Push (29 page)

When the cruiser turns into my driveway, I’m not surprised. When the two police officers get out and walk to my front porch, settling their hats on their heads as they move, I’m not surprised.

And when I open the door and they start to speak, I’m not surprised.

I’m numb.

I don’t hear their words. They run together into a blur of sound.

I struggle to focus.

I pull the door wide as they step inside, removing their hats. Why did they put them on just to take them off again? It feels like such an important question.

“No shoes in the house,” I mumble.

I think they ask me my name, or maybe who I am. “Miki,” I say. “I’m Miki Jones.”

One of them asks me something else. I blink. Stare at them. He asks again. They want to know who else was in the car. She didn’t have ID. Do I know who she is?

“She didn’t need her wallet because she was just coming here,” I say. “She didn’t need money or anything. She didn’t want to go to the dance.”

The officer nods like I’m making perfect sense, but I think that maybe I’m not.

“Can you tell me her name?”

“Carly Conner.” I pause and stare at them and they stare back at me like they want something more. I rattle off her home phone number and address because that’s all I can think to do.

They keep talking. I stop listening. Not on purpose. I just . . . shut off.

Then one word jumps out at me:
hospital.
I nod. Out of habit, I pull a coat out of the front closet, get my key, lock the door.

But I’m not here.

I’m not living this moment.

It’s just a shell of me walking to the police car, staring straight ahead, feeling nothing. Nothing at all.

I sit in the waiting room, my forearms on my thighs, my head hanging down. There’s a TV in the corner, set to some local news show, droning softly. I can’t hear the words. I don’t care about the words.

I’m alone. Just me and my thoughts.

The two officers were in the hall until a few minutes ago. I heard little snippets of their conversation.

. . . head-on collision . . .

. . . blood-alcohol level point one eight . . .

. . . more than twice legal limit . . .

They’ve left. I don’t know when. I don’t even know how long I’ve been here.

I don’t know how bad things are. I don’t know anything about Dad or Carly other than they were both alive when they were brought in. I can only pray that’s still the case now.

When we got here, the officers spoke to someone, a woman, maybe a nurse. She pointed us here. They deposited me in a chair and went out in the hall.

I haven’t seen or heard from anyone since.

Not a nurse or a doctor. I want to go try to find someone to talk to, but I’m afraid to leave this spot in case someone comes to talk to me.

Burying my face in my hands, I try to make sense of things. How can it be that Carly survived a Drau attack only to be in a car crash a few hours later?

How could that happen?

It doesn’t make sense. Nothing makes sense.

I need it to make sense.

There’s a commotion in the hall. I lift my head. Carly’s parents come into the room, clutching each other’s hands, clinging to each other. They look old. Really old. As if twenty years have passed instead of the handful of hours since I last saw Mrs. Conner.

I cringe inside.

This is my fault. I could have stopped it.

If I’d driven Carly myself.

If I’d made her call her mom for a ride.

If I’d made her sleep over.

If I’d checked to see if Dad had been drinking.

He said he wouldn’t drink and drive. Promised me. I believed him. I really believed him.

This is on me and I’m never going to be able to forgive myself.

I force myself to my feet, meeting Mrs. Conner’s gaze, expecting . . . I don’t know what. That she’ll scream at me? Hit me? Lose it totally.

She lunges forward. Grabs me. Drags me against her chest, her whole body trembling as she hugs me tight. “They’ll be okay,” she whispers. “We have to believe that. They’ll be okay.” Then she starts sobbing, holding me and sobbing, and all I can do is stand there and stare over her shoulder at the poster for flu vaccines that’s on the wall, because if I do anything else, I’m going to burst into a million tiny specks of nothing.

Pulling back, she studies my face. She’s talking, but I can’t hear what she’s saying. My ears buzz. My head feels like it’s going to explode. For a second, I’m terrified that I’m getting pulled. Then I realize it’s my anxiety taking over my senses. I’m just a bundle of raw nerves.

“What do you know?” she asks. I get that more from focusing on her lips than actually hearing the words.

What do I know? Not much.

“Did you talk to the police?” I ask. Silly question. Of course they talked to the police. How else would they have known to come here?

Mrs. Conner nods. “They phoned us as soon as you gave them Carly’s name. Have you seen a doctor? A nurse? Has anyone said anything?”

I shake my head.

“Did they tell you anything?” I ask.

“Not much at all. A nurse brought us here and they said someone would speak with us as soon as possible. She said Carly’s being sent for a CT scan and it could take a few hours for the results.”

“And an MRI,” Mr. Conner says, his voice gravelly and rough. “They told you nothing about your dad?”

How can he sound so kind? So concerned? Carly’s here. My dad was driving. I don’t know any details of the accident. If the police said, I don’t remember. All I know is what I overheard . . . that alcohol was involved. But here’s Mr. Conner, being so kind.

“Just that he’s alive. And doctors are with him.” I try to remember anything else the nurse said. “That he has two IVs and they need to do tests.”

With her arm around my shoulder, Mrs. Conner steers us both to the chairs opposite the TV. She keeps one arm around me and reaches her other hand across to hold my hand.

“I yelled at her,” she says.

It’s my turn to say, “She’ll be okay,” mostly because I have nothing else I
can
say.

Carly’s dad shoves his hand in his pocket and jiggles his change. Then he takes his hand out, stalks into the hall, stalks back in, jiggles his change some more.

“Coffee,” Carly’s mom says. Her husband stops pacing and looks at her. “I think we could all use some coffee.”

He nods, his face grim, and heads into the hall. “I’ll see if I can get any more information out of them.”

“He needs something to do,” she says once he’s gone.

So do I. I need to run. Or hit something. I need to make this better. Change it. Fix it.

And I can’t.

So I just sit beside Carly’s mom and stare at the fluvaccine poster.

“HEY.”

I open my eyes, disoriented and achy. My neck’s twisted to one side, my shoulder pinched. I sit up, rubbing the ache, trying to figure out where I am.

Then it all comes back to me like sewage spewing from a drain. The police. The hospital. I fell asleep in the waiting-room chair. I don’t even get how that’s possible with how wired I am by worry and strain.

Jackson slouches into the chair next to me and takes my hand.

I shove my hair out of my face. “What are you doing here?” That didn’t come out the way I meant it to. I want to add,
Thank you for being here. I need you.
The words get stuck inside me.

“Sitting.” He squeezes my fingers a little. “In a chair.”

“Not in a tree.”

“Maybe later.”

“How did you know?” I whisper.
How did you know I needed you? How did you know to come here?

“Luka came to my place after we dropped you off. We hung out. Played a few games. I was driving him home and we saw a bunch of police cruisers detouring traffic. Luka recognized your dad’s car.” He exhales, a slow, controlled movement, and his fingers tighten on mine. “I wanted to come straight here, but Luka’s dad called and said he needed him home to stay with his sister.” He pauses. “The rest of the way to Luka’s, I kept thinking it was you in that car.”

“No, not me,” I whisper. My dad. Carly. “Did you see Carly’s parents?”

“Yeah. Her dad’s pacing the hall. Her mom’s trying to get him to stop.”

“Did you talk to them?”

“Mrs. Conner said they’re still doing tests.” He takes a slow breath, like he isn’t sure if he should say more.

“Tell me.”

“Carly was unconscious when they brought her in. She hasn’t woken up. Mrs. Conner said she has some broken bones but she didn’t say which ones and I didn’t push.”

I can’t speak. I can’t breathe. I taste salt on my tongue and it takes a ridiculously long time for me to realize I’m tasting my own tears. “Daddy?” I rasp.

“They told Mrs. Conner they were taking him to surgery.” I clutch his hand tighter. He glances at our joined hands and continues, “She said he has a ruptured spleen.” He leans over and presses his lips to my forehead. “You can live without a spleen, Miki. Live a perfectly normal life.”

“How do you know?” I whisper.

“This guy I knew in Texas racked up his bike. They had to take out his spleen. He walked away with a big scar on his left side and a warning not to play contact sports.” He bumps me lightly with his shoulder. “That’ll be okay with your dad. Fishing isn’t a contact sport.”

I try to offer a watery smile, but I can’t. I’m fresh out of smiles.

“So it’s just his spleen? That’s all?”

“I don’t know. That’s all Mrs. Conner told me. That might be all they told her.” He shifts in his seat, angling his body; then he draws me against his chest, my head lolling on his shoulder. “I’m sorry I woke you,” he says. “I just wanted you to know I’m here. Try to sleep. I’ll wake you if anyone comes.”

Tears clog my throat. He held me like this in the caves, ordering me to sleep while he watched over me.

“Thank you,” I say. “Thank you for being here.”

“I’ll always be here, Miki.”

My heart clenches. “Don’t say that,” I say, my tone fierce. “Don’t make a promise you might not keep.”
Everyone leaves.
“It’s enough that you’re here right now. This moment. You taught me that.”

And I can’t think beyond this moment, because what the moments to come might hold is terrifying and dark and horrible.

We’re both quiet for a bit.

I keep thinking of Carly, lying on the floor of the school basement, covered in blood. Like a portent of what was to come.

“It doesn’t make sense,” I say. “How could she survive the Drau, and then d—” I can’t say it. Can’t say the word. Like saying it might make it real.

“She isn’t dead, Miki. She’s still alive. Your dad’s still alive. Hold on to that. Hold on tight.”

I push off Jackson’s chest and twist in my seat so I’m looking at him. In this second, I hate his dark glasses. I desperately need to see his eyes, to know what he’s thinking when I say what I have to say. But he can’t take them off—not here, where someone might walk in any second.

Maybe I shouldn’t tell him. Maybe if I keep it a secret inside it won’t be true. But it’s already true. That’s why we’re here, in this waiting room with its brown, cloth chairs and scratched coffee table and flu-vaccine posters on the walls.

“My dad . . .” I say. “I heard the police out in the hall . . . they were talking about blood-alcohol level.” I jump up and just stand there, wanting to run far away, but having nowhere to run to. And knowing that no matter how far I run, this will still be real.

I start shaking and I can’t seem to stop. Jackson grabs me, pulls me onto his lap, and wraps his arms tight around me.

“It’s my fault,” I say, turning my face into the curve of his neck, clinging to him because if I let go I’ll be swept away by the raging current. “I should have checked if he’d been drinking. Should have driven Carly myself. Should have never fought with you because then you would have been there, you would have been driving her home, you—”

“Would have been the one lying in the hospital right now,” Jackson cuts me off.

I rear back and stare at him. “What?”

He cups my cheeks. “Miki, I don’t know what you’re thinking, but if you think the cops were talking about your dad, you’re wrong. It’s the driver that hit him who blew something like point one eight. He was on the wrong side of the road. Hit your dad head-on.”

“What?” I ask again, parroting myself.

“Your dad isn’t at fault. They were hit by a drunk driver. That’s why I said if I’d been driving Carly home at exactly that second, through that same intersection, I would have been the one the guy hit. I’d be the one in surgery instead of your dad.”

I stare at him, uncomprehending, and then understanding hits like a wave, crashing over me, dragging me under.

My dad wasn’t the one who was drinking.

I have a flashback of Carly when we were maybe ten, standing with her hands on her hips in my kitchen, laughing and pointing at me.
When you assume it makes an ass of
u
and me.

I jump to my feet and back away.

The sounds from the hall—conversations, beeping, the hiss of an automatic door opening—expand and echo, too loud, like a power sander in my head. I clap my hands over my ears. I can’t breathe. I can’t think. The air rasps my lungs like shards of glass.

The brown chairs turn bronze and glow too bright.

The red type on the posters on the walls turns to bloody claws, reaching for me.

Colors too bright. Sounds too loud.

The antiseptic hospital smell burns my nose.

No. Not now. It can’t be now.

Jackson gets to his feet, so slow.

“Miki!”

My name’s dragged out, the syllables pulled like taffy.

The world tips and tilts.

Jackson leaps forward, grabs my hand.

And we’re tumbling, tumbling, falling through nothing.

We respawn in a room with no floor, no walls, no ceiling. I mean, I know they’re here—I can feel the floor under my feet and when I stretch out a hand, I can feel the smooth, cool wall—but I can’t see them. Everything is just a bright, blinding white.

This isn’t the lobby.

Were we pulled directly on a mission?