Chapter 13 – Twilight Zone

I survived the hospital. I survived yet another day of being cooped up with Ian with the additional irritation of him nearly smothering me with his post-accident anxiety. I even survived my first day of school, in which everyone wanted to talk to me, their new celebrity.

I was not going to survive, however, my Twilight Zone experience.

At the hospital, they checked me over and did their anti-hypothermia procedures and told me that I had to stay overnight for observation but that I would most likely be able to go home the next day. I held on to that promise through Ian's panicky arrival and subsequent hovering. I held on to that promise through my mother's phone call as she demanded that I return home. I held on to that promise when Emilee dropped by to give me my purse that I had luckily left in her car as she made some inane comments about how it had actually been safer for me if I had gone up the hill with her.

The promise was not enough, however, when the young and handsome and exceptionally nice Dr. Cullen, whom I had now met for the first time, came by to check on me and informed me that Evan Keegan was well enough to go home.

I was furthermore disturbed when talking with Regan, who called to interview about the accident (surprise, surprise), to find out that only two other people remembered the event the same way I did and they had been on the far side of the parking lot quite preoccupied with building a Calvin and Hobbes style snowman.

There had to be more people who saw what I saw.

However, on Monday when I talked to everyone who I knew had been there, they all recited the same story. They even believed that our fall over the railing had been more of a tumble than a plummet and that the ice cracked beneath us, not that we crashed our way through it. Even when I talked to Alan and Lexie Peterson, the two sophomores who had originally agreed with me, I was told the same wrong story.

What was the most confusing and bizarre part of the whole experience was that Regan showed uncharacteristic lack of curiosity at this discrepancy. She recited some psycho-babble at me about how the adrenaline from my intense near death experience must have interfered with my memory causing me to not remember correctly the insignificant details. This still makes no sense to me. Shouldn't a near death experience adrenaline rush heighten one's senses producing a crystallized perception of the event, in which one notices every single detail?

I wanted to talk to Evan Keegan about what I saw and ask him my questions, but he seemed to be avoiding me all day. Every time I approached him, he would turn the other way and vanish around a corner, and when I thought I could corner him in French class, we had another pop quiz.

Well, he won't escape from me tomorrow. I can guarantee that because I refuse to spend one more night questioning my sanity.

"So, what is your version of the events on Saturday?" was my opening question. I'd make a terrible lawyer.

Nevertheless, he went very still before cautiously asking, "What do you mean?"

I shrugged trying to appear nonchalant, "Oh, it just seems that everyone remembers it differently than I do."

"What exactly do you remember?"

I knew then that I was not going to get a straight answer before I let on why it was important to me so I told him. "I remember staring at you while you were standing by your truck a dozen yards away. I remember seeing your reaction as the log came at me, Dani, and Maggie. I remember shoving them out of the way but not being able to make it myself. I remember being hit by you instead of the log, going over the railing, breaking through the ice, being held by you as the current dragged us…" I was beginning to hyperventilate so I stopped and took a deep breath before accusing him, "and watching you punch through the ice with your bare hand. How is your hand, by the way?" I eyed it suspiciously. It was not bandaged at all. In fact there were no signs that he even broke skin while doing this impossible feat.

"It's fine," he dismissed, "but you're not. Did Carlisle check to see if any damage was done to your head?"

"What? Who? What the hell are you talking about? My head is fine!" I exclaimed, completely nonplussed at his response.

"Carlisle… you know, Dr. Cullen? He said that he was going to check in on you for me, but obviously he didn't know you hit your head. And you must have because that's not what happened. I was on your side of the road, not by my truck, thus allowing me to save you, and my hand is fine. The ice was not thick enough to do any damage, which was why it broke beneath our weight when we landed on it."

"I did not hit my head," I insisted firmly, "and you were by the truck."

"Then how else am I to explain your misconception of what occurred?" He questioned, ignoring my second statement. "Maybe your memory became distorted by your body's reaction to the shock of the freezing water?"

"Why must it be that my memory is wrong? Why can't it be everyone else's?" I really was sick of everyone's psycho-babble.

He just stared at me with his now butterscotch-colored eyes, waiting for me to cave and accept his version of the accident. He seemed apprehensive about it.

It dawned on me then. It was his version. Everything that he had been saying was the exact same thing everyone else had been reciting when I talked to them. Even the non-sense about my brain chemistry affecting my memory was eerily similar to what Regan had said the day before.

How had he done it though? Had he hypnotized everyone, creating a mass hallucination?

I then recalled his intense focus on group after group while we waited for the paramedics in his truck. Could he have done it then?

I nearly scoffed at this idea. It was too sci-fi. However, how else was I to explain that everyone had the same version of the accident? Usually, when something this dramatic happens in this town, it becomes even more so with the re-telling of it, but in this case, it was disturbingly consistent.

I stared at him with my mouth open for an inordinate amount of time, not realizing it until he began to shift in his chair uncomfortably. I then readjusted my chair to face forward. I couldn't look at him.

Evan Keegan had saved my life.

Evan Keegan had punched through ice with no damage to his hand.

Evan Keegan had been in the freezing river as long as I had but had suffered no side-effects.

Evan Keegan had somehow convinced everyone that they saw his version of the events, a version that plausibly made more sense than mine but was wrong.

Evan Keegan had somehow convinced my inquisitive friend that I was wrong and having memory problems.

Evan Keegan was lying to my face.

And I couldn't even call him out on any of it without him accusing me of being mentally deranged.

I turned back to him, tears pouring down my face from my frustration, and hissed, "You know, all day yesterday and even today I wanted to thank you for saving my life and maybe hear the truth from you so that I would know that I wasn't alone." I paused to wipe my face with my sleeve. "So thank you for saving my life, but for your information, I don't appreciate being lied to and made out as being off-my-rocker, Mr. Keegan." With that, I faced forward again and expunged any warm feelings that I may have developed towards the Irish boy.

Carlisle met me at the hospital and dismissed the paramedics and nurses promising them that he would look me over and keep close watch on me. It had taken every ounce of my skill to help them accept the idea that I did not need medical attention and that it was not abnormal. It would have been very bad, if the EMT had tried to put an IV into my arm.

When we got into his office, he handed me some clothes to change into and calmly asked, "What happened?"

So I told him, filling in the gaps that Nessie and Jacob would not have known since they had been on the other side of my truck.

"Were you seen?" he asked referring to my supersonic speedy tackle of the girl.

I shook my head, "Even if I was, I was able to place new and more believable more memories into just about everyone there. And I plan to finish that task as soon as you can let me leave here." I looked at him expectantly wondering what he would suggest as an appropriate time frame. After all, he had more experience than I did at playing human.

He remained silent for a little while thinking, and then said, "Stay here for a few more hours. We don't want to leave anyone with the impression that you were entirely unaffected, and then go home and get Edward to help you."

I nodded my assent before lying down on his couch throwing the afghan over me in order to maintain the ruse that I was slightly affected by my adventure.

"Carlisle?" I called to him as he was leaving his office.

"Yes, Evan?"

"Can you check on the girl?"

He simply nodded, and with a kind and sympathetic look in his eye, returned to his rounds.

With Edwards help, I was able to find all of those I had missed and finish what I had started. He tried to accuse me of being reckless and relying too much on my gift, but I cut him off with a reminder of him doing the very same stunt not too long ago without the added benefit of my gift to do damage control. This mercifully shut him up until he reminded me that I still had the Darby girl to worry about.

So I watched her all Monday. What I saw and heard scared me a little. She seemed to be unable to accept my version and now everyone else's version, and apparently, she and two others, whom I didn't get to until early Sunday morning before I went hunting, had talked to the reporter girl during the weekend.

When I overheard their conversation in chemistry, I quickly went to work on suggesting probable reasons for the discrepancies in the stories. Her logical mind accepted them, much to the disappointment of Ms. Darby.

It hurt me that I had to cause her unhappiness, but I had to if I was to keep her safe from Jasper, who wasn't about to let anything possibly endanger Alice or from Rosalie, who desperately wanted to not have to move for a long time now that Nessie was no longer exponentially aging and seemed to have stabilized.

I stuck with the plan, but it seemed as if I was no closer to accomplishing my goal than before. In fact, while it seemed as if I had convinced her to drop the subject of the accident, she appeared to have discovered something upsetting about me, if one judged by her expression. Whatever it was, she was not going to tell me. My actions appeared to have permanently alienated her from me. Although I knew this to be for her own good and for the good of my new family, I wished it could have been otherwise.

AN: Good? Bad?

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