Katie's Angel (14 page)

Jack dropped the dish he was washing in the sink, and ran out the front door. When he reached Katie, he put his arms around her
and pulled her close, not caring who saw him and her together. He held her until she stopped crying, refusing to ask her what was wrong. He knew that she would tell him when she was ready.

Katie, without a second thought, fell into Jacks arms. She was so overwhelmed with the thought of having to talk to some person, who in her mind would never u
nderstand what she was feeling, that she didn’t give a rats butt who saw her. She simply knew that she was most comfortable when she was with Jack, and no one was going to stop her.

When Katie couldn’t cry another tear
, she reached up and wiped her face. It wasn’t until that moment that she felt even a little bit of embarrassment for having broken down in such a manner that should not have taken place with the one boy she had ever truly liked.

Pulling away, trying hard not to look at Jack, Katie said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have...”

Before Katie could finish her sentence Jack said, “Katie, its okay. You can cry on my shoulder anytime you need to.”

Looking up she saw a neighbor standing on their porch and she was instantly worried that they would call her parents and tip them off as to where she was. “I should go. It was
wrong of me to put you in this predicament,” Katie said as she turned to go.

Before she could get too far, Jack reached out for her hand. “Katie, just stay here and we can talk. You haven’t put me in any predicament that I can’t handle.”

“No you don’t understand, I need to get out of here so that I can clear my mind. I have to get somewhere my parents will never think to look for me.”

Knowing that he should probably just let her go, Jack couldn’t help but feel like he should be doing something to help her. Without thinking another minute about it, Jack said, “You shouldn’t be going anywhere by yourself for one, and how fa
r do you honestly think you will get on foot?”

“I will be okay. I can just go down the roads and wind around. They will not find me if I keep switching it up.” For some reason Katie had this feeling that she just needed to be alone and shouldn’t involve anyone else. She felt that feeling of not being alone even though she couldn’t pinpoint who or what was involved with this feeling that was always there. Honestly she was tired of this feeling. She really wished that whatever it was that was making her
feel this way would just go away.

Looking around and feeling like he was defeated because Katie just wasn’t listening to reason, Jack had a thought. He stopped and thought for a minute and without another word walked over to the garage and pulled the car out. He looked at Katie and opened the passenger side door from the inside. Without having to say a word he knew that she was going to climb in next to him.

Katie resisted the feeling that she got deep down, and got in the car anyways. All she really wanted to do was forget all of her problems, and all of the people who were involved in them.

Jack started heading
out of town. He knew where they were going and he was happy that he was getting to go there a second time in one day with her. Jack reached over and grabbed Katie’s hand. He held it tight as if to say he wasn’t going anywhere. He wanted to make sure that she knew that he cared and that he was there if she needed him. And from the looks of it she definitely needed him right now.

As they continued down the street in silence, Katie was almost content. She was not going
to think about her parents and the therapists, and most of all she wasn’t going to think about Jackson. She just needed to clear her head and think about absolutely nothing for a change.

As he got to the top of the hill Jack turned right and continued down the road. He went about a mile down the road and turned left. He continued to the curve and as he rounded the turn he looked over at Katie.

As he looked back at the road, he saw a deer that darted onto the road.  Jack tried to swerve to keep from hitting the deer and the car veered off the road, flying over the ditch. Jack tried to hit the brake but his foot slipped off and he was grabbing for Katie who had hit her head on the dashboard. As his foot slipped off it hit the accelerator pedal. As much as Jack tried to stop the car it just didn’t seem like it would. As he looked away from Katie he looked up just as the car hit a tree and then flipped.

A passerby saw what looked like damage to the vegetation and decided to stop. As he started walking around he noticed there was a tree down in the distance. He
started walking towards it and saw there were tire marks. Picking up speed the man spotted a car off in a distance on its top. He ran over to see if there was anyone in it.

As he peered in the windshield
he saw two people inside. Without thinking he ran to the side door and grabbed the door and pulled it open. He reached inside and pulled out the boy that was inside. He checked his pulse and saw that it was faint.  After laying the boy on his back, he crawled into the door and grabbed the girl by her arm and as gently as he could he pulled her out of the door. He could see that she was in bad shape. She had a huge bump on her head and she wasn’t showing any sign that she was going to open her eyes for him.

Not wanting to leave the two kids
, Mark took off towards his truck. He had left his cell phone in there and needed to call 911. After he had called them, he went back to the kids. He checked both of their pulses and tried to wipe off the blood that was on their face and neck. He knew that he shouldn’t be doing it but he felt like he needed to clean them up a bit.

As he wiped the girls face he noticed that she looked familiar to him. He looked a little closer and realized that it was Katie, his
daughters’ best friend. He couldn’t believe that he was looking at this girl that he had watched grow up. He needed her to open her eyes at this moment.

He began calling out her name. When there was no result he tried to smack her cheek hoping that he could just jolt her awake. He had just dropped his head
trying his hardest to not cry as the ambulance pulled up.

Before he knew it they had both the kids loaded up and were on their way to the hospital. As he got into his truck he picked up his cell phone. He looked through his phone and dialed.

“Hello,” answered the person on the other end.

In a quivering
voice Mark said, “Hi Tom, this is Mark. I just thought you should know that Katie was in a car accident and she is on her way to the hospital now.”

             
“Well is she okay? What happened? Where was she?” Katie’s dad asked every question faster than the other.

             
“I know you have all those questions, but you should get down to the hospital Tom. She wasn’t conscious. I will come by and see you guys in a few hours. I have to talk to the cops first.” Mark said in a crackle of a voice. He was doing everything he could not to cry on the phone. Before there could be a response on the other end, he hung up.

Chapter 18

As Katie’s parents entered the emergency room, they went to the front desk and asked in worried, “We are looking for our daughter Katie Snykers. She was brought in from an accident.”

Looking at her computer, the young girl at the front desk looked up and told them, “They have her in a room, but they are trying to make sure everything is okay. If you have a seat I will let the nurse know that you are here and when they are done they will come and get you.”

“What do you mean they are trying to make sure everything is okay? Is there something wrong? How hurt is she? You have to let me go back there. That is my baby girl
back there!” her dad yelled causing others that were waiting in the lobby to stare at them.

Reaching up to touch her husband on the shoulder, B
eth whispered to her husband, “We need to let them do what they need to do to save her. We need to go sit down and take a breath.” She said as she gave the girl at the desk a half-hearted smile as she led her husband over to the chairs in the corner.

As they sat there waiting for what seemed like forever, Beth closed her eyes and prayed. “Lord please
keep our daughter here with us. She is so special and has so much left to give. We have been through so much and we still have our faith. Please don’t forget us now. In your name I pray, Amen”

As she opened her eyes she saw a doctor come through the door. He glanced over at the girl at the desk and she nodded in their direction. As he walked over to them, they both stood up feeling a little shaky on their feet.

“Mr. and Mrs. Snykers?” he asked in a low voice.

“Yes. How is she doctor? Is everything okay? When can she go home?” Tom asked.

“We are doing everything we can to keep her comfortable. She does have a broken left arm, and she is currently unconscious. We are waiting to find the results of a CAT scan as well as the MRI. She wasn’t conscious when she came in so we are not sure when she will wake up. She is breathing on her own but her pulse was faint when she came in. We did get that stabilized. Right now all we can do is continue to wait and see how everything goes with her.”

Grabbing hold of his wife’s hand
, Tom found that he had been holding his breath the whole time. As he let out the breath that he had been holding, he could feel his wife tighten her grip on his hand. “While we are waiting for the results from all of these tests, can we go in and sit with her?”

“Yes. I do want you to know that we are doing everything we can to make sure she comes back to you, but I cannot make any promises. Her face is swollen and she is bruised
pretty bad. As soon as we get the results we will be in to share them with you.” He said as he led them to her room.

When they walked in the room, they both were caught off guard at how little she looked in the bed. She had a cast on her left arm, and she looked like she was so peaceful. Walking over to
her bed, her mom wrapped her hand in hers. She sat down in the chair and started to cry.

Chapter 19

“
Katie, you have to open your eyes. You have to wake up for mom and dad.”

             
Katie could hear a voice, Jackson’s voice. It was the only voice that she had longed to hear for the last few months.  That couldn’t be possible though because he wasn’t there with her anymore. She found it really hard to understand what was happening.

             
“Come on Katie. Look at me!” he said as he grabbed her hand.

             
Katie looked up and saw a bright beautiful light. Standing in the light was Jackson. He had the most beautiful smile on his face.

             
“Katie, what are you doing? You have to stop being so reckless.”

             
“Jackson! I can’t believe you are here. What are you doing here?”

             
“I am here to tell you that you have to start taking your life more serious. You are trying so hard to not deal with me leaving you, that you are causing more harm than you need to. Mom and dad are very worried about you right now. Everything they try to do to help you, you fight them on it.”

             
Katie couldn’t help but hear the disappointment in her brothers’ voice. She never wanted to be a disappointment to him. She only wanted him back. She just couldn’t imagine her life without him there with her that she didn’t want to go on.

“I know you don’t think that you will ever have a normal life without me there Katie, but I am there with you. You just refuse to see it.”

“How are you here with me? I go to your new home everyday to visit you. I can’t hug you, or touch you. I can’t go into your room and talk to you. You left me!”

“I am
the hand when you feel like you have a on your shoulder; I am the one that you felt when you were being pushed into the library. I have given you all the signs that I am there, but you refuse to see them. Instead you continue to fight me.”

When Jackson said “Instead you continue to fight me,” he could see Katie’s eyes widened. With a smile on his face Jackson asked, “Why are you so surprised Katie?”

Not really sure how to respond she looked at him. “I got a letter not too long ago and it had that statement in it. It was a sick thing for anyone to do and I still think mom and dad did it.”

“I sent you that letter. You were not responding to anything I did to try to help you start to move on.
All you had to do was think about me, and feel me in your heart. I just needed you to know that I was there. Instead you freaked out on mom and then came to my grave. You didn’t even give her the benefit of the doubt.”

“It is your “new home”, not your grave!” Katie said in a raised voice. She was not going to ever come to terms that he was not there with her.