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  Finally Dad takes a big breath, and it whistles out of him again. “Come on, Luke. Cydni. Janet. You sure, baby girl? This is what you really want?”

  I pull up my sheet. “Uh huh. I need this. Please, Dad? Just a few minutes.”

  He nods to the door, and, miraculously, they all follow him out of the room. Even my mom goes, although she looks at me, a question on her face. If she suspects anything, she doesn’t say so and leaves. The whispers and footsteps start and stop but eventually diminish.

  It’s just me and Haddings.

  CHAPTER 44

  Haddings

  6:33 pm

  Sarah looks up at me. “Is your eye okay?”

  “Doesn’t matter.” I blot my face on my sleeve.

  “Here.” She presses one of her cold packs into my hand. “Put that on your eye.”

  I shake my head. The ice clinks in the quiet.

  Finally, Sarah speaks up. “I told you, you should wait to come back.”

  “No, it was right to face them.”

  “It wouldn’t have been so bad if you had waited. They would have had time to cool off,” she says.

  I shrug.

  She shakes her head. “Well, since you’re here, maybe you could help me.”

  “Anything,” I answer.

  “I didn’t want everyone here, but I don’t want to be alone, either. I need to look in the mirror — ​if you could stay with me for a minute.”

  I startle at her words. “Really?” I ask. “You sure you don’t want me to call your mom back?”

  She rolls her lips inward. “No.”

  CHAPTER 45

  Sarah

  6:35 pm

  “I have to see sometime. There’s going to be a mirror somewhere, and I’d rather look on purpose than be caught by surprise.”

  “Sounds smart,” he agrees. “And, it’s the least I can do.” He sets the cold pack down on my tray.

  “Yeah.” A little payback. “Would you shut the door, if you don’t mind being alone for a minute?”

  “It seems okay, this one time; don’t you think?” Closing the door, he smiles sadly, then walks over and moves the flower bouquets aside. “Ready?”

  “Yes.”

  He parts the balloons, and I press the button, tilting the bed up higher, and look into the mirror. My nightmare.

  “Uhhhhhhh!” I can’t move, blink, or speak. I stare, until the shock lets go of its hold. I pull my pillow to my mouth and wail. From the bottom of my belly, I cry, filling the room with my muted horror.

  Who am I without half of my hair, with a mangled, puffed face? Groans glump out of me. I claw my blanket. “I’m horribly ugly!” And all these people have been looking at me? How can they stand it? Stand it enough to help me? How in the world can they still love me? “I’m so ugly!”

  “No, no, Sarah,” Haddings argues.

  “Why? Why did you hit me with your car? Why, Haddings?” I rock and sob.

  Looking at me through the mirror, he cries silently.

  Reality slips. I raise my hands to claw at my head. I want the stitches out! Right now.

  Haddings lets go of the balloons, which bob over to the window. He jumps to my side. Clamping my wrists, he holds my arms down beside my hip. I writhe and buck against him.

  “Stop, Sarah,” he pleads. “Stop it!”

  My agony bursts from my soul in gapping breaths.

  “Oh, Sarah!” His tears drip onto the sheet. “I’m so sorry!

  I can’t. I can’t fight him. I give one last jolt and collapse, gasping, riding the pain.

  My head threatens to pop at the seam. I rock the pain, rock it until the beat slows. The pulsing waves crash, curl smaller to a seven on the pain scale. My body jerks on its own.

  Haddings finally loosens his grip but stays beside me. When I look again, the mirror shows my fat face, smeared with ointment, tears, and snot.

  Despite the extra pain, I roll into the pillowcase and curl into a circle on my side. “I’m hideous.”

  His soft words slide over my shoulder and fall into my ear. “No, I am.”

  6:46 pm

  I eventually sit quietly and stare at myself in the mirror. Haddings wets the washcloth and tenderly blots my face, dabbing the blood seeping from the incision. He pulls my blanket straight.

  “How can you look at me?” I ask.

  He dries my eyes. “It’s only hard knowing I’m the one who made you look this way.”

  When he perches beside me on the bed, I rest my ear gently against his arm. We sit silently while I examine every inch of my face. Only our jerky breath from crying breaks the quiet.

  The noise of their fight tumbles down the hallway into our silence. Haddings jumps off the bed and opens the door. Their voices grow louder. “We all know it’s his fault, Dad, but what about me?” Luke asks. “I should have given her a ride. If I had hurried, she wouldn’t have been crossing the street and been hit! It’s my fault she looks like this!”

  My dad cuts him off. “No! I could have driven her! If I had focused on her instead of on my own breakfast.”

  Mom starts in. “No! I’m her mother! It’s my responsibility to protect Sarah.”

  And finally Cydni’s voice spins above everyone’s. “Why wasn’t it me who got hit?”

  A nurse routes them all into my room. She tugs her printed cap straight. “Please, please!” she says with a Jamaican accent, “you are disturbing the other patients. Sarah, are you all right? Do you need everyone to leave?”

  “I’m fine,” I insist.

  The nurse puts her fists on her hips. “You’ve all been warned.” She gives them the evil eye and turns on her heel. “Warned, mind you,” she says over her shoulder.

  Mom notices the uncovered mirror. “Sarah?”

  “It’s okay.” I rub my palms on my blanket. “You can all stop pretending. I know how horrific I look.” I let out a puff of air. “Worse than Luke said.”

  “Sarah, no — ”

  I interrupt my mom. “I saw. Stop already.” She rolls her lips. I take a giant, cleansing breath. “And you all can stop the drama.” I slowly lift my eyes to Haddings. “It was just an accident.”

  At once, they apologize on top of each other. “I’m so sorry, honey,” says Mom.

  Cydni apologizes. “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry, baby girl,” Dad adds.

  “Sorry, Sares,” says Luke.

  Haddings finishes it off. “No, I’m sorry, everyone.”

  Dottie sticks her head into the room. “There you are, beautiful! I wanted to stop on in before my shift starts and check on you.”

  “Hi,” I say.

  Haddings blows his nose and wipes his face.

  “It looks like you could use some ice.” Dottie pulls a fresh cold pack from a tray in the hall and hands it to Haddings. “Put it on your eye now.” He does. “Hey,” she greets everyone lined up against the wall like they are facing a firing squad.

  “Hey,” they collectively repeat.

  Did Dottie hear them yelling at each other? Or me freaking earlier with Haddings? Wait. Did she call me beautiful?

  “Now look’a there,” she says, filling my cup with water. “Those fluids from your surgery are coming down wonderfully.” I pull in a long drink through the straw, and then Dottie sets the cup on my tray. “Boy, it does my heart good to see you healing so quickly. You definitely are on the mend, young lady. Mm-hmm. Just a little bleeding there, I see.”

  She tugs the washcloth from Haddings’ fist and drops it in the laundry bin. With gauze, Dottie dabs the heat from my face. “There you go.” She rinses a fresh cloth and drapes it on my neck. Crossing her arms over her broad belly, she says, “Pretty as a picture, Sarah. Y’all know, they say after it’s been shaved, hair grows in thicker than before. Don’t ’cha?”

  “I’ve heard,” I manage to answer. “But I can see the mirror, so I know what I look like, Dottie.”

  She holds my gaze. “What I see is your spirit, young lady. Listen here.” Sh
e ticks off the points on her thick fingers. “It’s not full of self-pity. It’s not brewing anger over how this all happened. It may be mourning, but that’s healthy. It’s trying to rest, making sure you eat, and loving these people gathered around you.” She takes my finger and checks my oxygen. “You can’t imagine what I most often see in tragedies like these. You are showing a large measure of grace, m’dear.”

  I blush. Mom and Dottie meant on the inside. I have felt ugly there, too, but listening to her, I can see there is a measure of grace I didn’t notice. Grace I never even thought to be thankful for. Just the fact I can be around Haddings is something, right?

  Dottie grins at my family and friends. “Isn’t it nice to have such kind people around you who absolutely love each other and you?”

  Haddings catches my eye.

  Dottie goes on. “Mm hmm. It truly makes all the difference in a recovery.”

  Mom picks her chipped nail polish. Dad rubs his nose. Luke cracks his knuckles. Cydni redoes her pony knot, and Haddings is looking at Dottie like she has every answer there is.

  She flips through my chart. “And look’a there. You are going home sooner than expected! Blessings are always tucked inside difficulties.”

  “What?” I ask.

  “Oh, certainly.” She pries the blanket from my grip. One big flap and the Kentlake hawk floats gently down over me. “It’s like that tough, leathery pomegranate I bought yesterday,” she says. “Inside, it was full of glistening, sweet red seeds. Well, then.” She rocks in her orange clogs. “I need to skedaddle. Just wanted to stop in and wish you well. You take good care of each other now.”

  I smile. Mom and Dad manage a thanks and goodbye, then Dottie’s out the door.

  Seeds. I’m surrounded by people who love me even when I look like this and am such a burden, needing their help for everything. My skin tingles.

  Dad pats my foot. Tucking her hair behind her ear, Mom says, “I’m so sorry I can’t keep bad things from happening to you, Sarah.”

  I squeeze her hand. “I get that.”

  Cydni nudges Luke, who says, “Yeah. I wanted to say, to tell you, if you come back to school, I’ll be with you. Even if you look like this. I mean, if, you know, you wear a hat.”

  “Luke!” Cydni shakes his arm, but I laugh, and my parents groan.

  Cydni sits on the stool beside me. “Sarah, I do wonder why it wasn’t me that got hit, but you are dealing with everything better than I ever could. The helicopter, the pain, you know what I’m saying? You are amazing. I mean, how can you even stand to have him” — ​she tilts her head at Haddings — ​“near you. That’s incredible.”

  I look down and fiddle with my IV tape. “Thanks?”

  Haddings moves to the corner of the room, beside the roses. Everyone else snugs close to my bed.

  “I’m fine with taking the bus, you know. I wanted to take the bus.”

  “We know,” say Mom and Dad.

  “I guess,” Luke mumbles, then looks at me straight on. He holds my gaze, and his energy shoots into my veins. “We just want you to know, we care about you and stuff.”

  “I know that,” I whisper and pet my blanket so all the furries lie flat on the hawk’s back. “It doesn’t hurt to hear you feel bad for me though.”

  Haddings covers his face.

  “Everyone can use a little sympathy,” says Mom.

  “I guess.”

  Cydni looks to my father. “Why do you think this happened? Like, why did Sarah get hit?”

  Dad massages his neck and sits on my bed. “I don’t know why,” he admits. Mom places her palm on Dad’s back, and he sits up straighter. “I can’t presume that I’ll ever understand, but I do know there will be good in it for Sarah.”

  Dad’s surety seeps into me.

  Luke rolls his eyes. “That is so unbelievable.”

  “Yeah, I’m sorry, Mr. McCormick, but that reeks.” Cydni shakes her head, making her hair knot wobble on the top of her head. “I don’t see any good.”

  Dad sighs. “Ultimately, everything is a test of faith, Cydni, and that’s the solace.”

  Mom nods once; Luke shakes his head, no; Cydni looks away, but I catch Dad’s eye.

  That’s the solace.

  CHAPTER 46

  Haddings

  7:08 pm

  That is heavy. Too heavy. The whys and what fors. All I can deal with is that I was the one driving the car. I hit Sarah; now, what can I do? A sigh pops from my lips, and they turn to me.

  “I want to say again that I’m here for Sarah, whatever she needs.”

  I stare at this girl, who I knew was amazing before, and see an intensity beyond what I imagined. “I’m not going to disappear.” I straighten my shirt then drop my hands. “I won’t walk away if … you don’t keep me away.”

  CHAPTER 47

  Sarah

  7:09 pm

  He looks at me like that when I look like this? It’s not like he’s family and has to be here. He’s always saying I’m his responsibility because he’s my teacher and I’m his student. But really, there’s no responsibility, beyond finances with him being the driver. Is it only guilt making him say all that?

  I finger the gross ends of my hair. How can he relate to me even better than before, when I wasn’t stitched, shaved, and swollen? How? Can he see inside me, too? My lip quivers and my wonderment feels fatter than my face.

  “You believe me, right? That I’ll be here through everything?” Haddings asks my parents.

  With crossed arms, my mom shrugs while my dad bites the inside corner of his mouth. “We’ll see,” he says. Mom picks up my paperwork and points out something to Dad.

  Cydni walks close and stands by Haddings. “I’m not sorry that I said those things at the bus stop to you.”

  What in the world did she say?

  He looks straight at her. “I deserve worse.”

  Agreement skitters over everyone’s faces.

  When Haddings excuses himself for a few minutes to make a couple calls, I watch him leave, a little smile on my face.

  Luke catches my eye. He raises his left brow.

  “What?” I mouth.

  “Are you serious?” he whispers over Cydni’s shoulder as she moves my magazines to make room to sit next to him.

  I glance at Mom and Dad, but they are still reviewing the pile of paperwork.

  “Sarah,” Luke hisses. “No!”

  How did he see into my heart, maybe before I even could?

  Cydni sits down beside Luke and leans against his shoulder. She slips her hand into his, and Luke starts to calm down. She gives me a sly smile, which I make myself return. No worries, I brainwave to her. She blushes. Finally, she has what she wants, even if I don’t. For her, I know I can get over it. Soon enough.

  Luke gets up and comes close. “Please, I need some time to figure everything out,” I whisper to him. “There’s nothing going on, but maybe someday, you know?”

  He tilts his head. “All right.” I smile the biggest since surgery. “But if he hurts you again,” he whispers back, “even a speck, there’s his other eye. Plus, I drive a truck.”

  I lean my cheek against his chest, and he doesn’t pull away.

  7:26 pm

  Mom and Dad are called to the nurses’ station to discuss home care and next steps for my release. When Haddings comes back, Luke and Cydni admit they should head out to do their homework.

  Luke takes one more long look at Haddings though. “I can’t say I’m really sorry about, you know …”

  Haddings touches his eye and flinches. “Understood.”

  “I’ll be watching you,” my brother postures.

  “Okay, Luke.” I laugh.

  “No, he has every right,” Haddings says.

  “You know it.” Cydni pushes past him. “Bye.” She gives me a kiss on the cheek, and then they are gone, hand in hand, which still twists my heart because I’ve lost that with Haddings. Or at least the possibility. Even though he’s my little brother,
Cydni will feel cherished. She better, or I’ll be all over Luke like he was on Haddings. Period.

  As soon as they leave, Haddings reaches out and covers my hand with his. “I’m serious when I said I’ll be here for you. If that’s okay?”

  A thousand thoughts flood my brain. University of Washington. Mills College. Guilt versus attraction. Duty versus love. Friendship with Haddings or being alone, at least for the foreseeable future. School versus guy relationships. Forgiveness versus anger. Me versus us, when there never really was an “us,” although I won’t give up that I caught his eye. Finding out who I am now versus trying to return to who I was. Good versus bad. Right versus wrong. Ultimately, what’s best for me solely.

  I grab onto what my head knows, backed by my gut, and hold it tightly before it slips away. “That’s really sweet, but I don’t want you to feel like — ​actually, I don’t need — ” He doesn’t move away. “I’ll be fine. I mean, I don’t know what kind of therapy is coming, or how my brain is going to work. Hopefully, it’s the same. It seems like it will be once I get all the drugs out of my system.” Pause for a giant breath. “But I really think I’ve decided I’m going to be working my hardest to get to Mills. To take that scholarship. It’s really clear now that I have to choose the best for my future. I have to choose for me.”

  “Mills?” he asks.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Creative writing and book art. It’s what I first wanted, and I realize it still is.”

  He holds his chin. “You’ll be at Mills.”

  “I hope so.”

  CHAPTER 48

  Haddings

  7:31 pm

  If all is well with her mind, I’m going to lose her to Mills. She’s not going to UW, where I would have the chance to be with her. Of course not, after what I’ve done. It’s not the choice she should have considered to begin with.

  I teeter on the edge of her bed and pull her journal from my pocket. The tiniest smile flickers over her swollen lips. I open the book and add a poem as she watches. I found it in a collection earlier today when I was hanging in Elliot Bay Book Company. I couldn’t shake it while I wandered through Pike Place Market. It made me come back tonight. It’s the truth, and I have to let her know.