by Ward, Tracey
People come and go. The warmth is gone, then it’s back, then it’s everywhere and I’m nowhere.
I’m lost.
***
It’s morning when I come to. The sunlight is pouring in through the window in the hospital room. I know immediately that that’s what it is. There’s no mistaking the stark white walls or the blue curtain pulled far across my right. I can hear a TV playing but I can’t see it. I must have a roommate. I wonder what happened to them.
I wonder what the hell happened to me.
“Rachel?” my mom asks hesitantly.
She stands up from a chair in the corner, her face tight with concern. Her eyes guarded and hesitant.
“Hey, mom,” I answer thickly. My throat is bone dry. My tongue is made of thick cotton.
She smiles, her body sagging with relief at the sound of my voice. “How are you feeling?”
I start to laugh at the absurdity of the question but it turns into a rough cough that won’t stop. My mom quickly pours me a glass of water and I gulp it down in one long swig. I hand it back to her and immediately ask for more. This cup I take more slowly, enjoying the feel of the cool liquid on my throat.
“Where’s Dad?” I ask.
Mom walks to the blue curtain next to me. She pushes it back to expose my neighbor – my dad. He’s in his work clothes (coveralls and heavy boots) passed out with the TV remote in his hand and a juicer infomercial on the screen.
“He worked a double yesterday,” Mom explains. “He was exhausted when we got here and then you were in surgery for hours and—“
“How many?” I interrupt.
She blinks in surprise. “Oh, um. I think it ended up being three total. It was after midnight before they brought you out.”
My eyes flicker nervously down to the bottom of my bed. To the white blanket laid across my legs. To the two feet standing tall at the end.
I sigh in relief when I see them. “I didn’t lose my leg,” I breathe.
“Oh my God, no!” Mom cries, shocked by the idea. “No, not even close.”
“Then what happened?”
“You don’t remember?”
“I know it was a shark.”
Mom’s mouth pulls into a grim line. “A great white.”
“Wow,” I sigh, amazed by how real those words make it.
I never saw it. Until this moment, it was some abstract horror like a tornado or a tsunami. You know what they look like but you’ve never tangled with one up close. They’re not really real until you do.
This shark bite just got real for me.
I lick my cracked lips, thinking. “I remember being in the water. I remember being pulled under. My leg hurt when I tried to swim away. Then… I don’t really know.” I look around the room like I’m looking for answers but I don’t find any. Nothing that makes the memories make sense. “Was… was Lawson Daniel there?”
“Honey,” my mom says softly, sitting on the side of my bed, “he saved you.”
It comes flooding back. The arm across my chest. The hand holding mine. Green eyes and golden skin.
“He pulled me out of the water,” I mutter to myself.
“He did more than that.”
“What do you mean?”
Her face clouds, her relief fading into dismay. “The bite was high up on your leg. On your thigh. It nicked an artery. You were bleeding so fast. When he got you to shore he cut the cord on his surfboard. The one that attaches to his ankle?”
“The leash.”
“That’s it. He cut that and tied someone’s shirt to your thigh to apply pressure. The nurses said you could have bled out before help got there if he hadn’t done it. They airlifted you out because of that cut.”
I swallow thickly. “And the bite? How bad is it?”
“It’s not pretty,” she answers frankly, her face firmly serious. “They said you have chaffing on your lower leg where your skin hit the shark’s scales the wrong way. You have a lot of puncture wounds up and down your leg. Some are pretty deep. Those are where he grabbed you to pull you under. But you’re lucky. They think it was just curious, that it wasn’t looking for something to eat. The doctors said judging by the size of the bite and what Lawson told them, it was a baby.”
“A juvenile,” Dad corrects groggily from my right.
I can’t help but grin, glancing over at him. “Morning, Dad.”
His blue eyes are open and on me, gauging me. Watching the way he always does. “Hey, kiddo. How do you feel?”
“Surprisingly good,” I reply, stunned to find out that it’s true.
I still have my leg and my life. The shark didn’t take a bite out of my body. He didn’t come at my arms or my hands, meaning I can still play piano. I can still go to the NEC.
Or can I?
“Oh, shit,” I mutter, throwing my hands over my face. “I missed my flight to Boston.”
“That’s the last thing you need to be worried about right now,” Mom scolds.
I drop my hands heavily. “But all that money. I told you guys not to get the travel insurance. Insurance that I’m sure would have covered shark attacks.”
“It’s fine. We’ll be fine.”
“Why would you need insurance?” I ask, regurgitating my own words in an oafish voice. “Nothing could keep me off that plane. It’s a waste of money.”
“You didn’t know. How could anyone know this would happen? And besides, you don’t need to worry about that. You need to worry about getting better.”
“I am better. I feel fine.” I look down at my leg, noticing the thickness of my right thigh under the blanket. The bulge of the bandages wrapped around it. “Why am I fine?”
“What do you mean?” Dad asks, sitting up and turning off the TV.
“I should be sad, shouldn’t I? Or freaked out? Why aren’t I freaked out?”
“Because you’re high.”
“I’m what?”
He points to the IV by the bed. The long, clear tube leading into my arm. “Liquid euphoria. You’re so hopped up on painkillers right now we could tell you that your dog died in a fire and you’d laugh in our faces.”
I scowl at him. “I don’t have a dog.”
“Are you sure?”
Mom swats him on the arm. “Stop messing with her. She’s been through enough.”
“The good news is that she survived it.” Dad looks at me seriously, his expression softening. “That’s why you’re fine, Rachel. Because you’re alive. We’re all fine, better than fine, because you’re alive. Your leg will heal. You’ll go on with your life because you still have one. Because you’re still here.”
He points at me with his thick, calloused fingers. The ones that will always be blackened by motor oil and hard work. That used to try to braid my hair when my mom was away and that smoothed pink bandages on my elbows when I fell off my bike. The fingers that taught me Chopsticks. That molded me into who I am today.
“That’s my euphoria,” he tells me quietly. “You breathing.”
My eyes sting with tears I don’t want to cry. I take a shaky breath and smile at my dad, so touched by the sweet sentiment of this rough, weathered guy.
Mom reaches out and takes my hand, smiling down at me. “We’re both happy you’re okay.”
“Yes, we are,” dad agrees, his entire manner shifting from sweet to stern in an instant, “because maybe now that you’re awake you can explain to me why the hell Lawson Daniel of all people has been hovering in the waiting room demanding to see you all night.”
Chapter Three
He stands at the end of my hospital bed after a long, sleepless night. His eyes are puffy. His face is tired. He’s wearing board shorts, flip flops, and a faded Sublime t-shirt, and yet he still looks like a model that stepped straight out of an ad for the female orgasm. It’s not right. It’s unfair, and it’s every reason that I’ve been careful to keep clear of him all these years. But now there he stands – my savior. The man who just hours ago I clung to, pleading with him
to stay by my side.
And the son of a bitch actually did it.
“Have you ever noticed, Lawson Daniel,” I ask him slowly, “that everyone calls you by your full name?”
His mouth quirks into a wry grin. “Not until this moment, no.”
“I have. I’ve noticed. Do you know why I think they do it?”
“No. Why?”
“Because you’re trouble.”
“That’s probably true.”
“My mom uses my full name when I’m in trouble. The same way people use your full name when they talk about you. Not like you’re in trouble, but like you are trouble.”
“What’s your full name?”
“What’s yours?”
“Lawson Daniel.”
“What’s your middle name?”
His grin grows into a smile. “What’s yours?”
I roll my hand in a round-and-round gesture. “This is just going to keep going like this, isn’t it?”
“Probably.”
“I quit,” I groan, letting my head sink deeper into the pillow, my face turning to the ceiling.
It reminds me of yesterday when I was laying on the beach. I was drinking in the sun, getting ready to start the rest of my life, and Lawson was nothing but a body by a bonfire. Just a name I knew. Now here he stands in the flesh and I owe him every breath I breathe through my body.
What a difference a day makes.
“I heard you’re gonna be okay,” he comments, coming around the side of the bed to stand by my right leg. He doesn’t look at it, though. He only looks at my face. In my eyes. “No permanent damage?”
“Yeah. It’ll scar, but they said I don’t have any muscle damage. It won’t hurt to walk. Not after it heals.”
“When do you get to go home?”
“Tomorrow. They want me to stay overnight to make sure I don’t have an infection. And I’ll have to come back to get the stitches taken out.”
“Couple weeks?”
“How’d you know that?”
He turns and shows me the back of his left leg. Through the thick brown hair I can see a white scar racing up his tan calf.
“Coral,” he explains. “Ripped right into me. I had ten stitches.”
“Where else?”
“Where else have I had stitches?”
“Yeah.”
He grins again, turning to face me. “To answer that I’d have to strip almost naked and shave my head.”
I roll my eyes. “Or you could just tell me instead of showing me.”
“Scars are meant to be seen, not heard.”
“Maybe another time, then.”
“You know where to find me.”
I do. Anyone who lives on this side of Los Angeles knows where to find him. On the beach. On his board. In the curl. He’s been riding since he was a kid. He learned to surf back when the rest of us learned to ride bikes, but while we never got good enough to compete in the Tour de France, Lawson went on to win every amateur surfing competition he stepped into. I heard a rumor in high school that he was being courted by a sponsor. No one knew who but they wanted him to go pro, and they wanted him to do it wearing their label. It would have meant competitions in Australia, Hawaii, Brazil, Fiji, Africa. Even here in California. It was every surfer’s dream come true.
A rumor is all it must have been though, because Lawson never left.
“I’ll let you get some rest,” he says.
He surprises me when he reaches out and lays a hand gently on my leg. My injured leg. It’s soft and it’s quick, like a pat on the shoulder, but something about the gesture touches me in a way I don’t understand. In a way that’s small like a pebble in a pond, just a ripple on the surface, but it will grow into something else. Something bigger, fuller. Into a giant, coiling, consuming mass of energy and life.
Unstoppable. Unforeseeable. Inescapable.
“Thank you,” I tell him quietly, ashamed it’s not the first thing I said to him. “For saving my life. Twice. Thank you.”
He nods his head, his eyes on the ground. He’s standing in profile, the light from the window pouring in behind him and draping his face in shadow. I can’t read it. I can barely see it, but I can understand his stance. I can read his body language, and when he speaks, his words confuse me but they don’t surprise me.
“Don’t ever thank me again, okay?” he asks me, his voice surprisingly deep and vibrant. “I know you needed to do it once and I’ll say you’re welcome so that the conversation is closed, but I’d appreciate it if you never said it to me again. Can you do that?”
“Yes,” I agree, though I have no idea why.
“Good. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” I say sarcastically.
I’m relieved when he looks at me sideways, that iconic mischief in his eyes and a crooked grin on his lips. “I gotta go get some sleep. I’ll see you later.”
I nod silently, watching him go. He’s at the door before I can’t take it. Before the words are ripped from my throat because if I don’t ask now I’m scared I’ll never get the chance.
“Why did you stay?” I call after him.
He stops at the door, one of his large hands wrapped around the frame. “Because you asked me to,” he reminds me, “and I promised you I would.”
He slaps his hand on the frame once and disappears down the hallway.
This short conversation is the most I’ve ever heard Lawson speak. There wasn’t much said. There wasn’t much about it I understood, but I feel like I see him more clearly now than I ever have before. Like walking a familiar beach on a foggy morning and seeing the mist start to clear by degrees. Watching it unveil the landscape you thought you always knew so slowly that you start to notice things you never saw before.
You start to see things for what they really are, not what you always thought they were.
Chapter Four
“Rachel!” Katy screams.
She rushes across the lawn, leaps over my mom’s small rose bushes, and stumbles toward me. One of her sandals nearly slips off her foot, flinging her forward, but she recovers and barrels toward me without hesitation.
It’s not until the last second that she slows enough to not knock me to the ground, but her hug is still bruising. It’s crushing in its ferocity, pinning my crutches to my sides and making my ribs shriek in protest.
I could not care less.
“Oh my God, I’m so glad you’re okay,” she gushes in my ear.
I laugh, resting my head on her shoulder and leaning against her. I let her carry the weight she’s stolen from my crutches and she takes it gladly. She knocks me down and holds me up all in one motion that’s everything I didn’t know I needed. I didn’t know how scared I was until being home, until being with Katy, made me feel safe again.
She pulls back, her face stretching with a smile that looks like it hurts. “You can walk on it already?”
“The bone and my muscles are fine. I just have to worry about my stitches for a while. I have to be careful not to tear them so the skin has a chance to heal.”
She looks down at my leg, at the stark white bandages showing under my running shorts, and shakes her head in amazement. “I can’t believe it. I had a nightmare about it last night.”
“You saw the shark?”
“Just the fin. Xavier saw it and asked, ‘Is that what I think it is?’, then Lawson was screaming at you and we all ran to the shore to call you in. You were so far out – I’m glad Law was there. He and his board were closer than the beach.”
“Yeah, I’m lucky he was there.”
“And hey,” Katy says, nudging me playfully with her elbow, “if you’ve gotta be saved by a guy, might as well be a Daniel boy, right? At least they’re pretty.”
I smile encouragingly. “Yeah. They definitely are.”
I’m worried she’ll say more about it. That she’ll break the promise she made to herself, that she’ll say his name. That the floodgates will open and the world will be awash in her tear
s all over again. She’s come a long way in the last year. She’s stronger now. Smarter. I wanted to think she was moving on because I was leaving and I knew I wouldn’t be here to help her, but now I’m not so sure. Thanks to the shark and Lawson and the fog that’s lifting, I’m seeing things more clearly and when I look at Katy I see the pain. I see the doubt and the confusion, the longing. The hurt. It’s never gone away. She just got really good at hiding it.
“You wanna lay on your bed, eat junk food, and watch a Teen Mom marathon?” she asks me suddenly.
“Dude,” I say with dramatic relief, “you read my mind.”
Snickers minis. Cheddar popcorn. Vanilla Coke.
This is how you recover from a shark attack.
This is how you heal a broken heart.
***
I fall asleep two episodes in.
Thanks, Percocet. Now I’m narcoleptic.
I wake up to find Katy gone and dinner on the table. It’s still light outside, it will be until after nine o’clock, but I’m already thinking of my pajamas and getting back into bed. I want to sleep until the heat dissipates and wake up to roam around in the cool evening breeze rolling in off the ocean. The old air conditioner on the side of the house crapped out at the end of last summer and we suffered through the heat, saying we’d get it fixed before the season came back around again, but we never did.
We bought my plane ticket to Boston instead.
It’s on my mind as I sit sweating at the table, watching my mom’s blond hair stick to the nape of her neck. Dad grabs the front of his shirt every few minutes, pulling it away from his body and fanning the hot, stale air inside. Neither of them says a word. Neither of them will ever complain, and that’s the part that kills me the most.
