I still
hadn’t received a phone call from Spencer or Todd. When I called the hospital,
they said he’d been released already. I called his house, but no one answered.
I left a message telling Janel to call me when Spencer came home, and that I
hoped everything was okay. I always messed up leaving messages. I texted Spencer
telling him to call me. Maybe if he was up, he would be reading his texts. At
least he’d know that I was trying to get in touch with him.

Another couple of days
passed, and I still hadn’t heard from him. I called Zane who was home already
with a cast on his leg. His car was totaled. He would get a new one out of the
deal, which he was really excited about. He said he’d heard from Spencer, but Spencer
didn’t want to see him yet. Zane said he was in a lot of pain and didn’t want
anyone to see his face.

I texted Spencer again,
telling him to call me, or at least text me back. He didn’t answer. I sent him
another text telling him to text me back. Then I sent that same text over and
over like twenty times. He’d get tired of it and call me. That was the plan
anyway. It didn’t work.

I came up with another plan.
I knocked on his door with a bouquet of balloons and his favorite pizza from
Pizza Hut. Janel answered. She smiled at me. It was a pity smile. I felt
awkward already.

“He doesn’t want to see you.
He doesn’t want to see anyone just yet.” She said apologetically.

“I know, but can you give him
these? This is his favorite pizza. He eats all of it when they put it on the
buffet.”

“I’ll give it to him.” she
assured me as she took the pizza and the balloons from me.

“How is he?” I asked her.

“Physically, he’s healing.
Emotionally, he’s upset, depressed, and mad at the world.” She answered
honestly as tears started to fill her eyes. Her voice was cracking.

“I could watch a movie with
him, play songs with him, and try to help him feel better.” I offered. I knew I
was sounding a bit too much like an obsessed stalker.

“He doesn’t want to see
anyone right now. He’s really concerned about how his face looks.”

“I can take it if he can.” I
told her.

“I’ll tell him.” she said,
then closed the door.

I felt like a door to door
salesman being dismissed. I drove away. I couldn’t believe he didn’t want to
see me. I mean how bad could it be? About that time, I received a text. It was
from Spencer. I was elated to say the least.

Damn the luck! I was so
depressed and so upset. I hadn’t felt this low since I’d lost my parents six
years ago. For the first time in my life, I almost had a girlfriend. Then this
happens. As if I wasn’t ugly enough with the birthmark on my face, I had to get
it all cut and scraped up. The doctor did some plastic surgery to correct the
big stuff, Janel told me. We’d have to wait to see how it healed before I could
get more plastic surgery though.

This was going to be worse
than walking around school with the birthmark. So far I was completely bandaged
up. I was in a lot of pain still. My face hurt. My arm hurt. And my chest hurt.
I was cut up pretty badly. I had a lot of stitches when you added them all up.
They all hurt, even though I was already taking the pain pills. I wondered how
long I would be in pain. I was really sore, too.

I’d come so far with Taylor.
I really thought we were getting somewhere. I was about to ask her out the
night of the car wreck. I would have had plenty of time alone with her at the
party again. I’d already asked Todd if I could borrow his car for that Saturday
night. I was going to take her ice skating at Metro Center. Zane said she liked
that, and was pretty good at it. I was really excited about asking. I’d never
asked a girl out. Now I probably never would.