Night Blindness (20 page)

Out on the field, the center hiked the ball to Will, and I watched him dance in place, looking for an open receiver. My father cupped his hands around his mouth. “Throw it, Will.” The numbers on the scoreboard ticked. I knew the coach didn't like him handling the ball for more than five seconds, and I watched him jig backward, trying to find a wide receiver.

Then I saw him: Hopkins's biggest defensive end, a six-foot-six kid who must have weighed three hundred pounds. He plowed through two of Hamilton's tackles, coming right at Will. Everyone in the stands seemed to stand up at once and yell Will's name, but the kid came too fast, and just as Will turned, the player leaped off the ground and sailed through the air like a flying stone wall. His helmet landed in the middle of Will's chest.

The thump of Will's body hitting the ground with three hundred pounds of muscle and bone on top of him silenced the field. The cheerleaders stopped jumping. The music quit playing. Coaches from both teams threw off their headphones. The kid rolled off Will, clutching his head. Will lay on his back, unmoving. The coaches ran to the line of scrimmage.

Ryder leaped to his feet, cupping his mouth with his hands. “Will,” he yelled. “Will.” His voice echoed against the night sky. Two medics ran over from a waiting ambulance and moved the coaches away. One of them knelt down to unstrap Will's helmet, and the other pulled out a neck brace. Will's body was still. Ryder was muttering “No no no,” grabbing at his hair, holding his head in his hands. And then the players formed a circle around Will, their arms stretching across one another's shoulders like braided rope. Before I could ask him what he was doing, Ryder was taking the bleachers two at a time.

My father's face was white and still.

“Is he all right?” I asked. He didn't answer. Jamie had her hand to her mouth, her gaze fixed on the circle of boys around Will. When I turned back, the medics were dragging a gurney across the field. Ryder was running alongside it.

“He'll be fine,” I heard my father say. “That kid's tougher than nails.”

I watched them lift the stretcher into the chute and through the double doors of the ambulance.

“Let's go.” My dad's voice was gruff. “We'll follow in the car.” People stepped aside as we came. I watched the ambulance speed off the field, leaving deep tire tracks in the grass.

When we got to the chain-link fence separating the grandstands from the field, Ryder was coming toward us. He reached through and touched my fingers. “He's conscious. He says his head hurts. But he's okay.”

*   *   *

The ER waiting area was packed. The lights were too bright. Ryder and I had to stand while we waited for my parents to come out. Sirens whined outside. There'd been some kind of bus accident, the loudspeaker calling for doctors. People were streaming in and out. The nurse was curt and stressed when I asked about Will.

“What if he's not all right?” I asked Ryder.

He leaned against the wall, his eyes closed. “He'll be fine.” His shirt was stained with sweat. “He's just a show-off.”

I tried to laugh, but nothing came out.

It seemed like a long time before Jamie pushed through doors. I couldn't read her eyes because they were puffy, her makeup smeared from crying, but when my dad appeared behind her, I knew Will was okay, because the color was back in his face and he was smiling. “He just got out of the MRI machine. He's getting dressed now.” He put his arm around Jamie. “He has a concussion, but he's fine. We can leave in a few minutes.”

“A concussion?” I asked.

He cleared his throat. “It's a brain bruise. Sounds worse than it is.” Jamie put her head on his shoulder. “The doctor said he'll have to take a week or two off from playing, but that's it.”

The doors swung open, and Will appeared in a wheelchair with a pretty nurse behind him. He was wearing a plastic hospital bracelet and had a blanket on his lap. “It's alive,” Ryder said.

Jamie tried to smooth down his hair. “We're going to sign you out, baby.” She bent down and kissed him. “Thank God you're okay.”

As soon as they walked away, Will hopped out of the wheelchair. “Man, it's a zoo back there,” he said. “Ten bucks says I'll be back to practice by Monday.” He put out his hand to Ryder.

“Never bet against a madman,” Ryder said.

“You scared the shit out of us,” I told him.

Will covered his heart with his hand and let his neck hang as if broken, his eyes rolling in his head. I punched him on the shoulder. It irritated me that we'd all been so worried, the whole school was terrified, Jamie was a mess, my father drove down the highway going a hundred miles an hour, and now he was making jokes. “Quit it,” I told him.

At home, Jamie made Will put a bag of ice on his head, and then he and Ryder went up to his room to do whatever boys did when they hung out, and I stayed in the living room, eating Twizzlers, watching
Pretty Woman,
and pretending I wasn't waiting for Ryder to come downstairs. Finally, I heard Will's television go off.

“You mind if I bail?” I heard Ryder say.

“You going to Hotch's tomorrow to watch the game?” It was Will's voice.

“I was thinking about it.”

“I'll pick you up,” Will said. “We'll take the convertible.”

“Don't die on me in your sleep,” Ryder told him.

“Bite me,” I heard Will say back.

Then the door clicked. I'd turned the lights out, and moonlight filtered through the window in the living room. When Ryder reached the foyer, I said his name. He walked over and knelt by the couch. I wrapped my legs around him. “Hey,” I said.

“Hey.” He kissed me softly. He tasted like M&M's. I held on to his belt loops and kissed him harder. He pulled away. “What if they wake up?” he whispered, looking at the ceiling. But I couldn't stop myself. I touched his belt buckle and heard him moan softly; his hand went up my shirt. “Jenny,” he whispered. He was breathing hard. “We can't.”

Ryder had made me promise we wouldn't mess around in my house; he was so afraid Will, or my father, would catch us. Our house was his refuge away from his stiff, hard-driving parents, and I knew to lose it would mean to lose everything. “What if Will comes down?” But I was starving for him, and for one dizzying moment, I couldn't remember why we didn't want Will to know about us. He was Ryder. Everyone loved him. If Will could have him for a best friend, why couldn't I have him for a boyfriend?

“Yes, we can.” My voice was edged with defiance. I kept kissing him, and then the chocolate taste was gone, and it was his taste in my mouth. I could taste his neck and throat, his hands, his fingers. I felt him lift me up and lower me onto the couch. I couldn't breathe; I didn't want to. He was taking off his T-shirt, and I was kissing his chest. His fingers were undoing my buttons, quickly, frantically, and I was taking off my shirt. I couldn't get enough of him. I had a flash, a quick white lightning realization that I didn't want to be a virgin anymore. I was tired of being the good girl. His naked body was on top of mine, heavy and hot and hard.
Why not?
I thought. I'd been thinking that a lot lately, when we were in his backseat, or when he managed to sneak me into his house so his strict parents wouldn't know.
Why shouldn't we?
Some part of me thought if he took away my virginity, he wouldn't go to college next year and time would stand still. I opened my eyes, the moonlight came across our bodies, and I felt myself moving with him like water, something I couldn't stop. This would be my first time, here, in the place we said we'd never do it, under this roof, with my brother and my parents sleeping upstairs. Time seemed to fly and melt, and then something hit the wall like a gunshot and the light went on.

Will was standing by the piano, staring down at us. For a moment, no one moved. Ryder and I blinked against the light. Will was wearing blue pajama bottoms and a Hamilton football T-shirt. And then, all at once, Ryder was up, grabbing for his pants, and Will was coming across the living room at him. “You son of a bitch, what the fuck are you doing to my sister?” I knew the look on his face, the one he got before he went ballistic on the field. “I almost dropped dead tonight—”

“Will—” I was trying desperately to put my shirt back on.

“—and you're down here nailing my little sister.”

Ryder was backing up, pulling on his jeans. The coffee table was between them. “Hey, c'mon.” He put his hand up to ward off Will. “It's not what it looks like.”

“Then what the fuck is it?”

“I love her,” Ryder said.

“Yeah?” Will's eyes narrowed. “Yeah? You love her? The way you loved Caroline Rhodes and Elle Johnstone and Candace McPhee?”

I was trying to get my jeans on. “Will!” I couldn't believe he was acting as if I were just any other girl. “Stop it.” How dare he come down here and ruin this one thing I had that he didn't. “Get out,” I heard myself telling him.

He whirled around. “What did you say?” He'd never looked at me like that, a combination of scorn and hatred, as though I'd stolen something from a child. It took the words right out of me. Slowly, he walked toward Ryder.

“She—” Ryder started to say, but Will punched him hard, and Ryder doubled over.

I was up, running at Will. I pushed all my weight at him. “Leave us alone.” His arm went up to fend me off, but he was off-kilter. I watched him stumble back. It wasn't like Will to lose his balance, and just as he was falling, something in me awakened, something fierce that had been there, maybe, since childhood, since Will was the one everybody loved, the boy wonder, my dad's favorite, Jamie's pet. I went for him again, just as he was trying to gain his equilibrium. I pushed him hard, and this time I saw his eyes do something odd, flutter like they were going to roll back. His body twisted at an awkward angle, and he fell backward onto the hearth. He never tried to break his fall with his hands. He lay there unmoving.

“Will.” Ryder was standing by the piano. The room was silent. A slice of moonlight fell across Will's face. “Will, come on.”

Will didn't move.

“Get up,” I said to him, but he didn't. “I didn't hit you that hard.”

Ryder came over and squatted beside him. “Hey,” he said, touching Will's arm. “Quit playing.” But Will's body was heavy, limp.

Ryder knelt down and put his ear to Will's mouth, and almost immediately he said, “Call nine one one.” He was so calm, his voice so steady, it scared the shit out of me. “He's not breathing.”

And then I couldn't really see. Everything was a blur; nothing would come into focus. “I didn't hit him that hard,” I said.

“Jenny.” Ryder was tilting Will's head back and opening his mouth to start CPR. “Call nine one one,” he said again. “Hurry up.”

I made my way to the end table. Grabbing the phone off its cradle, I tried to dial. The TV clock read 12:37. I heard Ryder blowing air into Will's mouth. “Dad,” I screamed while the phone rang. “Daddy.”

The operator asked the nature of the emergency. “My brother's not breathing.” What was I supposed to say? “We need an ambulance.” I heard my father's door open upstairs, his running feet in the hall above. “Forty-one forty-one North Parker Lane, Colston. Please hurry. Oh God, please hurry.”

My dad came flying down the stairs, his robe following him like a pair of lopsided wings. “What the hell happened?”

“Daddy—” But he ran right past me to the fireplace and knelt down. He started chest compressions while Ryder continued mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

“Do you know what caused him to stop breathing?” the operator was asking.
I didn't hit him that hard.
“Oh please,” I was saying. “He's still not breathing.”

“What happened?” my dad was yelling at me.

I was crying so hard, I couldn't see. I was still trying to snap up my jeans.

“Go wake up your mother,” he said. But somehow, I never did.

The doorbell was ringing, and a man's voice was yelling through the front door. “This is Colston Fire Rescue responding to a report of a nonbreathing individual at this address.”

When I opened the door, two men rushed in, and before they got to the living room, the taller one had unpacked a portable defibrillator. “How long has he been down?”

The same digital flashed 12:44. “Seven minutes,” I said.

Something passed between the paramedics. The shorter, heavier man, who smelled like mint, spoke into a radio on his shoulder. “Dispatch, this is unit one oh six. We have a ten-fifty-four.” He rubbed silver paddles together, and the other medic turned a dial on the machine. “Clear,” he yelled.

“This is not happening,” I heard myself say. “This is not happening.” Where was Jamie? I couldn't go upstairs; I couldn't move. Will's chest rose off the floor and slapped down. He lay perfectly still. They shocked him again. He didn't move. My head felt very light, like it might float away. But my body was so heavy.

The radio crackled with static. “Unit one oh six, this is Dispatch. What's your status?”

The taller medic dropped the paddles. “Patient is still down. We're eight minutes out.” He turned to my dad. “You can follow us to the hospital. Yale is closest.”

*   *   *

The four of us got in the car. Jamie rode in the passenger seat, her hair still in its tie and her face cream only partially wiped off. “What the hell happened?” My father's face seemed huge, distorted in the rearview mirror.

Ryder spoke. “I—”

“Did everything he could,” I said, interrupting Ryder and grabbing his hand in the dark backseat. All our Thanksgivings playing touch football in the backyard came back to me. The boys were only allowed to pull ribbons from the girls' belts, but we could tackle. I'd hit Will much harder than I had in the living room. It was just a stupid little shove that shouldn't even have unbalanced him. “Ryder and I were watching TV, and Will came down to get a drink.” I swallowed. Had they noticed the TV wasn't on? “He just…” I felt like I was going to be sick. “Collapsed.” Ryder's hand felt hot in mine; he was squeezing my fingers hard.