Six
When you want people to believe that accidents happen and not all people in the world are bad, you lie.
"Car crash," were the only words I hear when I wake up. I'm in the hospital, and there's John with a swollen lip, and a cut eye telling the doctor about the "accident" we had gotten into. I took a breath and felt a sharp pain in my side. I swallowed hard and looked at the damage. My arm had a cut from my elbow to nearly my wrist. It was stitched up. My lower chest was bandaged. I could feel my face was swollen. I guess it could be worse. John entered my hospital room and I looked up at him.
"What happened?" I demanded.
"You wanted this," he reminded me, "You're in. Remember that."
"What happened?" I demanded.
"You can't back out," he reminded me, "You wanted this."
"What happened?" I demanded.
"We were shot at," he answered simply, looking over the stitches on his hand.
"Why?"
"Listen, I'm gonna go check on Garrett," he told me and he left all my questions unanswered.
Cold sweat. Panic.
I was in. Choices were taken away. I was in.
I wanted this.
Nick and Alex and Doug walked into my room. The three of them were alright. A few minor scratches and bruises. Why is it that I was the one on the ground yet I was the one who was in the worst conditions?
"You crawled to the ground right as the bullet hit the window," Nick explained to me, "The glass exploded and hit you as you fell to the floor of the car."
"When the other car hit us, the impact of it threw all of our weight forward. Which is probably why your ribs hurt," Alex finished for him. Their feet crushed my chest. Doug stood quietly feeling the stitched up hole in his cheek.
"What happened to Garrett?" I asked. They stood quietly. Doug spoke up.
"The bullet came through his window," he told us. My heart dropped. Garrett with a bullet through his arm, his chest, his head. Tears filled my eyes.
"Quit crying." Doug told me. He left.
And I cried.
I sobbed.
My mom came inside and when she saw me crying she started crying. She asked me what happened and she instantly turned on John and his friends. She assumed it was their fault.
When people don't want to accept that bad things happen, they look for someone to blame.
"No mom, you've got it all wrong." I told her, "They had nothing to do with this. If anything they protected me from getting hurt any worse. I owe them."
"I'm just glad you're all right," she told me.
I wasn't all right. I was a mess.
John walked back in messing with his stitches. Being the mother that she is, my mom told him to stop or it would get infected. He dropped his hands to his sides.
"What happened to Garrett?" I insisted. I insisted John tell me what was wrong with him. John just told me the doctors were letting me leave today and that I should go with my mom. Angry tears filled my eyes. Hurt tears. Scared tears. I demanded to know what was wrong. I was told to come back tomorrow.
The easiest way to cope with bad news is to procrastinate.
Sunday morning was slow and it was tiring. It was rainy and dull. I hated every minute of it. My mom kept asking how I was feeling. I lied. I said, fine mom. I'm fine.
Really.
I slept all day Sunday. I didn't eat. I couldn't eat. I only got up when my mom told me I had a visitor. She opened my door and John walked in my room. My mom gave me that look like she knew John was up here and she had her eye on us. As if I was really going to have sex with John in my bedroom while she and Andy were home.
My mom left and John walked to my bed. "How are you feeling?"
"Take me to see Garrett." I demanded.
John won't give in to pleas. John will give into demands. John helped me to the car. It still hurt to breathe in. The car ride was quiet. John rolled down the window and smoke a cigarette. John never liked smoking around me. He was stressed.
Hospitals were depressing. But they felt like home to me. When my dad had cancer, I spent almost every waking moment in a hospital. I was used to it. We took the elevator to the floor with Garrett's room on it. I was afraid of what I'd see.
"I'll wait here," John told me. He stood in the hallway and I slowly walked into Garrett's room. I didn't want to see him hurt.
He gave me a weak smile, "Hi Dakota."
He was a mess. A swollen up face, a few teeth missing. His hair was matted to his forehead, sweaty and still had some dry blood caked on it. I choked back tears.
"How ya feeling?" I asked. He shrugged, "Could be worse."
Could be worse. Though it didn't seem like it, it really could be worse. Garrett's heart could have stopped beating. They could have found us in that car and Garrett could have not had a pulse. Garrett could be dead.
I nodded. I wanted to know where the bullet hit him. I wanted to know if he'd been shot and where and how bad. I wanted to know he was alright.
As if he read my mind. "You know the bullet never hit me."
A weight fell off my shoulders. "But glass did. And when that other car slammed into us I fell against the dashboard and smashed my face in."
"Garrett, you're a mess." I told him. He just shrugged. "I think I look like a hardass."
John took me home after that. Garrett was fifteen. Garrett was shot at. Garrett could have been killed.
Garrett didn't care as long as he looked tough. Innocence was the key to getting through this. How long till we lost it all?
Monday morning. First hour English. Garrett was at school stitched up and healing. No one bothered to ask what happened. No one cared enough to ask.
People were so judgmental.
"Feeling okay?" I asked him when I sat down. He nodded and messed with the stitches in his lip and just like my mom, I told him to stop or it would get infected. His hands fell to his desk.
Fifth hour. Geometry. I couldn't concentrate. Shapes were just meaningless symbols to me drawn with chalk on a black wall. I didn't care about what was written.
After you're out of a state of panic, everything feels numb to you.
School let out and I followed John and Alex and Nick and Garrett and Doug across the street. I walked home every day now. It was a way of life. They were my family. And we looked like walking dead people with our cuts and our stitches and our black eyes and bruises. And people stared and people asked and we were comfortable with ourselves. When something becomes a way of life, you just stop thinking about it. Everything's numb.