After Hello (12 page)

“Are you sure?” I asked Aces. “I mean, you don’t have
anything
else you could show us? We really need something original and special. It’s important.”

Aces folded his arms across his chest and peered down his nose at me. At first, I thought I had made him mad, like Sam had, but then I saw the sparkle in his eyes and the hint of a smile on his lips.

“Ah, but for you, cheerful sprite, I still owe you an answer to your question.”

“What?” I asked, pulled off track by the apparent change in topic.

“Exactly.”

I looked to Sam, confused.

“Just go with it,” he whispered in my ear.

Aces crossed to his art installment, stepped carefully over the yellow tape, and reached into the basket. Returning to us, I saw that he was cradling something in his hands. He nodded to me, and I cupped my hands below his.

“The answer, O lady of laughter, O damsel of delight, O girl of the giggles, is passion.” He opened his hands, and a stream of glittering red beads poured into my palms. “Passion is what makes the world go round. Passion is what drives us to be better than we are. Passion is what makes our emotions—whether love or hate or laughter—ignite and blaze into life.” The last bead fell onto the pile with a soft click.

Without warning, Aces grabbed my shoulders and pulled me to him. He kissed me on both cheeks in quick succession. “Passion is the answer to your question. Remember it!” Then he kissed my forehead as though searing the word into my brain.

When he released me, I stumbled backward, but Sam was there to steady me with a hand on my arm.

“I will,” I said to Aces, and I meant it.

Aces turned to Sam. “When next you see Daniel, tell him hello for me, will you?”

As we turned away, I dumped the beads into my bag. They slithered and shook past the other contents with a sound like falling rain.

Sam and I were silent as we made our way through the park, heading back toward the main walkway. I had so many questions I wanted to ask him—about his dog tags, about Aces and his artwork, and about what we should do next—but he seemed absorbed in his thoughts. I didn’t dare interrupt him.

We reached the path and I stepped up onto the road. I turned, my mouth open to break the silence and say his name.

And that’s when the bike ran me over.

Chapter 18

Sam

He came out of nowhere.

It happened so fast—she didn’t even have time to scream.

Later, when Sam had time to review the events and the courage to examine them up close, that was what he kept coming back to. Her silence.

One minute, Sara was on her feet, her sandy-blonde hair shifting as her head turned toward him, her mouth open. Her eyes were as green as the trees around her. He could almost hear his unspoken name on her lips.

The next minute, she was down, fallen into a crumpled heap at his feet. Her bag slipped from her shoulder, a few red beads scattering and bumping down the path like frozen, isolated drops of blood.

That’s when he saw the real blood welling up from her scraped-up knee, staining her blue jeans black.

Sam froze. He didn’t breathe. He didn’t blink. He didn’t move.

The bicyclist screeched to a stop a few paces away. Dropping his bike, he ran back to Sara’s side, ripping off his helmet and his gloves. He crashed to his knees next to her.

“Hey, are you okay? I’m sorry. I didn’t even see you—”

Sam closed his eyes, the words echoing loud in his mind, in his memory. He could feel his fingers trembling. Sweat lined the back of his neck.

“Hey! Hey, you! Don’t just stand there—come help me!” The guy’s voice rattled Sam back to reality.

He blinked and saw that a small crowd had gathered at the scene of the accident. He told his body to move, to go to Sara and help her, but all his joints felt disconnected. Nothing in his body seemed to work properly.

The biker crouched next to Sara, supporting her back as she struggled to sit up.

“It’s okay,” she said over and over. “It’s okay. I’m okay. I’m not hurt.”

Sam couldn’t stop looking at the blood. Another scratch was oozing blood down by her ankle, soaking through the hem of her jeans, turning her white socks first pink, then red.

“Yes, you are,” Biker Man said, his hand hovering over her leg. “Looks like you’re scraped up pretty bad. Are you hurt anywhere else?”

Sara started to shake her head, then stopped, wincing in pain.

“Here—can you follow my finger?” Biker Man moved his index finger in a slow pass in front of her eyes. “Good. Okay. That’s good.”

“My hands hurt,” Sara whimpered.

Biker Man touched her wrists and turned her palms face up. The heels of her hands were scraped and scuffed. He made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. “Not as bad as your knee, but still—” He fumbled in the pack at his waist and pulled out his cell phone.

“Oh, you don’t have to call anyone,” Sara said, trying to smile through a grimace. “I’ll be fine. Honest.”

Sam finally moved. “She’s right. You don’t have to call anyone. I have a first-aid kit.”

Biker Man lowered his phone, frowning in doubt. “Really?”

“Yeah, I bet he really does,” Sara said, hissing a breath between her teeth. “He has everything in that bag of his.”

Sam thought he knew the exact placement of everything in his bag, but he couldn’t seem to find the first-aid kit.
No. Not again.
The thought came unbidden, though he knew exactly where it had come from. And why.

Biker Man shook his head. “She needs help. I’m calling—”

“If you do, I’ll say it was your fault,” Sam blurted out, still frantically searching for the bandages. They were in there somewhere, he knew it. They had to be.

“It
was
my fault,” Biker Man said.

“No, it was
my
fault,” Sara said. “I was on the road—”

“I’ll say you did it on purpose,” Sam barked. A dark heat had seized his heart. The edges of his vision wavered with black spots. “I’ll say you saw her and you ran her down anyway.”

“What? Why would you say that? Chill, man, it was just an accident.”

“No! It wasn’t! It was your fault—you even said so,” Sam shouted. His head pounded with two different images. It was hard to tell which one was the real one and which one was the memory.

His fingers found the kit, and he yanked it out of his bag with unexpected force. “Here. I’ll do it. I can take care of her.”

The crowd had slipped away, the few pedestrians in the area clearly unwilling to get involved in an ugly confrontation with strangers.

“Sam,” Sara said, “calm down.”

“You”—he jabbed a finger at Biker Man—“get away from her.”

Biker Man hesitated. He looked down at Sara. “You okay?”

She nodded.

“You sure?”

She nodded again.

“Who is this guy, anyway?”

Sara’s green eyes met Sam’s brown ones. Sam held his breath and wondered what she would say. “He’s my friend.”

“Okay,” Biker Man said. “If you’re sure—”

“We’re friends,” she said again, her voice strong and firm. “Aren’t we, Sam?”

He felt tears burn in his eyes, but he forced them not to fall. It was all he could do to nod.

“Fine. Then she’s all yours, man,” Biker Man said, leaning back and rocking to his feet.

“I’m all right,” Sara said again. “You don’t have to stay. It was just an accident. A couple of Band-Aids and some Tylenol and I’ll be back on my feet in no time. Promise. I didn’t dent your bike, did I?”

Sam knelt by her side and cracked open the kit. His hands shook; he hoped Sara wouldn’t notice.

Biker Man’s mouth quirked in a wary smile. “No, you didn’t.”He took a step away. “Are you sure you—?”

“Go!” Sam snapped. “Just go. You don’t need to be here. You aren’t wanted here. I can take care of her. I can fix this. I can. I will.” He muttered the last few words under his breath.

Again, Biker Man looked to Sara for permission.

She mouthed the word
Go
but softened it with a smile.

He picked up his helmet and his gloves, clearly unhappy at being sent away, and wheeled his bike down the path. After a few steps, he jogged back and set down a water bottle next to Sara’s hand. “At least take this. You’ll want to wash out those scrapes.”

“Thanks,” Sara said. “I will.”

Biker Man left for good, and then it was just Sam and Sara, alone on the pathway. The wind blew through the high trees.

Sam sorted through the kit with hurried fingers. Sorting and discarding and choosing what to use. Bandages. Gotta have those. Gauze—might help stop the bleeding. What else? What else could he do to save her? Scissors—yes—he’d need those to cut her out of—

He curled his fingers into a fist, concentrating on steadying his breathing and his heart rate. Now was not the time to panic.
Not yet.
Now was not the place to break down.
Not yet.

“You’re going to be okay, Alice,” he said. “I promise.” His voice caught, but he didn’t stop. “Just hold on, okay? Just stay with me.”

“Sam.”

He ripped open one bandage and reached for another.

“It’s going to be okay. Help is on the way.”

“Sam.”

“No, don’t talk.”

“Sam.”

Her voice cut through the noise that filled his head with static. The sound of a siren in the distance. The sound of metal screeching in protest. The sound of wind sighing down a dark highway.

She touched his hand, her fingers warm.

He hadn’t realized how bad the quake had been until her touch stilled the aftershocks.

He looked down at where they had made contact. The polished dog tags swung free in the space between them. St. Christopher looked up at him from the circular medallion with unforgiving silver eyes.

“Sam?” Sara’s voice was gentle and soft. “Who’s Alice?”

Chapter 19

Sara

I wasn’t sure if he’d heard me so I asked it again. “Who’s Alice?”

Something was very wrong with Sam. I’d never seen him like this. Granted, we didn’t have a long history together, but I hadn’t expected him to crack at the sight of my blood. Sure, I had some decent scrapes, but I had come home with worse when I was learning to roller blade.

Sam blinked and leaned back on his heels. His eyes looked blurry. His face paled. “Where did you hear that name?”

“From you. Just now. You called me Alice.”

“I did?” For a moment, his eyes started to clear, and then he looked down and returned to the work of bandaging the cuts on my knee and ankle. I worried he wasn’t going to say anything else. Then he said, “I might have to cut a bigger hole in your jeans—is that okay?” His voice sounded hoarse.

“That’s fine. What happened to Alice?” I tried to keep my tone low and even, gentle. I didn’t want to spook him even more.

He still wouldn’t look at me. He picked up the scissors and snipped the air a few times as though practicing. He placed the blades next to the hole in my jeans, trying a few different positions but never actually closing the handles.

“Here. I can do it.” I took the scissors from him. Even with my scraped-up hands, I was able to snip three or four times, enlarging the hole enough so I could rip the ruined pant leg away from my actual leg. I clipped through the side seams as well and tore again. I handed the scissors back to Sam. “Now will you tell me about Alice?”

Sam took his time, fussing with the first-aid kit, arranging and rearranging the bandages, tucking the scissors point-down through an elastic loop. He drew Biker Man’s water bottle closer. Aligned it parallel to his knee. Turned it a quarter of the way around.

He took a deep breath.

“She had just turned sixteen.” The words slipped from Sam’s mouth, as quiet as a confession. As he spoke, he carefully pulled on my shoelaces, unraveling the knot.

Cradling my wounded hands to my chest, I held my breath. I watched Sam’s fingers gently smooth the laces long and straight. He stayed focused on his task, as if making sure they were perfect was the most important thing in the world.

“I never saw her without a smile.” He loosened the top cross. “You should know that about her—she was
always
smiling.” The second cross.

His hands, which had been shaking before, became steady whenever they touched me.

“Her family had this huge house on the edge of this wide, wide field. There was a barn out back. It was the perfect place to have a party. Everyone came.”

He slipped one hand around the back of my ankle, supporting it in his palm while he carefully gripped the heel of my shoe with his other hand.

“My three best friends were there: Todd Saunders. Chris Allred. Jeremy Davis.” With each name he listed, he wiggled my shoe a little looser, a little looser, a little looser, until he could slowly slip it off my foot. “But that night it was all about Alice.”

He set my shoe to the side but continued to hold my leg. His hand was warm where it touched my skin, but his fingers were cool and strong.

“It seemed like she was everywhere I looked that night. Her parents had decorated the barn for her birthday with streamers and banners and lights. They’d hired a DJ. There was dancing. Music. Cake.”

He hooked the tip of his finger under the edge of my sock, being careful to avoid the blood spots that had soaked into the white cotton.

“I had a massive crush on her. But then again, so did Todd Saunders, Chris Allred, and Jeremy Davis.”

Again, with each name he listed, he peeled my sock a little lower on my foot.

“It wasn’t until the party was almost over that Todd brought up his idea. He said the four of us should drive Alice into town for a late-night ice cream run. One last unexpected birthday present from the four of us to her.”

He brushed some of the loose gravel away from the path before setting my foot down carefully as if it might shatter on contact.

“I think we were all a little crazy that night.”

Sam slipped his hand up the back of my leg, all the way to the bend of my knee. He unstoppered Biker Man’s bottle with his teeth and, holding me steady, he poured lukewarm water over my wound. The clear liquid turned pink as it ran down my leg, over my foot, and through my toes. Setting the bottle down, Sam reached for a cloth in his bag and wiped away the water and the blood with long, smooth strokes.