The Kindness of Strangers (5 page)

“Good boy. I know this is scary. You have a tube in your throat, Jordan. We needed it to make you breathe. For a while this morning, you couldn’t breathe on your own. You had quite a close call. You almost died.”

Almost? That whimper sound came out of him again. Why hadn’t she just left him alone and minded her own stupid business? He was in so much trouble.

“Hey, hey, hey . . . it’s okay now. You’re alive, and you’re going to be just fine.”

He squinted at the voice through that burning light. The light tilted away, and the voice turned into a face that smiled at him. He’d never seen her before. Asian. Black hair pulled back. Huge brown cat eyes. He’d almost died, and she’d saved him. He hated her. Did she know how much trouble he was in? How much trouble he was in because of her?
Oh, man. Oh, man.
This was so bad. What would they do to him?

His book bag. Where was his book bag? He tried to sit up, but the hands were too quick and held him down.

“Whoa. Whoa. Let’s deal with one thing at a time, Jordan. Calm down. Let’s get this tube out of your throat, okay? This is going to feel awful, I’m sorry, and it’ll hurt when it’s gone. I’m going to count to three, and on three I want you to cough. Try to cough, because it will help push the tube. Okay? One, two, three.”

He wouldn’t do it. Why would he do something that she told him was going to hurt? He already hurt bad enough. But she kept asking him. He couldn’t breathe right. It felt like there was some animal running around inside his chest, like that gerbil in his class at school. Jordan hated all of the people hanging over him like that. So he did what they said. Like usual, he did it.

He coughed. Fire. The tube was so long. Like some giant worm thing. When the last of the tube slithered from his lips, he tried to take a deep breath. Worse. They might as well have pulled a razor out of his throat. There was a creepy, metallic scraping sound.

“Shh, Jordan. It’s okay.”

Oh. That was him. That scraping sound came out of his own mouth. He closed his lips. The sound stopped. He shook all over, and that gerbil in his chest was going faster and faster on its wheel. What was he going to do? He had to get out of there.

He swallowed. He thought he was swallowing broken glass. The light went dim. He was falling back to the warm water and the rocking. It was better there. He could escape. Paddle. Paddle away on the water, and when they woke him up, he’d be gone. He tried to paddle. But his arms and legs felt wrong. . . . He didn’t have his jeans on. Or his parka. Someone had undressed him.

Bright light again. The water was gone. He was in the hospital with no clothes.
Oh, no. Oh, man
. He was in trouble. This was so bad.

“Jordan? You with us?”

He made another sound, like a moan. He didn’t mean to. He was being such a baby.

“I know you’re hurting, Jordan. But we’re doing everything we can to make that stop. My name is Dr. Rhee, but you can call me Nancy, okay? I’ve been your doctor through most of this. You’ve had quite a few procedures today. You . . . you had . . . um . . .” she looked over his head and stopped.

He wanted to ask her questions. But he didn’t. Even if it didn’t hurt so much, he needed to review the situation here. Review. R-e-v-i-e-w. That was a vocabulary word. How much did she know? What could he salvage? Salvage was a vocab word, too. He caught himself going away into his Other Self. The one who got lost spelling words when things got too rough on the one Here Now. He pulled himself back.
Stay here. Find your backpack. Make sure no one sees it before your mom gets here. Figure out a new plan.

He whimpered again. If he was in the hospital, his mom could come in any second. Did she know already? Maybe he could convince them not to tell her. As long as the backpack was safe. He turned his head to look for it. Bad move. The light dimmed again, but he fought to keep his eyes open. He fought to keep seeing what was Here Now. Black dots danced in front of his eyes. His brain slogged back and forth inside his skull. He blinked hard. When the dots were gone, he saw five people at the foot of his bed. They were on the other side, across from the doctor. Not his mom. Not his dad. But one was a cop.

Something kicked Jordan. From inside himself. Not the gerbil. Something lots bigger kicked against his ribs.

There were a lot of them. And he couldn’t even move.

“There are some people here who want to help you,” Dr. Rhee said. “They’d like to talk to you, but you don’t have to talk to anyone right now, okay? Not until you feel better.”

Jordan stayed still. Or tried to. He couldn’t stop shivering. No way was he talking to anyone. He’d already messed this up so bad. If he didn’t hurt so much, he’d run for it. That’s what he should do. There was no fixing this. He should run.

The girl doctor kept talking. Jordan wanted to hate her. But he loved her voice. A girl version of his grandma’s voice reading to him, back before she died. No wonder he’d thought the voice was an angel. This was bad. This was so bad.

“You overdosed. You took too much of a drug called Dilaudid, Jordan.
Way
too much.”

But not enough. There’d been more than one vial in his mom’s drawer. He should’ve have taken all of it. Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. What was he going to
do
?

“You also had antibiotics in your pocket. Have you been sick lately?”

He didn’t answer. Stupid chicken baby.

“Now, at first we thought it was an accident. But”—she swallowed and looked at the others—“but, Jordan . . . we wonder if maybe you were trying to end your life?”

Another kick in the ribs. Then nothing. Like he’d been paralyzed. Where was the darkness? Where was the raft?
Please
could it just be dark again?

“When we were trying to help you, we found . . . we found a lot of evidence that . . . you’ve been . . . that someone has treated you very badly. . . .”

He couldn’t breathe. Then another kick. A bunch of fast kicks in a row. He sucked in a deep breath, but that made the broken-glass feeling come back. A machine over his head started to whine. Like those emergency broadcast tests that came on TV late at night.
Please?

“Hey, don’t panic. You’re safe here, Jordan. We won’t let anyone hurt you.”

They’d been looking at him
there.
His skin crawled. He wished it really could crawl. Drop off his bones and slip under the bed. Why hadn’t he tried harder? Stupid stupid.

“We just want to ask you one question right now, Jordan. That’s all until you rest some more, okay? We just want to know if you can tell us who hurt you?”

Stupid stupid stupid. Where was his raft? Where was the water? He had to get out of there. He had to get out fast.

Someone whispered something on the other side of the bed. He turned his head toward the whisper. When he moved, the black dots came back. Swarmed into his eyes. He held his breath. Tried to stop the sloshing in his brain and belly. He tried to blink away the dots again, but the lights dimmed. Good. Darkness crowded in. Lapping water filled his ears. He tried to find his raft.

“It’s too soon,” he heard Dr. Rhee’s voice say from far away.

Too soon for what? What were they going to do to him?

A man’s voice, a voice like on the chicken-soup commercials, said, “I told you the cop would scare him. He shouldn’t be in here.”

The voices blended with the water. Jordan found his raft. Between the sloshing of the waves, he heard “not a regular drug user,” “Children’s Services,” and “suicide attempt.”

Suicide was against the law. Would he go to jail? But having the drugs was against the law, too. You had to have a prescription. He was in so much trouble. Please let him stay here in the dark. Please.

A cool hand touched his forehead. For a second he wasn’t on his raft but on his bed at home. His eyes popped open. It was the doctor touching him, not his mom. He jerked away. More dots. And a tidal wave in his stomach. He ground his teeth together. He breathed out through his nose, trying not to puke.

“Shh. You’re safe here, and we’re going to make sure no one hurts you ever again.”

Liar. She couldn’t promise that. He was in so much trouble. He hadn’t asked to come to the hospital. He hadn’t told anybody anything. They’d looked at him when he was in the dark and had found out. That wasn’t his fault. But it wouldn’t matter.

“You think you can sleep?” Dr. Rhee asked.

He closed his eyes, testing it, and knew he could. He didn’t think he could open them again now if he tried. His eyelids weighed too much, his brain was soup, his throat full of glass. The rest of his body had this pulse to it, this throb, like a drumbeat. Jordan pictured his body swelling and shrinking, swelling and shrinking, like an injury in a cartoon.

What if he had to pee? With his eyes shut, he couldn’t feel anything except that pulsing ache below his waist.

Maybe he’d never feel those parts again.

Please let him never feel those parts again.

Chapter Three
Nate

N
ate knew something was up. He knew that something was serious-weird at home, but he had no idea what. All he knew was that Mom was freaking out about something and it was probably his fault.

Nate sat in the dark outside the hockey rink. He checked his watch. Shit. She was almost twenty minutes late. He pulled his collar up higher on the back of his neck. He had his skates hung over his right shoulder, his stick slung over his left. A wicked-cold gust of wind pierced his bones. He knew he could go back inside the Rec Center and wait in the heated lobby, but to get up and walk suddenly seemed like a monumental task. The coach had kicked their asses tonight, and Nate was glad. Hockey was one of the only things that filled his mind enough that he could forget for a while about Dad being dead . . . about how much life in general sucked these days.

Tony and Mowaza had just left. They’d offered Nate a ride home, but he knew that Mom would freak if he rode with Tony. But, shit, he would’ve been home by now. Nate had been glad when they left, though, because Tony had lit up a cigarette as they stood there talking to him. The last thing he needed was Mom pulling up and seeing that.

What was up with Mom? She’d been in bed when he’d come home from school today. She
never
took naps—well, at least not since that zombie period she went through when Dad died—so he figured she must be sick. Nate had made Danny a grilled cheese sandwich and told him to be quiet so they didn’t wake her up, but then Mom had some nightmare and had wigged them both out. Nate had actually had to go into her room and almost slug her to get her to wake up, and when she had, she’d gone off on this rant about drugs. And she was all weird and hyper and made this big meal even though Nate told her he’d already made dinner for Danny.

A horn tooted. He looked up. About damn time.

He walked to the passenger door really slow, limping more than he needed to. He saw his mom’s worried, ready-to-apologize face, gearing up for some excuse. He opened the door.

Mom sighed and said, “I’m sorry I’m late, hon. Debbie Nielson called about her daughter’s cake. I went over there to take pictures of the wedding dress. We’re going to copy the lace pattern in the icing of the cake.”

Nate snorted like that was one of the dumbest things he’d ever heard. Actually, the cakes Mom made were amazing, but she’d been late, after all. He climbed into the passenger seat and wondered if he’d ever be allowed to drive again—Mom had yanked that “privilege” since juvenile court. He didn’t even ask about it tonight. The van’s heat blasted, and he was just glad to be warm.

They hadn’t even made it out of the Rec Center parking lot when Mom said, “Nate, I meant what I said this afternoon, about drugs. You can always talk to me. I won’t be angry.”

He leaned sideways and rapped his head against the window. “What is up with you? Why are you obsessing about this? Do you think I’m on drugs?”

“No, but . . .” She looked at him so long he feared she’d veer off the road. “I know they’re out there. I know it’s a temptation.”

He was sure this was leading up to Tony being a druggie.

“I mean it,” Mom said. “I know kids use them. Kids younger than you. Lots younger than you. Think about that: kids who are only ten and eleven using drugs—
real
drugs, narcotics, for God’s sake.” Her voice rose in that shrill, the-house-is-on-fire voice he hated. “It makes me sick! I don’t know what to feel, for someone like that—”

“Who?” Nate asked.

“What?”

“Who are you yelling about? Because I’d wish you’d yell at them, not me.”

“I’m sorry.” She slumped her shoulders at the wheel. She looked so tired. She always looked tired. “I just love you, is all. I get scared for you.”

Nate was really glad she said that but didn’t know what to say back to her, and it was suddenly hard to swallow, so he just looked out the window at the houses flying by in the dark. Sometimes he thought she hated him. He knew
he
would, if he were her. He still couldn’t believe he’d told her he wished she’d died instead of Dad. His face burned, and he was relieved it was dark. Why had he said that to her? What an asshole.