Time Between Us (16 page)

“Hi.”

“Hi.” He smiles, but as I watch him, his expression goes from playful to serious. “You know, I meant what I said the other day. The fact that I’m here…” His voice trails off, and he gets quiet for a minute. “It impacts you more than it does me.”

I don’t like this turn toward the heavy, so I copy his game-show-buzzer sound. “Please phrase your statement in the form of a question.”

“Do you understand what all of this means for you?”

“No.” And I know I’m supposed to care, but I don’t, not right now. I don’t want to think about what he can do and where he can go and when he might leave, because at this moment we’re both in the exact same place at the exact same time. Right now I just want to kiss him.

He brings his hands to my waist. “It’s like my dad’s list of world events. I could go back and change a bunch of little things that would likely change the outcome, and my life wouldn’t be
any
different as a result. But other people’s lives would be. And maybe they’d be better. But maybe they’d be worse. My being here with you
right now
is a change. Not for me—for you. You exist in 2012, just like I do, in a future that doesn’t include me. Just knowing me here in 1995, where I don’t belong—”

“Will be fun,” I interrupt.

“Will change your whole life.”

“Maybe for the better.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“Well, I already know you, Bennett. What choice do I have?”

“Remember what I said at your house that first day—that I would tell you everything, but I’d let you choose.”

I wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him. “Yes. Let’s hear my choices.”

He inhales sharply. “First choice: I can go back to being the strange new kid at school, keeping my distance from everyone until Brooke returns and I can go home again. You and I can say hi in the halls, and maybe we’ll exchange little glances now and then, like people who share a secret do. But that’s it. Your life from this point on won’t be any different.”

“No way.” I kiss him again. “What’s the other choice?”

He smiles. “Second choice: I spend the time I have here with you, and we’ll hang out like normal people and travel the world like abnormal ones. When Brooke returns, I’ll go back home, but then I’ll come back here. And I guess I’ll keep coming back until you decide you’re sick of me.” He pulls back to get a better look at my expression.

It seemed pretty easy up until this point, but now that he’s forcing me to really think about it, I can see how enormous this decision is. Two futures: the safe but mundane life I know so well, or one filled with adventure but constant uncertainty. He’ll take me around the world, but he’ll leave. There will be times when we’re together, and times when we’re separated—not just by miles, but also by almost two decades. Every rational part of my being tells me to take the safe route, as unappealing as it sounds. But then I look into his eyes and I’m somehow confident in my decision. Still, there’s one more thing I need to understand.

“I don’t get it. Why would you uproot your life just to be with me?”

“Because you—” He stops. Takes a breath. Starts over. “I liked your sense of adventure. I thought it would be fun to take you somewhere you’d never go otherwise. But now it’s more than that. Now I just want to know you.” His words have my heart racing again, and I close my eyes and take a deep breath. When I open them, he’s still looking at me.

“Didn’t you once say something about this being a really bad idea?”

He laughs under his breath. “Yeah. I think I did.”

“You were right, you know.”

“Told you.”

“Still, I’m choosing option two.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

His face breaks into a huge grin and he pulls me tighter and kisses me, warm and sweet and long and slow and never-ending, and I know this is what I want.

And I know I need to invite him over for dinner, because there’s no question. This is serious.

We continue trading questions the entire way home, and as we pull in to the driveway, I feel like I’ve achieved the impossible: I actually know Bennett Cooper. As he puts the Jeep in park, I look up at my house and feel my chest constrict. I’ve been with him for nearly eleven hours, and I’m still not ready for him to leave.

He turns the car off and leans over to kiss me, but I reach up and put my finger to his lips. “Wait. I have another question.” He stops midway and waits for me to continue. “Why were you watching me at the Northwestern track the day you started at Westlake?”

“That again?” He settles back into his seat.

“Well, yeah. You haven’t answered me yet.”

“I have. I didn’t know what you were talking about the day Emma assaulted me in the lunchroom, and I still have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“It really wasn’t you?”

“Look, you know everything there is to know about me. And I’m telling you, I wasn’t there that day. I still haven’t been to Northwestern. Certainly not at six thirty a.m. in sub-thirty-degree weather. That’s your twisted thing, not mine.” He laughs lightly, and I want to believe him. Everything about his words and the look on his face says that I should. After all, he’s right—there’s no reason for him to lie to me now that I know everything.

“Since I’ve answered that one before—multiple times, in fact—you get one more question.”

I’m ready to go back to our comfortable question-and-answer session, so I smile and think of another: “Where is your favorite place in the world?”

He smiles from ear to ear and his eyes shine as he starts to speak. “Easy. Vernazza. It’s a small fishing village on the northwestern coast of Italy, in the Cinque Terre, and you have to arrive by train—well, at least most people do. It’s the most amazing little village. Narrow, cobblestoned streets. Colorful boats lining the harbor. Row after row of tiny, brightly painted houses built straight into the hillside. It’s spectacular.” His eyes fall on my lips and he leans forward and this time I close my eyes and wait for him. “You’ll love it there,” he says, and as we kiss, the little village comes to life with the two of us in it.

“I’m home!” I yell in the general direction of the living room, and I start heading up the stairs in an exhausted little daze. My forearms are sore, and my hips hurt, and I have blisters from my new little elf shoes. I can’t wait to get into the shower and then into bed and drift off to sleep with nothing but thoughts of Bennett to keep me company.

“Annie, can you come here?” Dad calls, and I turn around and drag myself toward the sound of his voice. Just as I turn the corner and enter the kitchen, I see Mom and Dad push their chairs away from the table and start walking toward me.

Here it comes. “What’s up?” I ask, steeling myself for a lecture about spending the day with a boy they don’t even know. But as they get closer, I can see that Mom’s been crying.

“What?” I repeat, looking back and forth between the two of them. “What’s going on?”

“It’s Justin…” Mom pulls me into a hug, but I resist, stepping back from her.

“What do you mean? What about Justin?”

Mom starts crying again, so Dad jumps in. “Sweetie, he’s been in a car accident. I guess it happened earlier today, but we just found out about it an hour ago.”

“A car accident? Are you sure?”

Mom tries to pull herself together, rushing to wipe the tears from her cheeks. “We don’t have much information yet, honey. I guess he was on his way into the city and someone ran a red light. The Reillys are at the hospital now, and I’m sure he’d want to see you—we’ve just been waiting for you to get home so we could all go over there together.”

“Why was Justin going to the city? He doesn’t even have a car.”

Then it hits me.

“Oh, my God. He was with Emma.”

Dad’s driving, Mom’s in the passenger seat, and I’m in back. No one’s said a single word for the last fifteen miles.

We’re taking the same route that Emma always takes into the city, so I’m searching out the window for leftover flares. Or tiny balls of tempered glass. Or pieces of red plastic taillight. Something to indicate where they were when their date took a turn for the worse. I can’t find a thing.

When we reach the hospital, Dad drops us off at the main entrance and goes to look for parking. It doesn’t take Mom and me long to locate Justin’s parents. When we enter the waiting room, they stand up, eyes all red and puffy, and thank us for coming. Mrs. Reilly explains what happened, and even though I’m standing right next to her, her words fade in and out of my head and I process only the pertinent details. The accident happened just after two. They didn’t get here until four thirty. The girl’s parents arrived just after it happened, which is a good thing, since she’s in much worse shape. They’re up on the seventh floor in the ICU. She’s out of surgery now, but her condition is still considered critical. Justin will be fine, but they’re keeping him overnight for observation.

I must have found a chair, because I’m now sitting in one. I watch Mom—who looks like she’s moving in slow motion—pull Mrs. Reilly toward her and whisper something into her ear.

Mrs. Reilly’s voice rises an octave when she asks, “Who? Who’s Emma?!” Strangers turn to look in her direction, relieved, I imagine, for any activity that distracts them from whatever reason they’re sitting in the ER on a Saturday night.

“The girl who was with Justin today. That’s Emma, Anna’s best friend from school.” Justin. Emma. And Justin. Emma and Justin. I can’t breathe. This can’t be happening.

Mom talks with Mrs. Reilly in low, hushed tones designed for me not to hear. It doesn’t matter. Everyone sounds far away, anyway.

After a few minutes, Mom gets up and comes over to sit next to me. “Sweetie.” She rubs my back in small circles. It feels so familiar, even though it’s been years since she traced the invisible pattern that used to make me drop right off to sleep. “Justin is going to be okay, but the other car collided with the driver’s side, so Emma got the brunt of the impact. The Reillys had been trying to find out who Justin was out with, but no one would tell them anything, and I guess Emma’s parents have been with her in the ICU all afternoon.

“If this was Northwestern Memorial, I’d be staff, but here—” I can hear the frustration in her voice. She hates that she has no clout. “Stay here. I’ll go upstairs and see what I can find out.”

I haven’t said a word since we left the house, but now I find my voice. “No.” I stand up. “I’m coming with you.”

Emma looks small and frail against the while sheets. Her eyes are closed, and the skin underneath them—all the way down to her trademark cheekbones—bulges, black and shiny. Red marks speckle the left side of her face, indicating—as her parents explained when they prepared me to see her—where the doctors had to dig the glass out of her skin. There’s a clear plastic tube running up her nose, and even given all the rest of the damage, I think that would piss her off the most.

As bad as she looks on the outside, that was all fairly easy to fix. The real mutilation is invisible. Her spleen ruptured on impact and had to be removed, but it took the surgical team two hours to find the source of the internal bleeding. There’s a small skull fracture that they say should heal by itself, but they will need to run an MRI before they can determine whether there was any permanent brain damage. When her internal injuries are healed, she’ll have to have her left shoulder reconstructed. She has three broken ribs, but at least they didn’t puncture her lungs. The doctors delivered that last part as “the good news.”

The other car hit them going fifty miles per hour, just as she and Justin reached the middle of the intersection. “A T-bone collision,” Mrs. Atkins called it. Emma probably never even saw it coming, she had said. No, I’m quite sure she didn’t.

I sit next to Emma on the bed and cradle her soft and perfectly manicured hand in mine, still caked with chalk dust, with dirt still wedged under my fingernails. The accident happened around two o’clock. While I was reclining against Bennett, laughing and cuddling and kissing him, my best friend was being ripped apart by metal and glass, transported by a speeding ambulance, and then torn apart all over again so that she could be reassembled. It took me six hours to find out. Another hour to get to the hospital. And yet another to get here to her hand. Eight hours.

The whirs and thumps and beeps of all the machines are inescapable in the tiny room. I want to unplug them, one at a time, and give her the peaceful silence she deserves, but then I remember she might not be here without them, so instead of being annoyed, I try to find their musical qualities.
Thump-beep. Thump-beep-whir. Thump-beep.

We sit like this, Emma silent because she can’t speak, and me silent because I can’t think of anything to say. I think I’m supposed to talk to her. To let her know I’m here. But every time I open my mouth to say something, I can’t quite get the words out.

I hear the door slide open and my jaw drops. Justin is standing there in a hospital gown, bruised and bandaged, unable to move his head because of the blue plastic brace wrapped tightly around his neck. His hair is matted and speckled with something that looks like blood. His wrist is in a cast.

“Justin.” I rest Emma’s hand on the sheets and run to him. I stop short, afraid to hurt him, so I’m grateful when he reaches out to hug me first. The scratches on his face and body may be superficial, but they make him look like a porcelain doll that’s been dropped on the floor and put back together. I’m pretty sure the glue’s not yet dry.

“Are you okay?” I grip a spot on his arm that doesn’t look damaged, but he sucks in a breath and I recoil as if he were hot to the touch. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Justin says. He gives me a wobbly half hug. “How is she?”

I just shake my head.

I watch his face fall as the information sinks in, then follow his gaze across the room to Emma. I’m pretty sure we’re both thinking the same thing. He’s okay. She’s not. Justin walks over to where I was sitting on the bed and takes my spot. He picks up her hand and strokes the back of it with his thumb.

“You know, you’re supposed to be home writing about me in your diary right now,” he says. I can see him smiling at her, and I watch her face to see if she’ll return it, but she doesn’t. She’s too far away. But that doesn’t keep him from talking. “I had a bunch of great jokes lined up. I read the newspaper this morning so we could talk about current events. I’m telling you, you would’ve been hooked. Now look at me.” He glances at his chest. “I ripped my best sweater.”

He keeps smiling at her. Talking to her like I should have but couldn’t.

“She was looking for a CD.” He’s still looking at her, but I know the comment is meant for me, so I sit down on the opposite side of the bed and take her other hand in mine. I watch Justin’s face contort. “We were talking about this British indie band that we like and she asked me to find her CD case on the floor.” I picture the hot pink suede case I gave her for her birthday last year and my stomach lurches. I was always putting all her CDs in that case. I should have left them loose, piled up in the glove compartment and on the floor where she had them. I shouldn’t have given her that case in the first place. “She started to flip through it and…” He trails off.

I just squeeze her hand. There’s nothing more to say, because our shared silence confirms what I already know. She wasn’t paying attention—the accident was her fault. And she crashed holding on to my gift, which shouldn’t make me feel so responsible, but it does.

There’s a knock on the door, and it slides open before we can react. The nurse pokes her head in. “I’m sorry, kids. That’s all the time I can give you.” Her voice is just loud enough to be heard over the machines. “I wasn’t even supposed to let you in,” she says, like we’re about to argue with her. “Family only.” We know. She’s told us this three times since Mom pulled whatever strings she pulled to score us these ten far-too-short minutes.

I squeeze Emma’s hand again, reach forward, and run my finger across her unstitched cheekbone. “I’ll be back tomorrow,” I say into her ear. I walk to the door and wait for Justin.

He brushes her hair back and kisses her forehead. “I’ll see you tomorrow too.” He stands up, looking around the bleak and sterile room. “And I’ll bring you some music. Maybe that will help.”

At first, I think he means that the music will help drown out the incessant beeps. But as I watch him watch her, I think he may mean that the music will help bring her back from wherever she is right now.

Emma doesn’t look any better on Sunday, but the room is cheerier. Enormous bouquets of bright flowers hide all the sterile surfaces, cards have been taped to an empty wall, and a collection of Mylar balloons with
Get Well
written on them in fancy script decorate the corner over by the small window. “Ten minutes,” the ICU nurse tells us flatly, “just to keep her company until her parents come back from lunch. You’re not supposed to be in here.” She looks behind her to be sure no one’s watching and then draws the curtain and closes the door.

Justin hasn’t been home yet, but his mom has brought in this enormous boom box and a series of CDs as he instructed. Now he comes around to the side of Emma’s bed, plugs it into the wall by the monitors, and pops open a CD case. It’s one of his homemade mixes, though I can’t help noticing that there are no watercolor swirls on this one. He presses play, and the sounds of the machines are instantly masked, their
whir-thump-beep
pattern fading into the background as accompaniment to the music. I take a seat on the bed next to Emma and watch her, wishing I could talk to her, the way Justin did yesterday, but every time I open my mouth I feel awkward.

He’s watching me. “Do you want me to leave for a bit?” That would be even worse. I’ll have no reason
not
to talk to her, but I still won’t be able to.

“No,” I say.

He walks around to the other side of the bed and lifts her other hand in his, and we just sit like that. Our ten minutes pass, then twenty, but the nurse never returns to kick us out, so the two of us just stay put. I’m silent, watching her chest move up and down. Justin is silent, too, mesmerized by the glowing red blips on the monitor. The music does help make this horrible room feel less sterile, but that’s about all it’s doing. Emma is still far away.

The Atkinses return, and I look over at Justin. He was discharged a half hour ago, and his parents are still downstairs, filling out paperwork. He looks exhausted, like he can barely keep his eyes open.

“You wanna get some air?” I ask, and after some thought, he finally nods. I leave all my things inside so I have an excuse to get back into Emma’s room.

Once we’re in the hallway, Justin leans against the wall. “This sucks.” He starts to rub his forehead, forgetting about his stitches. “Ow. Damn it.”

I lead him to the elevator. “You should go home, Justin. Go rest. Come back tomorrow when you’re feeling better.” I wish I could say Emma wouldn’t be here tomorrow, but we both know she will.