Falling From Grace (17 page)

Everything was starting to hurt now, and I could feel the sting of my face as the cuts and scrapes there from whatever it was that happened started to bleed.
 
I tested out my voice once more, hoping that I wouldn’t start coughing again, hoping that someone would be able to hear me, hoping that I was in an area where someone could.

“Help.” I croaked.
 
It was barely audible.
 
I took a deep breath and tried again.
 
“Heeelp.”

I heard nothing except my own ragged breathing.
 
There seemed to be something pressing against my chest, and it was starting to hurt each time I took a breath.
 
I used my left hand and tried to roll over a bit onto my back, perhaps easing the pressure that was ever building in my lungs, but a sickening crunch, followed by a shot of immense pain down my right side cause me to land hard back on my face and stomach.
 
The coughing started again, and with each racking movement, pain coursed through my body and blood spewed from my lips and nose.

This was it, I realized.
 
I would die on the road, alone.
 
A victim of…what?
 
A hit and run?
 
I didn’t know, and probably wouldn’t either.
 
Instead of futilely trying to figure that part out, I sighed and pictured the faces of the people that had been important in my life, even if only for brief periods
—
it’s what’s supposed to happen when you’re dying after all, right?.

I saw my dad’s face, smiling and happy, his hands placed over a flat stomach that was holding his future child.
 
He was looking up at Janice, love and contentment in his eyes.
 
The vision from this morning at breakfast summed up their relationship quite well.
 
At least he wouldn’t be alone.
 
I’d have hated that.

I saw the faces of my favorite teachers, their smiles and their encouragement had always been just enough to keep me on the right track, knowing that without it, I’d have never been able to get as far as I had, never have the motivation to keep on going.

Strangely, I saw the face of Stacy.
 
Though we barely knew each other, she had provided a rare comfort.
 
That one hour every day was like a vacation from the rest of the world.
 
And, though I appreciated it while she was there, I hadn’t realized that I was truly grateful for it, for not having to endure an entire day absolutely alone.
 
I was only sorry that I wasn’t able to tell her so.

I saw Graham, his green eyes full of warmth and laughter, singing along, very poorly, to a Jim Croce song that was playing on his dad’s stereo in the basement of their house.
 
He had pulled me up to dance, causing me to look like an epileptic marionette, not stopping until I was laughing and singing along with him.
 
It had been the first week of summer, just a few months ago.
 

The image became blurry then, and I blinked back the tears that had formed at the sweet memory that now only meant something to me.
 
I would not cry anymore for him, and definitely not while I lay dying.
 
It might have happened a little too late, but I realized that I finally deserved to be happy, too, and I knew what could make me very happy… And then the face that I hadn’t expected, but so wanted to see appeared in my mind.

Silver eyes, no longer the cold steel that they had been in my dreams, but liquid, sparkling in a face so heart achingly beautiful the tears finally broke free and started flowing.
 
He was holding my hand again, and I felt so light, the pressure that was crushing me seemed to just float away.
 
Time was running out, I decided.

I felt suddenly sad that I wouldn’t be able to spend the rest of my days staring into his eyes, or hearing his voice in my head.
 
Whatever I had done to drive him away from me, I regretted more than anything else I had ever done or said.
 
I had only wanted to know him, because in defiance of reason and logic, I had already come to care for him so deeply.

Robert’s smile filled my head, and I could feel nothing but warmth flow through me as I smiled back because that smile, I could feel, made him happy.
 
I closed my eyes and sighed.
 
There was no pain now, just warmth and contentment.

I waited for whatever it was that would come and take me away.
 
The angels, the trumpets, the light; whatever it was that was supposed to be coming could do so at any time.
 
I was ready.

The journey to the other side was taking a while.
 
I knew I hadn’t gotten lost, so where was everyone?
 
Wasn’t there supposed to be rejoicing and dancing and hoopla?
 
Shouldn’t I see faces of people I had lost
—
people that were waiting for me to arrive?

And then I heard it.

Laughter.

A very familiar laugh, one that I hadn’t heard in nearly a month; the one that had haunted the moments in my dreams where I couldn’t ignore the way my heart had felt.
 
Why was he here, waiting with me for my…erm…ride?

You’re not dead, Gee.

Not dead?
 
What was I, if not dead?
 
And why was he in my head?

We’re waiting for the ambulance to arrive.
 
The police are here, as well as your father.
 
I’m in your head because I don’t think your dad is quite comfortable with the idea of me talking to you when he’s not sure just who exactly I am.

I could hear the random sounds of a police radio, and the different conversations occurring around me, and I knew he was right.
 
But why was
he
here?
 
He had made it a point to avoid me in school.
 
Everything that he had said to me about no one being able to hurt me anymore had been a lie.
 
He had promised that I’d never be hurt or made a fool of again; simply believing that had made me one, and proved him to be a liar. The acknowledgement of that caused me to stiffen, and in that moment I felt all of the pain that had been blocked from my mind.
 
I opened my eyes.
 
I screamed.

”Grace?” a strained voice cried.
 
Dad!
 
“Grace, it’s okay, honey, the ambulance will be here very soon.
 
Just hold on, okay?”

He squeezed me, and I could have sworn that even my hair hurt when he did that.
 
I moaned, gritting my teeth, trying to keep from screaming again because his reaction wasn’t making me feel any better.

I started to focus on the chaos that surrounded me then.
 
It felt like I was in a Christmas light bulb.
 
Everything outside of a small peripheral area was dark, but immediately around me, it was bright, with flickering blue and red lights.
 
I could see several police officers directly in front of me standing near something on the ground that looked like some abstract art piece, beautiful in its deformity.
 
Next to it was my book bag, positioned almost intentionally to demonstrate the contrasting textures of hard and soft, metal and cloth, warm and cold.

There was a third police officer standing to the left of me.
 
He was speaking with someone I couldn’t see.
 
A spotlight that had been directed towards me was blinding his face to me.
 
His?
 
How was I so sure that this person was a he?

It came before I even realized it
—
the need to be certain.
 
Robert?

And then the figure turned away from the officer and walked towards me, bending down out of the light so I could see his face.
 
I felt my heart lurch forward, like it wanted to jump out of my chest and into his.
 
And damnit, that hurt!
 
I grimaced, and the concern on his face became the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
 
Genuine emotion, real, and right in front of me; his steel eyes were no more.

“I’m here, Gee,” he said softly, reaching out to hold my left hand.
 

I looked at it, cradled in his, and then looked back up at him, confused.
 
The wound that had been on my knuckle was gone, the nails on my fingers were all there.
You did this?

He nodded his head, covering my hand with his, as if to hide it from my view.
 
You were bleeding very heavily, your heartbeat was very weak.
 
I had to stop your internal bleeding…and some of your other injuries healed as a result.

Internal bleeding?
 
Other injuries?
 
Healed?
 
If I was healed, why in the world was I in so much pain?

You’re not healed completely.
 
You have more damage than I could treat before the police arrived.
 
Your right arm is broken in two places, and your wrist is shattered.
 
Your left thigh was impaled by part of the handlebars on the bike, but it missed the bone--your right leg is broken in three places.
 
You had tears in your liver and spleen.
 
There’s going to be some very nasty bruises on your face, but I was able to get the asphalt out, and I think I made your nose straighter.

I wasn’t about to ask him how he had done these things, or why.
 
I was just thankful he was here.

Dad, unaware of the unspoken conversation occurring between the two of us, grabbed my hand out of Robert’s and started telling me what happened, his voice tormented and shaky.
 
“You were hit by a car, Grace.
 
A hit and run from what the police know so far.
 
If Robert here hadn’t been riding his bike down this way, I don’t know what-” his voice broke, and he took a few deep breaths, trying to regain his composure.
 
“Robert here found you and called 911.”

“He saved my life,” I whispered.

My dad, unable to hold back his emotions, nodded and started crying over me, sobbing like a grown man would in the presence of other grown men: reserved and silent with only singular tears and raspy, shaking breaths.
 
I looked at the police officers surrounding us, their faces anxious, impatient to start asking me questions about what had happened, what I remembered.

The pain in my leg was beginning to increase, and I squirmed from the pressure of it as it crawled up to my abdomen.
 
Where
was that ambulance?
 
I was looking very forward to being a pain-killer junkie with the way my body was feeling at the moment.

I removed my hand from Dad’s grip, and reached for Robert
—
I completely ignored the grunt of displeasure from Dad
—
believing he would be able to help ease my pain, if only through the comfort of being able to touch him.
 
Why had he begun to mean so much to me in such a short span of time?
 
Why could he affect me the way no one else could?
 
Even Graham?

Would you believe I ask myself the same questions?
 
He grabbed my hand, held it once more between his and the pain lifted away from my body, like the removal of a suffocating blanket.
 
I sighed.

How did you find me?

His face suddenly became pinched.
 
I could see the memory in his head, hear it as though it were my own.
 
He had heard me call out for help.
 
He had heard it from very far away, and his face was riddled with confusion.
 
He could hear my cry for help, but he couldn’t hear my thoughts
—
he could sense that I wasn’t nearby.
 

And…he was with someone else.
 
He tried to distort the vision now, making everything fuzzy, as his voice told her of an urgent thing he just realized he had to do.
 
He told her he’d call her later that evening.
 
She made a pouty, whiny sound, but relented.
 
She reached for his hand, and he held it, then kissed it.
 
“Thank you for understanding, Erica,” his voice said, his tone admiring, almost reverent.

I removed my hand from his, cutting off the vision I knew I could only see because we were touching.
 
The pain slowly started returning, but it was coupled with a different kind of pain.
 
One I was all too familiar with.
 
But before it could take hold of me again, he placed his hands on my face, holding me immobile, and looked into my eyes.
 

He was in the parking lot, calling a cab for Erica on his cell phone, and then he was on his motorcycle, racing towards the sound of my thoughts.
 
He was panicked, his palms sweaty for the first time in…centuries?
 
He listened for my whimpers, my moans when my thoughts became too cloudy from pain.
 
He found me, sprawled on the pavement, lying on my chest.
 
He could only see my back at first.
 
My right arm was twisted out behind me, my shoulder dislocated.
 
The mangled remains of my bicycle lay partially between my feet.