Paralyzed

by Alana Terry

  The police. She had to call the police. She reached around for her backpack. It wasn’t on her shoulders. She had left it in the science hall. She needed a phone. Where was Willow’s?

  At that point, Kennedy first noticed her roommate staring at her from her bed. Under the covers beside her was someone Kennedy had never met. At the beginning of the semester, she might have been surprised, but right now she didn’t care what Willow was doing or who she was doing it with. She just had to let the police know Vinny was after her.

  “I need your phone.”

  Willow raised an eyebrow.

  “I’m sorry,” Kennedy panted. “It’s an emergency. And …” She turned her back. “Well, sorry for barging in.”

  Willow swept her blanket off. “Don’t worry. We’re still decent.”

  Over the course of the semester, Kennedy had grown to enjoy Willow and her carefree style, but right now she needed someone whose brain functioned faster than a viscous gelatin. “I just saw Vinny,” she panted. “I need your phone.”

  Any minute, Kennedy expected to hear Vinny pounding on the door outside. She wondered how much damage she’d do to Willow’s computer if she slid it and the whole desk against the door as a barricade. Why was Willow just reclining there with that dazed, questioning expression? Didn’t she realize Kennedy was the one person Vinny wanted dead more than anyone else?

  “Where is your phone?” she panted.

  “You say you saw Vinny?” Willow’s voice was softer than normal. Subdued. Almost gentle.

  “I ran all the way here.” For just a minute, confusion mingled with the acidic fear that raged and foamed in Kennedy’s stomach. “He was right behind me.”

  Willow stood up. Slowly. As if she was afraid of hurting Kennedy if she moved too fast. She reached out her bejeweled hand. Softly squeezed Kennedy’s shoulder with those long, painted nails. “That cute journalist you’d been talking to stopped by this morning. You know, the ginger?” Willow stared at the wall behind Kennedy and took a deep breath. “He wanted to ask if you’d heard the news. Vinny’s been in custody since last night.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Adrenaline oozed out of Kennedy’s pores. She sank down in Willow’s chair.

  “You sure?”

  Willow twirled a strand of her wavy hair around her finger. “Yeah. I thought about texting you, but I didn’t know if you’d get too distracted from your finals.”

  Kennedy sat up a little taller. “Well, he must have escaped or something. He must have gotten out and come here and …”

  Willow leaned over to her computer and went to Channel 2’s website. She pointed at the man whose face was plastered on the home screen under the headline Kidnapping Suspect Caught in North End. “This him?”

  Kennedy glanced at the picture. “Yeah.” Her legs wobbled, and she turned away.

  Willow scrolled down. “He’s most definitely still in jail.”

  Kennedy slouched down and swallowed. Why did she feel like crying? This should be good news. It should be great news, except for the fact that she just ran a quarter of a mile from a phantom. A bald nothing.

  “Hey, maybe you should go.”

  For a minute, Kennedy thought Willow was talking to her. She had forgotten about the boy in the bed.

  “No prob.” He got up and tucked his shirt into his pants. “Call you tonight?”

  Willow kept her eyes on the computer screen. “Nah, I’m going to Cape Cod with some buddies for a few days.”

  “Maybe after that?”

  His voice was hopeful, but Willow still didn’t look up. “Yeah, happy Hanukkah. Or Christmas. Or whatever.”

  Willow’s friend gave Kennedy a slightly apologetic glance, unlocked the door, and headed out.

  Kennedy stared at her lap. “Sorry for ruining your date.”

  Willow clicked off her monitor. “Don’t worry about it. Seriously. He had wicked bad breath.”

  Kennedy laughed but knew it sounded forced and artificial. “I really don’t know what happened. I seriously thought …”

  Willow flicked her wrist as if swatting the rest of Kennedy’s apology away. “You don’t need to say anything. You had a horrible semester. You got kidnapped, watched some little girl nearly bleed to death, had a crazy dude with a knife …”

  “I get it.”

  “Anyway …” Willow stared at herself in the little mirror on her desk and adjusted her hand-crafted earrings. “At least your imaginary friend waited to show up until you were done with your final, right?”

  Kennedy blinked.

  “You were finished with the test before you did your little sprint in those cute boots, right?”

  Kennedy shook her head.

  “Hey, it’s ok.” Willow sounded like she was talking to a puppy with a hurt paw. “You can always explain to your professor what happened. With everything you’ve been through …”

  How could Kennedy have been so stupid? Didn’t she know Vinny wouldn’t dare risk showing himself in broad daylight in a building full of witnesses? Why had she run? And how many people saw her acting like the fool she was?

  “It’s all right,” Willow repeated.

  What should she do? She couldn’t go back to the lecture hall and expect to pick up right where she left off. The test started over half an hour ago. Even if the professor let her back in to finish her exam, it didn’t seem fair to the other students, and there was no way to explain the circumstances to Adell without distracting the entire room. Besides, Kennedy was tired of all the publicity. Her image had been splashed all over the news last fall, and even now she could almost hear the thoughts of people who stared at her a second too long: That’s the one who got kidnapped. That’s the one they got with that little pregnant girl. She didn’t need to rehash the entire scenario. She needed to move on.

  Forgetting what is behind, straining toward what was ahead. Wasn’t that how the Bible verse went? She had been trying to memorize Scripture lately, Scripture she could turn to whenever she recalled Vinny’s face, the feel of the unforgiving handcuff biting her wrist. She had spent so much mental energy over the past six weeks convincing her parents she was fine. If only she could reach the place where she believed it. Where was the victory Pastor Carl talked about in his sermons? Where was the freedom, the dramatic deliverance from fear and the nightmares that plagued her?

  “… cute lab partner of yours?” Willow’s voice interrupted Kennedy’s thoughts, and she tried to recreate the entire sentence.

  “What about him?”

  Willow let out a dramatic huff. “I said, would you be more comfortable explaining it to the professor if he came with you?”

  Kennedy went to her own desk and turned on her computer. It was nice of Willow to try to help, but her suggestions were about as effective as salt dumped into a solution when it’s already past its saturation point.

  “I’ll just email Adell,” she replied. “See what she says.”

  “Don’t forget to play the whole I-was-kidnapped card. If I were you, I’d be milking that for all it’s worth, and I’d have signed for that book deal, too.”

  Ignoring Willow’s remarks, Kennedy let her computer start up. Adell would understand, right? She’d let Kennedy take the test tonight. Or first thing tomorrow before she met with Detective Drisklay. Maybe Willow had a point. After everything Kennedy had gone through, a little slack wasn’t too much to ask for, was it?

  Willow came up behind and rubbed Kennedy’s back. “You sure you don’t want to come with us to the Cape? Might help you relax a little. Get some of that tension out of your neck.”

  She started massaging the deep muscle, and Kennedy cringed.

  “You are so tight up here.” Willow dug in even deeper. “It’s like your neck has turned into the dumping grounds for every single negative emotion in your body.”

  Kennedy turned around to face her. “You don’t need to worry about me. I’m all right.”

  Willow raised her eyebrows. “Really? Well, I still think you sho
uld come with me. You should see the cabin we got. It’s wicked posh. We have room in the car for one more.”

  Willow made for a good roommate and even a decent friend, but her crowd of noisy, boisterous theater majors made Kennedy feel like a drop of oil floating in isolation in a lava lamp. She mumbled something about meeting with the detective in the morning and went back to typing her apology to Professor Adell.

  Kennedy stared at her half-composed email and glanced at the time. The test would probably go for another half an hour, maybe more. She could go back and finish it right now if she had the chance. Why had she let her imagination play such a horrid trick on her?

  She reread her email but still wasn’t happy with the finished product. She deleted everything she wrote about running away from Vinny and just said she had been coughing too much and didn’t want to disturb the class. How would Adell react? Would she think Kennedy was just trying to get out of her work?

  Well, there was nothing else she could do. Not right now. Except maybe start that laundry and pack for Aunt Lilian’s. It would be a short hop to Baltimore, nothing like the flight between China and the States. She could take one or two volumes of her antique Turgenev set to read on the plane. She just hoped it’d be enough to keep her mind off everything else. Forget what’s behind. Strain toward what’s ahead. If she could block out her memories from last fall, that basement, everything would be fine. She could live that victorious Christian life she heard everyone talk about. She could even be a witness, a living example of how God helps people overcome adversity. If she weren’t petrified by public speaking, she could even become a motivational speaker. If God can bring me through a kidnapping and attempted murder, he can carry you through whatever problems you’re dealing with today.

  If only she could bring herself to believe it.

  “Well, I’ve gotta get going.” Willow leaned down and pecked the air by Kennedy’s cheek. “Promise me you’ll relax a little, ok? Especially with them catching Vinny and all. I mean, that’s really good news. Oh, and get in touch with that reporter. He’s cute.” Willow picked up her bag and glided out, leaving the door a crack open behind her.

  Kennedy’s heart dropped slowly, like crystallized honey sinking in a cup of tea. After a brainless eternity staring at her computer, she got up and gathered her laundry into a heap. There was so much to do before she flew out. Why had she let it pile up this high?

  A couple of minutes later, the computer dinged at her, and she glanced at her screen. Professor Adell had already replied.

  Medical excuses may be permitted at the discretion of the professor provided a note from the campus medical center verifies the necessity of said provision.

  That was all, no names or greetings or hope you’re feeling better. Not even an automatic closing or signature at the bottom. Kennedy reread it, each time wishing for more information. She hadn’t ever been to the campus medical center. She didn’t know if she needed to bring her parents’ insurance card or write a check or what. And how much would it cost? She had spent most of her discretionary funds at the used bookstore downtown. Well, it was either visit the clinic or fail the final. Maybe she could conjure up another coughing fit for the doctor or nurse and get a quick excuse. Why couldn’t she be like Willow? Her roommate could probably convince someone she was dying of meningitis to get out of a test.

  Kennedy buttoned up her new leather coat, an early Christmas gift from her dad, checked Harvard’s webpage to remember where she was supposed to go, and headed to the medical center.

  CHAPTER 4

  Kennedy opened her mouth for the middle-aged doctor in his white lab coat. She stared at his little flashlight and performed all the other tests he doled out. She didn’t have to overact to make her movements slow and lazy. As soon as she got out from the wind and sat down in the clinic, exhaustion clung to each individual ligament like hoarfrost.

  “You said your throat’s been hurting?” He frowned, and Kennedy felt about as nervous as she had been during her phone interview with Harvard Medical School’s early admissions application committee.

  “It’s a little better now, I guess. It was just during the test. I kept coughing, so I went into the hall to get a drink, and it got worse.”

  He nodded his head slowly and studied Kennedy over his glasses.

  “Then I went back to my room.” Why had she told him that? He didn’t react, and she didn’t have any choice now but to go on. “And, well, it got a little better then.”

  “And then you came here?” he asked. “For what? A prescription?”

  “I started to worry I might have strep,” Kennedy recited the little white lie she had formed on the way over. “I’m supposed to fly to my aunt’s tomorrow, down to Baltimore, and, well, I thought maybe I should get checked out before I went on a plane.” She squirmed, wondering how many germs were on the table bed where she sat.

  He kept his pen poised over his clipboard but didn’t write anything. “And how did your test go? Did your coughing interfere with your final?”

  Kennedy tried to meet his eyes, but her gaze settled somewhere near his salt and pepper mustache. “Well, I started coughing right in the middle. It was hard to breathe, and I didn’t want to disrupt anyone, and, well, I just left my paper there.”

  “So you’re looking for a medical excuse?” His voice was steady and somewhat bored, but Kennedy felt her palms clam up.

  “I told the professor I’d be willing to retake it.”

  He frowned. “I see …” He glanced down at his clipboard. “Kennedy.” He paused, and she knew from his furrowed brow what was coming next. “Kennedy Stern. Where have I heard that name before?”

  She stared at her lap, wondering if he’d come to the realization on his own or if she’d have to jog his memory.

  “Kennedy Stern,” he repeated. “Aren’t you the girl who was …”

  He paused, leaving Kennedy to finish on his behalf. “Kidnapped.”

  He nodded. “Well, I’m glad you’re back safe and unharmed.”

  There was that tickle again. Was she going to have another coughing attack here?

  “You say you had a hard time breathing. Has that happened to you before?”

  “No, not that I can …” Kennedy stopped.

  Guilt must have been etched on her face, because the doctor leaned toward her. “Yes?”

  She sighed. “Well, there was one time. A few weeks after I was … after I got back to campus.” She glanced up to make sure he understood. He nodded, so she continued. “I thought I saw someone in the student union. Turns out it was nothing, at least I think it was. But I started running, and I was coughing then, too. Had a hard time catching my breath again.”

  She didn’t mention the tears. The sobbing that convinced her she was on the verge of hyperventilating. She didn’t mention barging into her dorm room in the middle of Willow’s make-out session with a student from the theater department. Kennedy’s mortification snapped her out of her panic, but thankfully her roommate wasn’t upset. “He was really sweaty and gross, anyway,” she insisted. A little while later, once Kennedy stopped trembling, Willow suggested, “Maybe you should see a shrink or something.”

  Kennedy had shoved the suggestion aside. After all, she was a Christian. She needed to pray more, that’s what she needed to do, not talk out her trauma with a therapist who would stretch her out on a couch and make her relive those twenty-four hours all over again. She forced herself to focus once more on her schoolwork, carried her pepper spray wherever she went for the next week, and did a decent job of forgetting about the whole cafeteria episode. Still, she didn’t eat any hot meals for a while and subsisted on dry Cheerios, Craisins, and microwave popcorn until she could enter the student union without shaking.

  None of that had anything to do with getting a medical excuse to Professor Adell, though, so she shrugged. “That’s all.”

  The doctor didn’t look convinced, but he mercifully didn’t press the issue. “So you had a hard time breathi
ng this afternoon. And coughing?”

  She nodded. Hadn’t she just told him that?

  “Wheezing?” he asked.

  “No.” She didn’t mention the gasping. That was easily enough explained because of how fast she had been running.

  “Any other changes?” he asked, finally looking up at her. “Heart rate? Chills? Drop or increase in body temperature?”

  “I don’t know.” More frustration crept into Kennedy’s voice than she had intended. It’s not like she had stopped sprinting to check her vitals.

  He pursed his lips and squinted while he scribbled on his pad. “I’ll email your professor a medical excuse. When did you say you fly out?”

  “Tomorrow.” Kennedy wondered why it felt like she was back in high school and he was writing her a detention slip.

  “Well, then, within your first week on campus next semester, I want you to make an appointment with one of our therapists. I’m writing you a prescription for counseling right now.”

  “Counseling?” Couldn’t he have handed her a bag of cough drops, given her a note for Adell, and wished her happy holidays?

  He ripped the page noisily off its pad and handed her the slip. His handwriting was large and scrawling, nearly as sloppy as Professor Adell’s, but the largest words right in the middle of the page were as clear as a beaker.

  Post-traumatic stress disorder.

  “That’s not an official diagnosis,” he explained. “But after what you’ve been through, it’s worth ruling out.”

  Kennedy’s throat constricted.

  “You’ve had a rough semester.” He glanced at her meaningfully. “That’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “I’m not …” Kennedy began but stopped. If she tried defending herself, she’d look even guiltier. She forced a smile. “Thank you.”

  He answered with a half-smile of his own, and she walked out the room, conscious of his eyes on her. How did normal people walk, those without PTSD? Could he tell if she was infected just by her gait? She wasn’t sick. She wasn’t stressed. Well, no more stressed than usual. And besides, it was finals week. Who wasn’t anxious, at least just a little?