Made You Up(98)

He sucked in a breath. “Oh, shit.”

“What?”

“Oh shit, Alex, oh shit.” He started down the stairs, two at a time. I ran to the top of the stairs and looked down.

Miles sat against the wall at the bottom, slouched over.

One second I was at the top of the stairs and the next I was at the bottom. Tucker was already at his cellphone, speaking to a 911 operator. I knelt next to Miles, wanting to touch him but afraid of what I’d feel. Blood dripped slowly onto his glasses; the extra weight pulled them down until they hung off one ear.

Would he be cold? As dead and empty as the house around him?

This could not be happening. I was hallucinating all of this. I could make it all go away if I tried hard enough.

But I couldn’t. And it was real.

I placed a shaky hand over his heart. I couldn’t feel anything. I pressed my ear against his chest, closed my eyes, and prayed, really prayed, for the first time in my life, to whatever god was listening.

Don’t go away. Don’t go away.

Then I heard it. And I felt the almost unnoticeable rise-and-fall motion of his chest as he breathed.

Tucker dragged me back.

“Is he breathing?” I asked. “Is he really breathing?”

“Yeah,” Tucker said, “yeah, he’s breathing.”





Chapter Fifty-eight




We sat on the front steps as the paramedics took Miles out of the house on a stretcher. The cops found Cleveland’s car not far away, wrapped around a tree, and Cleveland stumbling around in an angry drunken stupor. Connections weren’t hard to make.

Tucker took me back to the hospital. To my surprise, no one yelled at me, but I did pull a few stitches, blow up my blood pressure, and get a couple more days in the hospital under strict confinement to my room.

I was okay with that. Because the next morning, I got a roommate.





Chapter Fifty-nine




“Mr. Lobster. Do you think my hair is more Communist red, or your red?”

Morning sunlight swept across the tiled floor and over the white bed sheets, bathing the room in warmth. The white-noise machine under the window dulled the beeping of the monitors next to the bed. The only other noise came from occasional footsteps in the hallway and a TV somewhere.

“Fire truck.”

I hardly heard it, he said it so quietly. I wasn’t even sure he was awake at first; his eyes barely opened, but he licked his lips.

“Fire truck,” he said again, a little louder. “Strawberry, stop sign, ladybug, Kool-Aid, tomato, tulip. . . .”

He slowly raised his arm and reached out, feeling for the bedside table. “Glasses.”

I had his glasses; they dangled off my right index finger. I gently took his hand and placed them in his palm. He fumbled with them for a moment before finally getting them straight on his face. He blinked a few times and stared at the ceiling.

“Am I dead?”

“Fortunately, no. I know you were pretty hell-bent on it, but it didn’t really work out.”

“What happened to the good dying young?” he said, his voice breaking. I smiled even though it felt like nails were being hammered into the left side of my face.

“We’re not good, remember?”

He frowned and tried to sit up and fell back again, groaning.

“God . . . what happened?”

“You got beaten up and thrown down a flight of stairs. Want to explain what you were doing?”

“I don’t really remember. I was upset. . . .”

“Yeah, I figured that much.”

“It wasn’t supposed to go that way. I provoked him.” He looked around. Saw the other bed. “You’re in this room, too?”

I nodded. “Someone likes us.”

He carefully turned his head, wincing, to look at me. “Your face.”

I smiled again; I was wondering when he’d notice.

“It’s only the left side,” I said. “The doctor got all the glass out. He said when the swelling and redness go down, I’ll look basically the same as I used to. Just with a lot of scars.”

Miles frowned. “Are you okay?”

“Great,” I said. “Concussion, electrocution, scarring . . . nothing I can’t handle, trust me. You should be more worried about yourself. I know how you like to keep people away, but after this I think you might have your own fan club.”