Chapter 21: Damage
Lamar got a girlfriend in November. Actually, she asked him out, because it was obvious that he liked her but he was too much of a coward.
Her name was Allie, and she was actually nicer than most girls I’d met. She was about a foot shorter than Lamar. They hung out all the time, and Lamar started spending a lot more time with her than he did with us.
--
Derek loved to hang out in my room even more than in his own room. I think it was just his personality; he liked being around people and couldn’t stand being by himself. After a while, I just stopped noticing he was there; his presence gave me comfort.
“How’s middle school going?” After an hour I spoke up.
“Same old, same old,” he said. “I forgot my locker combination though. How am I supposed to remember?”
“Well you gotta get something that helps you remember. Like… like, say pretend each number is a year or your date of birth or something. If that doesn’t work, make some type of song out of it.”
Derek laughed.
“No, I’m serious,” I said. “Listen to this.”
I pulled up a recording on my phone and cringed at my 9th grade voice.
“Twenty-five, thirty, twelve,” I had sung it again and again until I couldn’t possibly forget.
“See?” I looked at Derek. He was trying to hold in laughter.
“I can’t believe you’re gonna graduate high school next year,” he said. “It’s so sad to think about. Who will I talk to?”
“What year is this? What year was the telephone invented?”
He sighed. “Talking on the phone isn’t the same.”
“I’m trying to be an optimist,” I said. “I’m gonna miss you too, kid. But it’s not for another year and a half, okay? Cheer up.”
“You’re gonna go to a college far away.”
I sighed, because that was probably true.
--
“Why are you so good at everything?” James was frustrated. “It’s like it requires no effort. You’ve probably never gotten less than an A in anything.”
“That’s not true,” I said. “I suck at driver’s ed. I have to take it again this year, and you guys are already driving.”
“Well, that’s your sight thing, so it’s excusable,” he said. “You’re in Calculus and I’m only in Algebra 2!”
“You need help with homework or something?”
“Nah, I’m good I guess.” He sulked off.
“Don’t mind him,” Ryan said. “All his friends are dating and getting good grades and he’s stuck behind.”
We walked out of school together. “Hey, wanna go for a ride?” Ryan clicked his key to unlock his shiny blue Toyota. I tried not to be jealous.
“Sure. Where?”
“Anywhere.”
“Stop being so sappy,” I said, bumping up against him. He laughed.
--
The road was mostly clear for a Thursday afternoon in early January. We held hands as Ryan drove casually, taking his eyes off the road sometimes to stare into mine.
“Ryan, watch out!” I screamed a minute too late. He turned to look back at the road just as a big pick-up truck rounded a corner… straight into us. It was going too fast, we were going too slow.
Everything was going too slow.
Crash.
The car flipped and my leg bent into a weird angle. The windows exploded into glass, Ryan fell on top of me. He was unconscious; his head had bumped something and was bleeding. I was trapped between him and the door as his brand-new car lay on its side, bent and broken. My vision blurred.
Is this really happening?
I heard a car stop; someone screamed. Footsteps were coming closer and closer.
“Oh my God..”
“Call 911…”
“They’re both breathing…”
“Check the other vehicle…”
I felt myself fading away into somewhere deep and dark, and soon was unconscious too, Ryan’s still hand against mine.
--
It took me a minute to realize I was in a hospital, and another minute to realize why.
“Ryan…” my voice cracked. I was feeling delirious. “Where’s… Ryan…”
A nurse came in, and called something to another nurse. My head felt funny, like it was heavy and then light.
A male nurse was holding a cup of water and a slice of toast.
“You need to eat,” he said. I sat up, and saw that my right leg was in a cast. There was a bloody bandage around my head, but besides that, I was mostly fine.
“I won’t eat until… until you tell me… where Ryan is.”
“Sir, just please eat and drink. We’ll have you better in no time.”
I downed my entire glass of water and ate the toast in record time.
“There’s someone here to see you,” said the nurse. My heart lept, thinking it was Ryan.
Derek cautiously walked into the room, looking around, until he spotted me.
“David, oh, David, you’re alright!”
I hugged him limply, my hope fading and evaporating.
“What about Ryan,” I said.
“He’s…. Well he’s alive,” Derek said. “He broke a whole bunch of things.
That doesn’t sound good.
“What did he break?”
“His collarbone, and two of his ribs.”
I sighed a sigh of relief. I had been picturing Ryan in a coma, on death’s row…
“He’s going to be fine, then?”
“Of course he will,” said Derek, furrowing his dark eyebrows. “Did you think he wasn’t going to be?”
I laid back down, remembering the impact, the sickly way Ryan fell against me.
I’m okay. He’s okay. We’re okay.
--
Ryan looked incredibly funny wearing his collarbone brace. It was two weeks after the accident, and he was still wearing the cast around his neck and I still had the cast on my leg. His ribs were healing too, but he wasn’t allowed to do a whole lot of stuff.
“I never want to drive again,” he groaned. Lamar patted his back.
“We’re just glad you’re okay, man.”
I told Ryan my version of the crash, how I really thought he was going to die.
“So I fell on top of you?”
“Yeah.”
“Sorry, man, but that’s hilarious.” He laughed a bit, then cringed in pain. “Oops, better not do that. Broken ribs here.”
“Dude, it’s not funny,” I told him.
“It just sounds funny now,” he assured me. “It must have been Hell then.”
“Thinking about losing you? That was more than Hell.”
“I felt the same way. Since I blacked out the moment of the crash, I had no idea what happened to you,” said Ryan. He breathed in and out shakily. I put my arm around him and watched him break down.
--