Wrong in All the Right Ways

by Tiffany Brownlee

  “I’m coming with,” I say, my voice suddenly steady and strong.

  “No,” he replies. “You’re staying here.”

  “No. I can’t. I won’t.”

  Realizing that he’s wasting time with this argument, my dad concedes and waves at me to follow him to the car.

  It’s not hard to find the site of the crash, because there are about six cop cars, two ambulances, and a fire truck packed within the intersection, their lights swirling and flashing in a quick pattern that would blind anyone if they stared at it long enough. When I hop out of the car, I forget that I’m standing in the middle of a four-way intersection, and I think I’ve been transported to some junkyard. There’s a ton of glass everywhere, big chunks of car parts lying around the pavement, and the three cars involved in the accident are all twisted and tangled in a knot so complicated that I’m not sure anyone survived it.

  “Four severely injured. No fatalities. EMS is here,” the speaker hooked up to a cop blares out for everyone at the scene to hear. As if on cue, tears begin their salty descent down my face. It can’t be. It just can’t be. I see my dad race over to one of the cops, where a man—or woman; I can’t tell with the tears flooding my eyes—takes him to one of the ambulances. All the while, I’m inching my way toward the knotted cars and clutching my stomach, trying to hold it all together, though I know that I’m going to lose that battle any minute now.

  “Dylan! Dylan!” I scream until my throat goes hoarse. The thought that I might lose him hits me out of nowhere, like an eighteen-wheeler smashing into a Volkswagen Beetle on the interstate. As I feel myself disappearing into a pool of tears, my screams turn into inaudible bawls until I, myself, can’t understand what I’m saying anymore. All I can do is watch, through a veil of tears, as the scene unfolds before me.

  Everything is a blur, except instead of moving at a super-high speed, like in the movies, it’s as if everyone is underwater and everything is muffled and happening in slow motion. I see my father stagger when he closes in on the body they’re lifting into the ambulance, and I see him hunch over to take some deep breaths as his mind registers what’s happening. My tears obstruct my view of him, but it looks like his face is as pale and colorless as one of the cans of white paint in Dylan’s art studio—I imagine that my face looks a similar color. When he gathers himself enough to stand up straight, I see one of the EMTs whisper something to him, and he mouths something along the lines of Meet me at the hospital. I’m not really sure what I reply; I’m too busy picturing us having to place the boy I maybe-love in an ivory coffin.

  The sight of Dylan’s seemingly lifeless body reinforces this thought even more, and the shirt on his chest soaked completely in his blood is almost too much for me to take, but a ray of light beams through the dark clouds in my mind. At least he’s alive, I keep chanting to myself. I notice Dylan’s hand resting on his stomach, just under where a few of his ribs have punctured the skin. The cuts and glass-filled wounds are distracting, but they can’t divert my attention from the empty spaces between his fingers and my want to fill them with my own. Me too, I think, hoping that his time in the neutral ground has given him the ability to read my mind. Me too.

  “Meet me at the hospital,” my dad says again as they close the doors to the ambulance, and I take off running back toward our car.

  * * *

  The second I wake up the next morning, I keep my eyes closed to try to pull my thoughts together and shake off the nightmare of last night. I don’t want to remember the sight of all that blood. Dylan’s blood. That was a horrible dream that I hope to never have again. When I finally open my eyes, I realize that I’m sharing a sofa with Matthew in an unfamiliar room illuminated completely by sunlight. I try to say something, but my voice is so hoarse that it feels like knives are stabbing my throat. Then there’s the constant beeping that resembles that of the tone I kept hearing in my head last night. The realization hits me like a sledgehammer: last night wasn’t a dream.

  I hear someone whimpering across the room, and when I see my mom’s shoulders move up and down, I know that she’s crying. “Mom,” I try to whisper, but my voice is so gone that it comes out sounding like a croak. “Mom?”

  As she rises from her blankets, I see that the skin beneath her eyes is red and puffy, and the bright azure blue of her irises is now dark and empty. Her hair, which is usually groomed to perfection, is messy and knotted in some places—like mine gets when I nervously twirl strands around my finger.

  She wipes at her cheeks and then looks me in the eye. “Emma,” she says in a half whisper. “The doctors said Dylan had small doses of amphetamines in his system. Did you know anything about this? Maybe you heard something at school … or…” Her voice cracks, and she places a hand over her lips, trying to keep it together in front of me.

  Yes, I want to tell her. Yes, I knew all about it. I could have prevented this. But I can’t. “No,” I choke out like a coward.

  “You sure?”

  No. “I mean, I knew he was taking sleeping pills, but that’s it.”

  Her eyes hold on to mine as if waiting for me to change my answer, but I don’t.

  “I just had to ask,” she says, looking down. After another moment of consideration, she lets her head fall into her hands.

  “Mom, are you okay?” I question, my voice now shaky, too. She doesn’t answer. Instead she just pulls me close to her, and we bawl into each other’s shoulders.

  I look around her in search of my father, but he’s not beside her, like I expect him to be. “Where’s Dad?” I ask, but get no reply. With only the beep of the heart rate monitor to fill the silence, I collapse into my mother and continue to sob with her. I try not to close my eyes as I cry because every time I do so, all I see are the deep gashes with Dylan’s thick red liquid oozing from them and his pearl-white bones sticking through his skin. Though I think that we’re doing a great job of keeping our cries quiet, eventually our sobs grow so loud that we wake Matthew.

  “Mom?” he says as he sits up on the chair.

  “Good morning, Matt,” my mom says, dabbing at her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt. “Mommy’s going to be right back. I just need a minute in the bathroom.” I watch her get up and lock herself in the bathroom without so much as a glance in Dylan’s direction. I guess she doesn’t want Matthew to see her cry.

  “Emma?” Matthew whines, moving on to me in our mother’s absence. “What happened to Dylan? Why does he have those bandages on?” He tugs at my shirt, and it takes every bit of self-control in my body to not ignore him. He just wants to know what really happened, but can I blame him? I’d be curious why we’re waking up in a hospital, too. And I know he’s a little young for the explicit details, but we can’t lie. We have to tell him.

  Turning to face him, I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. I mean, how am I supposed to tell him that his almost-brother almost died last night in a car accident that he caused when he fell asleep at the wheel and drove into oncoming traffic? How can I tell Matthew that his hide-and-seek partner can’t talk to us right now, and may never again because he’s in a coma? How does anyone break that kind of news to a seven-year-old kid?

  You just do it, my mind answers me back. Especially since this is your fault. It’s true. I got out of the car and let Dylan drive away. I could have saved him. I could have told someone—Mom, Dad, the counselor, a teacher, anyone—that he was in trouble, but I didn’t. I didn’t physically floor the gas into the intersection, but I allowed him to get there in the state he was in. The drivers that he rammed into at eighty-nine miles per hour got hurt because of me. This is my fault. All of their blood is on my hands.

  “Matt,” I whisper, pulling back the curtain to reveal Dylan’s heavily wrapped body. “Dylan’s right here.” Matthew makes his way toward the bed, where the constant dinging is coming from. It’s hard for me to recognize that the person lying before us is Dylan, so I know it must be a stretch for Matthew to believe so as well. “Matt … um … Dyl
an’s not doing so well. He got really hurt last night.”

  Placing his hand on top of Dylan’s, Matthew looks him up and down, his eyes growing wide with curiosity. He’s never been exposed to something like this.

  “He looks…” Like he should be dead? “… so … calm.” My seven-year-old brother almost brings me to tears in the middle of the hospital room, and I have to take a couple of deep breaths to steady myself as my mother rejoins us from the bathroom. Her eyes look even more swollen than when she left us. She’s been sobbing again.

  “Your dad is in the café,” she says, running her fingers through my brother’s brown hair. “I’m going to take Matthew to get something to eat. Do you want to come, or do you just want us to bring you something back?”

  “I’ll come down. Right now, I just … I just want a minute with him.”

  “Okay.” She gives me a weak smile before grabbing Matthew’s hand and leading him out of the room.

  “Dylan, if you can hear me, I’m pretty sure you expect me to say ‘I told you so,’ and even though I have every reason to, I’m not. Actually … I’m here to apologize. I promised myself that nothing bad was going to happen to you, and I let us both down. I’m not sure if you saw the wreckage, but…” I will myself not to cry, in order to be strong for him, but then I flash back to the cars looped around each other and lose it. “Dylan, I’m not sure how you managed to stay alive after that, but I’m glad you did.”

  I slip my fingers into the spaces between his—the casts on his wrists making it more difficult than usual—but the electric current that normally pulses through me when we touch doesn’t flow at all.

  “I didn’t think it would take almost losing you for me to express this. I would have never forgiven myself if…” I take a few breaths to hold back my tears. “… if I didn’t get the chance to tell you that I am totally, completely, and undeniably in love with you, and I pretty much have been since the day you walked into my life.” I give his hand two squeezes and, after waiting for him to return my gesture, give him two more. “God, I just need you to wake up, Dylan. Just open your big brown eyes so I know that you’re okay. That we’re okay, and that you’re not going to leave me. Please, Dylan … for me. I need you. I don’t know how to exist without you. Please.”

  I’m not sure why, but I expect his eyes to snap open at my request and his hand to give my hand a weak squeeze, but I get nothing. The only sign of life isn’t even coming from him; it’s coming from the heart rate monitor behind me. Unfortunately, the beep, beep, beep of the green line isn’t the heartfelt rom-com-movie-scene response I am looking for.

  chapter 22

  Dear Catherine,

  This isn’t a normal journal entry, so brace yourself. Right now I’m sitting next to Dylan’s hospital bed. On the night of his showcase, he fell asleep at the wheel of his car and drove through the middle of an intersection. The crash scene was like something from a horror film. He broke so many bones that the doctors had to practically wrap his whole body in a cast, but if I’m being completely honest, that’s the least of my worries.

  He’s in a coma now, but the doctors have no clue when he’ll wake up. “We’re on his time now,” they told us after the swelling in his brain went down. “It could be days. It could be months. It could even be years.” Nobody knows, and that uncertainty, I think, is what frustrates me the most.

  This unexpected break from Dylan has added another layer of complications to our love story. Colleges will begin mailing acceptance letters soon, and I’ve been looking forward to this moment for as long as I can remember, but Dylan and I were supposed to talk through my college decision together. Now I have to make the decision about our relationship for the both of us. I don’t want to hurt him, but I don’t want to hold myself back, either. I’m stuck.

  Ever since the crash, my relationship with him has been put on pause. Right now, my parents never leave his room, and I can’t really be his girlfriend, so I’m forced to think like his sister. And as his sister, I believe that Dylan wouldn’t want me moping around waiting for him to wake up. I believe that he’d much rather I be out in the world, doing something that makes me feel alive until he’s back. Something great, like going to the college of my dreams, wherever that is. But … with him still deep in a coma, it’s hard to know for sure what he’d really want for me.

  Oh, Catherine … what should I do? You’ve kind of been my North Star through everything with Dylan, but this is uncharted territory for the both of us. What should I do? What would you do? I need your guidance now more than ever.

  Emma

  My parents make me stay home from school and dance practice for five days, and on the fifth day, despite my unwavering concern for Dylan, I beg them to let me go. Not only do I have a dance solo to work on, but I have schoolwork to complete and finals to take, as well. Besides, sitting around in the hospital waiting for something that may or may not happen is—not to sound cold—depressing. The longer I sit around staring at him and hoping he wakes up, the more alone I feel. He was my best friend—even more so than Karmin—and without him, I’m not me. He’s “on the road to recovery,” as the doctors put it. “It’ll happen when it happens.” But it hasn’t happened yet, and the uncertainty of his condition—and our relationship—is starting to wear on me. I need to get away, I think. I need to go back to school.

  So on Wednesday evening, I pull my parents away from Dylan’s bedside long enough to have a conversation about my returning to school. It went something like this:

  Me: I want to go back to school … like, tomorrow.

  Mom: Honey—I hate when she honeys me—I really think you should take the week off. I already called your teachers, and they’re perfectly fine with you returning next week.

  Dad: I agree. Don’t you want to be here when he wakes up?

  Me: Sigh. Yes, I do. But—

  Dad: No buts. If they’re letting you take a few days off, you might as well take them. Those don’t come around too often.

  Mom: He’s not lying, you know?

  Me: I want to be here, I do, but all this sitting around and waiting isn’t helping anyone. I’m getting behind in my classes, and I don’t want to be overwhelmed the week before finals.

  Dad: Em—

  Me: Please, Dad. I’m not asking to get a tattoo or some fancy body piercing. I just want to go to school. Please let me go.

  They must hear the desperation in my voice because neither one of my parents attempts to respond. I win. And that’s how I ended up at school bright and early on Thursday morning.

  I feel like I’m going to see Dylan waiting for me in the parking lot when I pull into my usual spot, but his brown hair, honey eyes, and dimpled grin never make an appearance. I push him from my mind and try to focus on the day ahead, but with everyone giving me hugs and telling me that they are keeping Dylan in their prayers, it’s hard to stay on task.

  * * *

  “How have you been?” Karmin finally gets around to asking at the end of dance practice. Her voice is flat, which is unlike her, but it’s probably because I ruined the routine several times today. All the missed practices are starting to catch up with me. With competition so close, I know my team and Coach Denise are starting to doubt me, but they have to cut me some slack. “How’s Dylan?” When she places her hand on my shoulder, trying to comfort me, I almost lose it. But she thinks she’s making me feel better, so I don’t shake it off.

  “Fine,” I say dismissively. I got away from the hospital to escape my depressing thoughts about Dylan, but he’s all anyone wants to talk about at school, too. I get it; they care about how he’s doing and when he’s going to wake up, but at the same time, what about me? Everyone wants to be there for him—the injured—but no one knows to be there for me—the hurting.

  “What’s with the decorations?” I ask, pointing to the purple ribbons that someone has placed on the lockers outside the gym. I’ve been in a blurry state all day, so I’m not surprised that I didn’t notice them at
school earlier today.

  “Oh, we’re holding a fund-raiser—a benefit, if you will—to cover some of the medical costs. Dylan’s procedures must have cost a fortune, so we’re putting together a fund-raiser so your family doesn’t have to pay for everything yourselves, though I’m sure that it’s not a problem for you guys. You’re loaded. But still. We want to be supportive.” Her words throw me a little off balance. It’s not the fact that she’s correct, but rather the image that surfaces when she says the word procedures. The casts on Dylan’s arms, legs, and torso cover his stitched skin, but knowing that doesn’t delete the internet images that I came across last night, when I couldn’t sleep. The ones that showed the barbed-wire-looking threads sewn into the skin of patients who had suffered from similar car accident injuries.

  “That’s very nice of you all.” I try to keep things short and sweet; the quicker I can get back to my car, the quicker I can begin to focus on something other than Dylan, and his wounds, and our fight before his crash. The more time she—and everyone else—gives me to think about him, the more I feel distressed and lonely in his absence.

  Leave me alone. Those were his last words to me. He told me to leave him alone, but I never would have done so if I had known that it was going to end like this. With me seeing the crumpled-up mess of cars on the six-o’clock morning news two days in a row. I replay his words again in my head. His voice was so full of hatred and complete betrayal. And I can’t even go back and change that moment. That was his last memory of me before the crash, and depending on his mental state when he wakes up—if he wakes up—that could be the only thing he remembers about me when he comes to.

  I feel Karmin’s hand wrap around my shoulder as she pulls me into a side hug. “Look, I know you’ve probably been losing sleep thinking about the accident—hell, we all have—but if you—”

  “I’m fine, Karmin. Really.”

  “I know you are, but if you need a girls’ night to take your mind away from it all, or if you just need someone to talk to, you know who to call.”