Chapter Twenty: What's Up With Lucky?

The warden refused to give him a break the next day, even though Lucky still felt dizzy every time he stood up.

"One day's all you get!" he snapped.

Lucky hesitated. "If I can work, shouldn't I be able to go to my trial too?"

The warden grunted. "Not my decision, kid. Talk to your lawyer. Now get to!"

Lucky sighed and got to.

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A.J. was pacing back and forth in front of the table at the outdoors cafeteria, swearing a blue streak at the prisoner who had cracked Lucky's skull.

Darry didn't know whether to be amused, appalled, or worried. It was funny hearing swearing coming from A.J.'s mouth, when Darry had hardly heard her swear before, appalling and worrying because Lucky had a concussion and his trial was postponed.

A.J. suddenly glanced at her watch. She snatched her bag and announced, "I'm going to see him."

Darry stared at her. "Lucky? Now? But…we've got school!"

"Screw that," A.J. said impatiently. "This is more important. I'll just get the notes from Pepsi, right?"

"Sure, A.J.," Pepsi agreed. Darry glared at him. "You're not supposed to encourage her!"

"Sorry, Darry," Pepsi apologized. "She'll just get them somewhere else if I don't give it to her."

Darry muttered a few threats under his breath at both a cowering Pepsi and at A.J.'s retreating back as she sprinted off campus.

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She was a bit early. Visiting hours didn't start for another fifteen minutes. A.J. sat in the waiting room with a woman who looked awfully familiar. A.J. couldn't place her for a moment, and then realized who she was.

"Hey, you're Lucky's lawyer," she said aloud. She looked up. "Yes, I am," she said, sounding surprised. "And you're his friend, am I right?"

"Yeah," A.J. said. "When's his trial gonna be next?" she blurted without meaning to.

"We don't know," the lawyer, Kathy O'Malley, said. "We were thinking of resuming it by next week, if his concussion's gone by then."

The tentative hope that had risen in A.J.'s heart died. "Is he…I mean, will he get off?" she asked, already knowing the answer.

"It depends what the jury thinks," the lawyer said seriously. "It's really all up to the jury."

A.J. mulled this over. She had a few more words she would have liked to say, but then Kathy O'Malley was permitted inside to talk to Lucky, leaving A.J. alone in the waiting room.

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After what seemed like forever, they let A.J. in to see Lucky. He looked terrible. "There's three of you," he mumbled.

A.J. reached through the opening in the thick screen to hold his hand, like she had been doing each time.

"How come only you come see me, A.J.?" Lucky asked, sounding almost drunk. Having a concussion was having a very strange effect on him. "I mean, it's like, you get accused of murder and then where're all your friends, you know what I'm saying?"

A.J. nodded. She didn't trust herself to speak. Her throat was thick with tears that threatened to fall any moment.

"I dreamed about you, you know," Lucky continued. "Juice, the other guy, not the guy that beat me up, but just a guy, he heard me talking in my sleep and thought you were a guy. I said, no way man, A.J.'s a girl. My very good girl friend…friend that's a girl…the only person who cares about me."

"Stop talking," A.J. whispered. The tears fell and landed on the table in a pool of sorrow. Lucky didn't stop.

"My lawyer…she said that if I'm all right by next week I can have my trial. That's good. A.J.?"

"Yes?"

"You'll be there, right?"

"Wouldn't miss it for the world," A.J. promised.

"Okay. A.J.?"

"Yes, Lucky?"

"I'm tired. Can I sleep?"

"Go to sleep, Lucky. You need to sleep." The words were hardly out of her mouth when he put his head down on the table and fell asleep.

A.J. swallowed, but it didn't get rid of the lump in her throat. She hated seeing Lucky like this, vulnerable, scared, and brain-damaged on top of it.

"Visiting hours is over," a warden told her gruffly. A.J. pried her hand gently away from Lucky, who was somehow still holding on to her hand.

A.J. walked in a daze back to the college. "How's he doing?" Darry asked her at the entrance, where he had been waiting with Pepsi, Andy, and Skate.

"Why don't you go see him?" A.J. asked. "I'm the only one that ever goes. Why don't you go see for yourselves how he's doing?" she demanded, shooting them all accusing glares.

She trudged away before Darry could say anything else and traipsed up to her dorm. She managed somehow to keep her cool until she got there, but once she flopped on her bed, she buried her face in her pillow and cried, longer and harder than she ever had, for the carefree guy she had once known who was no more and probably never would be again.

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Was that too melodramatic? I thought so. But writing at 12:05 when you woke up at 5 can do that to you. Review, please ;)