“It’s like trying to walk through a stampede.”
“We’d better hurry.”
“No kidding. The food was good, but I’d hate to be stranded here,” I said.
Shane looked down at me then and said something I hadn’t quite expected him to say. His eyes were sincere and his smiled reflected truth as the words left his mouth.
“I’d be alright, being stranded here with you, Kat.”
Immediately after saying it, Shane tucked his lower lip in and looked over at me like it had accidently slipped out. I still hadn’t told him about Hale, and I had to admit I’d been throwing flirty vibes off since the moment we met in Watauga. What was I thinking, staring at him like that the whole time, like some swooning, tipsy school girl?
My thoughts took a delightful turn as we quick-stepped along. I considered what Shane and I might do if we really were stranded there together. Would we go out and have a drink together too? Would there be more small talk or would the subtle flirtations become something more? Maybe things would lead us back to a hotel in the city and…ooh, delicious heat grew in my belly at the idea of the exciting way an evening with Shane might end. It wasn’t like me to be having such thoughts, but I had to admit I liked them. Maybe I had just gone too long without a man’s touch. The last time was months ago, when Hale came to visit for one long weekend.
My mind clamped the fantasy off right there. Could I really do something like that with a man a barely knew? A one-night stand? Wasn’t I still technically in a relationship? I had to tell him about my currently conflicted relationship status before he got the wrong idea.
“Shane, I-“
“Look, there’s the gate, and everyone else has already finished. C’mon, let’s step it up or we really will get stuck here!”
In the distance, I watched as the attendant took the last passenger’s luggage and ushered him towards the bus. Just as the uniformed man was pulling the rope across the exit, Shane and I came bounding up to him. The man took one look and then thumbed for us to hurry on past and get back on the bus. Even in our rush, I didn’t forget what I’d heard Shane say.
We took our seats while the rest of the bus seemed to wait on us impatiently. Once he’d put away his bag and adjusted into a comfortable position, Shane flipped open his phone and grew immensely quiet.
So now he was going to ignore me?
The same driver from before stomped back on board only a few moments later, soaked completely through in fresh rain. He gave another quick announcement, took his place behind the wheel, and got us moving.
It was like that for a while. Shane entertained himself by reading his messages and I occasionally peeked out at him from behind the cover of a magazine. I felt like he needed to know about Hale, and how that relationship wasn’t quite over yet. Blurting it out suddenly didn’t feel natural though, and I didn’t want to send mixed signals.
On and on we went, with the storm hammering the metal shell of the bus the entire way. Traffic had been standing still in Raleigh, but once we reached the open road we began to take on speed and the weather became noticeably worse. I wished the driver would slow down, if not only for the rain and the wind, but so Shane and I could have more time together.
“Kat,” he said, finally breaking the silence. His voice was blunt and purposeful. “After this trip is over, I’d really like to see you again.”
My pulse quickened. Was my mouth hanging open? He was asking me out, right?
Shane adjusted to my expression and went on, “I mean, I know we just met. But I’ve really enjoyed spending time with you today. Maybe you can show me around your hometown while I’m stuck in Wilmington for my case?”
“Shane…I would-“
The words stumbled to come out. There was so much to say and he’d caught me off guard. Before I could finish telling him what I had to, there was a tremendous bang and entire bus rocked violently. Someone shouted. Then another. At the time, it sounded almost like a bout of shocked laughter.
Gravity seemed to shift and felt myself being thrust out of my seat and into the gritty aisle. I grimaced at a sudden, bright flare of pain on my elbow, but there was little time for reaction. The sound of water seemed to be everywhere, spraying up with great force along the bottom of the floor and under the skidding tires as we took on a sideways direction.
I wanted to call out. It wouldn’t have helped me. All I could do was attempt to shield my head as I tumbled around unsteadily on the floor. There was another loud bang, followed by the sensation that we were sliding off the road and into the grass. Everything tilted upwards. I slammed hard against something…or someone. With my fingers wrapped around the sharp edges of the metal anchors on the bottom of my seat, I felt my legs lift up above me as the bus surrendered to momentum and rolled over.
Everything was circling around me for an instant in slow motion. My heart beat once and then time burst ahead with incredible speed. Crashing of metal and breaking of glass surrounded me in chorus, along with the panicked shouts of the other passengers. It was screaming that I’d heard that first time. How could I have mistaken it for laughter?
My fingers lost their purchase and I was in the air. Pain came to me for an instant and then I was swept away, into the darkness.
Five
I hardly remembered anything past the few blurry images of being trapped in the burning wreckage or being pulled out of it by Shane. When next I woke, I found myself drugged and tired, lying on a bed with stark white sheets that were pulled up to my neck.
My entire body ached like never before. I weakly traced one hand down my arm and touched the wires which ran between the machine that hung beside my bed and the sticky connectors fixed on my chest. On the inside of my elbow, there was the sore feeling of an IV catheter that had been in place for several days.
We crashed…
I opened my eyes and peered around the room blearily. The hospital-issue, off-white horizontal blinds had been drawn to the haze of early morning outside. Hunched over on a chair in the corner, with his head down and his face hidden beneath a work-soiled baseball cap, was my father.
“D-daddy?”
He came awake with a start and looked over at me like he might have been dreaming. It looked like he hadn’t had a moment’s rest in days. Tired, darkened bags hung under his still-gleaming blue eyes and his chin and cheeks were covered in a thick layer of graying stubble. Once I tried to smile and reach out for him, the tiredness disappeared from his face and he rushed to my side to give me the lightest, most cautious hug I’d ever received.
“Don’t wanna squeeze ya too hard, darlin’. ‘Fraid I might hurt you. Goodness me, I’m so glad you’re ok.” He held me there for a moment and I breathed in the smell of his old, dusty jacket; the scent of fresh hay and the farm where I’d grown up. “Mercy, Kat. We was so worried ‘bout you. Your momma near ‘bout got into a fistfight when the doctor said we couldn’t come back to see you earlier. And then after that, we started to think you might never wake up.”
“Momma?” I asked groggily as he pulled away. “Did she get her surgery? Where is she?”
“She did, and she’s at the house. Doin’ fine considerin’ what she’s been through and all. I didn’t want to wake her up jus’ yet – she’d been sitting here with me ever since they brought you back out yesterday, least till I took her home last night for a rest.”
“I’m…I’m sorry I missed it. I tried…” I stammered, wanting to explain.
“Pay it no mind, Lil’ Bit. Your momma went under the knife right before we heard about what happened. It was all over the news, and I saw it, but heck, I didn’t know you was on the dang-blamed bus till a man called and tol’ us later on.”
“A man?” I thought of the one I’d met. Shane. Was he alright?
“Heck, I was still wonderin’ why you hadn’t got home yet for your momma’s surgery when he called. Ain’t like you to be late for somethin’ like that. I musta left a trail in the floor from pacing all over that waitin
g room.”
“What man called you?” I asked.
“Oh, some feller from the hospital here in Jonesboro. Said ya’ll done had an accident. I hadn’t even left the hospital with your momma in Wilmington yet when he called. We drove out here quick as we could.”
The corners of my mouth turned down a little further. I looked out the sliding glass doors and watched one of the ladies at the nursing station as she busied herself with something. In a messy pile of blankets on the floor to my right was my bra, which had somehow survived the accident, along with the purse which I’d carried along for the trip. On a nearby table, still in one piece with some new cracks in the screen, was my phone. Someone had thoughtfully plugged it in and the green light on top was flashing. That thing was as stubborn as me in refusing to die.
I’d check it later. The rest of my stuff was probably strewn out across an entire two-mile stretch of Interstate Forty. I didn’t even want to think about my favorite shirt or the shredded, bloody jeans I’d been wearing; they had probably been cut off a few seconds after the ambulance crew wheeled me into the ER.
“How long have I been here?” I asked numbly.
My father pulled his chair closer and settled into the stiff cushions. Before he answered, he blew out a sigh and visibly relaxed. “Two, no, three days. You lost a lot of blood. They gave you an uh, a transfusion. Doc said you hit your head real hard too, but it won’t that bad. Concussion, he reckons. Nothing worse there. Stitched you right up. Mostly lots of little cuts and bruises. The big thing was your leg.”
I strained to pull myself forward and up in the bed. “My leg?”
“Be careful, honey. The nurse was workin’ on you a minute ago.”
Simply moving had never been so difficult. I strained forward until I was sitting up, mostly straight. “I just want to see.”
“They had to take you to the operating room, Lil’ Bit. Doctor said you nicked an artery or somethin’ in the wreck.”
I peeled back the white sheet and gasped. My leg was still thankfully in one piece, but a crude, curving line of stapled incisions extended for several inches along the inside of my thigh to just past my knee.
“Hold on,” said another voice, this one the nurse I’d seen earlier. She stepped into the room and began going through one of the large red, plastic boxes in the corner. “Don’t touch it, please. We still need to finish changing your dressing.” To my relief, it didn’t hurt when she gently applied the bandage and taped it down. “There we go. Glad to see you’re fully awake. You’ve been out of it since you came from surgery yesterday.”
I felt embarrassed, wondering how many people had seen me naked or if I’d said anything in my sensitive state. The stuff some people said under anesthesia would normally qualify them for a trip to the loony bin.
“Well, that’s everything for now. How’s your pain? Do you need something for it?” the nurse questioned.
“It’s not too bad. Mostly just sore.”
“The morphine should be wearing off over the next hour or so, but you can self-administer it if the pain gets too bad. Just press the green button hanging on the side rail. Do you need anything else?” she asked sweetly from the doorway.
Just like a nurse, I thought, remembering my time running clinicals with some of the more senior charges. Ready to move on to the next patient. Duty calls. I just looked at her and shook my head slightly.
“Alright. I’m right over here if you need me,” she said, and off she went, around the corner to the next room without another word.
“Who’s watching momma?” I asked, my senses coming back to me. I knew that she was probably feeling delicate, but would never admit so. Mother never was the type to complain about anything that bothered her.
“I asked Miss Pauline to keep an eye on ‘er. The church was sendin’ her over with a whole tray of chicken and soup and who knows what else anyway, so it worked out.”
“Oh,” I said and pulled the sheets back up over my legs. Even with the bandage in place, I didn’t want to look at my injury.
“She stopped by to see you before I got here and said you was asleep still. Miss Pauline, that is.” Father tugged at his shirt sleeves and added, in an annoyed tone of voice, “Hale stopped by to visit you the other day, too.”
“He did?”
“Boy, did your momma give him an earful. You shoulda seen it, Lil’ Bit.”
“I’ll bet.” For the first time since the accident, I felt a hint of a smile coming on.
“Lord, but she was fired up at him. ‘It’s your fault she’s like this! Why didn’t you pick her up you idjit?’ Folks in a coma on the other side of the hospital could probably hear her hollerin’ at him. Poor boy didn’t know whether he was comin’ or goin’. Surprised she didn’t whack him over the head.”
“Sounds like her. He deserved it, anyway.”
“He ain’t never been one to be reliable, jus’ like his old man, but he’s gifted at working on anything mechanical. Might need someone around the farm like…” He held up his hands to stop himself. “Never you mind that. I ain’t gon’ try to tell you who you ought to be with. I know how it is. You two was always close, even as youngins. He left you some flowers over there in case you start wonderin’ who they was from.” Father pointed to a small glass vase by the television which held a variety of wildflowers and roses. Clipped to the bow around the stems was a card far too small to read from the bed.
“You shore’ you don’t want somethin’, Lil’ Bit? I can run down to the cafeteria and get you some sweet tea if you’re thirsty. Nurse said it was ok.”
I shook my head. “I’ve got some water, Daddy, I’m fine for now. Please go on home to momma and tell her I’m alright. I’m sure she’s up by now and is probably wondering. Plus, you know how Miss Pauline gets to going on. She’ll have momma up and helping her cook something for the Saturday bible study before noon.”
He laughed and slapped a hand on his knee. Then he lifted himself out of the chair and gave me a peck on the forehead. “Ok, sweetie. I reckon I need to get some rest myself. You jus’ lay back down for a while. The doctor said we should be able to get you out of here in another day or two once you came ‘round.”
“Love you,” I whispered, feeling my voice crack.
“Love you too. We’ll be back up here a little later.”
I watched him walk out of the room and into the hallway, where he looked very out of place in a dusty jacket and faded farmer’s overalls. After that I closed my eyes, sleepy and worn out all over again. A nap would be nice. If I had the energy later, maybe I’d try to watch some television and find out what happened with the bus.
The numb feeling crept over me again when I thought about all those people. How many had there been? Why had it crashed? Was anyone killed? I swallowed hard at the prospects. It was a horrendous crash.
Then, the image of Shane pulling me out of the wreckage flooded my thoughts again and with it came the worry that somehow he hadn’t made it. That alone drove a sickening spike of adrenalin into my stomach. The steady beeping of the heart monitor increased its tempo.
Not yet. I can’t do it right now. Can’t think about it.
My fingers reached for the green button the nurse had shown me earlier. Within moments, the pain in my leg subsided and dreary, muddled warmth descended over me.
I hadn’t been asleep more than an hour when there came a light tapping on the frame of my open door. Standing there, looking like a whipped puppy, was Hale. He was wearing the burgundy polo shirt I’d bought him for Christmas two years before, which was hanging out over a pair of old khaki shorts. I always thought he looked good in that, and not only because I’d picked it out. The color went well with his tanned skin and contrasted ferociously with his bright, emerald-green eyes.
“Is she here?” he asked in a low voice, looking carefully around the corner from under his lowered baseball cap.
“No.” I blinked my eyes to get the sleep out. “You’re safe.”
H
is face instantly relaxed.
“Thank God. Your momma is a force to be reckoned with, Kat Atwater.”
“I heard.”
He strode in and made his way over to the vase that was perched nearby. Hale didn’t look like he knew what to think, or do, and started fiddling with the arrangement. After pulling the card and reading it, he managed to turn around and face me.
“Looks like you got my flowers after all. I figured your momma tossed ‘em in the trash after she kicked me out.”
“She wouldn’t do that.”
“Ain’t never seen her that mad before.”
I didn’t know what else to say. Flowers couldn’t make up for what happened, or how he’d left me waiting that day. I wanted to tell him that, to scream it maybe, so it would get through that thick skull of his, but he slid into the threadbare visitor’s chair and took my hand in his own before I could.
“So…you don’t look too bad, girl.”
“Thanks, I guess.”
“You got banged up a little.” He pulled a stray hair away from my face and looked at the stitches underneath. “Not too bad at all. Still as pretty as ever.”
His hand was warm and his voice had become that soft, easy one that I usually found hard to resist. It felt like ages since I last heard it.
“They say when you’re gonna get out?” he asked.
“Maybe tomorrow. Probably later, though. Doctor hasn’t come by yet this morning.”
He nodded, and swept his thumb over the top of my hand in a gentle motion. “Listen baby, about what happened…”
“Hale,” I said, letting out a deep sigh before I continued, “I don’t want to talk about it. I’m too tired and drugged up.”
“You know I was gonna to come pick you up.”
That was when I realized; Hale wasn’t asking about what happened to me. He was already trying to dig himself out of what he’d done wrong. The morphine blur which had kept me sedated gave way to razor-sharp anger.
“It’s always something, Hale,” I snapped. “You always act like you care about me when it’s already too late. And this time…this was the worst. How could you?”
Love Lift Me Page 4
