Letters to Nowhere (14 page)

I rolled my eyes. “It was like three seconds long. And it was a mistake…or at least we decided it not to do it again.”

“Like grief sex,” Blair said, as though she had so much knowledge on this subject. “Sometimes people hook up when they go through emotional stuff together.”

I shrugged. “Maybe it was like that. It doesn’t matter. He’s never going to really see me as a romantic interest. Not for a while, anyway. And considering I’m just now hitting puberty, I don’t even know if I’d want him to think about me that way.”

The waiter tried to set down a basket of breadsticks and both Blair and I shook our heads, instructing him to take them back. We each ordered a salad with grilled chicken on top and a small side of pasta to share.

“We should get extra spinach in our salad,” Blair said to me before the waiter left. “Extra vitamins to keep us from getting sick, like Ellen.”

“She’ll get better soon. Now that they’ve got her on antibiotics. Poor girl.”

Blair folded her hands on top of the table, her jet–black hair shiny and falling in her eyes. “You’re right, she’ll get better. My leg will heal. Stevie will continue to add her old skills back until she’s at ass–kicking level, but you? What are we going to do to keep you from freaking out?”

I glanced down at my hands, twisting them nervously. Blair and I hadn’t spoken about my parents hardly at all, but she seemed to have this extra bold streak today, or maybe her injury provided her own version of a get–out–of–jail–free–card.

“They’re gone, Blair.” I finally looked up at her. “They’re gone and Nina Jones was telling everyone how great I was and I realized that I couldn’t tell them. Not ever.”

Blair nodded, fighting her own emotions. “I figured it was something like that.”

I let out a breath, determination rising in me. “I need to do that new skill in Chicago. The back full on beam. And I need to
not
freak out during that meet. You’re the best person to help me with this because you know how important it is. And that shrink, Jackie—”

“You have a shrink?” Blair said.

“Yeah, but we don’t really talk about this stuff and I doubt she would get it.”

Blair sat still, thinking hard. “You have to block it out. The same way you block out fears in gymnastics. Like that time in level nine when you crashed on a Yurchenko vault and you kept seeing yourself falling on your neck over and over.”

“Yeah, I remember that.”

“You got over it,” Blair said.

My cell phone vibrated in my pocket. I glanced at it, seeing a text from Jordan.

I smiled at the phone and Blair raised her eyebrows. “Are you texting a boy?”

“No,” I said, “a boy is texting me.”

“Oh my God. This is so crazy.”

I put the phone away and I turned back to Blair.

“How did you deal with the Yurchenko vault issue?” Blair asked.

“The same way I handle any fear issues, technical analyses and drills.”

“Find a way to use
that
to help you get through
this
.”

***

The backseat of my parents’ car felt cold and distant. I tugged on the seat belt several times, eyeing the bleach–blond hair hanging over the driver’s seat.

“Got your seat belt on, sweetheart?” Mom said, glancing over her shoulder, smiling at me.

Dad’s auburn hair showed above the passenger seat. “Jodi, she’s not four years old anymore…you don’t need to remind her to put her seat belt on.”

Mom shrugged as if this didn’t matter at all and pulled the car out onto the road. Seconds later we were speeding along the interstate, dodging cars left and right as Mom used both lanes to pass up everyone. My heart thudded faster and I gripped the door handle.

“Slow down!”

Dad turned around and lifted his eyebrow at me. “We can’t, pumpkin…this is the speed we have to maintain to cause the greatest amount of impact.”

My mouth went completely dry, sickness settling in my stomach. “Wait…what? What’s happening?”

Neither of them spoke and I nearly screamed as we zipped down the interstate at a reckless speed. “Mom! Stop! Please . . .”

I felt the blood drain from my face, nausea taking control of my body. “Oh God…this is it, isn’t it? I’m not supposed to be here. Let me out!”

My hands gripped the door handle, shaking it violently.

Mom’s head snapped around and she glared at me. “Karen, don’t you want to come with us? We’re a family. We should do this together.”

Trembling, I tugged harder at the lock. “I don’t want to…I don’t want to be here…”

The door flew open and I jumped off right before the twenty–foot metal pole appeared out of nowhere. Pain shot through every nerve in my body as I tumbled onto hard, frozen grass.

Right in front of my eyes, Mom and Dad’s car wrapped itself around that pole, their bodies flung toward me, screaming my name. I threw my arm over my head as they landed with a thud beside me, pieces of limbs strewn in the grass.

And blood. Everywhere. Oozing from Dad’s face as he reached a hand toward me. I backed away from his bloody fingers screaming louder than I’ve ever screamed in my entire life.

***

“Karen? Wake up, Karen…”

I shot up in bed, aches hitting every inch of body all at once. Sweat trickled from my hair and down my neck and back. Air refused to move through my lungs. “I jumped out…I wasn’t supposed to be there…I had to jump out…”

“Karen,” Coach Bentley’s strong hands curled around my arms. “It’s okay…you’re okay.”

My eyes flew open, taking in the dark, bare bedroom and the bald–headed man standing in front of me, his face full of concern. I clutched my stomach and pulled myself from his grip, darting around him. “I’m gonna be sick.”

Some part of my subconscious must have hung on to previous concerns because I managed to slam the bathroom door shut, giving myself privacy before puking in the sink. I leaned over it, heaving until I started breathing again, and then I ran the water, waiting for all the chunks of vomit to vanish down the drain.

My head pounded, and despite the sweat, I could feel myself shivering uncontrollably as I fumbled for my toothbrush and quickly ran it through my mouth, getting rid of the vomit taste. There wasn’t enough energy left in me to make it out of the bathroom, so I decided, after my legs practically collapsed underneath me, that it would be a good idea to sleep on the bathroom floor.

“Karen, open the door,” Bentley said, the knob rattling.

I tried to raise my head and tell him I was fine, but that required energy that I didn’t have. Sometime later, after I dozed off, I peeled my eyes open to see the doorknob falling off and hitting the tile floor with a loud clank. Somehow Coach Bentley managed to push the door open with me lying in front of it.

He scooped me up off of the floor, like I weighed nothing, and carried me down the stairs. “My head hurts,” I mumbled. “It really hurts.”

“You’ve got a fever,” he said with a grunt as he set me down on the couch.

My eyelids felt too heavy to keep open all the way. “It wasn’t real, was it? It’s just the fever, right?”

Coach Bentley knelt down in front of me, pushing the hair off my face. “You were having a nightmare. I tried to wake you, but it took a while.”

Tears slipped from eyes and even with the pounding headache, I felt weak and humiliated, crying in front of my coach. Had I been crying in my sleep? Screaming? “It was just a dream. I’m okay.
I’m okay
.”

Something pressed into my ear, pressure that made my head pound even more. “Jesus, Dad,” I heard Jordan say. “A hundred and five. What are we supposed to do? Call nine–one–one?”

“Calm down,” Bentley said to Jordan.

“What if she has meningitis? She needs a doctor!”

“Get me a bottle of Advil and a glass of water, okay?”

I could only see their feet and the bottom of Jordan’s flannel pants, but the wood floor kept creaking with every movement they made, making my head pound even more.

“She said she has a headache, what if her brain is swollen? Seriously Dad, you are totally screwing this up, I know you are!”

I covered my face with my arm and started crying harder. I was too sick to even care what was wrong with me. I just wanted my headache to go away.

It didn’t help that Coach Bentley stormed off with loud pounding footsteps. My teeth began to chatter again. I felt a thick blanket land on me and then someone tugged it off.

“Don’t cover her,” Bentley said. His voice moved closer to me. “Karen, I need you take some medicine, okay?”

Being the obedient gymnast that I am, I lifted my head just enough to toss the four Advil in my mouth, sending them into my bloodstream with a single swallow of water.

“Come on, Dad,” Jordan said. “I’ll warm up the car. We can toss her in the back with a blanket.”

I felt my lower lip trembling, more tears tumbling out between the shivering. I covered my face again with my arm. The last thing I wanted to do was go outside in the middle of winter and ride in the back of a car.

“If her fever isn’t down in an hour, we’ll take her to the hospital, I promise,” Bentley said. I felt him sit down beside my head, the couch cushion sinking in. He slipped a pillow under me. The material felt cool against my cheek. “Go to bed, Jordan. You have school in the morning.”

“Whatever,” he snapped. Then he stomped up the steps.

“Is my brain really swollen?” I asked. It felt swollen, like ready–to–explode swollen.

“No,” he said. “My son apparently spends too much time reading about communal diseases spread most commonly through college dorms.”

The TV turned on, volume low enough that it made a relaxing hum rather than noise that would aggravate my headache.

“Coach Bentley?” I said after several minutes of dozing in and out of consciousness.

“Yes?”

“Did I blow it in Houston? It’s over for me, isn’t it?” I knew he wouldn’t tell me either, but in my distress, with that nightmare fresh in my mind, I wanted to tell him what really happened.

“Everyone knows what you’ve been through. They know you need time.”

“It was so great,” I muttered into the pillow. “Having them all watch me like maybe I could actually stand out for once…and then for a second all I could think about was finishing my routine so I could text my mom and tell her all about it. Then I remembered…”

Coach Bentley didn’t say anything, he just patted my head gently, causing the lump in my throat to double in size. That was something my dad would have done. Though he’d have had no idea what to do about a hundred and five degree fever and would likely have panicked like Jordan and called 9–1–1. Mom would have been moving around the kitchen, getting me 7 Up while on hold with the pediatrician’s office, demanding to speak to the doctor and not a nurse. She’d have everything written down on a piece of pink scratch paper—my fever and at what time she’d last checked it, exactly when my symptoms began, any medications she’d given me. Then Mom would recite it all to the doctor without even glancing once at the piece of paper.

And Dad would have sat beside me, stroking my hair and telling me Mom would figure everything out. He called her superwoman.

I missed them both so much right now I thought my heart would break into a million pieces even before my head split open.

W
hen I woke up on the couch, following my horrible night, I was more than surprised to be hit with the late morning sun. My head still throbbed in the worst way, but my stomach had settled enough to prevent me from barfing again. I could also feel the heat in my cheeks and chills and aches all over my body.

“What time is it?” I asked after seeing Coach Bentley’s feet tiptoeing around the living room.

“Ten thirty,” he said.

I tried to sit up, but failed miserably. “What about practice?”

“Stacey’s covering it,” he said. “And you’re getting at least the day off. I made the mistake of letting Ellen practice with the flu last week and look how that turned out. Had she taken the time to recover, she might have avoided getting pneumonia and being out for a week.”

Coach Bentley made me drink a cup of blue Gatorade. I avoided telling him that Stacey wouldn’t approve and swallowed another three Advil before falling back to sleep.

I didn’t wake up again until around two thirty, when Jordan came home from school. My eyes were half open, but I watched him drag his feet slowly across the living room, coughing into his sleeve.

“Uh oh,” I muttered. “You’re sick, aren’t you?”