Breaking Glass (33 page)

“The suspense is killing me.” I drum my fingers on the wheelchair arm. “This is like meeting my mail-order bride for the first time.”

Both Chaz and Marisa laugh. I just keep tapping my sweaty fingers to the rhythm of my racing heart.

In a few minutes, Hoffmann returns with a gleaming metal contraption that reminds me of C-3PO from Star Wars after he was taken apart.

He sets it down on the floor in front of me. “Meet your very own state of the art C-Leg, Jeremy. This beauty was developed by Otto Bock, and features an electronic microprocessor knee joint with three settings.”

Hoffmann goes on and on as if he’s talking about the latest computer operating system, or at least the love of his life.

I nod, trying to look interested, but I just want to strap it on and get walking.

“I think I’ll call her Veronica,” I say, finally.

Marisa lifts an eyebrow, one corner of her mouth quirking up. “Veronica?”

“People name their cars, right? Veronica’s going to be a part of me, so we might as well get off on the right foot. Literally.”

Lyle Hoffman slaps his normal thigh and guffaws heartily. “See, I told you this kid was a comic! Okay, Jeremy Glass, are you ready to test drive your brand new C-Leg?”

“Is there a better word for ready? How about
hell, yeah
?”

Chaz helps me to the bench, and I realize that, with my sprained shoulder, this is going to be doubly hard. I can’t even strap on the leg myself.

Hoffman covers my stump with what looks like a little white hat, then carefully eases it into the cup at the top of the prosthetic leg. It feels weird, like I’m being stuffed into a toilet plunger. Chaz has me by the waist. Hoffmann takes me by the arm and eases me upright to my feet.

Feet. The plural of foot.

I sway, dizzy like when I’d climbed to the top of the Statue of Liberty but was too chicken to look down.

Marisa claps. “Woohoo! Look at you!”

I glance in the mirror. There I am—one bare, hairy leg and one metal robot leg. I don’t know why I forgot that I wouldn’t actually feel the ground under the fake foot, just the stump pressed into the socket.

I swing my hip out and the thing lurches forward, like Frankenstein’s monster.

Chaz guides me to the parallel bars and Hoffmann explains the stepping process. It’s like learning to drive. You have to do things in precisely the right order or you’ll fall on your face. It’s hard keeping my balance with only one hand to grip the bars, and I have to struggle to keep totally focused, but in a few minutes, I’m taking my first halting steps.

Walking. It’s like being a one-year-old all over again

Chaz, Hoffmann, and Marisa applaud wildly and I have to laugh. I’ve gone from winning twenty-mile races to this.

But that’s life, I guess.

I walk out of the Hoffmann Center on two legs, with a single crutch to support me in case I tip. I’m not all that steady and sometimes the leg just seems to lock on me. With practice, Hoffman assures me, I’ll be practically jogging. But the real running won’t come until later, when I’m fitted with the even freakier-looking running blade.

Marisa and Chaz flank my sides like proud parents. The steps are tough, but I make it to the car, amazed at how tiring the simple act of walking can be.

“I want to visit Ryan. I want him to see me walk.”

I think of him, lying immobile, lingering near death. My best friend.

He’s been an enigma, a vessel of secrets. But so have we all.

And I realize I can’t stay angry with him.

I never could.

Though I was once so sure, I’m beginning to wonder if he killed Susannah. I want to hear him deny it, once and for all.
I hope I get the chance
.

By the time we enter the hospital lobby, I’m barely leaning on the crutch, so I hand it to Chaz and I’m walking on my own. It still feels like I’m the Tin Man, but I’m getting the job done.

I catch a glimpse of Marisa and me in a mirror. My curly head towers a good eight inches over hers. At 5’11’, I’d completely forgotten how tall I am. And how short Marisa is. I smile. With my sweats falling to my shoes, I look like a regular guy with a really bad limp.

In the ICU, my jubilation turns to dread. I stop and lean against the wall, water pushing into my lungs. Ryan.
How could he do this to himself?

I fight the desire for a drink. It’s a fight I’m probably going to be battling my whole life.

“You okay, buddy?” Chaz asks.

I nod, swallowing down the cold lump in my throat. “Just tired. This is hard work.”

“You’re doing great,” he says. “The best I’ve ever seen. But I think, after this, it’s enough for your first day out.”

I nod again, wipe the sweat from my brow and push on, one foot in front of the other.

Even though my stump feels like it’s tied to a steel girder, I insist on visiting Ryan by myself and send Marisa and Chaz to the coffee shop lounge to wait. Chaz relents, on the condition I agree to take the crutch.

As I limp past the coffee shop, a small blonde woman wearing sunglasses and a running suit dashes into the hall and reaches the bank of elevators before me. When I finally get there, the woman is still waiting. The elevator doors open and we go in. It’s only after the doors slide closed and she lifts her dark glasses that I realize it’s Celia Morgan.

Her face tight, Mrs. Morgan’s glance cuts from my feet to my face. Her eyes light with her smile. “It’s good to see you back on your feet, Jeremy.”

I try to block unpleasant thoughts of her face-sucking my dad, but can only replace them with equally unpleasant thoughts of the present.

“H-how’s Ryan?” I blurt. I don’t ask about Patrick Morgan because, frankly, I don’t give a flying shit.

Celia Morgan’s eyes fill with moisture. “Thanks for asking, dear. He’s awake now, but we won’t really know—” she breaks off and wipes her eyes with a tissue. “We won’t really know what the future holds for Ryan for another day or so.”

Her words vibrate in the small space like tolling bells. The floor, which only part of me can actually feel, seems to tilt. My brain is oversaturated with news I do not want to hear and can no longer absorb. I shoot a glance at the elevator display and curse silently that the thing is so slow, and can’t help but wonder how many people have died in this thing while it creaked to its destination.

Celia Morgan blows her nose. “I’m sure Ryan will be happy to see you walking again.”

Derek Spake stands outside Ryan’s room, pinching the bridge of his nose. He looks up as I approach. “Well, if it isn’t Glass and his brand new peg-leg.”

“Next year’s model comes with Bluetooth and a phone. How’s Ryan?”

Spake’s smile evaporates as he motions me inside. “It’s hard to say.”

Celia Morgan settles in the seat beside the bed and holds Ryan’s hand in hers.

Ryan looks a hell of a lot better than he did yesterday. His cheeks are flushed, his lips moist, and his blue eyes clear. But his neck is still immobilized in a stiff plastic collar and his eyes seem unable to focus, like two butterflies flitting from flower to flower.

“He’s doing so much better, Jeremy. Let him know you’re here,” Celia says, her smile overly bright.

Ryan’s eyes jitter as his gaze skims past mine.

“Can he see?”

“They think so. But the muscles in his eyes are messed up,” says Spake, angrily. “They don’t focus or respond to light. He can’t talk either, because his vocal cords have been damaged.”

I shudder and lean closer to Ryan. “Dude, it’s Jeremy. Can you hear me?”

The corners of Ryan’s mouth twitch into a slight smile. He blinks rapidly, his eyes rolling but never fixing on me. My insides clamp up.

Celia Morgan blows her nose. “I told you he’d be glad to see you.”

I take Ryan’s hand. It’s warm and limp. Tears spring into my eyes. This can’t be my fault. It can’t be.

“I-I’ve got to go.” I swivel and lurch from the room as fast as my metal leg will carry me. The fluorescent light sears my retinas. If there is such a thing as hell, I decide, it probably looks and smells like this hallway.

Spake catches up with me in a few long-legged strides. Which is easy enough, since I’m moving only marginally faster than the hour hand on a clock.

Spake motions me to a row of benches that line the wall. It occurs to me that, compared to the brain damage that Ryan probably has, losing a limb is a paper cut. I stare down at my mismatched feet. My stump throbs.

“Christ,” I say. “What if he stays like that?”

“He’s a fighter. He can get back to normal eventually, with lots of therapy.” Then, Spake clears his throat. “You still aren’t thinking that Ryan had anything to do with Susannah’s disappearance, are you, Glass?”

I meet his gaze. Spake’s pale eyes burn into mine, and it occurs to me that Derek Spake might actually love Ryan more fervently than Susannah ever could. “My gut tells me no. But I still have no idea what happened to her.”

Spake lets his head droop, then straightens. “Ryan didn’t hurt her. I can prove it.”

“How do you know? Were you there, too?”

Spake sucks in a sharp breath. “She knew about us, Glass. She was going to blow the whistle and ruin us both.”

I narrow my gaze. “So
you
killed her?”

“Fuck no. Neither of us laid a hand on her. She just disappeared into thin air that night.”

“Sure,” I say. “It sounds like you both had pretty good motives for shutting her up. But how did she find out about you two? Even I had no clue.”

Spake stares at his palms as if the appropriate answer is written there. “Two years ago, Susannah and I met at a summer art class in the city. I thought art was my thing before I found track and field. I was going through a lot of shit then. So was she. We got kind of close. Started telling each other stuff we’d never tell anyone else who lived in the same town. So I told her I was gay. That I knew since I was nine. That I hadn’t come out to my parents yet.”

Her summer art class. I think of the tangle of roots that apparently stretch beyond Riverton, all the way to Hurley.

“She told me stuff, too. Stuff I’m pretty sure she wishes she never did. Because when she tried to threaten Ryan and me, I threw it back at her.”

“She threatened you?”

“Fuck, yeah. And I told her I’d post all her pathetic secrets all over Facebook if she started trouble with me.”

“So that’s why she was crying the day you took her home.”

“How the fuck did you know about that?” Spake asks, frowning.

“Never mind. What did she tell you?”

“It was pretty harrowing stuff, actually.”

My spine goes rigid. “Like what?”

“She was such a lost soul. Stuff with her mother, with other guys. Older guys, too. What a mess. I felt sorry for her. But after the class ended, we didn’t stay in touch. The next time I saw her was as Ryan’s arm candy at a meet last April. Susannah introduced us, and from that moment on I couldn’t help myself. I was in love. The most amazing day in my life was the day Ryan came out to me. I’m the first person he ever told.”

A twinge of jealousy flashes through me. Ryan told this guy, but hid the truth from me. Forced me to lie about his hookups. But would I have accepted him if I’d known? I’m not sure.

“So she confronted Ryan the night she disappeared? Did she suspect you guys right away?”

“A few weeks before that. She expected him to dump me, but he wouldn’t. I’m not really sure how she found out. But I was furious, knowing about some of the shit she had done. She didn’t deserve him.”

My insides twist with nausea. It’s as though Spake is talking about a different girl. Not the girl that I knew.

Spake’s voice trembles. He squeezes his eyes shut and tears leak through his lashes. “She refused to break up with Ryan. She would not let go. I don’t know what that girl was thinking. Ryan loves
me
.”

The linoleum pattern on the floor reminds me of roots. Roots that connect and weave into a twisted tangle.

“I’m sure he does,” I mutter absently. “When you were in Ryan’s room all day yesterday, did Mrs. Morgan ever visit her husband? Isn’t he, like, paralyzed from the eyeballs down?”

Spake nods. “Yeah, it’s pretty gruesome. I heard the doctors talking. Dude can’t even blink. If you ask me, he’s probably better off dead, and I wish he was. He’s a first-class bastard.”