Blackout (3 page)

When I’d blacked out at a party, she was one of the ones who’d graffitied my face, like it was an inviting inner-city concrete slab. I glance at the scar on my wrist and bite back the emotional scar she helped leave. The next day Daddy finished packing our bags, and we left for Paris. I was supposed to finish out the school year in the Outer Banks, but I didn’t.

Her focus is completely on Dare. She eyes him like she’d scoop him into an ice cream bowl. How did she become a medic? I didn’t think she had the mental stamina for it.

“Anything hurt?” Nan asks, not looking at me.

“Hello?” I lift my broken arm and cry out from the pain. “My arm.”

The other paramedic glances over at the SUV. Only the roof is visible amongst the algae skimming the surface of the water. “You’re lucky.”

Not really. My blackouts are back. I’m not cured, not even close, but I won’t run this time. And why haven’t I felt dizzy since Dare has showed up? Why hasn’t the swamp stolen my mind, like it did the last time.

Nan glances up at Dare leaning against his Shelby, her eyes lingering a tad long on his eyes, his chest, and every other part of his sculpted body. “Tucker, you saved me some work. Thanks.”

Dare opens the driver side door. “I’ve gotta get to work.”

“You should become a paramedic and join us,” she says, splinting my arm.

He glares at me. “You know I can’t.”

What did I do? He can go to school if he wants to.

Nan smiles while helping the other medic walk me to the ambulance. “Me and the girls will see you at the racetrack this Saturday.”

“I’ll be there.” His fingers rake through his thick hair. “See y’all.”

Dare races now? He’s probably good at it. He’s good at everything he does.

When the sheriff pulls over on the side of the road, Dare slips into his car. Sheriff Tate is no longer the buff man who used to chase us off private property. His middle flops over his belt carrying his gun, a Taser, and a club. His thinning hair is brushed in a bad comb-over. Tufts of hair curl on his chest at the “V” of his uniform shirt. His voice is rough, like a smoker’s.

His chia pet of a deputy climbs out of the SUV cruiser and swaggers toward Dare. Sizing him up, the deputy rests his hand on his gun. “Staying out of trouble, Tucker?”

Dare clenches his jaw. “Just helping out, Jimmy. I’m fixin’ to go to work.”

“Hold up there, son.” Tate gives me the once-over, then his jaw drops. It hangs open and shows nubby, stained teeth.

He spits out a stream of tobacco onto the road, the sight of the yellowish gruel sickens me and threatens my balance. “Well, I’ll be damned.” He spits again. “Don’t you shine like your mama?”

How would I know? Unless a photo of her stares back at me, I can’t picture her.

“You’re not going anywhere, son,” he barks at Dare.

Chia Pet taps Dare’s chest with his Billy club.

“I pulled her out of the ditch,” Dare’s voice has risen, no longer confident but wavering.

“What’s this about?” Nan asks, standing and planting her feet. “Tucker called in the accident.”

“This here is Teal Covington,” Tate says, gnawing on tobacco.

“Yeah. So?” I ask. He has no good reason to remember me.

“Your daddy filed another restraining order against Darius Tucker. He can’t be around you.”

Chia Pet rakes his gaze over me. “She does resemble her mama.”

Pulling Dare’s jacket tighter around me, I instinctively draw back from his wandering eyes.

“Dare didn’t know it was me.” Which doesn’t explain how Tate and his pet do. I haven’t seen Tate in forever, and I don’t remember the other guy. “Dare got me out of the car before it sank. I’m not pressing charges.”

“Don’t make me file another complaint,” Nan warns. “This is bullshit, and you know it. Quit hasslin’ the Tucker boys.”

“The law is the law,” Tate says, nodding to Chia Pet. “Jimmy?”

He twirls Dare around by his arm and slaps on the cuffs. Slamming him hard enough against the cruiser that it would be considered unnecessary roughness.

“That’s enough,” Nan says.

Dare glances back at me, and pure hate whittles away at his expression.

I don’t want him to hate me. The restraining order was Daddy’s idea, not mine. He thinks Dare molested me that day in the swamp. That’s the last time I saw Dare until now.

Inside a long room partitioned and separated by curtains, the ER doctor finishes wrapping my broken arm in a cast. It’s lime green. Do I look like a three-year-old? Not to mention the cast sticks out like a tattoo parlor sign on a dimly lit street.

The fluorescent lights above cast a sickly yellow, and the antiseptic odor nauseates me, but distance from the swamp has suppressed the visions and terror of that day ten years ago.

The nurse pumps me full of pain meds. I’m not supposed to have any with my condition that the shrinks haven’t figured out yet.

The worst of this is I can no longer drive. One, because I don’t have a vehicle. Two, because I blacked out, and three, I’m not willing to die from my mental setback or kill somebody else.

So much for being fixed. Daddy won’t want to hear that. He’ll expect another call soon. The insurance company will contact him once I file the claim and the tow truck digs the SUV out of the swamp.

Now the only question is what do I do? How do I get home, get around, get a job, have fun, take care of Lulu, and not blackout? Half of summer is pretty much ruined because I can’t swim at the beach for six weeks. I could beg for sympathy and bum rides and have all my friends I’ve neglected for two years sign my cast.

“You’re free to leave, Miss Covington,” a nurse says.

“I need to clean up first,” I say, glancing at the swamp cider dripping from my bottom half. I wring out my skirt onto the floor, and the nurse gives me a dirty look.

In the bathroom, I wipe the swamp goo from my designer bag. I slip off my sandals and put them under the sink to wash them off.

While thinking of Dare, I clean up as best I can. Why did Tate arrest him? He can’t do that, when Dare saved my life.

And why does Dare hate me? The renewal of the restraining order is no big deal. From the way he acted, he should be happy he can’t see me, though I need to let the sheriff know I won’t press charges, not for saving me.

I pull out my phone and wipe away algae scum. It’s dead. The first thing I need to do is get a new one after I find a ride to the house. Who do I call? I used to have a best friend.

On my way out of the Outer Banks Hospital, I borrow a phone at the front desk. The nurse gives me an odd look because from the waist down, I look like the
Creature from the Black Lagoon
. I smile at her, and she smirks back.

My fingers tremble as I key in Kami’s number. Once upon a time, we went everywhere together. The worst part is we exchanged emails and texts for the first few months after I moved to Paris. Then I got busy, meeting new friends and putting the Outer Banks out of mind. It was easy to do, and the more I forgot the quicker the incoherent visions disappeared.

Her little brother picks up on the third ring. He starts rapping in the phone, making noises that are supposed to sound like a bass but sound more like farts. “Dude, talk to me.”

“Hey Dillon, can I speak to Kami?”

“She’s outside laying out. If I bug her, she’ll punch me…again.”

“Please give her the phone.” Should I tell him it’s Teal? Probably not.

“Hello.” Kami sounds like Kami, cheery, sparkly.

“Hi.” What do I say? Come pick me up? I totaled my dad’s Range Rover?

Guilt itches my skin. When I moved to Paris, I cut my ties with everyone because it made me feel sane. As long as I didn’t think about home, I didn’t feel crazy. It was like I left whatever troubled me here, blowing its chaotic sand into the rustling sea oats. This is where the memories stir and lie buried deep in the bog of my nightmares.

Yet I miss the Outer Banks, the beach, the rumbling sea, the smell of the ocean, and sneaking out at night with Kami to sleep on the sand and stare at the stars.

“Who is this?” she asks, way too happy. She won’t be once I tell her.

I squeeze my eyes shut in preparation of what she’ll say. “Teal.”

“Teal? Teal who? The girl I haven’t heard from in over a year?” There’s an unmistakable tease in her voice.

“Yes. The one and only.” I shrink down into the chair by the front desk. How do I ask now for a ride? I could walk the eight miles to the beach house or take a cab if he’ll accept euros, which he won’t. I do have a credit card covered in swamp that may no longer work.

“The girl who quit texting me, quit calling me while flitting around Paris? The girl who was probably cuddling with hot French men while I had to settle for sweet southern boys?”

“Yeeeesssss.” My word drags out for an eternity. “I don’t remember the boys being that sweet here.” My southern drawl I tried to hide while in Paris is back with a vengeance. Some boys were down right mean. I glance down at the single scar on my wrist, evidence of how vicious kids can be.

“That’s only because those boys liked you, Teal, and it depends on what you give them on how sweet they are. Oh, Mademoiselle Teal, you must need me,” she tries to sound French, but her accent comes out sounding British, making me giggle.

I let out a breath and say quickly, “I need a ride, and I’ll let you torture me.”

“Oh, you do? Good. I can’t wait to leave you with my baby brother because you have to babysit him now.” There’s a pause so pregnant I think she went out by the pool to pop out a baby. “I can forgive you on one condition.”

I hold my breath. “What’s that?”

“You have to tell me about all those Parisian boys you seduced instead of calling and texting me,” she squeals.

I let out the breath I was holding. She’s not too mad. “I can do that, though you might be bored at my lack of conquests, and I promise to babysit your brother for free.” I may regret offering that.

I look forward to seeing her. From our conversation, she hasn’t changed. She’s still wild and crazy Kami.

“Not as boring as it is around here, but when you see the college boy I’ve been kissing, you’ll go weak in the knees with envy,” she says, all ecstatic.

Nerves stammer my voice. “Kami?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry.” I really am. I didn’t want to forget about the times we hung out on the beach and painted each other’s toes or stayed up late watching old movies like
The Breakfast Club
.

“Teal. I get it. I’ve always gotten it. I get that you needed to move on. That you needed some peace, and this place wasn’t giving it to you. So why did you leave Paris?”

“My grandmother is losing her eyesight, so she moved into our beach house.” Daddy couldn’t abandon my mom’s mom, not like Mama did.

He’s an international lawyer, what I hope to study in college. For years, he gave up traveling and working abroad to be with Mama and me. After she left, he stayed in North Carolina in hopes I’d get better, but I didn’t and I paid dearly for it.

“And your dad stayed in Paris?”

“Yeah. There’s no point in him coming home.”

“He should come home for you.” Seriousness strengthens her tone.

It’s nice that Kami still cares, but I need to face that day on my own and without his help. I have to throw the proverbial crutches away.

Kami is the one person I confided in about my blackouts. Everyone else knew, just not the details. They happened at school, on the beach, and unfortunately at parties. In Paris, no one really knew about them because after the first few days, they disappeared until Henri had sex with me. I don’t know why I was scared out of my mind. Up until then, I liked him a lot.

“Where are you?” she asks.

“The hospital.”

“Oh my God. How are you? What happened?”

“It’s no big deal. I’ll tell you when you get here.”

After ending the call, I sit out front and wait, swinging my legs on the bench, my feet scraping the sidewalk.

After what feels like forever, she pulls into the circular cutout, driving her mom’s convertible Benz. She pushes the passenger door open. “I had to wait on my mom cuz my car’s in the shop.”

She gestures at me to stop. “Wait.” She digs in the backseat, pulls out a beach towel, and throws it on the seat. “Why are you wearing swamp?”

I take a pen from my purse and scratch under my cast. It already itches. “I went for a swim in my dad’s Range Rover.”

“That sucks.” Southern comfort rolls off her tongue, and I know I’m really home, and I like it—sort of.

Kami stares at me for a while. Her soft, caramel kinks are pulled up into a ponytail. Long, thick lashes flutter over milky blue irises. Her daddy was black, and her mama is about as white as they come, hence the perfect skin tones. And to top it off, Kami’s tall and svelte, like a model.

“Wow.” She squeezes her eyes shut and opens them. “You’ve changed. You are the spitting image of your mom. Paris has been good to you.” She touches my cast. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have mentioned your mom. Did you find her in Paris?”

“It’s okay. I’m over her, and we never ran into her.” And I didn’t really want to see her.

The whole town remembers her, except me, because everyone loved her. I plop onto the towel protecting the buttery leather of the Benz.

The drugs are wearing off, so a dull ache throbs in my arm. “I…I broke my arm.”

Her expression crinkles with sympathy. “So I see. Lulu says you were better and bragged to everyone. The blackouts started up again. Didn’t they?”

I nod. It’s as if I haven’t left. I’m still the talk of the town. Crazy girl. “How soon before the rest of the Outer Banks figures out I still have them?”

She sighs. “With Lulu, not long, but I won’t tell.”

I won’t run away this time, not like I did the last time.

Kami shifts the car into first and peels out of the drive. Her foot presses on the pedal, and she goes about fifteen over. I wish she’d slow down. After all, I just had an accident.

I close my eyes, inhaling the salty air. When I open them, in the east, the sea oats appear to float in the breeze, and the waves roll onto shore.

When we merge onto Highway Twelve that runs the length of the beaches and drive north, Kami steps on the gas and flies right by a young cop sitting in a cruiser. She waves at him.