Fracture

by Megan Miranda

  “Shit. Carson, I’ll meet you by the car. Gotta go to the bathroom.”

  Then I spun around and marched to the far wall, where Troy fiddled with a soda cup. He pretended not to notice me. Instead he took the lid off his cup and moved the ice around with his straw. I sat across from him and cleared my throat.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?” he said.

  I placed my hands flat on the table and leaned across it. “Stay the hell away from him.”

  “Who? Oh, you mean the guy who’s gonna bite it soon?”

  “He’s not. He’s going to be fine.”

  He reached a hand out and placed it over my own. I snatched my hand back. He shook his head at me and whispered, “You can’t stop it.”

  “Watch me,” I said, and stood up to leave.

  He stood behind me and followed me out the front of the store. I looked around to make sure we weren’t alone. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “Yesterday, I just wanted to explain. But you ran off.”

  “Leave us alone,” I said.

  “I will,” he said. “But not because I think you’re right. Because you need to see for yourself. Because then you’ll understand. You’ll come back to me. We’re meant to be together, you know.”

  “No, we aren’t. There’s no such thing.” There’s what I do and what I don’t do. What I say and what I don’t say. There’s no underlying path guiding my way. No predestination. Just me, choosing the right way. I walked straight for Carson. I was going to save him.

  I followed Carson down a narrow set of wooden steps to their partially finished basement. Half of the basement was exposed concrete and cinder-block walls with workout equipment scattered throughout the empty space. The other half was carpeted floors and plastered walls with couches and a big-screen TV.

  “So, since I’m not allowed to touch you, I guess the couch is out,” Carson said, and threw back his head to laugh. He poked me in the side. “I’m just messing with you. Smile.”

  I tried.

  “You sure you’re not sick?” he said.

  “Carson, can I ask you something? When we were little, you had seizures, right?”

  Carson turned away and walked for the weight equipment. “You remember that?”

  “I remember once. On the playground.”

  “God, it was so freaking endless.” Carson maneuvered himself under a long bar with weights on either end. “Spot me, okay?”

  I had no idea what that meant. From upside down, he grabbed my wrists and brought my hands to the bar. “Just in case I drop it,” he said.

  He was asking me to save him. My hands were damp. I wiped them off on my pants before bringing them back to the bar. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t drop it.”

  “So what happened?” I said.

  “With what?” Carson lowered the bar for the count of ten. I followed him with my hands. He blew the air violently out of his lungs every time he raised the bar. I cringed each time, thinking he shouldn’t be taking his air for granted.

  “The seizures.”

  Carson sat up and stretched his arms back and forth across his body, facing away from me. “They started when I was three. Got them under control when I was ten. That’s all there is to it. Changed medicine every couple of months for seven freaking years until they found a combination that worked.” Then, after a moment, he added, “Mostly.”

  “Were you scared?”

  He looked at me hard, opened his mouth to speak, changed his mind, and repositioned himself under the bar again. “Nothing to be scared of,” he said, lining up his hands. “Seizures usually don’t kill you. Unless you’re in the water or you crack your head open.” He tilted his head back and tried to laugh, but it sounded forced.

  I put my hands on the bar and spotted him for another set. “And you have to take the medicine forever?”

  “Nope. I stopped taking one of them last month. So hard to pay attention while I’m on it. Who knows?” he said with a crooked grin. “Maybe I’m as smart as Janna underneath it all.”

  “Does your doctor know you stopped taking it?”

  “Yeah. I might’ve outgrown the seizures. Doctors say it’s pretty common.”

  “How do they know?”

  “If I stop taking the medicine and I don’t have a seizure. So far, so good.”

  It didn’t seem very scientific to me. How long had he been sick without anyone knowing? I hadn’t seen him since Justin’s party. Had there been any signs? When had the pull begun? And how the hell would I get him to a doctor?

  Carson’s phone rang while I was weighing my options. Pretend to be sick, ask him to take me. Somehow convince Dr. Logan to run some thousand-dollar tests. But Carson said seizures didn’t kill. What if it was something else? God, what if it was his heart and working out was making it worse?

  Carson snapped his phone shut and said, “Let’s go.”

  “Go where?”

  “Kevin’s house.”

  “Janna told us to wait here.”

  “Janna tells me to do a lot of things. Janna is my younger sister. If I listened to everything Janna told me to do, I’d be bored out of my fucking mind. Let’s go. I’ll text her to meet us there.”

  I stood in front of the steps, blocking his path. “Why can’t we just wait for her?”

  He brushed past me. “No point. Justin’s there already. Decker and Tara are on their way.”

  Well, that settled it. “I don’t want to go.”

  “It’s a miracle Decker gets you to do anything. I’m going.

  You can sit here and wait for Janna by yourself, or you can come.”

  He was already halfway up the steps. I couldn’t let him out of my sight. “Okay. But I’m driving.”

  I drove, on edge the whole way. Feeling the constant pull toward Carson. Wondering how long I had. Kevin lived in the only community in our town for rich people. Community is an overstatement. More like a street. So I drove upward on a steep, winding road, passing the gorgeous homes nestled into the side of a mountain. I couldn’t see it from the road, but the houses here apparently had a beautiful view of Falcon Lake from up high.

  Kevin’s home was the last house on the street. With the snow and the ice and the sharp curves, it’d take a good ten minutes to reach the top.

  I kept shooting glances at Carson as I drove, but I tried to keep my eyes on the road more often than not. We were about a quarter way up the mountain when something changed. What had been a harmless pull, just a warning, shifted into an itch in the center of my brain. I whipped my head at Carson and slammed on the brakes in the middle of the road.

  He lurched forward against his seat belt. “What? You want me to drive?” He smiled like everything was normal, but his eyes were squinted and he glanced out the window a few times.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  “Nothing. I just . . . everything is so damn bright up here, huh?”

  We were on a narrow road, covered by trees. Sunlight barely seeped through. “Carson, listen to me. Do you think maybe you’re not feeling right? Like you might have a seizure?”

  “I told you I don’t get seizures anymore.” Which wasn’t exactly a denial. I made a decision then. I chose a path, and I committed. I pulled a fairly dangerous K-turn in the middle of the icy road, where there wasn’t enough visibility to see if anyone was coming around the corner, and headed back down the mountain.

  “Where are you going?” Carson asked.

  I performed some mental calculations. Three minutes down the mountain. Three minutes to the highway. Ten minutes to the doctor’s office. I could make it. The itch had barely just begun. We could make it. “We’re going to see my doctor. You don’t look good.”

  “You’re being ridiculous,” he said, but he didn’t protest. He must have sensed something because he was letting me save him.

  “Call Janna. Or your parents.”

  Carson wasn’t listening. He was looking from side to side, squinting, holding
his hand in front of his face and turning it over. “What are you doing?”

  “I see an aura,” he whispered.

  “What’s that?” I picked up speed, leaving my foot off the brake as we coasted downhill. A black car passed us in the other direction, and I briefly made eye contact with the driver. I gripped the wheel and moved my foot to the gas.

  “It’s a sign,” he said, still looking at his hand. “It’s a warning.”

  I turned off the mountain road. Three more minutes to the highway. “You’re gonna be fine, Carson,” I said, but I was starting to panic. The pull was strong. The itch was spreading through my brain, threatening my neck, moving much faster than I had anticipated. “Hold on,” I said, increasing the speed.

  We skidded around a corner too fast and fishtailed. Carson put a hand flat on the passenger window. “You’re not gonna kill me, are you?”

  I gritted my teeth together as the back wheels gripped the road again. “Not even close.”

  We made it to the highway in under two minutes. It was a straight shot from here to Dr. Logan’s office. We’d make it and they’d run tests and find the problem and fix it.

  Except one minute and thirty seconds down the highway, the itch spread further, through my shoulders, down my arms. Too fast. I sucked in air and pounded the accelerator. “Carson?”

  “There’s something wrong, Delaney.”

  “I know, I’m going as fast as I can. Just hold on.”

  “Not with me. With you.” He pointed one steady finger out toward the steering wheel. My hands, gripping the wheel, were trembling. I couldn’t hold the wheel still. I forced my fists to uncurl and placed my palms against the wheel, watching my fingers predict the future. I squeezed my eyes shut for a second and shook my head, trying to clear the itch, as I struggled to focus on the road.

  “Shit,” I said, jerking the wheel to the side and slamming on the brakes. I held one shaking hand out to him. “Take out your phone and dial.”

  He looked at me cross-eyed, but he took out the phone. “Dial what?”

  “911.” He pressed the keys and held the phone to his ear. Then he lost his grip and the phone tumbled to his feet, but I could hear the operator already asking for our emergency. I unbuckled and reached across his lap. And then Carson went rigid.

  “Carson?” His eyes rolled backward, and his limbs shot out. I reached down and grabbed the phone while a woman was asking, “Hello? Hello? What is your emergency?” And as I was straightening myself back up, Carson’s knee jerked into my cheekbone and he started convulsing.

  “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” I mumbled to myself and into the phone. Carson jerked against the seat belt as his limbs thumped against the floor and the door, creating an unnatural sound.

  “Miss? What’s happening.”

  “Carson Levine,” I said, my voice wavering. “He’s having a seizure.”

  I reached over to unbuckle his belt, which would bruise him from the way he was seizing. “Okay, miss, don’t touch him. He’ll be okay.”

  “He’s in my car. The seat belt . . .”

  “Don’t touch him. Just let it pass. It will pass.”

  “What can I do?”

  “Nothing. There’s nothing you can do right now. I’m sending help. Tell me your location.”

  His head fell downward, but his limbs didn’t stop. He vomited onto the front seat. I covered my mouth and nose with one hand and opened my door with my other because the car suddenly smelled like a gas station bathroom.

  “He puked,” I whispered into the phone.

  “Did it come out?”

  Wasn’t that the definition of puke? “Yes.” I ran around the car to Carson’s side and opened his door just as Troy eased his car onto the shoulder behind us.

  “He’ll be fine as long as the airway is clear. Tell me your location.”

  “Um, the highway.”

  “Which highway?”

  “I don’t know! Right outside Anderville. He hasn’t stopped.”

  “He’s fine unless it lasts over four minutes. Or if he has consecutive seizures. It’s only been a little over a minute. Now, which highway is that?”

  It had only been a minute?

  Troy got out of his car and leaned against it. “Stay the hell away from us,” I said.

  “Who are you talking to?”

  I didn’t answer. I started laughing. “It stopped,” I said. Carson’s head hung limply on his chest, but his chest was moving. Up, down, up, down, I counted the breaths. He was fine. He was breathing. He was alive.

  I snapped the phone shut and kept laughing. Tears clouded my vision, but I saw Troy’s shape still hovering by the car. I stopped smiling and sent him a smug look. Then I unhooked Carson’s seat belt and hauled his limp body out of the car because it smelled of sickness and help was coming. I fell under Carson’s weight, and he landed on top of me. And yet, it didn’t hurt. A fall had never felt so good. I scooted out from under him and turned him sideways like I’d seen Janna do all those years before.

  Carson blinked and focused on my eyes. “Are you an angel?” he whispered.

  “I am today,” I said, running my fingers through his curls. And then I stopped.

  My fingers. My twitching fingers. I pulled them toward my face and studied the movement. Then I looked over at Troy, who was still leaning against his car and shaking his head very, very slowly at me.

  Carson’s eyes rolled back. I scrambled backward through the snow.

  He seized again.

  Chapter 15

  “Help me!” I screamed at Troy.

  He jogged toward me, and I could tell from his face that he wanted to help. He wanted to be that person. He wanted to save him. “How can I help you?”

  “Not me. Help him!” I pointed at Carson, at his limbs jerking at an unnatural speed. He kept thrashing, digging himself deeper into the snow, until small mounds crested over and buried his bare hands, his bare neck. He was cold. He needed gloves. And a hat. His clothes would be wet. He was wearing jeans. Nothing worse than wet jeans. And he’d be so mad at me that I had moved him from the warmth of the car.

  Troy yanked me up to standing and tightened his arms around me. “There’s nothing we can do for him. You know that.” It was true. That’s what the woman on the phone said. Just let him be and he’d be fine. Unless he had more than one. This was more than one. Was there something else I should be doing now? But even Carson told me seizures don’t kill. That’s what he’d said.

  Seizures don’t kill.

  This second seizure definitely lasted longer than a minute. Troy’s zipper dug into my shoulder. It’d leave a mark. Two minutes. Troy held on tighter and tried to shift my body away so I wouldn’t see. I still watched. Three minutes. And then stillness. Carson covered in snow and filth and God knows what else. Troy whispered, “It’s over.”

  I tore away from Troy and fell to Carson’s side. He was still. Too still. Lifelessly still. I moaned and flipped him onto his back. Oh God, where was I supposed to put my hands? I moved my fingers across his chest, feeling the ribs, trying to remember the right placement from that CPR lesson last year. The hell with it. I placed my hands somewhere near the center of his chest and pressed down. I did it again. I silently mouthed the count.

  “Delaney. You need to stop. He’s dead.”

  I shook my head and closed my eyes and counted out loud. Troy was wrong. Seizures don’t kill. “Delaney, concentrate. Feel. You know.” I didn’t. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.

  Because seizures don’t kill.

  I tilted his head back forty-five degrees and brought my lips down to his own. I blew my breath into his mouth and watched his chest rise and sink again. And I thought of the oxygen in his lungs and my hands pumping the blood to the organs, keeping him alive.

  “Delaney, come with me.”

  I didn’t think at all about his lips, and how the last time they touched my mouth they were moving and warm. Now they were still and cold.

  “Delaney, it’s
over.”

  But seizures don’t kill.

  I breathed air into his lungs. I pumped his heart. I squeezed my eyes shut and lifted my face upward and prayed for a miracle. I begged for a miracle. “Please,” I cried. But nothing happened.

  Sirens blared in the distance, growing closer.

  “Let’s go. We have to go. I’m going.”

  I kept pumping. I kept breathing. Troy’s car rumbled away. The real help arrived after I exhaled my breath into his lungs fifty-three times. They pulled me away. They pushed me back. They shouted questions as they lifted Carson’s empty body onto a stretcher and replaced my mouth with an inflatable yellow bag.

  “What happened?” and “Who is he?” and “How long?” and “Next of kin?” but all I could say was, “Carson Levine.”

  And all I could think was how cruel and impersonal that bag on his mouth was. How cold, sterile air was forced down into his lungs. How it had no connection to the living.

  Someone asked me if I was okay to get myself home. I must’ve made some sound indicating I was, even though I wasn’t, because they drove off, leaving me alone on the side of the road with Mom’s car still running, two doors thrown wide open, front seat stained. I fell to my knees and stared at the hollow spot in the earth where Carson had been. Where his body had dug a hole for itself. I listened to the sirens fading into the distance. I pictured them saving him.

  Because seizures don’t kill.

  Only that’s not what he said.

  He’d said seizures usually don’t kill. Like people usually don’t survive for eleven minutes underwater. Like I usually get all As. I doubled over in pain, but I couldn’t tell where I hurt. Just a widespread, all-encompassing, debilitating pain. I wondered what Carson felt. The last bit of life in his body had been from me. The last living thing his mouth touched had been my own.

  I clutched at the snow in the empty space where he had been, packed from his weight. Then I flopped down beside it, on my back, like I was making a snow angel. Except I didn’t wave my arms back and forth to make wings. I just lay there, tears trickling out hot, turning to ice as they traveled down the sides of my face. Snow melted into my clothes and my hair and the crevices of my ears. Pain where an itch had once grown. Pain to cloud the memory. Pain and wet and cold.