Made You Up (27 page)

M
y perimeter checks were useful, but it was Tucker’s knowledge of medical-speak that got us out of the hospital.

I knew I’d never be able to repay him for sneaking me out. And I’d never really be able to thank him for being worried about me when he found out Miles and I were together, instead of being angry.

We sprinted across the rain-soaked parking lot to Tucker’s black SUV and peeled our way out to the street. He didn’t ask me what I thought was going on. They used to be best friends. He probably already knew.

I couldn’t see Hannibal’s Rest because of the dark sheeting rain, but I knew when we passed my street because the phoenix sat atop the stop sign, its feathers flaming red in the rain. We swerved through the Lakeview Trail entrance. Tucker pulled
up in front of Miles’s house. I spotted Miles’s truck in the driveway, but not the Mustang that had been there before.

“We have to get inside.” I jumped out of the SUV.

“What?”

“We’re going into the house! Come on.”

Together we climbed the fence into the front yard. I desperately hoped Ohio wasn’t out, or couldn’t hear or smell us in this rain. The monster dog would tear us both to pieces. The front door of the house was shut tight and all the first floor lights were off, but a light was on upstairs.

I pulled Tucker to the doghouse, freezing when I saw the hulking silhouette of the huge Rottweiler, apparently asleep. But there was something unnatural about Ohio’s stillness.

Chills ran up my arms. This was it; this was the night. I climbed up on the doghouse and reached for the drainpipe, like I’d seen Miles do when he’d left the house that night. It had been reinforced with pieces of wood that stuck out at odd angles and made perfect hand- and footholds. Miles must have put them there. The trick to climbing them was not combusting from the fiery soreness burning through my entire body.

Within minutes, both Tucker and I were on the rain-slicked porch roof and making our way to the room with the light.

The window was open enough for me to wedge my fingers underneath and pull it up. Tucker and I tumbled inside.

I started out noticing the little things: the notebooks spilling from the closet; the hunk of Berlin Wall sitting on the dresser, crumbling on one side like part had been broken off; the words scribbled on the walls. A picture frame sat on his nightstand. The black-and-white picture was of a man who looked almost exactly like Miles, one eyebrow quirked up, wearing a black flight jacket and standing next to a WWII-era fighter plane.

“He’s not here,” I said. “We have to search the rest of the house.”

“What about Cleveland?” Tucker asked.

“I think he’s gone. His car is gone.”

Tucker didn’t look so sure.

“Come on.” I walked to the door and wrenched it open. A stale smell hit me straight in the face, and I realized how much Miles’s room had smelled like him, like mint soap and pastries.

Tucker followed me out into a narrow hallway lined with doors, all open. The rain and wind howled outside. This place was so cold, so sad, I wondered how Miles managed to live here at all. Tucker walked toward the opposite end of the hallway, where a staircase descended to the first floor. A single lightbulb over the stairs cast a halo on his black hair.

He sucked in a breath. “Oh, shit.”

“What?”

“Oh shit, Alex, oh shit.” He started down the stairs, two at a time. I ran to the top of the stairs and looked down.

Miles sat against the wall at the bottom, slouched over.

One second I was at the top of the stairs and the next I was at the bottom. Tucker was already at his cellphone, speaking to a 911 operator. I knelt next to Miles, wanting to touch him but afraid of what I’d feel. Blood dripped slowly onto his glasses; the extra weight pulled them down until they hung off one ear.

Would he be cold? As dead and empty as the house around him?

This could not be happening. I was hallucinating all of this. I could make it all go away if I tried hard enough.

But I couldn’t. And it was real.

I placed a shaky hand over his heart. I couldn’t feel anything. I pressed my ear against his chest, closed my eyes, and prayed, really prayed, for the first time in my life, to whatever god was listening.

Don’t go away. Don’t go away.

Then I heard it. And I felt the almost unnoticeable rise-and-fall motion of his chest as he breathed.

Tucker dragged me back.

“Is he breathing?” I asked. “Is he really breathing?”

“Yeah,” Tucker said, “yeah, he’s breathing.”

W
e sat on the front steps as the paramedics took Miles out of the house on a stretcher. The cops found Cleveland’s car not far away, wrapped around a tree, and Cleveland stumbling around in an angry drunken stupor. Connections weren’t hard to make.

Tucker took me back to the hospital. To my surprise, no one yelled at me, but I did pull a few stitches, blow up my blood pressure, and get a couple more days in the hospital under strict confinement to my room.

I was okay with that. Because the next morning, I got a roommate.

“M
r. Lobster. Do you think my hair is more Communist red, or your red?”

Morning sunlight swept across the tiled floor and over the white bed sheets, bathing the room in warmth. The white-noise machine under the window dulled the beeping of the monitors next to the bed. The only other noise came from occasional footsteps in the hallway and a TV somewhere.

“Fire truck.”

I hardly heard it, he said it so quietly. I wasn’t even sure he was awake at first; his eyes barely opened, but he licked his lips.

“Fire truck,” he said again, a little louder. “Strawberry, stop sign, ladybug, Kool-Aid, tomato, tulip. . . .”

He slowly raised his arm and reached out, feeling for the bedside table. “Glasses.”

I had his glasses; they dangled off my right index finger. I gently took his hand and placed them in his palm. He fumbled with them for a moment before finally getting them straight on his face. He blinked a few times and stared at the ceiling.

“Am I dead?”

“Fortunately, no. I know you were pretty hell-bent on it, but it didn’t really work out.”

“What happened to the good dying young?” he said, his voice breaking. I smiled even though it felt like nails were being hammered into the left side of my face.

“We’re not good, remember?”

He frowned and tried to sit up and fell back again, groaning.

“God . . . what happened?”

“You got beaten up and thrown down a flight of stairs. Want to explain what you were doing?”

“I don’t really remember. I was upset. . . .”

“Yeah, I figured that much.”

“It wasn’t supposed to go that way. I provoked him.” He looked around. Saw the other bed. “You’re in this room, too?”

I nodded. “Someone likes us.”

He carefully turned his head, wincing, to look at me. “Your face.”

I smiled again; I was wondering when he’d notice.

“It’s only the left side,” I said. “The doctor got all the glass out. He said when the swelling and redness go down, I’ll look basically the same as I used to. Just with a lot of scars.”

Miles frowned. “Are you okay?”

“Great,” I said. “Concussion, electrocution, scarring . . . nothing I can’t handle, trust me. You should be more worried about yourself. I know how you like to keep people away, but after this I think you might have your own fan club.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked, licking his lips again. “Is there any water in here?”

I reached for the glass of water the nurse had brought earlier. As he drank, I explained what had happened to Cleveland after he’d thrown Miles down the stairs.

“They got him. He was pissed. I guess he thought they were going to help him or something, because he told them exactly where he lived and what had happened. There was already an ambulance at your house, so they pieced it all together.” I paused and curled my legs up underneath me. “Anyway, Cleveland’s sitting in jail. They aren’t going to hold the trial until their three star witnesses are ready to testify.”

Miles opened his mouth to say something else, but
then smiled and shook his head. I searched for a word for what I was feeling, for this mix of relief and exultation and serenity, but I couldn’t think of anything.

Words were his thing, not mine.

A few moments later the nurse came back to check Miles’s bandages and ask him how he felt and if he needed anything.

“Well, I guess if you’re feeling up to it, your friends can come on in,” the nurse said.

“Who . . . ?”

“Did she zay come een?” Jetta poked her curly-haired head through the doorway and looked around. The rest of the club was visible over her shoulder.

“Don’t be too rowdy.” The nurse edged her way out the door as the club came spilling in.

“Hey, Boss!”

“Mein Chef!”

“You look like hell!”

Miles looked at all of them—Art, Jetta, and the triplets— gathered at the foot and side of his bed, and frowned.

“What are you all doing here?”

“We’re your friends,” Theo said slowly, like she was explaining some fundamental truth to a child. “We were worried about you.”

“See?” I said. “They
do
like you.”

“Who said anything about liking him?” Evan asked.

“Yeah, we never said we liked you,” said Ian, smiling. “We just prefer that you don’t die.”

“Where would we be without our fearless leader?” Theo added.

“How’d you guys get out of school?” Miles asked.

“Skipped,” said Art. “Wasn’t hard.”

“You two are, like, heroes,” said Theo. “The story is in every paper. Have you seen all the presents you’ve been getting?” She motioned to the stacks of cards and flowers on the table by the window. They’d been arriving on an hourly basis since the story had gotten out.

“I still don’t understand why they’d send gifts,” Miles said sharply.

“It was your mom,” Theo said. “She told us the story— why you did all that stuff in school, why you worked all the time.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell us?” Ian asked, but Miles didn’t seem to hear him. He was looking past Jetta, toward the doorway.

“Mom.”

June leaned through the door, clutching a large purse in both hands, looking like a deer in headlights. She took a few steps into the room. I wondered if this was the first time in years she’d really been outside of Crims—Woodlands. I
wondered if she’d only been able to leave for Miles.

We all filed out past her.

I stopped outside the doorway and looked back in. June held Miles tightly, rocking back and forth. I couldn’t see his face, but I could hear him laughing and crying and saying something muffled by June’s shirt. A moment later, a smartly dressed woman walked past us into the room. I waited in the doorway long enough to hear her reassure them that everything would be better, then ducked out into the hall.

The triplets went down to get food while everyone else headed to the waiting room. I went with them; my parents were around somewhere, and I wanted to tell them what was going on.

I didn’t even have to leave the floor to find them. They sat in a small, secluded little waiting room, alone except for my doctor and the Gravedigger. Their voices were strained and hard. Anxiety settled in my stomach. They hadn’t seen me coming down the hallway, so I pressed my back to the wall and crept closer, positioning myself around the corner.

“I don’t think we have any other option at this point.” That was the Gravedigger, talking like she had any say in what happened to me.

“How could she have known that it was falling?” Mom asked. “Unless . . . ?”

“But they said the principal loosened the supports,”
Dad said. “He was trying to drop it on that girl. Lexi didn’t have anything to do with it—she was just reacting.”

“Still.” Damn you, Gravedigger. Shut up. Shut the fuck up. “This incident can’t have done her any good. She’s unstable. I’ve noticed her getting worse all year.”

“But we’ve seen her, too,” Dad pushed. “Good things have happened, too. She’s
coping
. She has friends. A boyfriend, even. I wouldn’t feel right, taking that away from her.”

“I think Leann may have a point, David,” my mother said.

The Gravedigger jumped back in again. “In my professional opinion, this is a critical time, and she needs to be in a safe, monitored place where she can regain control. I don’t mean to restrict her, and I’m glad she’s added to her support structure. But that doesn’t change the facts.”

I couldn’t listen to any more. I made my way back to my room, where the lawyer had left but Miles and June were still smiling and laughing.

“Alex, dear, there you are!” June motioned to me. “Come and sit over here for a while; we have so much to talk about!”

“I’m feeling a little tired. I think I’m going to sleep for a while,” I said.

“You get all the rest you need.” June smiled warmly.
“There will be plenty of time to talk afterward.”

I pulled myself into the bed and yanked the sheets up, my face and side burning with pain. I wondered how much time I would actually have.

Because as much as I hated it, and hated this, and hated her, the Gravedigger was right.