Crash (Visions (Simon Pulse)) (16 page)

Trey grabs the wheel and together we crank it, and I catch a glimpse of the snowplow driver’s head smashing against his window and flopping forward, his body held up only by his seat belt.

“Hang on!” Trey yells.

The grinding sound of metal on metal makes my head want to explode. I lean left to try to look around the hood, seeing the restaurant window and the blond girl safely off to my left. “We’re doing it!” I yell.

A split second later all I can see from my side window is a brick wall coming at me. I try to get away from it, leaning my head toward Trey, but momentum is against me and the rest of me won’t follow. I feel my body pressing hard against my door, against my will.

When the plow slams us into the corner of the restaurant, there is an enormous crunching sound, and pressure, pressure. Pressure.

All goes black.

•       •       •

Sirens. All I hear are emergency sirens trying to play a song, but nobody gets the tune right. I want them to play a song I know, but they don’t listen to me. They can’t hear me.

In the background of the horrible siren song is the vision, playing slow, and I can see through everything like they are ghosts. It’s a different story now. The snowplow speeds toward the restaurant, swerving to the wrong side of the road, jumping the curb, where a food truck in the back of a mostly empty parking lot speeds to meet it. The truck noses in front of the plow, trying to guide it away from the restaurant, but the plow doesn’t help it. The food truck turns sharply, smashes its passenger side into the side of the snowplow. A smoking girl watches dumbfounded from the back step of the restaurant, about to be smashed to bits, yet frozen, unable to move. A young man in the window stares wide-eyed. He checks his watch, drops settings on an empty table, and runs.

The food truck makes a last grand effort to push the plow away from the building, and finally it succeeds, just barely. But there’s not enough room for both vehicles to clear it. The food truck slams into the corner of the building as the snowplow is forced to turn toward the road. It ramps up the hood of a parked car, tips over it, and lands with a shudder on its side, sliding and coming to rest in a quiet intersection. The food truck, wrapped around the corner of the building, is bent like an elbow and hissing. Two giant meatballs have snapped
off and soar through the air, coming to an abrupt rest in a snowbank.

No one moves.

•       •       •

The smoking girl comes to life. She makes a phone call with shaky hands and opens the door from which she came, screaming for help.

•       •       •

When red and blue lights make the evening glow, two body bags lie in the snow.

A moment later, one of them disappears.

The vision ends before the wheels of the snowplow stop spinning.

I hear things. People talking, shouting. I hear a
familiar voice, but I can’t place it. For a second I open my eyes, looking for the vision in the shattered, blood-spattered windshield and not seeing it. A voice shouts my name. But it’s very noisy there. I have to close my eyes and go back to where it’s quiet again.

•       •       •

Every time I open my eyes, I hear the shouting and the screeching and the buzzing, and I can’t stand it. I need to get away from it. My stomach hurts and I feel like I am in a lot of trouble. I snuck out again. My father is going to be so mad. But I can’t think for long because I have to get away.

•       •       •

When I wake up, an animal is attacking my face. I try to reach for it but only one of my arms moves. I grab the animal and pull its skinny legs out of my nose, but that only hurts more. I have to get out of there. I have to get it off me. I hear noises again, but it’s all muffled—everything is muffled, and I wonder if my wig has slipped down over my ears.

Somebody holds my arm and I go back to sleep.

•       •       •

The next time I wake up, I just open my eyes and stare at the weird ceiling above me. For a moment I wonder if Dad did something to our bedroom. I frown at it, puzzled. I try to swallow and my throat hurts. I blink a few times, not quite sure if I’m going to get out of bed today, but I know I probably have a test or something . . . or wait, no—it’s a food holiday so it’ll be busy. I have to work. I brace my right hand on the bed to try and scoot myself up to sitting, but I’m just too tired. I’ll try again later.

“Julia?”

I turn my head slowly and see my mother. She looks terrible. “What’s happening?” My voice comes out all raspy.

She nods and smiles, tears in her eyes, dark circles even darker below them. “You were in an accident. You’re in the hospital. How do you feel?” There’s a noise from another part of the room and I turn my head in slow motion. Nothing wants to move today. It’s my father, and
I’m too tired to be scared. Rowan is back there too, I see.

“I’m okay,” I say. And before I can say “What happened?” bits of things rush back to my memory. I struggle to sit up, alarmed, but it hurts so much to move. “Where’s Trey?”

“He’s at home,” Mom hurries to explain, reaching out and gently pushing my shoulders back down. “He’s fine. He just got banged up, some cuts and bruises. He’s sleeping. He’s . . . he’s fine.”

I fall back in relief, and then vaguely I remember the last vision. “So . . . who’s dead? Is it Sawyer?” I close my eyes, and in spite of the fuzziness in my brain, pain sears through my chest. “Oh, God. Not Sawyer.” I don’t care if my father’s listening.

“Honey,” my mother says, “you just need to rest now, okay? Don’t get all worked up.”

“You have to tell me. I know someone’s dead. Who is it?”

Rowan comes over to the other side of the bed and touches my shoulder. “It’s not Sawyer,” she says. “He’s fine.” She gives me a look like she wants to say more but can’t.

I sigh as much as my body lets me, which isn’t very much, and I’m exhausted again. “Thank you,” I whisper. Good old Rowan.

Mom holds a glass of water for me and I drink some from a straw. Everything takes so long to do.

My father just stands there, looking like a big oaf.

I gaze at him under half-closed lids. “I’m sorry about the truck,” I say, and tears start spilling, not just from my eyes, but his, too. I haven’t seen him cry in a long time.

He comes closer and takes my hand. “The truck doesn’t matter,” he says. “You matter. I’m glad you’re going to be okay.” He swallows hard and then says in a gruff voice, “You saved a lot of people. I don’t know if you know what you did.”

I almost laugh. “I have an idea,” I whisper. I want to know more, but my eyes won’t stay open, and once again everything is dark and quiet.

•       •       •

When I wake up again, I am alone. I open my eyes cautiously, expecting to see scene after scene reflected in the monitors and windows, but there are none. Instead, there are heart balloons and flowers by the bed. “Big sigh, Demarco,” I whisper.

My body aches, especially when I breathe. If I yawn or cough, it feels like a knife is slicing through me. I reach for the nurse’s button and push it.

A minute later, a petite black-haired nurse comes in, all smiles. “Well, there you are,” she says. “I’m Felicia. How are you doing? Ready for some pain meds? Let’s make your Valentine’s night a little happier, shall we?”

“Yes, please.” It hurts so much I feel like crying.

She pushes a button that raises the head of my bed.
“Sorry I can’t just set up a morphine drip. Your parents said they didn’t want you to get addicted.” She smiles when I groan in embarrassment. “The pills take a little longer to kick in, but you’ll feel better soon.”

“What’s wrong with me?” I swallow the pills she hands me.

“Oh, let’s see here.” She checks the chart. “Your left arm is fractured, you have two cracked ribs, and we had to do some surgery for internal injuries. Looks like you are now without a spleen, and everything else got stitched up inside.” She smiles. “You have a killer black eye, and some other bruises and cuts.”

“I cut my finger,” I say, remembering. I bring my casted arm up so I can look at it. There are three little blue Xs across my knuckle.

The nurse grins. “Yes, that too. You’re definitely going to be sore for a while.”

I put my arm back down, exhausted. “Please tell me who died. Do you know?”

She smiles ruefully. “Everyone knows. It was pretty big news. The man who died was Sam Rutherford. He was the driver of the snowplow.”

My eyes flutter closed, but I’m not asleep. “Shit,” I whisper. “I never thought about him.”

“He didn’t die in the crash, though. They’re saying he had a massive heart attack before he hit you. The
witnesses who saw the whole thing talked to the cops. They told them what you did. You’re kind of a hero, Miss Julia.” Felicia smiles. “The police will be by tomorrow to talk to you if you’re feeling up to it.”

I’m glad I didn’t cause the driver’s death, but I still feel terrible about it. I nod. “I guess that’s fine.”

“And meanwhile, there’s been a sweet, very worried young man in the waiting room since last night hoping to visit you. One of the witnesses. His name is Sawyer. Do you want to see him?”

My good eye opens wide. “He’s here?”

“Yes.”

Ohh, dogs. My good hand flutters to my hair, which is all matted and gross. “What do I look like?”

Felicia smiles warmly and says, “You look like a girl who just saved that guy’s life.”

I press my lips together and nod. “That’ll do. Yeah. Send him in.”

He peeks his head in the door, and it’s so weird
to see him in this situation, with me lying here all vulnerable like this. His dark hair is disheveled and he’s wearing an Angotti’s shirt, as if he came straight from work.

There’s a look on his face that is so pained, I almost feel like I should offer him some meds—they’re starting to kick in, numbing some of my aches.

He sees my eyes are open and he stops and just stands there, six or eight feet away, like he’s feeling bad for intruding. “Hey,” he says, and his voice cracks on that one syllable, and then he’s bringing his hand to his eyes, and his shoulders start to shake. I watch him react, and a lump rises to my throat. I am overcome.

“Oh, hell, Jules,” he says after a minute. “Oh my God.” It’s all he can say.

“I must look really terrible to get that reaction,” I say, slurring my words. I’m starting to feel a little loopy from the drugs. “Come and sit. Aren’t you supposed to be at the dance or something?”

He comes over and eases into the chair by the bed and just looks at me, all this pain in his face that won’t go away.

“Hey.” I reach out my right hand toward him. “Why so serious?” I tease.

He takes my hand in his, holds it to his warm cheek, and leans in and hesitates, then gently strokes the hair off my forehead.

“I just—” he says, and the words are so hard for him that I want to find my Crescent wrench and yank them out. But I stay quiet. Because the truth is, he thinks he owes me this. I understand that. And he does owe me, but not for saving his life. He owes me something else.

“I—” he starts again, and this time he continues. “I’m so sorry. Jules, I’m . . . God, I was so wrong, and I didn’t believe you and I should have, and I feel so . . . so guilty about it, I feel terrible about everything. About not believing you, and about the last few years, which . . .” He sighs and shakes his head. “I’m just ashamed of the way things have been, and . . . the way I treated you.”

I touch my thumb to his lips and he closes his eyes.

And then he goes on. “When they couldn’t get you out at first, you almost died, and they had to use the Jaws of Life . . . and Trey was begging the paramedics not to take him away because he couldn’t leave you . . . I mean, I just wanted to die too. And I can’t believe I let this happen because of our stupid families.”

I blink hard. Jaws of Life? I almost died? “So that was me in the second bag,” I murmur.

“What?”

I try to focus on him, but I’m starting to get sleepy again. “In the final vision, there were still two body bags in the snow, but one of them went away.” I close my eyes and can’t open them again. “That must have been me.”

Sawyer squeezes my hand and presses his lips against my fingers. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey,” I say. The thoughts and words I mean to say are jumbled up in my head, and none of them come out at all, and then I’m slipping away again.

•       •       •

The third time I wake up, I see the face I’ve needed to see this entire time.

“Hey, good morning, Baby Bop. All purple and green.”

“That’s not nice,” I say, grinning sleepily. “That’s a great, um . . .” I point to his neck. “What’s the word?”

“Scarf?”

“No.”

“Noose?”

I laugh. “Ow. No, like Fred What’s-His-Name wears.”

“Who?”

“You know. From
Scooby-Doo
.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Oh, an
ascot
.”

“That’s it. Is it new? Oh, hell, this joke isn’t even funny anymore.”

He adjusts the white brace around his neck. “You like it? It came free with the whiplash and approximately two trillion dollars in hospital costs. My sister’s a crazy driver.”

“It’s lovely.”

Trey smiles and reaches toward me, fixes my pillows. “You okay, kiddo?”

I nod. “They call me the girl who lived.”

He smiles, and then grows serious. “I’m sorry I doubted you.”

I take his hand. “You didn’t doubt me. You believed me. Or else you wouldn’t have come.”

“Actually,” he says, cocking his head, “I was just delivering a pizza down the street and saw the truck, thought I’d say hi.”

I roll my eyes. “So, what’s everybody saying? Where’s Mom and Dad?”

“Mom and Dad were here overnight. You slept the whole time, they said. They just left when I came. Rowan’s home getting ready for the big day-after-Valentine’s rush.”

I laugh and pain sears through my side again. “Stop hurting me.”

“And the news story was interesting but fleeting. You had your fifteen minutes while under the knife, sad to say. But we were superheroes there for a minute or two.” He leans toward me conspiratorially. “
You
were, actually. But I was happy to take credit during your incapacitation.”