Now Is Not the Time to Panic(41)

“Oh, yes, that’s exactly what I’ll do. I’ll hide them. It’s our secret. It’s—oh god, tell me your name one more time.”

“Frankie,” I said. The ambulance was so close.

“Frankie, I will never tell a single soul. Do not worry.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Don’t die, Frankie,” he said. “If you died, I think I’d have to tell someone.”

“I’m not going to,” I said, and I must have sounded disappointed.

“You are going to have such an amazing life, Frankie,” he told me. “If this is how it starts? It’s almost breathtaking how good your life will be.”

“I think I’m a bad person,” I said.

“No,” he said, and I thought he might say more, but then the paramedics were running up to my car, shouting things, and Mr. Avery vanished from sight. And I never spoke to him again. But sometimes, when I think, for the millionth time, that I’m a bad person, I can still hear his voice, that single word, No, and even if I don’t entirely believe him, it’s saved me so many times.

I WOKE UP IN THE HOSPITAL, MY OWN ROOM, AND EVERYTHING was numb and fuzzy. My whole body felt like it had this very very low level of electricity moving through it. My tongue felt huge inside my mouth, which also felt huge, somehow. My arm, the broken one, was held up by a rope or something and there was a splint made of foam and metal holding it in place. I was just starting to realize that it was still connected to my body when I heard my mom ask, “Frankie?”

“Yeah?” I said.

“You’re okay,” she told me. “Your arm is going to be fine, you know, brand new, at least that’s what the doctor said. It was a fracture but, you know, the bone didn’t—” My mom stopped suddenly and looked like she might throw up. I realized, now that the world was regaining a little clarity, how pale she looked. After a few seconds, she went on like I hadn’t just seen her almost vomit over the horror of my broken arm. “It didn’t break the skin, right? And teenage bones are, like, my god, they just go right back together and it’s like nothing happened.”

“My mouth feels funny,” I told her.

“Yeah, you chipped your front teeth. We’ll need to have a dentist fix your teeth, because they’re . . . well, don’t worry about your teeth, Frankie, Jesus. I’m not going to worry about your teeth, okay? The teeth are the least of our worries. But, yes, you messed them up pretty bad in the wreck.”

“In the wreck,” I said, like I was piecing together what she knew and what she didn’t know. I wondered if Zeke had come to check on me, if he was in the hallway.

“Do you remember the wreck, sweetie?” she asked. “You drove right off the road. You drove . . . well, you drove a decent way into the neighbor’s yard and hit their tree. Do you remember that?”

“I do,” I admitted. “I hit their tree pretty hard.”

“You absolutely did, sweetie,” my mom said. “And, I just . . . Frankie, what happened?”

I knew I had to lie, and I knew it would be so easy to lie. The only problem was if Zeke was in the hallway, if he had told her everything. But I felt like he wasn’t there. He had left me on the ground in his grandmother’s yard. He hadn’t come to help me. He was gone.

“Zeke’s gone,” I said.

“What now?” she asked.

“Zeke’s leaving. Mom, is Zeke here? Like, is he here right now?”

“Do you think that Zeke is in the room, Frankie?” she asked, confused.

“No, but . . . is he in the hallway? Like, have you seen him?”

“Frankie? No. No, I haven’t seen Zeke. I was at work and then I got a call from the police that you were in a car accident and it was really bad—well, it turned out it wasn’t bad, okay? You’re fine, and you’ll be fine—and I drove straight here to the hospital, and I’ve been with you ever since.”

“Okay . . . well, Zeke is going back to Memphis. He’s leaving Coalfield.” I started to cry.

“Sweetie, oh god. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry because I know you really liked him,” she said, patting my head, afraid to hold me because of how much pain I could theoretically be in.

“I miss him already,” I said.

“And, honey, you were upset after he told you?” she asked me. “And you drove home?”

“Yeah . . . and I guess I was driving too fast, or I just wasn’t concentrating on the road, maybe? I don’t really remember, Mom.”

“Well, okay, that’s . . . of course you might not remember. But . . . Frankie? Can you look at me, sweetie?”

“I am looking at you,” I replied.

“You’re kind of looking about six or seven inches to the left of me, but that’s . . . okay, maybe we’ll ask the doctor about that when he comes back to check on you. But I just want to be sure of something. And you can tell me. You can tell me anything.”

“Okay,” I said, knowing that I wouldn’t tell her everything. I would leave so much out.

“You didn’t drive into the tree on purpose? Because you were upset that Zeke was leaving?”

“No!” I replied, because it really wasn’t true. It was more complicated than that, but I wasn’t getting into it. “Mom, no. I just . . . I don’t know. I didn’t try to kill myself, Mom.”