Made You Up(99)

“What are you talking about?” he asked, licking his lips again. “Is there any water in here?”

I reached for the glass of water the nurse had brought earlier. As he drank, I explained what had happened to Cleveland after he’d thrown Miles down the stairs.

“They got him. He was pissed. I guess he thought they were going to help him or something, because he told them exactly where he lived and what had happened. There was already an ambulance at your house, so they pieced it all together.” I paused and curled my legs up underneath me. “Anyway, Cleveland’s sitting in jail. They aren’t going to hold the trial until their three star witnesses are ready to testify.”

Miles opened his mouth to say something else, but then smiled and shook his head. I searched for a word for what I was feeling, for this mix of relief and exultation and serenity, but I couldn’t think of anything.

Words were his thing, not mine.

A few moments later the nurse came back to check Miles’s bandages and ask him how he felt and if he needed anything.

“Well, I guess if you’re feeling up to it, your friends can come on in,” the nurse said.

“Who . . . ?”

“Did she zay come een?” Jetta poked her curly-haired head through the doorway and looked around. The rest of the club was visible over her shoulder.

“Don’t be too rowdy.” The nurse edged her way out the door as the club came spilling in.

“Hey, Boss!”

“Mein Chef!”

“You look like hell!”

Miles looked at all of them—Art, Jetta, and the triplets— gathered at the foot and side of his bed, and frowned.

“What are you all doing here?”

“We’re your friends,” Theo said slowly, like she was explaining some fundamental truth to a child. “We were worried about you.”

“See?” I said. “They do like you.”

“Who said anything about liking him?” Evan asked.

“Yeah, we never said we liked you,” said Ian, smiling. “We just prefer that you don’t die.”

“Where would we be without our fearless leader?” Theo added.

“How’d you guys get out of school?” Miles asked.

“Skipped,” said Art. “Wasn’t hard.”

“You two are, like, heroes,” said Theo. “The story is in every paper. Have you seen all the presents you’ve been getting?” She motioned to the stacks of cards and flowers on the table by the window. They’d been arriving on an hourly basis since the story had gotten out.

“I still don’t understand why they’d send gifts,” Miles said sharply.

“It was your mom,” Theo said. “She told us the story— why you did all that stuff in school, why you worked all the time.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell us?” Ian asked, but Miles didn’t seem to hear him. He was looking past Jetta, toward the doorway.

“Mom.”

June leaned through the door, clutching a large purse in both hands, looking like a deer in headlights. She took a few steps into the room. I wondered if this was the first time in years she’d really been outside of Crims—Woodlands. I wondered if she’d only been able to leave for Miles.

We all filed out past her.

I stopped outside the doorway and looked back in. June held Miles tightly, rocking back and forth. I couldn’t see his face, but I could hear him laughing and crying and saying something muffled by June’s shirt. A moment later, a smartly dressed woman walked past us into the room. I waited in the doorway long enough to hear her reassure them that everything would be better, then ducked out into the hall.

The triplets went down to get food while everyone else headed to the waiting room. I went with them; my parents were around somewhere, and I wanted to tell them what was going on.

I didn’t even have to leave the floor to find them. They sat in a small, secluded little waiting room, alone except for my doctor and the Gravedigger. Their voices were strained and hard. Anxiety settled in my stomach. They hadn’t seen me coming down the hallway, so I pressed my back to the wall and crept closer, positioning myself around the corner.

“I don’t think we have any other option at this point.” That was the Gravedigger, talking like she had any say in what happened to me.

“How could she have known that it was falling?” Mom asked. “Unless . . . ?”