A Girl Like Me

by Ginger Scott

  My breathing gets faster, and I move to the end of the bed, sitting while my head feels light.

  “They think his organs may begin to fail, and Shawn’s the most likely match next to Bruce, so they called him. What makes this all so much crazier is this place he’s at in Texas…”

  “Specializes in brain trauma.” I stare at the door when I speak, seeing it all in the blur as nurses rush by in various directions, phones ring, people laugh and chat about lunch breaks. Their lives carry on, and all the while Shawn was covering the possibilities. The money. Texas. The call to Wes.

  Knowing I would be brave when I had to, and I’d believe in what Wes could do.

  Planning for the fact that as much as I’m Wes’s reason, I’m also his biggest weakness.

  “Can I see Grace?”

  I look up to Kyle, and his eyes are full of helpless sympathy.

  “Sure, Joss. Come on,” he says, holding a hand out for me to take. I grasp his fingers in between mine and keep his arm close to my body, expecting the ground to fall from under me at any moment.

  We walk down a long hallway to a dark waiting room, window shades still drawn and the smell of burnt coffee strong.

  “What time is it?” I whisper to Kyle as he pulls the door open for us both.

  “Four thirty. The police have been waiting to talk to you. They’ve already talked to Grace. And there’s an advocate waiting downstairs, too. They said with things like this, people usually need…help?”

  “Ha,” I breathe out. “I’ve needed help for years.”

  My friend chuckles, then lets go of my hand as my grandmother pulls me close and squeezes tightly.

  “Kyle says Dad’s in surgery?” I sit quickly, feeling the trembling in my legs return.

  “We should know more soon. I have faith,” she says, taking my hands in both of hers.

  I let her soothe me, and I sit quietly, my head on her shoulder. I don’t tell her my faith is gone. This is where my story ended. My dad dies here. I lost my leg. A bus rolled from a bridge. Every bit of it was right.

  I’m not sure what to have faith in anymore.

  The minute hand travels slowly, and I start to count the seconds, suspicious of time. I feel like it’s cheating, taking longer to pass. Nearly thirty minutes passes, and someone comes into our quiet room, where the sleepy and desperate are waiting with faith and hope.

  Everyone but me.

  We all sit up tall because the new person is wearing scrubs, but she’s only here to raise the window shades and declare a new day in the room where time moves slowly. I get up when she leaves and pull a cup from the stack, filling it with hot coffee that’s as dark as chocolate, and just as thick. I dump five containers of cream inside and four packets of sugar, and I stir until the concoction turns into a thick tan soup.

  “That looks awful,” Kyle says as I sit back down across from him. I take a sip, my face showing how bitter it is.

  “It is,” I say, taking one more and offering the cup to my friend.

  He shakes his head and sits back.

  “Suit yourself,” I say, drinking one more gulp before giving up and abandoning it along with all of the others piled on the end table near our row of chairs.

  I return to the clock, and I watch the hour hand move this time. It’s slower, of course, which is more frustrating. I stare hard, wondering if I have the power to make it move. My teeth gritting in the back so hard that my jaw slips when the door opens to a woman in a white jacket, a mask in her hands. I bite my tongue as I stand.

  “Miss Winters?”

  “Yes,” I move forward. I spend that second trying to read her face, bracing myself, knowing it won’t matter how prepared I think I am.

  “I’m Dr. Delaney. Your father’s in recovery. You should be able to see him in forty minutes, maybe an hour,” she says, and I feel myself start to fall. Kyle’s hand steadies me, and Grace squeezes my arm.

  “He’s okay?” A tear runs down my cheek quickly, and for once, I let it be.

  “He’s got a lot of pain, and it’s going to be a while before he’s on his feet and doing anything like driving or…”

  “Or yelling at players on the ballfield,” Kyle butts in.

  “Yes, or that,” the doctor says. “He’ll need lots of rest, but…he was very lucky. The bullet lodged in part of his lower intestine, not severing it completely, and we were able to remove the bullet and repair the tear.”

  “Do you have the bullet?” My question surprises me. I don’t know why I want it, but I feel like I need to hold it. I need to feel the weight of it in my hand. I need to know what cut Wes, what sent him to Texas.

  “It was given over to Bakersfield PD,” the doctor says.

  I nod; of course it was. Police will want to talk to me. Soon.

  “I’ll be sure someone comes to take you to his room as soon as he’s awake,” she says, leaning forward and touching my arm. I expect a coolness here, like the doctor who handled my amputation—more excited about his work rather than sympathetic to my long road ahead. I get none of that though. She doesn’t say anything more. She just touches me, in a way that speaks volumes, and looks me in the eyes to make sure I know this is real.

  We all stand as she rounds the room and talks with a volunteer sitting at the desk near the door, signing something, then leaving to save someone else I suppose.

  “So I guess…it looks like your dad…dodged a bullet?” Kyle says.

  Grace and I both turn to look at him through unimpressed, lowered eyelashes.

  “Too soon?” he winks.

  I can’t tease him back. I’m too weak, too empty from everything inside me that I’ve spent. I fall into him and hug him tightly, my face buried in his chest. He circles his arms around me, his hands flat on my back, and he stands with me like this for minutes until Officer Polk clears his throat, and I have to go tell them everything I know, leaving out the bits about Wes being Christopher and having abilities that no one can explain.

  * * *

  I talk with police and the advocate for almost an hour, until Kyle knocks softly on the door of whichever doctor’s office we commandeered and tells me my father is awake. I’m excused quickly, and my legs find the strength to run.

  My dad’s face is puffy, a tube taped to his nose, more linked to his arm and chest. The beep is constant, and the nurse turns the volume off when I walk in, pushing a chair close so I can hold his hand.

  I grab it instantly and wait while the nurse checks his vitals, moves a few bags and drops his chart in the bin attached to the wall next to the white board that lists his daily goals. I read a few as she shuts the door.

  “Looks like I’m going to get to coach you for a while,” I say, moving my gaze to the man I almost lost.

  “I’ll knock that out tomorrow,” he says, coughing halfway through his words, then grimacing from the pain it causes in his gut. “Damn.”

  “Let’s give ourselves a break with this one, huh?” I cover his palm with my other hand and watch him breathe. I think I’ll sit in this chair until the sun comes up again doing just that, making sure that his lungs work, that his eyes open when they should, and that his skin is never too cold.

  “I told them I didn’t want the morphine,” he says.

  “You can have morphine, Daddy.” I shake my head and bring his hand to my cheek.

  “I’ve worked too hard,” he says, his eyes barely open. His lips part and he licks at the dryness.

  “I’ll see if you can have water,” I say, moving to stand. He stops me.

  “No, I’m going to sleep. I just wanted to see you. They won’t let me dehydrate,” he chuckles, coughing again before another painful moan.

  My head falls to the side. I hate seeing him like this.

  “I’m an alcoholic, Josselyn. No morphine,” he says, pushing his voice as loud as it will go.

  I hold his gaze for a moment, then blink as I look down at my hand on his.

  “Yes, sir. No morphine,” I promise.


  A weak smile paints his lips and his eyes flutter, each blink lasting longer, until his eyes are barely slits that I kiss close as I pull his blanket up to his chest. No phone to type a message with, I walk the length of the hallway to where Kyle and Grace are waiting.

  “Taryn called,” Kyle says, pushing his phone in his pocket. “She and her parents are at your house. They’re helping with whatever the police need, arranging for cleaning or…”

  “Tell her thank you,” I interrupt, not wanting to think about what happens after something like this.

  “She said they’ve set up a rental for you. It’s close by,” he shrugs.

  “Can you take Grace? I’m going to stay the night. I don’t have my phone, so can you come pick me up in the morning? Maybe bring it?” Kyle inhales slowly, and his gaze falls to my chin as he nods, looking up at me again before he pulls me in for another hug.

  “He’s not going to text,” he whispers. I’m not delusional, but it hurts to hear anyhow.

  “I know,” I say, my voice quiet at his ear.

  I know Wes won’t write, but even still…what if somehow…he did?

  Twenty-Four

  My dad can be stubborn.

  I suppose I deserve it.

  For the last week, I’ve come home from school to find him doing something he’s not supposed to yet. Usually, it’s something I can just snap at him for and get over, like showering without the walker or thinking he can climb the ladder to change the batteries on the smoke detector. Today, though, he’s taken it up a notch.

  “Deeper!” my dad shouts, waving his arm, bat in his hand, ball in the other.

  There are houses lined up on either side of him, and our street is narrow, but my dad refuses to worry. It’s been a while, but back when I was just learning to read fly balls, he would hit them to me in the street. I’m a little worried about his record of no broken windows now.

  “You are the worst patient ever!” I shout as I pick up my step, my bag slung over my shoulder.

  My dad turns to look at me over his shoulder, and even though he’s too far away to read his expression, I know it’s a cocky smile, and I know he’s about to turn back to Kyle and wave him even deeper.

  “Shit,” I say to myself, striding into a slow jog as my dad tosses the ball to himself and swings hard with his right arm, sending it deep, but straight as an arrow toward Kyle’s open glove at the end of our street.

  Kyle shouts, “Woo!” as he jogs in a circle with his glove over his head, but closer to me, my dad stumbles to his side, putting his weight on the bat and clutching his side, where his injury is still nowhere close to healed.

  “Stubborn idiot,” I say, rushing to grab his elbow.

  He just chuckles.

  “Still got it,” he says.

  “Yeah, you also got yourself a trip back to the ER if you keep this up,” I lecture, taking the bat from his hand. Kyle boos me and calls me a fun killer as he jogs back to us from his spot about eight houses away.

  “You’re not helping!” I point the bat at him.

  I get my dad inside, but once our feet hit the kitchen, he shirks my hold away, waving me to head on to my room.

  “I know my limits, Joss. I just got tired of sitting on my damn ass,” he says as I rifle through Jungle Gym shirts on my floor, not finding a single one that’s clean. Sighing heavily, I open my closet and push my clothes to one side so I can get to the shirts with my name spelled JOSE. I wasn’t going to keep these, but Wes told me they were special.

  I re-tie the band in my hair as I walk back into the living room, stopping to kiss my dad’s cheek and warn him not to start a street hockey league while I’m at work.

  “You ready?” Kyle asks, his keys dangling from his thumb.

  I nod and follow him to his truck so he can drop me off at work. We get to the end of the street and turn the corner before he stops and puts it in park.

  “I swear to God, Joss, if you ever tell your dad I let you do this, I will kill you,” he says, hopping out of the truck and rounding the front as I slide into the driver’s seat.

  “You won’t kill me,” I say, buckling up and shifting, my left foot lined up to do the work the right is supposed to. I look to Kyle and smirk. “You’ll already be dead.”

  “Ha, ha,” my friend says.

  Checking all of my mirrors, I shift the gear and get a feel for the truck with my left foot, starting out slowly before we hit the big streets. Kyle’s been letting me drive for about a month. He said no the first two times I asked, but when I asked on the third day, he knew how relentless I would be and gave in. Other than a few scary turns where my left foot laid heavily on the gas, and one small issue with a parking lot block, I’ve had a pretty clean run.

  “You hear anything from them yet?”

  I shake my head no.

  Kyle doesn’t ask every day. He knows I’ll tell him as soon as I hear, but he’s also anxious on his own. Wes has been in Texas with his family for six weeks. TK told us that it was bullet fragments that actually struck Wes, and thanks to the freak luck that only exists in this world that Wes and I live in, it damaged the same part of his brain that my father’s car did the day he saved me in my driveway.

  They had him in a medical coma for about a week, and the next few were spent slowly regaining his coordination and speech. But as fractured as his memory was the first time he went through this, it seems it was completely erased this time around. I can tell it hurts his brothers. I’ve been talking to them every few days, hearing about the exercises the therapists are putting them all through to slowly reintroduce Wes to key memories and familiar faces.

  Wes’s mom is determined. She came back to Bakersfield to collect photo albums, music, pieces of clothing. She asked me for a few things, so I helped her pick songs for the playlist she made, and I gave her the picture I had, with the note written on the back, and the ticket he sent me in the mail. Our ticket. I didn’t give her the full story, instead just telling her it was part of a sweet love note he’d left me once. She tucked my things in one of the album pockets and carried them back to Texas.

  It’s getting harder to hold onto hope. Routine helps, though. On days I don’t train, I work at the Gym. I’ve started helping with the books, balancing out the night’s deposits and prioritizing the inventory. It’s really only working with gallons of cheese and bleach wipes to clean up gross things from the slides, but it feels a little more like a grown-up job. There’s a Jungle Gym’s near Chico, and I’ve thought about asking for a transfer if I manage to somehow pull off a miracle and get in.

  I pull right up to the front door and put Kyle’s truck in park, tucking my phone in my pocket and giving my friend knuckles as we exchange positions.

  “I’ll be here at ten, sound right?” he asks.

  “Maybe a little earlier. And bring burgers,” I say.

  “Got it, nacho cheese with a side of screaming birthday boy,” he chuckles.

  I shake my head and narrow my eyes at him as he drives off.

  The next few hours of work pass quickly, and before long, Kyle is texting me for my order on his way back. I drag a stool over near the register and begin cashing out, counting deposits. My phone buzzes again, and I expect more questions from Kyle, but I lay it on the counter and see it’s a video call—from Texas.

  My palms sweat, and my heart races. It’s the same every time they call. It’s never been video though. I pile the money back in the drawer, pushing it closed to lock it and I hold the phone in front of my face as I answer. Within seconds, I’m staring at Levi, TK standing behind him.

  “Cherry!” TK shouts.

  “Tiny!” I shout back.

  “Tiny? What’s that…oh…” TK turns his head, one eye closed more than the other and Levi laughs.

  “Damn we miss you,” Levi says.

  “Same,” I smile, pushing close to the counter and propping my phone up against the register.

  “I see you’re Jose tonight,” Levi says, pointing close to his sc
reen, probably touching my incorrect name where it shows on his phone.

  “It’s throwback Thursday,” I shrug.

  He laughs quietly and lifts his chin just a little. TK slides into the space next to him, their faces sharing the screen.

  “We have someone who wants to talk to you,” Levi grins.

  My throat closes, and the only sound I can make is a frail, “Oh,” as I swallow and press my palms against the beating in my belly.

  “Don’t expect much. He’s been making a lot of progress this week…with places, and a few dates. But people are still hard,” Levi says, leaning his head to one side and pursing his lips. “It’s like he knows that I had a birthday party when I turned eleven, but he doesn’t remember that I was there. Doctors say it’ll come, or at least the basics will come.”

  “What about the rest?” I ask, trying to keep myself from expecting Wes to see my face and return to the familiar.

  “I guess he learns those parts all over again,” Levi says, his lip raised in an apologetic smile. “TK sees it as a positive—figures maybe he’ll find a way not to let Wes know about his fear of the dark this time around.”

  I lean back with a slight laugh, gripping the front of my stool.

  “Of course…now I know,” I say.

  “Shit,” TK punches Levi’s shoulder.

  The phone moves, the picture buffering for a few seconds, picking up when Levi is mid-sentence and walking down a hallway. They’ve been staying at a nearby hotel, but this place looks more clinical, like a rehabilitation center.

  “Are you ready?” he whispers.

  I breathe in deep and nod, a quiet, “Yeah,” coming from my throat.

  I catch glimpses of Wes’s form as Levi carries the phone close to a setting that looks like a comfortable apartment living room. His legs look the same, and he’s wearing my favorite pair of jeans he owns, the ones with tattered bottoms and a tear in one knee. I was with him when he ripped that part, sliding while helping me practice.