The Tragedy Paper (26 page)

“A bunch of people ran for help,” I heard you tell Patrick. “If you move her, you could do more damage.”

She was so still. There was so much blood—bright red on white. And then I heard the best noise I have ever heard. I would have given anything for that noise. That was what I was thinking, actually:
Please let her make a noise. I will do anything if she would just make a noise or move. Anything
. I got my wish. She groaned. I could literally hear everyone breathe a sigh of relief. Patrick moved back a bit, as though he was agreeing not to injure her further. I saw you pat him on the back. And then my eyes stopped working for good.

I never lost consciousness. I don’t have the luxury of saying
The next thing I knew, I was waking up in the hospital
. Or,
The next thing I knew, it was two weeks later and we were both fine
. No. I couldn’t see anything. But I could hear everything. I’m not sure which is worse.

It seemed like forever before help came. I could hear Vanessa making tiny noises, which told me she was not dead, but the longer they went on, the more tortured they sounded.

Finally, we heard shouts and then Mr. Bowersox’s voice. That made me feel more terrible than anything. He had
been so nice to me, he had welcomed me to the Irving School, and I had done the worst thing possible. I had caused this accident. He came over to me first.

“Tim, can you hear me? Can you speak?” he asked. Until then, everyone had just kept talking at me, not really giving me a chance to respond. But he waited, and when I realized he wasn’t going to say anything else until he figured that one thing out, I answered weakly, “Yes.”

He patted me on the thigh. “Help is on the way,” he said, and got up and went to Vanessa. He did not ask if she could speak, which confirmed my fear that she was in much worse shape than I was. I heard some whispers but couldn’t make them out. In the distance, there were sirens. We were in such deep snow I had no idea how the paramedics would get to us. But it didn’t even take long. They brought boards, not gurneys, and they were surprisingly fast. Of course, I couldn’t see, but there seemed to be a lot of them. Once they came, it was hard to have any sense of what was going on with Vanessa. People swarmed around me; someone held my wrist feeling for my pulse, then lifted my eyelids; they asked me questions, which I answered as best I could.

“Can you talk?”

“Yes.”

“Does anything hurt?”

“Not really.”

“Can you see?”

“No.”

I heard them talking to each other, saying that even though they weren’t sure, I must have hit my head since I couldn’t see. I didn’t tell them—I have never told anyone—that my going blind had nothing to do with the accident. It
caused
the accident. But let me move forward, and I will get back to that in a little while.

After that, they treated me like I had a head injury. They eased me onto the board, strapped me on, and carried me out. I felt so bad. I could have walked if someone would have led me through the woods. But they never would have let me, and I didn’t want to give up my status of a person who needed help.

It took longer to get Vanessa out. She had to be stabilized, and they tried to stop the bleeding. It was coming from her head, which apparently bleeds a lot. I was put into an ambulance and driven away before she was. We were taken to the same hospital, but it took so long to get any information. Since I couldn’t see anymore, I had no idea what time of day it was, if it was dark or light out. I was completely disoriented. But it was because of my blindness that they kept me there. I didn’t hit anything, really. I was completely fine. It took a little while, but I knew that. My blindness was a long time coming, but in the end, I had caused it with my own hand. That key ring again, the silver key? It opens the medicine cabinet in Nurse Singer’s office. She had a bunch of keys in a drawer. I wasn’t sure if it would fit, but it looked like the one she used, so I slipped
it into my pocket later that day after the pain medicine had worked so well. I stick out, I’ve said that all along, but nobody ever thinks I would do anything bad. I don’t know why I never appreciated that. What a waste. It was easy to slip into her office and take one of the keys, and then later that night I went back to see if the key worked. It did. I took a bunch of pills from the bottle. I think now I might have taken them from a different bottle, I was rushing so much. I don’t know if it would have made a difference. The one I grabbed had aspirin in it. I’d been taking it every four hours for days. Sometimes I would only wait three hours between doses, and eventually, it caused internal bleeding. I figured it out from what the doctors said and the tests they did. In the end, though, it was really all their unanswered questions that clued me in. They never, ever suspected that I did this to myself. But I know it without a doubt. I haven’t told a single person besides you—and, if she listens to these CDs, Vanessa.

I was released from the hospital five days later. Vanessa was still in a medically induced coma. Her chances of making a full recovery were about fifty-fifty, depending on how the swelling in her brain went. If it started to go down, she had a great chance. If it kept swelling, well, then, she could be in big trouble. They’d had to do surgery once already to relieve some of the pressure. I was pretty sure at least some of her beautiful hair was gone. I hated the thought that now her color combination was white and white.

My mother and Sid came immediately, of course. They took the first plane they could book from Italy and got to me quickly. It wasn’t lost on me that it was right around the time that I was supposed to be visiting them in Europe. Nobody mentioned it. They were worried and horrified and sad that I had gone blind. Everyone blamed it on the accident. Even they didn’t question it. I thought for sure the school nurse would put her two cents in, suggesting that this was a problem waiting to happen, but she didn’t. Maybe she thought I had suffered enough. Or maybe she didn’t add things up. People can be pretty stupid. There is the chance she knew exactly what happened and didn’t want to be implicated, or figured there was no point to it now. I will always wonder why those keys were so accessible. Though I have a feeling they aren’t any longer.

Once it was determined that I was okay except for my blindness, we shifted gears. There were about two months of school left. We had to figure out what to do with me. I was that close to finishing high school. I was completely healthy except for my eyesight. My mom wanted me to stay with her. I had already been accepted to college, I’ve told you that, so what difference did it make? But I insisted I wanted to go back. I had to be near where Vanessa had been. I worried I would never have that chance again.

Had there ever been a blind student at the Irving School before? Mr. Bowersox assured us that there had. At some point, I was going to have to learn a whole new set of skills:
how to get around, how to read Braille, how to type without seeing the keyboard, though I was still using the old one. Once in a while I started with the wrong key and it was all gibberish. But usually whatever I wrote turned out just fine. At least I think it did.

Now I was an albino blind person coming at you with a cane and a good chance that I might bump into you. I didn’t have an ounce of caring about me anymore. I was gone. My parents and I stayed in a hotel in New York City for a few weeks; the apartment they planned to make their home when they returned from Italy was being sublet. I saw a bunch of rehab people. I know what they were doing: they wanted the time to go by so I could graduate and move forward. Nobody blamed me for anything. I just didn’t get it. They all felt sorry for me.

Kyle kept calling. He was so nice. He’s the only friend I have right now. And so when there were just two weeks of school left, I went back. Kyle agreed to help me get around. He walked me from class to class and place to place. He fetched my tray for me. All I could think about was how stupid I had been, how different things could have been.

Seeing Vanessa lying in the snow with red blood slowly overtaking the white is the last image I will ever have of her, and I have never been and will never be in her presence again. But we both know that she is okay. That her brain stopped swelling. That despite some short-term memory loss, she is her old self. I know this because Mr. Simon told me. But
she never went back. She was the senior that year who was maimed and traumatized and didn’t finish her year—the curse the long-lost jogger put on the school so many years before. It came true again. She finished her senior year over the summer, and the Irving School sent her a diploma.

She never had to write her Tragedy Paper. I asked Kyle to find that out for me, and somehow he did. I guess they figured she’d lived enough tragedy that year for any single person. Sometimes I’m surprised they didn’t cancel the assignment altogether. All those ideas of tragedy hanging over everyone’s head the whole year. But I know that isn’t the point; I’ve talked to Mr. Simon a number of times, and he stands by his senior-year curriculum as much as he ever did.

I worried about running into Patrick when I went back. I realized, though, that I wouldn’t even know if I did. I wouldn’t see him, and I couldn’t imagine he would want to talk to me. So I tried to relax. But on my third day back, something happened. I was so out of sorts, always waiting for someone to help me get around, obsessing about Vanessa and wondering, every second, how she was. I was starting to think coming back to school might have been a mistake. Why was I putting myself through it? I made a point of trying not to stay in my room all the time, but on that afternoon I was ready to give up. I meant to shut my door—I planned to just sit in my room and give in to my misery—but when I heard Patrick start to talk, I realized it was wide open. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself, so I just sat there and listened.
He was a few doors down. The sound of his voice was so startling, it was hard to believe it still existed in the world as it had become. I mean, it made sense that it was there before, but how could that carefree, selfish voice not have changed after what he had seen? After what he had a hand in causing? Well, let me tell you, it didn’t.

“Did you see that hot sophomore today at lunch?” he asked someone. I wasn’t sure who he was talking to at first.

“Which one?” It was Peter.

“The one with the long black hair,” Patrick said. “It makes me sorry I’m graduating. Maybe I still have a shot, though. There are what, ten days left of school? I’ve decided to try something different now. I’m done with blondes for a while. Maybe a brunette would do me some good.”

Peter laughed and Patrick joined in. It took me only a second to react. I didn’t even know what I was doing. I stood up, somehow made it through my door without bumping into it, and walked in the direction of their voices. They saw me. They were quiet, but I could hear them breathing. I must have looked wild—my pale skin, the blank stare in my eyes that I still can’t really imagine. I put my arms out in front of me and started shoving as hard as I could. I made contact.

“Hey,” Peter said.

I turned, and I know I was flailing my arms, desperately trying to find Patrick, to hurt him. He grabbed my hands with one of his, and I felt a strong blow to the left side of
my lower rib cage. It knocked the air out of me, but I didn’t care, I didn’t even stop. I was struggling to get out of his grasp, but suddenly he let go of my hands. I waited for another punch. The first one was starting to ache; I wondered if he broke a rib, but I still didn’t care. If anything, I liked it. I hadn’t felt anything in a while; the pain was a relief. I smacked and slapped and punched, and he just stood there. Nobody came to stop me. Actually, there could have been a crowd and I never would have known, but I don’t think there was.

“I hate you,” I spat at him. I was exhausted. I knew in that moment that I was never going to really hurt him and that he wasn’t going to hurt me again, not physically anyway.

And then, to my surprise, he leaned in. I could feel his hot breath on my ear.

“I hate you too,” he said. It was a mumble, barely audible, but I heard it.

What else was there to say? I stopped fighting and stood still as they walked away. I heard them on the stairs, their voices rising as they moved down.

“Freak,” Peter said.

“Always was, always will be,” Patrick said.

I stumbled back to my room, rubbing the pain in my side and not minding that it was getting worse by the minute. That was when I started to wonder, was this it? Had order been restored? We’ve been over it again and again, but I keep coming back to it: there was order, then chaos, and was
this the order again? And if it was, what did that mean for me? For Vanessa?

I never said another word to Patrick. Only a few kids other than Kyle bothered to talk to me. It was probably easier not to than to have to say who they were and then wait for me to remember. But you did. That last Friday. Classes had ended. I was sitting at a table in the dining hall. I would say it was my usual table in the back, but the truth is I have no idea what table it was. I heard your footsteps, and I thought they would go by, but they stopped. I waited. I figured it was Kyle with my lunch. You know what you said—that it was you, that you were sorry, that you should have stopped me somehow, that it was all you could think about. When I didn’t say anything, you touched my hand and walked away. Later, I wished I had said something. I can’t believe I was actually given the chance. That was why I worked so hard to get this to you. It saved me, talking to you. It got me through the summer. Kyle brought it to your room. Mr. Simon helped him get onto the senior floor the day before you arrived—I don’t think that had ever been done before, except maybe for the animals, since all treasures are supposed to be left on the last day of school. But Mr. Simon agreed to help—he did this for me, and maybe for you.

As far as I know, Vanessa is still at home with her parents. That’s where I sent these CDs. It was my only way of reaching her. She never responded, and I can’t imagine she ever
will. But I wonder so many things. How is she? Will she go to New York City? Do you think she has forgiven me?