Saint Anything(41)

“Dad?”

He put his other hand down on the table, sucking in a breath before turning around. “Hey,” he said. “Ready for breakfast?”

I nodded as he shut the paper, then walked over to the stove, where a pan of scrambled eggs sat on the burner. My dad was a breakfast person: he started every day with a minimum of eggs, bacon or sausage, and toast. He was also an early riser, often gone by the time I came down for school, leaving just leftovers and the smell of pork products behind. Finding him still in the kitchen at seven a.m. was odd enough. Discovering him crying bordered on terrifying.

I’d eyed the paper as he prepared a huge plate for me, wondering what he’d been looking at. It wasn’t until his phone rang that I got a chance to find out.

David Ibarra is having a good day. He’s not in pain, he just hit a high score on his favorite video game, and he’s about to dig into a deluxe pizza. For some, these things might be no big deal. But for David, who was hit by a drunk driver seven months ago and paralyzed, every day is a gift.

I felt my stomach twist. I could hear my dad talking out in the hallway. Quickly, I kept reading.

It was February fifteenth, and David was once again playing Warworld. “Competitive” doesn’t do justice to how he and his cousin Ricardo were when it came to the popular video game. They could play for hours, and often did, staying up late That night, David says, was “especially epic, even for us. We played for so long, I could barely keep my eyes open. Eventually I did fall asleep. I woke up with the controller on my chest.”

He knew he was already in trouble, but figured by waking up in his own bed he could maybe do some damage control. After all, his house was only two blocks away. It was about two a.m. when he climbed onto his bike and started the short trip through the dark streets. He was almost there when he saw the headlights.

“It was crazy,” he remembers. “Like, there were no cars, nowhere. And then all of a sudden one was right in front of me. And they weren’t stopping.”

He has no recollection of the accident itself, something his mother considers a blessing. His first memory is coming to on the curb and realizing his legs were twisted up behind him. Then, the pain.

I could hear his footsteps: my dad was coming back. Quickly, I shut the paper, pushing it away from me just before he rounded the corner into sight.

“How’s breakfast?” he asked.

I picked up my fork, forcing down a bite of eggs. “Good. Thanks. Where’s Mom?”

“She’s not feeling well,” he said, refilling his mug from the coffeemaker. “Went back to bed.”

My mom got up even earlier than my dad; she always brought the paper in and read it front to back. I could just see her, her own coffee at her elbow like always, turning the page to see that headline and picture. All over town, people were doing the same thing.

On my way to school, I was suddenly keenly aware of all the newspapers I saw in driveways and for sale by convenience stores and gas stations. Walking into school, I felt like everyone was staring at me, even though I had no idea if anyone at Jackson knew Peyton was my brother. During homeroom, while everyone chattered and laughed around me, ignoring the morning announcements, I pulled up the article on my phone.

TWO LIVES CONVERGE, the header for the next section read.

As far as anyone knew, Peyton Stanford was getting his life together. After a string of arrests for breaking and entering and drug possession, among other things, he’d completed a stay in rehab and had been sober for over a year. But on that February night, after an evening spent drinking and getting high, he climbed behind the wheel of his BMW sports car. Like David Ibarra, he was heading home.

The bell rang, loud as always, and I closed my eyes, suddenly feeling sick. All around me, people were gathering up their stuff and pushing toward the door, but I just sat there, the words blurring before me. It wasn’t until my teacher, Mrs. Sacher, said my name that I realized I was the only one left in the room.

“Sydney?” I looked up at her. She taught English and was young and nice, with a kind face and a tendency to belly laugh. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I said, putting my phone in my backpack. “Sorry.”

For the rest of the morning, whenever I had a chance, I made myself read more of the article. During the few free minutes between the end of History and the bell. At my locker, when I had a short way to go from English to Calculus. By the time I got to lunch, I had only one paragraph to go.

There are times David is angry about what happened to him. When he can’t help but think how things could have been different. If he’d just stayed at his cousin’s house. If he’d left ten minutes earlier. It’s hard not to follow this line of thinking, and all the dark places it can lead him. But right now, he’s not doing that. Today is a good day.

“Here you go,” the guy behind the counter at the Great Grillers food truck said. I looked up to see him holding the bag with the sandwich I’d ordered. “Need anything else?”

I shook my head, suddenly sure that if I spoke, I might burst into tears. So instead I just took some deep breaths and walked over to where Layla and everyone else was sitting. The topic of conversation was band names, one that came up regularly during these discussions. Hey Dude’s new concept, Eric maintained, warranted a new moniker. But, of course, it had to be perfect.

“What about the Logan Oxford Experience?” Irv asked. “Like Hendrix, but not.”