Second to No One (10 page)

We flew out of the chicken room and down the stairs faster than we thought possible. By the time we got outside, the rest of the group was already piled into Bryce’s car, the engine roared, and the tires shrilled against the pavement. Before Trace and I could get in his Explorer, they were down one of the side roads that led into Highlands. Trace and I leaped into his car, and he stepped on the gas and sped as fast as he could to catch up with Bryce.

I felt my back jean pockets lift off the leather upholstery as the seat belt tightened and dug into my lap. The path that Bryce was leading us down was an unpaved dirt road with rocks and divots the size of small volcanoes. Bryce was able to weave in and out of them with his slick, tiny car, but Trace was having to hit them dead on. We were losing ground fast. When I finally caught hold of my breath and the handle on the passenger side door, I allowed myself to open my eyes and look in the rearview mirror. The cops weren’t completely visible, but red, blue, and white lights flashed through the trees behind us. They were getting closer.

Trace’s knuckles were white as he gripped the steering wheel in front of him. “I never should have brought you out here.” His words were soft but intense.

The hovering pines on either side of the road were a blur of dark space, and it was hard to tell where the road turned or descended or even ended. We hit another big dirt mound, and we bounced off our seats as the Explorer slammed against the hard road. Once all four tires were back on the ground, Trace slammed on the gas, but the damage had already been done. The cops were too close now. If he kept driving, it would be considered a police chase. He had no choice but to stop.

Trace leaned his head back against the head rest in defeat as he shifted into a lower gear and continued to step on the brake. We both fell silent as we accepted our fate. The cops would see the open door to the house. They would know we had been there. We were all going to be hit with a fine for trespassing or, worse, breaking and entering.

The car was slowing down, but it wasn’t going slow enough, and in an instant, when we least expected it, the front left tire hit an object—a rock or a broken tree branch, it was hard to tell—and with that, Trace’s car flew out of balance. The car jolted upward then sideways as Trace tried to regain control of the steering wheel.

I braced myself against my chair and the door as gravity pulled us forward against our seatbelts. Trace held onto the wheel as though he were trying to control a bucking bronco. But as the tires of his Explorer hit the numberless divots and holes in the road, the steering wheel took on a mind of its own. I could feel when the tires were no longer on the road. I heard a million pieces of shattered glass being thrown around my head, and then suddenly, I felt the ground next to me. Much, much closer to my ear than a cold dirt road should ever be to anyone’s ear.

The next thing I knew I was hanging upside down. I didn’t feel any pain, and the world around me was filled with silence. The only sound I could hear was the sound of something dripping into a puddle of water. Until I realized that the liquid was coming from my head and the puddle below me was a puddle of blood.

Chapter 8

W
hen I came to, I
felt an overwhelming pressure against my head and a stabbing pain in my chest. I tried to move, but it was like trying to swim in a pool of cement. Even though my eyes were still closed, I began to become more aware of my surroundings. I was lying on a bed. But not my bed. It was harder, and the sheets were stiff and cold, and I was propped up in an unnatural way. It smelled like a hospital.
Th
at’s right
, I recalled,
I was at
Drake’s peak tonight
. I remembered now, we were all talking in that big dusty room, and then Trace and I—oh no—Trace and I went to the chicken room. And then what happened? I remembered hearing sirens, and I remembered seeing the lights in the trees behind us, and then I remembered the rest.

“Mmm,” I groaned, and I felt a tremendous amount of relief that I could. I squirmed slightly and then realized that someone was holding my hand.
Oh no, please don’t be my mom.
Please don’t be my m
om!
The hand that gripped mine was soft and warm, and I found myself fantasizing that it was Jess. That he had somehow miraculously found out about the accident and was there at my side, holding and comforting me. I wished it so hard that when the person holding my hand squeezed it and called for the nurse, I could have sworn it even sounded like him. Whoever it was had the same concern in his voice that Jess always had when I was hurt or upset. When the nurse finally came in, I heard him—whoever he was—say, “She just moved, I think she’s waking up.” Even his breath on my face smelled exactly like the cool mint gum that Jess always chewed. The nurse fiddled with something near my head, and before I knew it, I was blinking and coughing and the pain in my chest intensified.

When I settled back against my pillow, I was finally able to focus in on the room around me. The first person I saw was Trace sitting on a couch near a window, his head between his hands. The next person I saw made me blink once and then again just to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating. It
was
Jess, and he was holding my hand against his closed mouth and watching me with sad, distant eyes.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, silently praying that I wasn’t delusional.

Jess allowed a faint smile to move at his lips. “You were in an accident. But you’re going to be okay.”

“How did you know?”

“I called him.” Trace’s voice was weak and filled with shame. “The cops couldn’t get ahold of your parents. I didn’t know who else to call. I found his number in your cell phone.”

“They couldn’t find my parents?” I only looked to Jess for an answer.

He shook his head. “I went over there after Trace called and tried ringing the doorbell, but no one answered. But then my mom called the hospital up in Sylva, and they’re there. I guess your dad was having a hard time breathing, and they’re doing some tests.”

“Is he okay? What did they say about me and the accident?” I had so many questions I could barely think straight.

“I think he’s okay,” Jess said calmly. “But they don’t know about you yet. They weren’t available for my mom to talk to, so she left a message for them to call her.”

I tried taking in a sigh of relief, but the pain was unbearable. “What’s going on with my chest?”

Jess lightly swept his hand over my hair, which I loved and hated at the same time. But I was in too much pain at the minute to worry about my conflicting emotions, so I defaulted to soaking in every minute I felt his skin against mine. “You bruised your ribs,” he said gently. “But they don’t think anything is broken. You’re really lucky.”

With Jess’s hand in my hair, I became aware of a bandage tied snuggly around my head. “And my head? I remember a lot of blood.”

Trace answered this time. “You had a pretty good gash, but they stitched you up.”

“You’re head went through the passenger side window.” Jess’s eyes drifted angrily toward Trace. “Things could have been a lot worse.”

The nurse came back into the room with a doctor following closely behind. They retold me about my bruised ribs and my stitched-up head, then told me I could go home.

“Go home?” Jess sounded upset. “She can barely
move
.”

“Look,” the nurse said boldly, “we have a lot of people coming in tonight, and not a lot of rooms. We can’t keep her in here for a couple of bruised ribs and some stitches.”

“But she could have a concussion,” he demanded. “Someone should keep an eye on her.”

“We don’t hospitalize people for
possibl
e
concussions,” the nurse snapped. “If you’re so worried about her, you keep an eye on her and bring her in if she is showing any signs of serious problems.”

I felt like an intruder, like a fake. There were other people who needed my room a lot more than I did. “It’s okay, Jess,” I said, doing my best to sit up. “I’d rather be at home anyway.”

“But she was unconscious.” Jess continued, “Couldn’t she slip into a coma or something?”

The doctor who had been quiet during the argument stepped close to my bed, “We’ve been observing her for a few hours now. She shows no signs of abnormal brain activity.” He gently looked at Jess. “You can wake her up every hour or two through the night if you’re really concerned. But she should be just fine.”

A half hour later, Trace pushed me out the door in a wheel chair while Jess ran to get his car and pulled it around. As they were helping me in the car, Trace’s parents showed up all stressed and worried and eventually irate. Then they escorted him away. I felt sorry for him, but not as sorry as I was going to feel for myself the second my parents found out what had happened.

Jess and I drove to my house in a strange silence. Things had been pretty normal between us at the hospital. I guess with all the pain, I had forgotten to be mad at him. But now that we were alone together, in the car, I wasn’t exactly sure how to act around him. I didn’t want to be mad at him anymore. It was taking way more energy than I had to hold a grudge against him. But I couldn’t act normal either. Somehow it just wasn’t possible. When we got to my house, he helped me out of the car and through my front door. Sure enough, the house was empty and dark, and I thought about my parents forty minutes away in Sylva getting tests done and having no idea that I was just in a car accident. “Thanks for the ride and for everything,” I said to Jess with what little energy was left in me. “I’m sorry I interrupted your date.”

“It wasn’t really a date,” Jess said. “Cole likes that girl Gina, and he begged me to go along.”

I looked at the clock. It was almost four in the morning. “Well, thanks again, um…” I hesitated with what else to say. “I guess I’ll talk to you later.”

Jess looked at me strangely. “I’m not leaving.” He seemed hurt that I actually thought that he would. “The nurse told me to check on you every couple hours to make sure you don’t have a concussion. I need to stay.”

I could have cried at the thought of him staying with me all night. I wanted so badly to be able to step toward him and let him hold me and take away all the pain and resentment of the night. A year ago,
before
the kiss, I would have been able to. Back then, a hug didn’t mean anything. Back then, it was just a hug. But now,
post
kiss, a hug meant so much more. A hug meant that I still wanted him even though he didn’t want me back.

“Okay.” I stepped toward the kitchen, pretending not to care either way. “Are you hungry? It’s almost morning. Do you want breakfast?”

Jess smiled and reached out for my hand. I let him lead me around the couch until we were sitting close to each other on one end. “It’s still the middle of the night, and you need to rest.” He wrapped his arm around me, and my head naturally fell against his chest. I loved it. I loved every minute of it. I loved feeling his heartbeat against my cheek. I loved feeling his fingers softly caress my neck. I loved that no one else existed in the world beyond the two of us at that moment, and I found myself forgetting all about the past month. All about the weirdness and the heartache and my pride. I allowed myself to melt into him and pretend that none of it had ever happened.

I hesitated to speak, afraid that words might ruin the moment, but then I found myself saying, “I have something to tell you, but you can’t laugh.”

I felt his chest press against my cheek with a puff of soft laughter. “Okay.”

“I haven’t even told you what it is, and you’re already laughing.”

“Sorry,” he cleared his throat. “I’ll be serious.”

“Tonight at the peak,” I started, “we were all sitting around talking and somehow we got on the subject of,” I paused a moment. Did I really want to talk about this with Jess?

“It’s okay.” He shifted uncomfortably. “I think I know.”

“How would you know?”

“Because Kit Walker was there, and I’ve been around Kit Walker enough to know that he has one thing on his mind.”

“Don’t most guys have that thing on their mind?”

Jess ignored my question. “So what happened?”

“Kit told us it’s number one on his list of things to do before he dies,” I started.

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

“Then everyone started talking about how natural it is. Drew wants to wait until she’s ready, but the way she said it, I think she means kind of soon. And Kit says you should do it a lot of times with a lot of people so you’ll know if you and your wife are compatible. And Trace agrees, but he says he won’t cheat on his wife even though I think Kit will.” I finally took a breath. “It was really confusing.”

“What’s so confusing about it? They’re just a bunch of idiots.”

I looked Jess in the eyes. “You don’t agree with them?”

“What, that you need to do it with a bunch of people in order to know if you’ll love your wife? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“It kind of makes sense,” I rebutted, “I mean, how else would you know?”

“Do you have to eat at every pizza joint in North Carolina to know that Lucy’s Pizza is the best?”

“Well, no. But if it was the only one I had ever tried, then maybe I would be missing out on something better.”

“Okay, forget the pizza analogy. I’m just saying that it’s supposed to be special. It’s supposed to be saved for the person you marry.”

“You know you sound like a nun, right? Like a little old lady nun that was born in the thirties and lives in Switzerland.”

“Nuns are smart ladies.”

“Nuns look like penguins.”

Jess breathed a heavy sigh. “That’s okay. You don’t have to agree with everything that I do. Just promise you’ll be careful.”

“Don’t worry.” I nudged him playfully in the stomach. “I’m not going to run off and get pregnant tomorrow.”

“I’m serious, Gemma.”

“I know.” And I was serious too. As much fun as it was to joke about it with Jess, I actually hated the topic altogether. I didn’t want to think about Drew giving herself up so soon and so easily. I didn’t want to have to think about dating guys over the next few years who would actually expect that of me. But Jess changed the subject to the lame nurse at the hospital, which led us to talking about broken bones and blood and the most disgusting episode of ER we had ever seen, and somewhere between my secret crush on George Clooney and his secret thoughts about maybe being a doctor someday, I grabbed the blanket off the back of the couch and draped it over us. Eventually we began to drift to sleep, Jess with his head resting on the back of the couch and me curled into a ball under his arm. It was the most comfortable sleep I’d ever had.