Now Is Not the Time to Panic(40)

It was such a short drive, but I was crying and panting, and the pain at this point was so intense that I felt like I was going to throw up at any second. I thought maybe I should drive to the emergency room. My mom wouldn’t be home for at least an hour. This was all happening in a split second. My brain was misfiring, time had stopped, and I was looking into the future and the past at the same time. I imagined what I would say. I’d say, what, that I fell? And why couldn’t I have said that? I could have said, I fell down the stairs of my own house, not someone else’s house, you understand, and that’s how I broke my arm. But for some reason, because my brain was shutting down in order to keep me from realizing how fucked up my body was, I thought I’d have to tell people that Zeke had pushed me. I had a bruise on my wrist from where he’d grabbed me. I thought he’d get in trouble. And so, what else could I do? Also, it felt like my life was ending, like the best part of it was gone forever, and maybe I wondered if it was worth it to keep living. I was curious how you made something end. I was in a car, and I was so close to my house. There wasn’t much time.

There was this tiny little sliver of light, this one possibility, and it was all I could do to follow it, to walk into it. And so, just a few yards from my own house, I floored the accelerator of my car, the engine revving up so hard that it was screaming, and I drove right into the biggest tree that I could see, in our neighbor’s yard. I crashed into it, this spectacular sound of metal just absolutely giving up its shape, and even though I had on my seat belt, which, honestly, I did not even remember putting on, my forehead hit the steering wheel and the world really did go black, the most perfect blackness that I have ever seen.

And when I woke up, I could hear the engine making such unnatural sounds, all this steam or smoke or something, maybe its soul, leaking out of it. The inside of the car was covered in posters, which had shot out of the backpack on impact, and I had double vision, and I was staring at the thing that Zeke and I had made, but I didn’t remember that we’d made it. For those few seconds, I didn’t know anything. I wasn’t even sure that I was still alive. And then it came back to me, the whole summer, every single detail. And I thought, I guess I’ll die now.

“Miss?” someone said. The formality of it was so shocking, so strange, like the ma?tre d’ of the fanciest restaurant in the world had just greeted me.

“Yes?” I answered, unsure of what exactly was happening.

“I’m going to help you, okay?” the voice said. “I’ve called for an ambulance, and they’ll be here very soon. You’re safe. Just stay awake. Talk to me.”

I finally could see the man, and it was our neighbor, Mr. Avery. He was wearing that haori, and he looked beautiful, his hair so fine and blond.

“Oh, Mr. Avery,” I said. “I’m so sorry about the tree.”

“It’s not my tree,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. I’m just so relieved that you aren’t dead.”

“It’s my fault,” I told him.

“It’s no one’s fault,” he said, and he smiled, and he reached his hand toward my face, which was bleeding. He softly brushed the edge of his index finger back and forth along my left temple, and it is still the most comforting thing that I’ve ever felt in my life, that little point of contact, the softest touch, reminding me that I was not dead.

And then Mr. Avery looked inside the car and saw the posters. And he looked at me, and there must have been something in my eyes, because he knew instantly. He knew. I wasn’t a copycat. His neighbor, that quiet, weird little girl, had made this poster.

He gave me a quizzical look, and I nodded. “It’s me,” I said.

“You made this,” he said, a declaration.

“I made it, and I hung them up, and I’m still hanging them up.” It was such a strange sensation, to admit this. I’d thought I would go my whole life not telling anyone. I’d told so easily. Well, I mean, I had almost died and the boy I loved had broken my arm, but still. I had been dying to tell someone, I now realized.

“That’s . . . that’s absolutely lovely.”

“Really?” I asked.

“This is so strange, but please tell me your name again. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard it.”

“Frankie,” I said.

“Oh, lovely. Frankie, you are the first person in this town who has surprised me. In the span of about two minutes, you have done the two most surprising things I have ever seen in Coalfield.”

What a strange thing to say to a teenager who had almost died, either by accident or on purpose, but it filled me with such gratitude.

“My mom,” I sputtered. “The ambulance . . . I can’t let anyone find these.”

“Oh, no. Okay, I see what you mean.”

“My arm is broken,” I said.

“It is, very badly,” he admitted. He reached through the window and picked up a few of the posters that were near me. Then he went around to the passenger side and collected all of them. He was stuffing them into the backpack, and I could hear the ambulance.

“They’re really close,” I said.

“I’ve got them, almost,” he called out. “Okay, I’ve got them—oh, there’s one more under the seat. Okay, I have them all.”

“Can you keep them for me? Hide them?”