Push Girl (18 page)

CHAPTER 16

It was amazing that Jack and Amanda still wanted to hang out with me after how awful I’d been to them. But now that our cooling-off period was over, Amanda found me during passing period the next day at school and said, “Tonight. I’m bringing over the DVD of
Pitch Perfect,
Jack’s bringing ice cream, and we’re going to work on homework and chill. Sound like a plan?”

I wanted to apologize to her face for what I’d said to her or thank her for knowing exactly what I needed, but she cut me off as soon as I opened my mouth. “I have to spend lunch in media tech, but you can iron out details with Jack, okay? See you tonight!” The tardy bell rang, cutting off any further conversation, and she rushed off, her braids flapping behind her.

Later that night, I searched through the kitchen for a snack to hold me over until Amanda and Jack came by, Logan curled up on my lap, when Dad walked into the kitchen from the garage.

“You’re home early,” I said. “It’s not even dark yet.”

“I know. Crazy, huh?” He tossed his keys on the kitchen table, and the sound made Logan lift his head and let out a small, rumbly bark. “I figured I could get the rest of my work done tomorrow, so I came home to see you.” He leaned over and gave Logan a pat, then kissed me on the cheek. He was about to straighten up when he leaned over again and wrapped his arms around my shoulders in a tight hug. “So, tell me about your day,” he said, sitting down at the kitchen table.

Dad and I talked for over an hour. I filled him in on all my classes, how life at school was going, and how I’d treated Amanda and Jack. I couldn’t think of the last time the two of us had talked like this, not even before the accident. I hated that it took me getting hurt to get him to make the effort to come home early and hang out with me, but if this was a positive side effect of my accident, I would take it.

Finally, I bit the side of my lip and mumbled, “I think I should start going to therapy.”

Dad’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “Why do you say that?”

I explained what happened with my friends and with Maria, and how I was feeling less and less like myself, like the person I was before the accident. “I don’t know.” I let out a long sigh. “I just can’t let it take everything from me, you know? I think talking to someone might help.”

Dad hugged me again. “I think that’s an excellent idea. We’ll call your doctor and get some recommendations first thing in the morning.”

And just like that, some of the hardness my heart had been carrying around softened. It was only a little bit, a small crack in the shell, but it was something.

After talking to me for a while longer, Dad went upstairs to shower, and as I cleaned up the kitchen, the front door creaked open and Jack called, “Hello!” Logan jumped off my lap, barking, and ran to the front door to fulfill his job as official greeting committee.

“Hey, guys,” I called back. “I’m in here. Come in!”

But it wasn’t both of them who showed up in the kitchen a minute later, it was only Jack, a plastic grocery store bag in his hand, Logan at his heels. “So, good news, bad news, worse news. What do you want first?”

“Uh, good news?”

He lifted the bag in the air. “I have bacon ice cream! Hooray!”

I laughed. “So, the bad news and worse news?”

“Bad news? Amanda got called in to work at the theater tonight.”

I’d been bracing myself for actual bad news, so when he told me that it would only be the two of us again, no Amanda, my shoulders relaxed and I leaned back in my chair. What was he talking about? I wouldn’t call that
bad
news.

“Why are you smiling? I haven’t even told you the worse news. She had the DVD, and I didn’t have time to grab a replacement.” He smiled. “But did I mention I have bacon ice cream?”

“Bacon ice cream trumps all,” I said. “Make yourself useful and scoop us some. I’ll figure out the movie situation.”

I left Jack in the kitchen and wheeled myself to the TV room, thinking about my own DVD collection, which was mostly dance movies, plus Pixar movies I’d seen a million times, my dad’s bloody action films, and my mom’s romantic comedies. None of these were anything I wanted to watch with Jack.

“I have nothing to watch,” I said when he came back into the room holding our two bowls. “Unless you want to watch
Up
for the millionth time.”

“Ugh,” he said. “I love that movie, but I swear, that’s what every single teacher shows on movie days. I feel like I can recite it from memory.”

I shrugged. “Well, I guess we can see what’s on TV.”

“Let’s go outside,” he said. “Let’s just eat our ice cream on the deck. Americans spend an average of, like, thirty-four hours watching TV, you know. We should get some air and stuff instead. It’s such a nice night.”

It
was
a nice night. There was a chill in the air, as there had been for the past few weeks. But it was still warm enough to be outside, even with the cool breeze. Jack grabbed blankets and covered me with one when I found the ideal spot to situate myself right next to the big deck chair, and he closed the sliding glass door before Logan could dart out into the yard.

“It’s a little chilly,” he said, handing me my bowl and getting comfy on the chair. “But, whatever. We should enjoy it while we can.”

“Exactly,” I said. “I think it’s awesome.”

We sat in silence for a minute or two, eating our ice cream, before he said, “Is everything okay, Kara? I mean, are you okay? I’ve been worried about you this past week.”

I let out a long sigh. “I guess. I don’t know. I’m just trying to figure all of this out.” I waved my hand over my legs.

“It’s okay if you don’t have everything figured out, you know. It hasn’t been that long since the accident. I know how much you like to have things in order, but I think it’s okay to take a little time to get stuff figured out. No one expects you to be perfect at all of this already.”

“Everyone keeps telling me things happen for a reason. There has to be a reason this happened to me, Jack. I can’t just lose everything and have it mean nothing.”

He reached his hand toward me, but he quickly pulled it back and dropped it on his lap. “You didn’t lose everything. You have Amanda.” He coughed. “And me.”

I looked at him, trying to figure out what was going on with him. Jack felt different today. And as someone who was a bit of a Jack Matthews expert, I couldn’t place this look on his face.

“Oh my God,” he said, snapping me out of my study of his expression. “I think it’s starting to rain.”

I turned back to the yard to see he was right. Soft rain had started to fall, and I stuck my hand out, water softly beating against my palm.

But when I turned to Jack, expecting to see him staring out at the drops falling gently from the sky, he was actually looking at me.

“What?”

He cleared his throat in that very deliberate way and shifted on the bench. “Can I tell you something? You promise you won’t get mad?”

“Um, no. I have no idea what you’re going to say, but when you lead with that, there’s about a ninety-eight percent chance that it’s going to make me mad no matter what I promise.”

He looked so uncomfortable that I thought for sure he was going to avoid looking at me. But instead of focusing his eyes on my foot or my arm or the rain spattering on the deck, he looked right into my eyes.

“It was me who made sure your name stayed on the ballot for Homecoming.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“When you were in the hospital, we were going through the list of nominees. Mrs. Mendoza was checking everyone’s grades and detentions and everything to make sure they were all qualified to be in the running. And when we got to you, everyone thought it was weird to leave you on. They all said we should ask water polo to pick another nominee. But I told them they had to leave your name on there and not let water polo pick someone else even if they wanted to.”

“I don’t get it. Why would you do that?”

He scooted his chair closer to me, and he reached over and grabbed my hand, squeezing my fingers. “Because you deserved it, Kara.”

Irritation crept into my voice. “I’m not—”

“I know what you’re going to say, but you don’t deserve it because you’re in a wheelchair. You know I don’t think about it that way. But you went through a bunch of crap, and after being in the hospital for so long, you deserved to be in a pretty dress and a crown with everyone cheering for you. But, honestly, you deserved that even before you got in your accident. You always have.”

I shook my head. “That’s sweet, Jack. It really is. But look at me. I’m not exactly Homecoming Queen material these days.”

“Stop it,” he said, his voice suddenly serious. “You look beautiful. You always do.”

“Oh, please,” I said. “Aside from the fact that I am stuck in this chair, my hair is all over the place, I have no makeup on, I look like I just rolled out of bed. Literally.” I laughed, and I looked at him, expecting him to laugh along with me. But there was no laughter on his end, just a look of serious concentration.

And before I even knew what was happening, Jack leaned in toward me, covering the short distance between us quickly, and he kissed me.

I’d forgotten how soft Jack’s lips were. How he would smile into my mouth while he kissed me, like this was the most fun he could possibly be having.

I’d forgotten how kissing him was the best kind of familiar. Like coming home.

So, before I realized what was happening, I kissed him back. My hand tangled up in the curly ends of his hair, and my fingers pushed his beanie back on his head. His hand pressed down on my shoulder, and he used it to pull himself closer to me. We kissed and kissed, and I lost myself in the pressure of his lips on mine and the feeling of his hands on my face, my shoulders, my back. His hand trailed down my arm, leaving a trail of goose bumps in its wake.

And then I couldn’t feel his hand anymore.

I pulled back from him, breaking our kiss, and saw his hand resting on my leg.

Something about the sensation of his lips still lingering on mine and the rain, falling harder now, and the sight of his hand resting on my leg, but me not being able to feel it at all—well, it all sent hot whips of panic through my body. All of a sudden I didn’t know which way was up.

“You need to go,” I said. Panic flooded me, and I was shaking.

“What?” he said, his voice full of confusion. “Why?”

I shook my head, but it only made the conflicting thoughts pinball around even faster. “We shouldn’t have done this.”

Jack drew his eyebrows together in concern. “Kara, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”

I looked at my shaky hands. “What’s wrong is that you’re only doing this because you feel sorry for me.”

“No, I—”

“And it’s not me you’re kissing, it’s the old me.” I turned my hands over in my lap, but I kept staring at them, trying to will them to be still. I couldn’t look up. I couldn’t look at him. “But that Kara doesn’t exist anymore, okay? She’s gone. So if you have it in your head that I’m that girl anymore, if you’re doing this because you never moved on when we broke up before, then you need to go. Right now.”

“What are you even talking about?”

“My leg,” I said. Tears sprang to my eyes, and I swallowed hard to keep them from falling. “You had your hand on my leg. Like I could feel you touching me or something.”

“I’m sorry if that bothered you,” he said. He rose from the bench and moved right in front of me, squatting down so our heads were on the same level. “But, Kara, I love your legs. I love your legs because they’re part of you.”

“Don’t say that.” I shook my head. “You don’t have to say that.”

“I’m saying it because it’s the truth. I never stopped being in love with you, Kara. I was in love with you the day you broke up with me, and I was in love with you the day of your accident, and I was in love with you the day you woke up in the hospital. Nothing has changed that. Not your legs, not your chair, nothing.”

I didn’t realize until that moment how much I’d been aching to hear these words from someone. My mom, Curt, anyone. But I also didn’t realize that I already knew that Jack felt this way, and that he didn’t even need to say it, because he’d been showing me since the second I woke up in the hospital. Jack supported me and lifted me up and never once treated me like I was anything but myself. He’d been here all along, loving me and seeing me as Kara and not Wheelchair Girl this whole time, and I’d been so caught up in my own drama, I hadn’t even noticed.

And I hadn’t noticed how much I felt the exact same way.

But now I noticed. And now I leaned forward and kissed him, with the rain falling on us from all sides. And he leaned forward, hands on my knees, and kissed me back.

CHAPTER 17

“Are you ready to do this?”

On Friday morning, Jack, Amanda, and I headed into school with a plan. Jack ended up staying at my house the night before until my dad finally kicked him out at close to midnight. And we were only kissing for about half the time. Maybe 65 percent. The rest of the time was spent plotting, Internet searching, and filling in Amanda on the plan via text while she sold popcorn and Sour Patch Kids at the theater.

“I’m ready.” I sat up as straight as possible in my chair. “Let’s do this.”

The three of us maneuvered through the morning campus crowds, much more confident than the first time we did this two weeks prior. So much had changed in those two weeks, and I had changed, too. I could tell by the way I held myself in my chair, posture straight, shoulders back, and the way I was looking around me as I wheeled through the school, not down at the ground. Not trying to disappear.

Trying to be seen.

“Here we are,” Jack said, pulling open the door of the activities office.

“I’m ready.” Amanda steadied her video camera and clicked it on. “Recording.”

“Okay, here we go.” And I wheeled myself into the office, where Mrs. Mendoza was talking to another student behind the desk.

“Good morning, Kara. Jack.” She wrinkled her nose in confusion when she saw Amanda and her camera, but we didn’t give her a chance to ask any questions.