The Guardian (2 page)

The door opens.

Grappling for breaths, I crawl out on one hand and two knees into the cold, wet grass. A warm tr
ickle of something snakes down the side of my head, cooling as it reaches the base of my neck. I brush my fingers across the thin rivers. When I pull them away, they’re covered in gooey, black sludge. I squeeze my eyes shut, feeling the tears as they bead
across my lashes, and clutch my broken right arm close to my chest. My lungs burn as I suffocate on burnt rubber and cold, midnight air. No matter how hard I try, they won’t fill.

I press my head against the rutted pavement, allowing the world to close in
on me.

This is what it feels like to die.

Air circulates, moving through the trees, rustling branches and leaves. Above me, the stars twirl and swirl, spinning madly. I shut my eyes, dissolving into nothing.

And then a voice.
Soft and smooth.
Almost a w
hisper.

“It’s okay. Help is coming.”

The sound is oddly comforting.
Strange.
Unfamiliar.
And it pulls me back.

A warm hand brushes the length of my
jawline
, gently sweeping the salty wetness away.

“Don’t move, okay?”

The voice is far-off, distant, like Go
d Himself calling from across the universe.
It’s okay.
But he’s not God and he’s not far away. He’s right here. I can feel him.

I push against my eyelids, straining to open them. The figure is a shadowy haze, blurry. His fingers intertwine with mine. His
voice a low murmur: “You’re going to be fine, Genesis. I promise.”

I let my eyes fall shut, floating, and allow the stranger with the voice to comfort me, believing every word, even as I slip into a deep, horrible nothing.

T
WO

My eyes flutter, o
pening. I blink hard, focusing on the small, darkened room. Light seeps from the hallway. Monitors flash and beep every few seconds. I’m tethered to a stiff bed, surrounded by and hooked to tubes and wires. I want to sit up, but my body is heavy, leaden, m
y arm wrapped in a hard, white cast.

I force myself to remember.
Something rushing across the road.
Squealing tires.
Fractured glass.
Carter. We were in an accident. I died.

My heart pounds in my chest at
the realization, registering in a rapid succession of beeps from one of the nearby machines.

If I’m dead, why is my heart beating?

A shadow appears in the doorway, obstructing the light, and a large black woman ambles into the room. I eye her carefully, w
atching as she shuffles around.

“I know you’re still here,” the woman mumbles quietly as she re-stocks a cabinet. “What did I tell you? She’s fine. We’re taking good care of her.”

“What?” My voice cracks beneath the word. My throat is scratchy and my mout
h feels like it’s been stuffed full of cotton balls and sucked dry. I work in vain to moisten my lips.

The nurse stops and I know she’s looking at me, but her face is obscured and I can’t make out her features in the darkness. “Well, well. It’s good to se
e you awake, finally. Can you tell me your name?”

“Genesis.”

She moves to the doorway and grabs a chart from the hall. A sallow light spills into the room. “Do you know where you are?”

“The hospital?”

“Why you’re here?” There’s a smile in her voice. I ca
n hear it.

“There—there was an accident.” I pause for a moment. “Is Carter . . . ?”

“Thought you might ask about him.”
She licks her finger and flips through the pages of the file before looking up at me. “He’s fine. Just some scratches
is
all. We sent him
home a few days ago.”

A few days?

“How long have I been here?”

“Almost a week now.”

Almost a week
.

My mom is going to kill me. Our boss at the restaurant—Ernie—he’s going to kill me. I’m going to lose my job and we aren’t going to be able to pay our rent
. We’ll have to move. . . .

“I’m
gonna
tell the night resident you’re awake. You sit tight, okay
hon
?”

My thoughts continue to swirl. I was in an accident. I’m alive. Carter is okay.

I lift my arm, examining the plaster encasing it. It’s heavy. I try to
rotate my wrist, but it doesn’t budge. I wiggle my fingers. I will never, ever be able to carry a food tray with this thing.

“It’s going to take some getting used to,” a voice says, as if reading my mind.

A young doctor moves toward the bed. “Look straigh
t ahead for me.” He lifts my eyelid and shines a bright light directly into one eye, and then the other. When he finishes, I can only see spots: two massive, luminous, yellow orbs floating midair, shrinking in size as they linger.

“Do you know where you ar
e?” he asks, scribbling something onto my chart.

“I’ve already been through this,” I tell him.

The nurse steps forward. “Knows her name, where she’s at, why she’s here.
Has already asked for the boyfriend.”

Boyfriend?
No. We were fighting when
. . . .

“He’
s, um, not really my boyfriend,” I mumble, trying to sort through the hazy details. “I don’t think. When can I go home?”

The doctor exhales loudly. “We’d like to keep you here for a few more days to keep an eye on you.
You hit your head pretty hard. We put you in a temporary coma to reduce swelling, so we definitely need to run some scans to make sure everything is okay.”

“I’m fine,” I assure him.

He snaps the chart closed.

“I know. In the meantime, though, we’re going t
o give you something to help you sleep. We can talk more tomorrow.”

The nurse works around my IV. In a moment, my arms and legs are tingling; my eyelids grow heavy.

“You get some rest now, you hear?” she says, her voice far away.

I force my eyelids open,
but already the darkness swallows me whole. I focus my empty gaze on the other side of the room. And briefly, just before I completely succumb to sleep, I see a shadow.
Someone with me, watching.

*
             
*
             
*

“I swear, you have to get me out of here,” I beg.

“
It’s just for another day or two. They want to make absolutely sure you’re okay,” my mom explains.

The majority of my morning was spent in radiology, where I underwent x-ray after x-ray and scan after scan. If there wasn’t anything going on before, there
has to be something wrong with me now: all those lights and lasers penetrating the depths of my skull. If this is what they were subjecting me to while I was conscious, what the hell had they done to me while I was knocked out?

“What about work?”

“It’s fi
ne. It’s picking up,” she assures me. “We’re fine. And Ernie can’t fire you—it’s unadvisable. At least, that’s what Mr. Fleming said.”

“It’s . . .
what
? He wanted to
fire
me?” I sit up in bed—too quickly. My head spins.

“Not technically, but he wanted to h
ire someone else. Mr. Fleming sent his lawyer over. It didn’t take too long for him to talk Ernie out of it.”

“Wait a minute. Mr. Fleming? Carter’s
dad
sent his lawyer over to Ernie’s to tell him not to fire me?”

Mom moves to the window and twists open the
blinds, letting the midday sun spill into the room. The light bounces off the white walls until they seem to glow. “The Flemings are taking care of everything.
Your job security.
The hospital bills.
Any kind of future visits or rehab you might need.”

My b
row furrows in disbelief. “What? Why?”

“Well, since Carter was driving when the accident happened, it seems they feel responsible.”

“But it wasn’t Carter’s fault. Everything was fine until. . . .” I trail off.

“I know. A deer ran into the road,” she finish
es for me. “I talked to him about that night. And of course he couldn’t help that.”

“It wasn’t a deer,” I say. “I don’t know what it was. But I
saw
it.”

“They were insistent, Genesis. And I know the only reason they offered is because they don’t want us to
sue them,” she adds. “I wasn’t born yesterday. It’s called damage control. But we can’t pay for any of this,” she says, looking around the room, the supplies and equipment working to keep me stable. “We
have
to take the money.”

She sighs.

This leaves us
indebted, I realize. I am forever obligated to Carter, the entire Fleming family.
His children.
His
children’s
children.

Silence—aside from the occasional beep from a monitor—fills the room. “I’m glad you’re okay,” she finally says.

“Me too.”

Though it’
s open, there’s a knock on my door.

And there he is.

I sit up in my bed, straighter, cautious.

He comes bearing gifts: a bouquet of pink and orange daisies, a small, brown teddy bear,
a
balloon. The
mylar
spins beneath the vent: a picture of an injured p
uppy dog, bandage wrapped around his head, on the front.
Get Well Soon.
It continues swirling, until the dog and the message disappear.

“Hi,” Carter
says,
voice quiet.

“Hi.”

“They told me you were awake.” He nods toward the door, and I assume he means th
e nurses at the station. They’ve been bustling in and out all day.
Always excited to see me.

“
Mmm
,” I mumble.

He clears his throat, swallows. “Can I come in?”

“Absolutely,” my mom says, standing. “I was just heading to the cafeteria for a snack.” She mane
uvers around my bed and Carter, and stops at the door. “Send for me if you need me, okay?”

I nod.

Carter shifts nervously from one foot to the other. On the surface, it doesn’t even look like he was in any kind of accident. No cuts or bruises or casts.

“I
brought you these,” he says, placing the flowers and the teddy bear on the rolling meal tray I pushed aside earlier, after declaring “lunch” inedible. 

“Thank you,” I say. “They’re pretty.”

He shoves his hands deep inside the pockets of his blue jeans. “
Look, Genesis,” he begins after a few, quiet moments. “I’m really sorry about what happened.”

I bite into my lower lip, feeling a surge of conviction. “It’s okay,” I assure him. “I mean, it was an accident.”

His brow creases and his face remains pinched—p
ained—even as he nods in agreement.

I clear my throat. “Mom told me that you guys were taking care of my hospital bills. I’m not sure what would’ve happened with that, so . . . thank you.”

His eyes connect with mine. They’re empty and serious, not at all
like the Carter I’ve come to know. “It’s the least we could do. I mean, you’re in here because of me.” He laughs, but there’s no humor in it. It’s tiny, defeated.

“It was an accident,” I remind him. “I saw it. Something, I mean. Run out in front of you.” I
tuck my hair behind my ear, wanting him to elaborate, to explain what happened that night—what he saw. Instead, he changes the subject.

“Does it hurt?” he asks, studying my wrist.

I brush my fingers across the plaster. “Not really. The doctor says it’s b
roken, though, so I have to wear this thing for six weeks, and then I’ll probably wear a brace for a while. Other than that I’m fine. I mean, they were worried because I hit my head. I had a cut that needed stitches, but thankfully my hair covers it.”

“Goo
d. I mean, not good,” he quickly adds. “It’s just good that it wasn’t worse. I mean, this is bad. . . .” His face
contorts,
conflict raging in his eyes.

I laugh softly. “Carter, it’s okay. I’m not mad at you. I don’t blame you. And you’re right. I was luc
ky. It could’ve been worse.”