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  Mom dabs my eyes. “You okay?”

  I shake my head and look away. It’s too late for me and him.

  “Can I get you something, sweetie?”

  “Nothing,” I whisper.

  When Dad saunters into the room with a teddy bear under his arm, Mom instantly criticizes him. “I thought you were looking for a Popsicle.”

  “There was no one at the desk, so I jotted downstairs and found this little shop still open. No Popsicle, but they had this for you, Sarah.”

  I reach out and take the stuffed animal from him. “Thanks, Dad.” My tiny smile pushes against my bruises and stitches. I hold the bear tightly to my chest. “I’m not hungry yet anyway.”

  “A Popsicle would have been more helpful,” Mom says. “I should have asked Dottie myself when she brought the roses.”

  Dad looks to her. “Roses?”

  “I’m guessing my office or yours.” Mom straightens her shirt. “Dottie is keeping them in the staff room until Sarah gets a regular room.”

  “That’s nice, but we don’t know who sent them?” Dad asks.

  “There wasn’t a card,” I say, “but your gift is best, Daddy.” I know exactly what it means: he loves me.

  He grins. Hugely.

  Mom fusses with the blinds.

  CHAPTER 23

  Haddings

  3:15 am

  I toss one way and then the other. Kick the empty pizza box off the bed and groan along with my indigestion. Yzma swats my leg and leaps off the mattress.

  After Cydni’s description, horrific images keep crossing my mind, but it’s brain damage or limited movement that has got to be Sarah’s real concern. In the dark, fears crawl through my brain like ants building a nest.

  I cram another pillow over my face, but the images mix with my garlic breath. I jump up, run to the bathroom, but nothing comes up. I’m left with the nausea.

  Splashing my face with cold water brings a little clarity. I look in the mirror. “Before, I was worried whether she would live. Now I can worry about her appearance and normalcy.” I dry off and admit into the terry cloth, “Or maybe I’m really worried about me?”

  I shove the towel hard against my mouth and yell, yell out the anguish, fear, and the whys. I yell until there’s no more sound to carve out of my lungs.

  CHAPTER 24

  Sarah

  3:35 am

  The clock says 3:35 am. I act like I’m sleeping so Mom will stop fussing over me. Instead, I end up listening in on her and Dad’s argument. Who knows which is worse?

  “Janet,” Dad whispers, “why don’t you go home and get some rest with Luke? I’ll stay through until morning. You’ve been here since she was brought in. Take a break.”

  I peek and see Mom frowning. “I’m not leaving my daughter, Mark, and you shouldn’t either,” she says.

  “Come on, Janet.” I can tell Dad’s struggling to not sound irritated. “I was only thinking you might need some rest in our own bed.”

  The tendons in Mom’s neck stand out.

  “Okay. Forget it!” Dad says. “We’ll both stay.”

  Mom perches on the stool next to my bed like a gargoyle. As she turns toward me, I shut my eyes.

  Dad sighs. “I don’t know why you insist on putting the worst construction on whatever I say. Why can’t you give me the benefit of the doubt at least once?” Someone’s stomach grumbles. “Maybe something to eat would reduce the tension,” Dad suggests.

  “Oh, like a Popsicle?” Mom huffs.

  “Well, I’m going to grab some food from the kiosk,” says Dad. “Anything I can get you?”

  “Coffee,” she mutters.

  “All right.”

  I slip to sleep hoping coffee will chill my mother out. For everyone’s sake.

  3:52 am

  Dad’s not here, and Mom’s sleeping when I wake again. Sitting on the stool, her head rests on my bed. Rain pecks the window behind her.

  I lick my dry teeth and try to lift my head. Ow! My neck is cemented stiff.

  Without looking, my fingertips discover major bruises down my legs, especially the right one. Didn’t they say it took the major hit?

  Mom doesn’t move as I worm my left hand out from under the sheets and touch my face. The left side feels mostly fine. The right is definitely rashed and covered with goo. I flinch from the tenderness and swelling.

  Mom moans.

  I wipe the grease on the sheet. The heart machine beeps faster. I walk my weak fingers to my hairline. But my hair’s missing. There’s the funny haircut. They shaved the front half of my head!

  Twisted, stiff knots poke out of my numb scalp. Stitches? My pain below the cut peaks. My fingertips whisper along the dead line from above my left brow down to my right ear. Beyond the fat stitching is baldness. Like all the way to where a headband would go. There’s snarled hair behind that, and then it’s tangled to the ends. If I tried to brush it, my head would pop open.

  Sickened, I slide my trembling hand back under the sheet and silently cry for myself, for me. Beautiful? Isn’t that what Mom said at some point? Her compliments have never been emptier. I’m hideous.

  No matter what Haddings might be thinking, there’s no way he’d be attracted to this. I didn’t just have a crush, Cydni; I really cared about him, and it doesn’t matter a speck now. Giant, warm tears run off my face.

  4:10 am

  I’m only sniffling by the time the nurse comes in and wakes Mom. “You can wait here, Janet. We are going to take Sarah down for another CAT scan,” explains Marlisa, the new nurse on shift.

  “I really don’t like her out of my sight,” Mom blurts and stands. “Isn’t this too much radiation?”

  “It’s necessary; to be sure the healing is continuing.”

  Stop already, Mom, I want to say.

  “But she’s due for pain medication,” she argues.

  “Yes, we’ll take care of that.” Marlisa flips switches and unhooks different machines. All the dangling wires look like a depressed octopus. Kind of a reflection of my mother standing there with nothing to do.

  Another attendant comes into the room, and I’m being wheeled away. I have to admit a tiny bit of my heart hiccups at being away from my mom. A teensy tiny part.

  “Be careful of that corner.” She points. “Are you going to miss the corner?” She helps push the bed despite their silence.

  “Mom, they know what they’re doing. Stop worrying,” I say, even though it doesn’t help either of us. The bed wheels squeak on the turn, and then I’m gone. Out of Mom’s sight. At least I’m not on the heart monitor. It would totally give me away right now.

  4:25 am

  The CAT scan goes exactly like I remember from before, and I chant, don’t pee; don’t pee, even though I still have the dumb catheter in. When we are done, another attendant pushes me back through empty halls.

  Light, light, tile. Tile, tile, light.

  My brain is almost back to shape. How bizarre to see a picture of your brain. Is it going to be okay? One second, I can remember a whole poem, the next, I remember stuff that never happened, and in the next, I can’t seem to keep my thoughts on one — ​light, light, tile. Tile, tile, light. Letter, tile, light. Letter? Poem? And what’s the name of my school?

  Tile, tile, light.

  Back on my floor, I get parked in the hall when Marlisa has to go to the station for a call. I suddenly hear an awful cry, deep from the belly, coming out of my room. Mom? Really? My mom is losing it? And it doesn’t sound like anyone is in there with her.

  As staff rushes down to the other end of ICU, I lie there and listen in on my mom’s grief. Her naked soul shivers my skin, and tears tip from my eyes again.

  Finally, she quiets.

  When the nurse returns and wheels me into the dark room, Mom’s asleep, her feet tucked up and her face pressed against the back of the chair. Her hair is swept across her cheek.

  Marlisa smiles at me and hooks me quietly to the machines. The rain covers up most of the cli
cks and beeps. “I’ll bring you that Popsicle now, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  Dad strides into the room with a drink tray and bags of snacks. He opens his mouth but closes it quickly when he sees Mom sleeping. He sets down everything by the sink, then pulls a blanket from the little closet.

  “Don’t you eat anything your father has brought back,” the nurse whispers.

  “’kay,” I answer. It’s not like I really want anything anyway.

  She slips out of the room while Dad drapes the blanket over Mom’s curled body.

  She stirs but doesn’t wake. The stool creaks as Dad slowly rolls it to my side. “Your mother means well,” my dad says to me in a soft voice.

  I nod.

  “We need to be patient with her, Sarah.” He turns to Mom, reaches out to cover her hand with his, but he withdraws at the last second. Instead, he prays under his breath. “God, there’s so much pain clattered inside her. Give her peace in you and patience with everyone else.”

  Dad looks at me and smiles. He’s so hopeful. How, how can he be?

  CHAPTER 25

  Haddings

  5:03 am

  I wrap up in my Navajo blanket, sit cross-legged on the braided rug in front of the couch with Yzma, and watch the storm pummel the sliding glass door. The thoughts at the edge of my mind slink forward.

  How did Sarah react when she woke — ​if she woke — ​and found out I was the one who hit her? I pull the blanket tighter. I’m sure Cydni was the one who told. She could hardly wait, I bet.

  So what? Who told doesn’t matter. If I could go and face the family and Sarah, would that bring peace? The moon cracks the clouds.

  What can I do with these huge heroic resolutions to take care of her? There has to be something.

  Yzma purrs and licks my hand. Sarah has so much wit and spark. She loves Dante, Milton, Shakespeare. She’s a beauty — ​or was before the accident — ​maybe still will be.

  I stare up at the ceiling. When she stayed after class and told me UW had sent her an early acceptance, I should have encouraged her to keep thinking about Mills. But I suppose I was really hoping we’d have a chance to be friends at the U. The guilty truth is, I put what I wanted ahead of what was best for her. Her crush made it all so easy.

  Lightning illuminates the black corners of the room, and I roll the aches from my neck. Next year, she might easily blind-side me.

  Yzma presses her head into my palm, nudging me to pet her. I scratch under her chin, and resolve flows through me, head to toe. A little later, I’m going back to the hospital to try to make this right, all of it right. Period.

  PART 2

  Day Two

  CHAPTER 26

  Haddings

  7:10 am

  I wake at my desk, cheek pressed against my laptop, with Yzma’s tail draped over my neck and a bottle of antacid filling my vision. My cat leaps down when I shove the bottle aside. The image on my screen reboots.

  Mark, Janet, Luke, and Sarah McCormick smile at me from her district speech and debate win, right before Thanksgiving. The report details her victory. These are the faces who may, for all time, hate and despise me. Nerves needle my fingers.

  Am I any closer to words that will mean anything when I see these people? Ones that will help Sarah and others, which might touch her parents so they don’t sue? I have to try to be practical about everything in the midst of all the emotion. My journal page is empty. Nothing.

  Maybe there aren’t words.

  Yzma lingers by the front door and swipes at a long leaf on my fern.

  “Hey!”

  She looks at me then reaches up and tears off a piece of the frond with her teeth.

  Hopeless.

  Sarah’s mom stares at me from the picture. Even smiling, the woman has an edge. A lot like Yzma.

  CHAPTER 27

  Sarah

  7:50 am

  I wake to Mom dumping the empty snack bags from last night. She pulls the blanket over Dad now, since he’s sleeping. She sips what has to be a cup of cold coffee.

  “Not too bad,” she whispers, holding it out to me. “The nurse said you can have a little now since you kept down the Popsicle and Jell-O. Your stomach seems to be fine after the anesthetic.”

  I shake my head. “It feels like it, but no thanks. I’ll wait for a hot cup with breakfast.” I smile at Dad lumped in the chair. “He hardly fits in that recliner.”

  Mom nods and swirls her cup. “What’s he holding?” She peeks between his fingers. “Your CAT scan,” she says. Surprisingly, a soft smile touches her face. She doesn’t even wake him to grouse that he’s curling the edge of the image. The sleep and food definitely did her some good. What a relief.

  8:34 am

  Dad wakes and stretches when Pamela, another nurse, comes into my room. She quickly explains what she’ll be doing to me. “All set then?”

  “I think I’ll wait in the hall for a bit.” Rubbing his stubbly chin, Dad scoots out the door.

  “’kay,” I answer. There’s no way I want him to see this part anyway.

  Mom holds my hand tightly but looks at the wall to give me privacy. I was the one who reached out to her without thinking.

  Pamela lifts the sheets and grips the catheter. Why in the world does she smell like Fritos so early in the morning? Yuck! I hold my breath.

  “You’ll just feel a pressure,” she says, and pulls.

  “Ahhhh,” I grit my teeth and blink away tears. The thing is out of me. It’s out. It’s out! I pant and squeeze my thighs together against the remaining aches. Whoever invented that torture? Man!

  Pamela covers me with the blanket and another whoosh of chewed chips. Mom turns and dabs my brow, but I pull away. “I’m okay.” I let go of her hand. “Dad, you can come in,” I call.

  “I’ll just wait out here until the nurse is done with everything.”

  Mom rolls her eyes.

  “All right,” I answer. At least he trusts me to deal with this. Well, me and Mom.

  Pamela washes her hands. “The oxygen is simple.” She pulls the tube away, and I rub my tickled nose with the back of my hand. “Now, the drainage tube. The doctor said the fluids have slowed from surgery, so you don’t need it anymore.”

  “Isn’t this all too fast? I mean, she just had surgery yesterday,” says Mom, whose grimace hovers above the nurse’s shoulder. And that’s when my hands go limp and the room shifts. Talk about Fritos, it’s like a Cheeto is being tugged out from under my scalp.

  “Ow, ow, ow!” I exclaim as the pain creeps higher and higher.

  Air whistles in through Mom’s teeth. She reaches for my shoulder, but I shrug her off.

  “And some gauze will stop the temporary bleeding.” Pamela presses where the tube thingy was in my head. “Deep breath through your nose, and exhale slowly through your mouth.”

  “Yeah, I got it,” I say quickly, to stop her from breathing on me anymore.

  “This was the right timing to remove the drainage, Mrs. McCormick. No need to question your surgeon.”

  “Of course,” agrees Mom. “You are doing great, Sarah!”

  Sure. It’s just that my skull wants to crack open and burp out my brains. I focus on how I’d like to pretty much run over both the driver and Pamela right now.

  With her torture completed, Pamela whisks out of the room, and Dad comes in. “Wow. Look at you! Without all those tubes, you look more human already.”

  Really, Dad? My eyes start to fill, but I try to get it under control as Mom gives him the death stare.

  “Oh, no. I meant you almost look like yourself again, except for the shaved head and the stitches … Uh, right. I’ll go see about that breakfast you ordered last night, Sarah.” He rushes out of the room before he says anything else. It’s almost funny. Almost. Well, not really at all.

  Suck it up. No need to lose it and make everything worse between them. I shift in the bed, run my hands along the cold rails.

  And that’s when I notice. You are kid
ding me. Seriously? How do I need to pee when the catheter came out only a bit ago? “Mom, I need to use the bathroom,” I admit when I can’t stand it any longer.

  She stops folding the extra blanket and comes around the bed quickly. “Let’s sit you up slowly.”

  Ohhh. There’s the Cyclops. He rolls. I had forgotten he was in there. Totally blanked on him, but he’s definitely not gone. “Ugh,” I moan.

  Mom moves the IV stand closer. “Okay. Carefully set your feet down.”

  “Mom. I know, Mom.” I duck from her hand even though my soles are tingling in the fuzzy socks on the freezing linoleum. “I’ve got it. I can stand. See.” I force my legs to hold me up as I push off the bed. Teetering, I grind my teeth but smile through the pain of the Cyclops clubbing my skull.

  See through the pain, right through it. Breathe. Take a step to the bathroom. Lift my right foot — ​whoa! All my strength and energy drain in a flush. I’m going to faint or hurl. “The pan, the pan, Mom!”

  She can’t reach the puke pan, but she does get the trash can under my face as I fall to a seat on the bed. The jarring unleashes another pain wave. With a strong arm across my back, Mom keeps me sitting upright so I can hurl. While I vomit green spew, a fire fries my head and burns the Cyclops to a crisp.

  Mom’s sane voice drifts through my brain fog. “One thing at a time, Sarah. Let’s lie you down. I’m buzzing the nurse. Let’s get the sheet up over you. Here’s the IV pole closer so the tubing isn’t pulled. Here’s a cool cloth to wipe your lips. Here’s another for your cheek. Just the one side, don’t worry. It’s nice and cool. It’s okay, sweetie. We were just trying to do a little too much. Sarah. Sarah, look at me.”

  I try, but my eyes want to roll backward instead. Roll back and stay up in there.

  “I’m hitting the button again for the nurse, Sarah. Look at me, honey. Breathe, Sarah.”

  Somehow, I do. I take a breath in.

  “Good, good. Deep in through your nose. Let it out.”

  Between my fluttering eyelids, I spot Pamela hurrying toward me. “Looks like too much too soon.” She’s checking vitals now. My vision clears, but sight and sound are still in a weird slow motion. “She’s okay, Janet.”