by Nancy Allan
If only.
I’m young, yet I feel like my life is over. Ruined. I’m plagued with so much guilt it’s intolerable.
I must have drifted off to sleep because the next time I opened my eyes, I saw Celeste standing beside me, chewing on the knuckle of her middle finger. She only did that in times of extreme stress, like right before a race. “Oh, Ashla, you scared me to death! I thought you were going to die.” She put her head on my shoulder and threw her arm around me best she could. She was such a good friend. Always there.
Finally, she stood up, tore a tissue from the yellow box by the bed, and blew her nose daintily. “It was an accident, right? I mean you weren’t trying to off yourself? Right?”
I nodded.
She frowned. “Is that ‘yes, it was an accident’ or ‘yes, you were trying to off yourself?’”
“Accident,” I whispered. Had to say that, although I wasn’t so sure myself.
I don’t remember finishing this conversation. A while later, they moved me upstairs to a mini ward, but the other beds were empty. Sometime after that, Dad came in alone. His clothes hung from his frame. Why was he getting so thin?
He stroked my hair and sat down in the chair beside the bed. Neither of us spoke and I soaked up his companionship. Dad meant the world to me. Always had. After a while he said, “Ashla, talk to me. Tell me what’s going on.”
I looked into his kind brown eyes. “Can’t live with it anymore,” I choked out.
“You mean the accident?” he asked, knowing the answer. I nodded.
“Ashla,” he said firmly, “listen to me now. Listen carefully.” I settled my eyes on his familiar, loving face. In the matter of a few seconds, he explained something he called, The Y Factor:
"Life offers us choices and many opportunities to make them.
As a youth, if you make an error in judgment it's really about the fact that you are young and still learning to make the right choices. When you’re learning, you don’t always get it right. Sometimes, you make a mistake, and sometimes someone gets hurt.
It’s what you do next that defines who you are. A good person must determine how to live with what they've done. Normally, that requires you to do everything in your power to make it right.
What that means is that right now, this minute, you are standing at the doorstep of another opportunity."
As usual, Dad had summed this up into a simple package that made so much sense. His words brought me incredible relief. I no longer felt like a criminal, an outcast, or a loser. I was a girl who’d screwed up and made a terrible choice.
He squeezed my hand. “Is this where you are right now, Ashla?”
I nodded, wiping my eyes with the sheet. “So, how do I do that, Dad? How do I fix this?”
He smiled and rubbed my arm. “You’ve made the leap, Ashla. You’re where you need to be. You're ready to take the next step.” He put his hand on my chin and lifted my face.
“You’ll do the right thing this time, Ashla. I know you will.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Three days later, I went home. Mom watched me continually as though she was checking my psychological temperature to be sure it was remaining around normal. Before I left the hospital, I’d had a visit from the in-house psychiatrist. He had sat down by my bed and stared at me for the longest time. Having heard that one must look a psychiatrist in the eye or be labeled as having low esteem or some other such thing, I stared right back, wondering what exactly he was getting out of the whole experience. Eventually, he said, “Have you given any thought to what happened?”
I wasn’t sure which happening he was referring to, so I gave him what Mom calls the one size fits all answer. I told him that I’d failed myself, my parents, my friends, not to mention Justin Ledger, and his family. I’d mishandled the whole situation and had gone the wrong way—I don’t think he got the double entendre. “I won’t be doing that again any time soon,” I assured him. He didn’t look like he believed a word of it, but being overloaded with other, more pressing cases he said, “Well then, take my card and if you get in trouble again, give my assistant a call.”
Humph. So much for support systems.
It was Saturday, so our house was quiet. The daycare was closed for the weekend, my grandmother was resting in her room, thank goodness, and Dad had taken Anika with him on errands. Mom made tea for the two of us. I suspected one of those mother-daughter talks looming, and I was eyeing an escape route.
“I’ve been wanting to ask you about last Wednesday,” Mom began, motioning me to join her at the table. When I was seated on the edge of the chair, she asked, “How well do you know the Anderson boy?”
“Who?”
“Dell Anderson, the boy you were with.”
“You mean, Delta? His real name is Dell?”
“I gather you don’t know him very well.”
I shook my head. “Seen him around. He hangs with the Tarantulas.” I shuddered, thinking about them, their drugs, and my foray into their grim world. Mom interrupted my reverie.
“Are you listening, Ashla?”
“Sorry, Mom, what did you say?”
“I asked if you knew how badly Dell felt about everything?”
Again, I shook my head. I hadn’t seen Delta since Wednesday, the ill-fated day of my near demise.
Mom curled her hands around her teacup and took a sip. “He seems a nice enough kid even though I wanted to throttle him for what he did. To his credit, he hung out at the hospital with us and didn’t leave in spite of the fact that my claws were showing. Poor fellow paced the floor worse than I did. Kept saying how sorry he was. Anyway, about two in the morning, when the doctor told us you were going to be okay, Dell went home saying he’d left his mom alone much too long.”
“I didn’t know any of that,” I replied, realizing I had totally misjudged Delta.
Mom put her teacup down thoughtfully. “I was thinking . . . you might want to stop by his house and say a few words to his mom. Perhaps apologize.”
Ahh, that’s where this conversation was going. She was right, of course. I should probably dig up enough courage to do that. I could hear how it would go: ‘Hi, Mrs. Anderson, I dropped by to apologize for having a drug induced medical emergency in your back yard.’
The trouble with screwing up was that it seems to come back and hit you in the face again and again. Whatever happened to the old idiom, let bygones be bygones? I got up from the table anxious to end the tête-à-tête.
“You didn’t drink your tea.”
“Later, Mom.”
I sat alone in my upper bedroom window watching wind-driven rain pelt the road. Rivers of water rushed into the storm drains. Our oak trees were bent in misery. For the millionth time, I wondered about Justin. I had found a photo of him online, printed it out, and then tucked it away in my drawer. Every once in a while I pulled it out, like now. The paper was so worn I’d soon need to print another photo. It was likely taken outside his home. Nice place. He wore jeans and a t-shirt. What a bod—tall, slim, powerful shoulders and upper arms. He was so off the chart good-looking. A guy like Justin could have any girl he wanted. I ran my finger over his face. Strong angular jaw, square chin, straight nose, and an off the cuff smile. He was a real hottie before I plowed into him. Literally.
Where was he now, I wondered. Still in Harborside Medical Center? Or was he home? On impulse, I googled the phone number for Harborside and reached for my cordless, as I still had no cell. The woman I spoke with searched her records and told me Justin was no longer listed as a patient. I went online and looking through recent news stories, I learned that he was receiving care on an outpatient basis.
So, he had gone home. I imagined him in huge plaster casts, unable to move, the days ticking slowly by. For a guy used to being on the ice and super active, immobility must be absolute torture. I wondered how he got around.
I remembered Justin saying: When the casts finally come off, he’ll be months in rehabilitation.
Reh
ab. Hmmn.
That was a subject I knew something about. An idea began to form. I tapped my nails on the ledge. Would it work? I called Harborside again and asked for Rehabilitation, then inquired about their program for patients who’d had both legs broken. The answer was what I’d expected. Hydrotherapy.
Next, I called Celeste. Her bedroom window was at an angle to mine so if we stood tight against one side of our bedroom windows we could see one another. She waved as she picked up the phone. “I’ve got a plan,” I told her and she arrived minutes later.
“You must be joking!” She stared at me dumbfounded. “We worked with little kids last summer, not an extreme hockey player.”
“What’s the diff? A body’s a body.”
She blinked. “Oh yeah, and his is large,” she paused and I could see her visualizing Justin Ledger. “And freaking hot.”
I laughed. “We could control ourselves.”
“Not me,” she said matter-of-factly. “The thought of being anywhere near that guy and my legs give out. I can picture it. Big hot hockey player gets hydrotherapy from little ol’ me. I’d drown the minute I touched him.”
“I can do it.” I said.
Celeste chewed her knuckle as she rolled that thought around. She pondered the idea for the longest time. Finally, she lifted her head, a smile playing on her lips. “You’re right. You could take him on while I help someone else. At least that way we’d be in the pool at the same time, you know, for moral support. But how can you be sure they’re going to put him into hydrotherapy?”
“I called. It’s standard rehab for broken legs, just like it was for the little kids we worked with.”
“So we need to sign up again,” Celeste said thoughtfully.
“Right away,” I added. “But there’s one problem.”
“What?”
“I don’t want him to know it’s me helping him.”
“Oh, jeez, Ashla. That’s more than a problem.”
“I’d have to use my middle name,” I suggested.
Celeste’s forehead wrinkled. “But your training courses and certification are under Ashla Cameron.”
My hair fell across my face and I used both hands to push it out of my eyes. “I’ll tell them I go by my middle name now. Janine. The pool badge only shows first names anyway.”
“That’s true. But there’s this little issue of him remembering what you look like.”
I smiled. “I’ve got that figured out too.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I stepped outside the school and threw on my jacket, and then flung my backpack over one shoulder. It was a relief to be out of there. This had been my first day back since the big OD. Things had altered, or perhaps ‘shifted’ is a better word. Something had caused a change in the way most of the kids now reacted to me. The name-calling, whistles, and dirty looks had stopped. Now, no one looked at me. Instead, they all turned away. I simply didn’t exist. I was a non-being . . . an outcast. I supposed that was an improvement.
On the lunch break, I had seen Tara and Brenna talking and laughing as though life were completely normal. I guess it was for them. Tara spotted me, our eyes met for a split second, and then she yanked Brenna around the corner.
I learned to put my head down as I walked the corridors. Same in class. I lived in a self-created survival bubble and wondered if life would ever be the same again. Would this go on forever? I couldn’t endure this much longer.
Heavy clouds had moved in from the Pacific immersing north Seattle in the familiar gray gloom of early spring. As I walked, the afternoon grew colder, and the unseasonably icy air was soon infused with heavy wet snow blowing horizontally on the wind. Normally, this time of year I could get away with wearing just a hoodie or sweater. No respectable Seattle teenager covered her clothes with a jacket except on rare days like this. I stuffed my hands into the pocket slats and hurried down the sidewalk, the tread of my Nikes leaving fresh tracks beside Delta’s. He was just ahead of me and must have sensed me behind him. He half turned without stopping and glanced over his shoulder. No smile. No greeting. Just a cold stare. I should tell him about the shrink.
Instead, I said, “Hey, how’s it going?”
“Crappy.”
Oh-oh. Was that because of me and my OD, I wondered, suddenly choking on more guilt. “Not because of me, I hope.”
“Partly.”
I blinked the snow out of my eyes and glanced up at Delta, or Dell, I guess it was.
“Your mom must be pretty pissed,” I panted, jogging to keep up with him.
“Yeah. Had a hell of a lot of explaining to do.” He obviously wasn’t going to stop and chat.
I touched his arm trying to make eye contact. “I’m really sorry, Delta. I’m a total wreck, I guess.”
“Ya think?”
The least he could do was accept my apology. After all, the grass was his, the Ecstasy was his, and the idea was his. “I want to apologize to your mom as well.”
He stopped and looked at me like I’d grown two heads. “You crazy? Forget it. B’sides, she doesn’t like visitors. You’d be intruding. Big time.”
I hadn’t thought of that. I brushed the snow off my hair and pulled my hood out from under the collar. Weather was getting worse, and standing here, talking, seemed like a dumb idea. I pulled the hood up over my head and blinked the snowflakes out of my eyes. “I really need to apologize. I can’t leave it like this.”
His boot scuffed the newly fallen snow. “Let’s say you apologize. Then what? You’ll feel better, right?”
“Not likely.”
“Well, neither will I or my mom, so forget it.” He turned around and continued up the sidewalk. I stood there uncertainly and watched him disappear into the storm. I started toward home and then stopped. This was something I had to do. Quickly, I turned back and tried to catch up to him, but he was gone, eaten by swirling snowflakes.
None of the landmarks looked familiar. It was impossible to read the street signs without getting right up to them. Where was Vine Street? Had I passed it? I kept going, and eventually the street sign appeared. I turned right hoping I would somehow recognize Delta’s house. Putting my head down into the wind and stuffing my hands deeper into my pockets, I wondered again why I was doing this. I must be crazy, like Delta said.
First of all, there was a big snowstorm in the forecast, which means Seattle and surrounding areas will likely lose power. That’s what usually happens when we get a dump of heavy wet snow, which isn’t often. Second, I had no idea which house was Delta’s. I remembered it being on the right side, but everything looked different in this world of whirling white. And third, I was not welcome. I had made a horrible fool of myself once by almost croaking in their back yard. Why remind Delta’s mom of that? Best forgotten, right? I sighed and forced myself on.
Two empty flower urns—one on each side of a driveway, brought me to a stop. I remembered walking between them that day, so I turned up the drive and knocked at the front door. When no one answered, I rang the doorbell twice. Still no response, so I persisted, ringing again. The door flew open and an angry Delta scowled down at me. Oops. “I’ll only stay a minute. I promise.”
“Get lost.”
“I’ll stand here all night if I have to.”
“Help yourself.” He slammed the door shut.
Determined, I rang two more times and again the door flew open. “Stop! Go home.”
“After I apologize.”
He re-considered. His dark eyes probed mine. He squeezed the bridge of his nose as though I’d given him a migraine. Then, he stepped back and motioned me inside. “Take off your wet shoes.”
I kicked them off, noting the shiny tile floor. When I looked back up at Delta, he was glaring at me. “Thanks to all the media coverage, everybody now knows where I live. Want to apologize for that too?”
Oh boy, it never ends, I thought. “I really messed it up for you.”
“No crap, Einstein.”
“Sorry, Delta.”
>
“Well, that’s it then.”
“What’s it?”
“You won’t be joining the Tarantulas.”
I threw my head back and laughed until I realized he might be serious, but looking up at his face, I’d swear he was holding back a smile.
I heard a sound down the hall and he turned toward it. I heard it again and tried to understand what it was. A buzzer?
Delta took off down the hall. I followed, finding myself staring into a bedroom decorated in various shades of pink. The floor was stark white tile. A small wooden table was against the far wall. On it was an open laptop. In front of the table was a large electric wheelchair. And in the electric wheelchair sat an emaciated woman. Her stick arms protruded from a gown and fingers encircled the armrests like talons. Her face was skeletal, her thin dark hair clung to her head like a scraggly cap, and her mouth hung open. A steel tube was suspended near her lips. Her dark eyes had found mine and they never faltered. A computerized voice said, “Hello.”
I stopped gaping and eventually found my own voice. “Hello, Mrs. Anderson,” I choked, “I’m Ashla Cameron.”
Nothing changed in her eyes. Did she know I was the one who left a mess on her kitchen floor and collapsed in her backyard? Did my name mean anything to her? Should I cut and run now, while I was ahead? What was I doing here? This poor woman, whose life must be sheer misery, hardly needed to deal with the likes of me.
The computer voice spoke again, slowly and distinctly, “I am glad you came. I hope you are fully recovered.”
She knew. Behind those eyes, I sensed a deep intelligence along with the uncanny ability to endure. I replied, “Physically, yes, but I still have a lot of work to do in other ways.”
Her brown eyes seemed to nod agreement. “My son, too.”
I’d almost forgotten that Delta was in the room. I flicked my eyes to him. He was staring at the floor, his socked foot sliding back and forth across a tile.
