A Soul's Kiss (6 page)

I didn’t like it.

“Hold still, son,” the attendant said as he strapped me in. I didn’t like that either.

A million things went through my head as the ambulance sped to the hospital. It was hard to focus with the blaring siren and the obnoxious attendant joking with the driver. I hoped that meant I was not seriously injured. I felt okay. A little nauseated.

After they wheeled me into an exam room and checked me out, they let me phone my parents. My mom was there in ten minutes, my dad an hour later. My dad was furious when he heard that the car was totaled, but he calmed down when I told him it was Keith’s car. Then the third degree began.

“Where were you going?” he asked at the same time as my mom was asking who Keith was.

“Uh, we were driving Jessica home. She got hurt at school.” I turned toward my mom and answered her, too, “Keith is just some kid Hannah knows, and Jessica is a girl in my drama class. She got hurt as she was leaving school and we didn’t think she should drive herself.”

My mom smiled, always proud of me. My dad paced then stepped away and apparently went to the nurses’ station to ask some questions. It had been about an hour and a half since the accident and now that he knew the others’ names he probably used his big corporate authority voice to demand some information. He got it, too.

“Well,” he said as he returned, “you are one lucky kid. Your girlfriend’s going to be all right, too, but the other
s
—
” He pressed his lips together tightly and shook his head. I noticed how his eyes narrowed a bit also and I consciously copied it, waiting to see what he’d say next so I’d know how to use this expression in the future. “Keith’s got a busted leg and a concussion. Jessica is in critical condition. Bruised spleen, lacerations, head trauma. She’s in a coma.”

My mom gasped and grabbed my hand. That was an interesting reaction since I was just fine. I understood sympathy, but I didn’t feel it.

Finally, they let me have something to eat. All the tests the doctors did came back negative, but they wanted to keep me overnight anyway. My dad made them wheel me up to a private room, and my mom took my clothes and stuff and promised to be back early in the morning with fresh things. We had a little argument when she wanted to take my phone. I had a moment’s panic when I imagined what she’d do if she looked at it, then I remembered that the last number I’d dialed was for 911 so I stopped arguing. There was a phone by the bed anyway so I could call out even if I couldn’t text anyone.

I wondered how long the others had waited at the park. I fell asleep thinking about Emma, but I dreamed about Jessica.

I hated hospitals and I hated nurses who wake you up every hour. I was glad Friday morning to get the heck out of there. My mom gave me my phone back and I sent a text to Jessica’s number:
Sorry
. I didn’t mean it, but that’s what you’re supposed to feel.

I felt sorrier that I didn’t get a wheelchair ride out of the building. In the parking lot I had one of those “somebody’s following you” feelings all the way to our car. Maybe I was growing a conscience. I supposed I should have at least found out how my girlfriend was doing.

And Jessica.

I thought about Jessica all the way home and imagined her following me to my bedroom. I closed the door and tried to picture her in my bed.

I wondered how I should act if she died so I started rehearsing the types of things people say at funerals. I tried out different phrases, but most of them sounded too corny or too girly.

I plopped myself down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. I couldn’t keep my mind focused on a single thought. A million scenarios flitted through my head until one in particular started to play out like a dream. I was beyond drowsy and my entire body shook for an instant. No! I realized I was going to miss the football game.

Jessica

Friday

I push open Michael’s door and slip into his room, swallow the breath mint, and close the door softly. He’s standing near the foot of his bed mumbling all sorts of apologies to me. How sweet is that! I hear him say
Oh, Jessica, it was all my fault
and
Jessica, Jessica, so talented and pretty
and
Oh, man, I’m so, so sorry about this
.

My heart starts pumping harder. I can’t believe I’m in Michael Hoffman’s bedroom. It’s so neat and clean. Not at all like I thought a teenage boy’s room would be except for the framed sports posters. His bed is made, his dirty clothes are in a basket by the closet, his desk is tidy. I feel ashamed of my pigsty of a bedroom.

“I can’t believe she’s dead,” Michael says, shaking his head. Who’s dead? Me? I move around so I can see his facial expression. He looks like he has just eaten a lemon.

“I’m not dead, Michael,” I say, more to assure myself than him. After all, he can’t hear me.

He covers his face with his hands and his shoulders shake like he’s sobbing. Oh my gosh, maybe Hannah died. That would be awful and it would be all my fault.

Michael throws himself on the bed and his face goes blank. Oh my gosh, he must feel terrible. He looks like a zombie just staring at the ceiling. I sit down on the bed and am tempted to stroke his hand or his face. I really, really want to comfort him. I put my head close to his. His eyes close and his body jerks just enough to bump our foreheads.

“Oh, Michael,” I say.

And he hears me.

*  *  *

“Jessica, you have a flat tire. Let me fix it for you.”

“Thanks, Michael. That’s so nice of you.”

“Or maybe we could drive to the park.”

I’m next to him in a car I’ve seen him drive. I don’t know how we got from his bedroom to the car. I have a fleeting image of a flat tire, the school parking lot, Michael’s hand reaching out, and then we’re sitting next to one another. I’m moving like a child of sludge and lightning. I’m both heavy and fast, light and slow at the same time. I gasp for air and jerk myself up and away.

I look down on Michael’s sleeping face. What just happened?

I stare at him, watch the movement of his eyes flitting back and forth behind closed lids. Dreaming. And he’s dreaming about me.

I touch his hand. I close my eyes and try to see his dream, but there’s nothing but blackness. What I really want to do is kiss him. When am I going to have a better chance?

I should just do it. My heart is already racing and I lean over and ever so gently touch my lips to his.

And I’m in his dream again.

We’re in an old shed. There’s a mattress on the floor. I try to look around, but my focus keeps returning to a pile of empty bottles, the mattress, and the closed door. I can’t see the ceiling. A dark haziness floats above us. Everything about Michael, though, is clearer than I have ever noticed before. He hates his hair—can’t wait for it to grow all the way out and trim off the bleached ends. He’s wearing contacts, suffers from eye strain, and has lots of headaches.

“Don’t worry, Jessica, I won’t hurt you. I’d never hurt you. Lie down here,” he says. He’s looking right at me and for an instant I can see my own puzzled face.

The tingling fear that grips me releases the same haunting prickles I’ve felt when I’ve awakened in the dark from a nightmare. I push at the shed’s door and stumble out into a brightness that stuns me. I remember Rashanda for an instant then the brilliance of the light pulses before fading to a dreary gray that holds nothing but dread. Michael flies by me and I know he’s chasing Rashanda. Is this a memory or a dream?

I chase him, grab his arm, and turn him toward me. “Michael!” I think hard and fast of what to say. “Sit down and tell me all about it.”

Suddenly we’re in the last row of the auditorium, alone, but then there’s another row behind us and Hannah is sitting there. Silent.

“It’s just fun,” Michael says, “and you were next. You should feel honored. It will change you. Like Amy. Like Rashanda. Like me.”

“What will change me?”

He leans forward to kiss me. Hannah is watching. I jerk away.

If silence can clap its hands then that’s what I hear. From seeing his darkening face, so dreamy, to seeing his sleeping self just an inch from my nose startles me. I’m out of his dream and I know that his eyes are rolled back and he’s in a deep, dreamless state. The tingling persists and a hint of terror nips at my memory. I replay his words in my head over and over. I’m afraid of losing their meaning like a forgotten dream.

The doorknob turns and I jump off the bed. I freeze, catch a hollow reflection of my face in the dresser mirror, and wait. The door opens a foot and Michael’s mother sticks her head in and frowns at her son. She doesn’t look my way. She whispers his name, testing him. Then she shakes her head and closes the door softly.

Talk about getting into somebody’s head . . . huh. Apparently there are some advantages to being in a coma.

And disadvantages. I look in the mirror again and see the blood stain spreading on my clothes from my waist to my knees.

Rashanda

Friday

Maybe I just needed more sleep. Maybe seeing Jessica standing at the curtain was a crazy hallucination. Maybe my mind was playing tricks on me.

Or else seeing Jessica was the second sign.

I apologized to her parents and got out of there. I found a waiting room that no one was using and thought about stretching out across the seats to take a catnap, but I didn’t even sit down. That little voice in my head was whispering ‘
everything is going to work out’
but it didn’t sound like my grandma this time. Maybe it was God.

I stood at the window and looked out at the parking lot. People were coming or going, arriving in a hurry or leaving slowly. I saw Michael trail two adults, his folks no doubt, to a car parked across two lines. I couldn’t be angry at Michael for the accident. I knew he wasn’t driving the car, but my heart was a mix of emotions I couldn’t sort out.

The family reached the car and doors were opened. I saw a figure, a transparent Jessica, run up and slip into the car ahead of Michael. Didn’t one of them see her? No, she must have been completely invisible to them. That was the third sign and at that moment I had it all figured out.

Jessica’s car was still in the parking lot and I still had the key in my pocket. If I could get to it before the Hoffmans left I could follow them to their house and find Jessica. Maybe I was going crazy, but I wanted to believe she was not in that ICU bed with all those tubes hooked up to her. Not the real Jessica, not my best friend.

I had one of those heart skips when I reached her car and feared that I was going to find a flat tire, but it looked fine to me. I hadn’t locked the car and there was a can of Fix-a-Flat on the passenger’s seat. Tyler, maybe? Cool.

I drove past the Hoffmans’ house when they pulled into their driveway. I could see four heads in the car.

I wasn’t crazy. I wasn’t hallucinating.

I parked down the street and waited fifteen minutes trying to decide what to do next. Finally I went to the front door and knocked.

“Yes?” Mrs. Hoffman looked like she hadn’t slept either. She had that same exhausted look that Jessica’s mom had. At least she got to bring her son home.

“Um, I’m Rashanda Berry and my best friend, Jessica, was in the accident with Michael. Uh, how is he doing?”

“Fine, fine. Would you like to see him? Come in, come in,” she said. Her nervous repetitions were echoed with two sweeping hand gestures to usher me in. I could hardly refuse. I wondered what Michael would think of seeing me here. “He’s in his room,” she whispered as she closed the door, “I’ll check and see if he’s awake.”

She was gone a minute, enough time for me to get a nice impression of the Hoffmans from their house. Upper class, warm, family oriented. Tidy, controlled.

“I’m sorry, Jessica,” she started.

“Rashanda.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Rashanda. That’s right; Jessica is the one who was so badly hurt. Well, Rashanda, he’s sound asleep now. Maybe if you could stop by tomorrow?”

I glanced up the stairs and wondered where the heck Jessica disappeared to. “Sure,” I said. “You don’t have to tell him I was here. I’ll text him.”

I left, but I kept looking back at the house, checking the windows, wondering:
Where? Where are you, Jessica?

I sat in my car and stared for five more minutes. The front door didn’t open, but suddenly Jessica was rushing out of it barefoot and heading for the street. I honked the horn and pulled up.

She was covered in blood.

“Jessica! What happened?” She looked at me like
she
was seeing a ghost. “Get in the car. I’ll take you back to the hospital.”

She moved like she wasn’t hurt at all.

“I’m so glad you can see me.”

“And hear you,” I said. I grinned. I wanted to laugh, too, but that seemed wrong. Jessica was a bloody mess, but she climbed into the car in a split second and buckled herself in.

“Do you see this blood?” she asked.

“Yes, what happened?”

“I don’t know. It wasn’t like this before. Do you know what’s wrong with me?”

It was too surreal having this conversation with someone who shouldn’t even be alive, maybe wasn’t, but I tried to focus on my driving to get her to the ICU as fast as possible.

I turned onto the main road before I answered her, looked over, and nearly ran off the road. Jessica wasn’t there. The seat belt was buckled but hung limp.

“Jessica!”

“What?”

And just like that, she was back. “You just disappeared for a second. What’s going on?”

“I don’t know. This is weird.”

“You were pretty badly injured. Head trauma, something about your spleen, too.”

“My spleen?” Jessica looked at all the blood in her lap. It didn’t appear to be leaking onto the seat or getting worse. “Maybe that’s what this is all about.”

I caught the look on her face as I stopped for the traffic light. Jessica was scared. So was I.

The light turned green and I pushed the accelerator, watched the traffic, and lost Jessica again.

She was still with me . . . somewhere. I couldn’t concentrate on two things at once, at least not this mind-boggling. I kept talking in case she could still hear me. I told her everything. As soon as I parked in the emergency room parking lot, I closed my eyes and thought hard about her. I heard her seat buckle unclasp and I popped open my eyes to see her hand reaching for mine. She squeezed me and I swear I could feel it.

“Come on, let’s get you some help.”

She stayed on my heels, but I lost my concentration again as I hurried past the nurses’ station.

“Knock, knock, it’s Rashanda,” I said as I peeked around the curtain. Jessica’s mom and dad weren’t there. Jessica’s skin looked extra pale.

“I look worse,” I heard her say. Jessica stood looking down at herself.

We were alone in the cubicle. The machines were quietly beeping—too quietly. Someone had turned them down, but maybe they were warning of her blood loss. I opened the curtain all the way so she’d be exposed to every nurse and doctor who passed by. No one was around. What was this? Lunch time?

“Hey! Can we have some help over here?” I stepped around the corner and waved down the first person I saw wearing scrubs.

*  *  *

There was a lot of hustle and bustle and searching for Jessica’s parents. I was sent to the waiting room by the only nurse who noticed me standing half in and half out of the ICU room.

I sat down in the corner, put my head in my hands, and tried to make sense of things. It was like a religious experience because my thoughts got all calm and warm. I prayed for Jessica’s doctors, that they would fix her in time.