Through to You (21 page)

“No, of course not.”

At that moment I look up and see Penn walking through the automatic double doors of the hospital. He takes a few steps outside and glances around, probably looking for me.

“Anna,” I say. “I'll call you right back.”

“No! You can't hang up. I'm freaking out!”

“I'll call you back in five minutes. Actually, just start heading over to my house if you want, okay? I'll meet you there.”

I hang up before she has a chance to say anything else. I'm not trying to be a bitch. It's just that Penn is standing in front of me now, and I don't want Anna to overhear whatever it is he's going to say. He has a look on his face that I've never seen before. It's not mad or angry or sad or happy or anything. It's just sort of . . . blank.

“Hey,” I say cautiously.

“Hi.” He swallows hard.

“Sorry I had to leave. It's just . . . I had an emergency.”

He nods, not asking what the emergency is or if I'm okay.

“So how did it go?” I ask.

He shrugs. “They can't help me.”

“Oh, Penn, I'm so sorry.” I move toward him and reach for his arm, but he shrugs me off.

“It's not a big deal,” he says, his voice even. “I just want to go home.”

“Yeah, of course.” I nod. “I'll take you home. Or . . . do you want to come to my house?” Anna's on her way over, but it's not like I can just leave Penn by himself. He might need me. And besides, misery loves company, right? Maybe we can all sit together and commiserate about how crappy everything feels right now.

But Penn shakes his head. “No. I don't . . .” He swallows again, like it's a big struggle to get the words out. “I think I'm just going to walk around for a while.”

“Around Boston?”

“Yeah.”

“But . . . I mean, do you want me to go with you?”

“No.”

“Penn—”

“Look, Harper, I appreciate you driving me and everything, but I just want to be alone for a while.”

He turns around and walks away.

Without kissing me.

Without saying he'll call me later.

Without even telling me how he's going to get home.

I blame her.

I know it's ridiculous and stupid and doesn't make any sense, but I blame Harper. I blame her for bringing me here, for making me take this appointment, for making me believe that maybe something could have changed for me, that I could go back to the life I had before I got hurt.

If I'd never met her, I never would have gone to the stupid appointment.

And if I'd never gone to the stupid appointment, I wouldn't have had to sit there while a doctor I'd never met before looked at my X-rays for ten minutes and then told me that there was nothing he could do for me.

It was a waste of time.

A waste of energy.

A waste of emotion.

My body felt all keyed up after I left there, like I needed to run or get to the batting cages. The problem was, I'd driven into the city with Harper, and so I needed to leave with her. But the thought of sitting in that car while she drove me home, either in tense silence or, worse, with her trying to make me feel better, filled me with anxiety.

I couldn't do it.

So I took off. And now I'm wandering around Boston trying to figure out what the hell I'm going to do. The drizzle from this morning is beginning to burn off, and even though the sun isn't out, it's starting to get hot. I take off the hoodie I'm wearing and drop it into a nearby trash can, not wanting to have to deal with carrying it around.

I walk the streets, hoping to get some energy out, but all it's doing is getting me more worked up. I grab a chicken taco and a Sprite from a Taco Bell, but after two bites and a couple of sips, I toss them out.

The streets are filled with people, all of them enjoying the fact that it's not cold or snowing or raining, which in Boston sometimes feels like a miracle. They're all smiling and laughing and shopping and eating, and they're annoying me. I start to feel like I want to blame them too for what I'm going through, even though I know it's not their fault.

Then I start to think about whose fault it really is.

The doctors.

Harper.

My dad.

Jackson.

Jackson.
He's the one who's really responsible for this. He's the one I really should be blaming. As I storm down the streets of Boston, turning this way and that, not really knowing where I'm going, I decide that this whole tack I've taken with Jackson—just shutting down and ignoring him—has got to stop.

I need to confront him.

He needs to pay.

And it needs to be now.

* * *

Of course, this whole plan is a lot easier said than done, since I have no car and I'm in the city. But now that the idea's in my head, it won't go away. I have to confront Jackson. I think about calling him and demanding that he come down here and meet me, but if I do that, I'm going to lose the element of surprise.

So I hop on the T, deciding to take it as far as I can and then walk the rest of the way to Jackson's house. The subway ride takes about an hour and a half, and by the time I emerge onto the street, the sun is out in full force. It makes me feel hot but not tired. And before I know it, I'm standing outside Jackson's house. It's a white cape with a dormer on one side, and as I stand on the porch, about to ring the bell, I think about how strange it is to be back here.

When Jackson and I used to be friends, I never would have
bothered ringing the doorbell. I would have just walked in.

I take a deep breath and then knock loudly.

I'm not in a ringing-the-doorbell kind of mood.

No one answers, so I knock again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

Finally I see the curtains by the bay window in the living room twitch, and Jackson peers out, bleary-eyed. He probably just woke up, no doubt because he was out all night partying and messing around with some girl.

I give him a friendly wave and a big fake smile.

“Jesus, Mattingly,” he says when he opens the door. “What time is it?”

“Oh, I don't know. Probably, like, noon,” I say happily, pushing by him and into the kitchen.

“Come on in,” he says, rolling his eyes and shutting the door behind me.

Suddenly I'm inexplicably starving. I open Jackson's refrigerator, nodding in satisfaction when I see that it's filled to the brim. His mom always buys the best food.

“I'm going to have a sandwich,” I announce.

Jackson looks alarmed. “Are you okay?” He peers at me. “Are you . . . you're not fucked up, are you?”

“Fucked up?”

“Yeah. On some of that shit Braden's been smoking, or maybe something worse?”

“Oh, no. I'm totally sober. I have a totally clear mind.” The first part's true. The second part I'm not so sure about, but whatever. I start pulling lunch meats out of the refrigerator and piling them on the counter. Jackson's family has good lunch meat—all natural and organic, none of those nitrites or fillers. I pull a loaf of pumpernickel bread out of the bread box and start slicing it.

“Help yourself,” Jackson says sarcastically, sitting down at his kitchen table. He yawns.

“Thanks. I think I will.” I look down at the bread, calculating in my head how much is left. “Would you like a sandwich?” I ask magnanimously.

He looks at me in disbelief. “Sure.” He shrugs. “Why the hell not. And can you make some coffee, too? I had a really hard night, and—”

I silence him with a look. “Seriously?”

He shrugs. “Hey, you're the one who showed up at my house, barging in and demanding lunch.”

“Really?” I stop with the mustard halfway to my sandwich. “Really? Because if we're going to talk about who inconvenienced who the most, I think I'm going to win that argument.”

“Fair enough.” He gets up and gets to work making coffee. We bustle around the kitchen for a few moments, not saying anything.

Finally we sit down at the table.

He puts a cup of coffee in front of me, and I put a sandwich in front of him. It's all very strangely domestic.

We sit in silence and eat.

“So I'm assuming you're here for more than Saturday breakfast,” Jackson says.

“It's lunch, and yes, I'm here for more than that.”

“Care to clue me in?”

I shrug. “Well, I was going to come here and beat the shit out of you.”

Jackson shakes his head. “I thought you got that out of your system last year.” He's talking about the fight we had after I realized I was never going to play again. I went in to clean out my locker. I hadn't planned on ever going back to the locker room, but I didn't want someone else on the team to have to gather my stuff, couldn't bear the thought of someone else having to clear out my things, all the while feeling sorry for me.

I went during a game, when I thought no one would be there. But Jackson was. He was bruised up from what had happened to him during the practice where I got hurt, and so he wasn't playing. He was sitting on the bench, taping up his ankle, and we ended up getting into it. I yelled. He yelled. I punched him. He wanted to punch me back, but he didn't. And it's a good thing too. My shoulder was still sore, and he probably would have kicked the shit out of me.

“Apparently not,” I say. This whole fake thing I had going on—coming over here, acting all cheerful, making myself a sandwich—is starting to fade. All the energy I had is dissipating, like a wave washing out to sea, leaving only raw anger in its place.

“Why did you make me that doctor's appointment?” I ask.

Jackson starts dumping sugar into his coffee. He shrugs. “Because I thought it could help.”

“Because you thought it could help, or because you felt guilty?”

Jackson shakes his head and for a second I feel like he's going to yell at me. But then he just sighs. “Yes,” he says.

“Yes?”

“Yes, Penn. Is that what you want to hear? That I feel guilty for what happened to you? That I feel responsible?”

“I don't want to hear anything. I want to hear the truth.” But it's a lie. I don't want to hear the truth. All I want to hear is the carefully constructed narrative that I've been replaying in my head for the past year. The narrative that says that Jackson did it on purpose, that he defended the plate like that just to fuck me up. That because we'd had a fight in the locker room beforehand, he did it just to be a dick.

“You don't want to hear the truth,” Jackson says. He's sitting back in his chair now, his food forgotten, his eyes cold. “You only want to hear what you want to hear.”

“That's not true. I want you to tell me the truth about what happened.”

“Jesus Christ, Penn. I have told you the truth! It was an accident. That shit happens. I'm sorry, and yes, I feel guilty. I feel guilty every fucking day, every fucking time I see you. I think about how if I'd just been one millimeter to the side, if I'd just—”

“If you just hadn't been trying to get back at me!” I yell, and stand up.

“No.” Jackson's voice gets quiet, and he looks down at his hands. “No, Penn. I didn't do it on purpose. I feel guilty because I played a part in what happened to you, yes. But I didn't do it on purpose.”

He looks back up at me and I can tell—no, I
know—
he's telling the truth. I can see it in his eyes. We've been friends since we were two. I know he's not lying. I let myself feel that for a moment—that it was an accident—but then I stop. I have to believe he did it on purpose. Otherwise it's just one of those things that happen, one of those things you have no control over.

And that's too hard.

It's too painful.

I need someone to blame.

So even though I know he's telling the truth, I shut it down. I close my feelings off, and it's the ugliest, dirtiest part of me that decides to refuse to believe him. So instead of telling him I know he's telling the truth, I say, “You're a fucking liar, Jackson. You're a liar and a coward.”

I go to leave, and I can see the anger on his face. He can't believe I showed up here to talk and now I'm calling him a liar and a coward. For a second I can't believe it either. For a second I want to take it back.

But I push that feeling away.

I make myself believe that I don't care if Jackson is pissed. In fact, I make myself believe that I like it.

Here is what happens the rest of the day:

Anna comes over. At first she is inconsolable. But then she calms down, and we're able to spend the day eating Mexican food (lunch), Chinese food (dinner), and ice cream (dessert and midnight snacks).

I text Penn. He doesn't text me back.

I text him again, saying I don't care if he doesn't want to talk, but to at least let me know he's okay. He texts back
I'm okay
and that's it.

Here is what happens the rest of the weekend:

I work on my audition piece for Ballard, trying to lose myself in the music and the dance. But it doesn't help. I can't stop thinking about Penn. For once I'm actually looking
forward to school, because it means I'm going to see him.

But on Monday morning he doesn't come to pick me up. I stand at the window, looking for his car, my stomach rolling with anxiety. I tell myself he's not blowing me off, that he could be sick or maybe having car trouble. I pull my phone out of my pocket, wondering if I should text him. I don't want to seem like a crazy stalker.

Plus, my heart is telling me what I already know. He's not hurt. He's not having car trouble. He just doesn't want to see me. He started to open up, and then he freaked out, and so now he's shutting down. It's classic Penn.

But still, I send him the text anyway.