Notes to Self (21 page)

Emily had been super strange lately. Sad. She hardly ever put disgusting pink Sno Balls in my locker anymore to try to win our ongoing gross food contest, and didn’t crack any jokes in class when we were supposed to be reading Mark Twain. She just, like, read Mark Twain. I was worried I’d said or done something to upset her. When she’d suggested sneaking out tonight, I was relieved—it seemed like there was something she wanted to tell me. I wished, not for the first time, that I could read her mind.

“What do you think will happen to us, Robin?” She asked in a faraway voice, definitely sounding tired. I started to climb down to a lower part of the gigantic rainbow-colored ride. Thankfully, she followed, her flip-flops on the rungs of the ladder above me.

“Happen to us? When?” My hair was whipping around in the wind. I could feel my ponytail loosening, but I didn’t want to stop to fix it. I kept climbing down. Directly below us was the roof of a Waffle House. I could smell sweet cooking grease and the disgustingly full dumpster.

“I don’t know. Tomorrow. Next year. After that…” The moon or the view or the salted air had clearly made my best friend philosophical. I had no idea what to say. I just kept climbing steadily down, one step at a time, hoping that the adventure could be over now. I wanted to be a good friend, but now that we’d seen the view, I wanted to be a good friend on the ground.

“Um…we’ll be forced to suffer through another two dozen Kowboy pep rallies. We’ll forget to wear sunscreen and turn as red as Jaden when he’s trying to talk to Dee.” I paused, kind of getting into it. “Maybe you’ll get taken to the Cove.” The Cove was where people went to hook up.

“That sounds nice. Pep rallies aren’t really that bad, Rob,” she said, ignoring my Cove comment. We stopped at a little platform. I could feel the whole ride swaying, but maybe I was just imagining it. I read somewhere once that Florida got more lightning strikes per square mile than any other state. What if it started to storm before Emily got her head straight?

“You’re on drugs,” I said. Pep rallies were terrible. I’d literally rather go to Trig for a whole block—ninety minutes—than sit through another one. Some genius had decided the Orange Grove High mascot should be the Kowboys-with-a-K (shoot me) and a few teachers and cheerleaders thought it was adorable to spell as many words that way as they possibly could, on signs around school. KONCENTRATION! KONFIDENCE!  KONSTRUCTIVE KRITICISM KORNER. Do I really have to explain why I loathe pep rallies?

“Will we be fascinating?” she asked.

“Always.” It was a big deal to Emily to be fascinating. I waited, watching to make sure she didn’t try to shut her eyes again.

“My mom moved out.”

Finally.

The reason we’d come all the way up here. Up here, it was all twinkling signs and pretty, glowing headlights. Even the purple-painted street lights were theme park-y. They went as far as you could see if you weren’t too afraid to look, but I was afraid. Down there, things were messy.

“When?” I asked, almost whispering. She turned away from me, wiping at her face with the sleeve of her tiny sweater. Emily unleashed her light blonde, lemonade hair, letting it swirl around her head. I was surprised, but not shocked. The thing I always noticed about Em’s mom was she couldn’t stop fidgeting, which was weird because Emily herself was usually freakishly calm. Mrs. Sampson always seemed, like, uncomfortable. Leaving her husband, children, and home was almost like one more fidget. A giant one.

“A week ago. I wanted to tell you, but I kept thinking she’d realize it was a mistake and take the train back from WTF-ville. Leo’s a mess. I don’t even know where she went.” Em spoke in a rush. She’d been holding it in too long.

Leo was Em’s father…I hadn’t known they were on a first-name basis. I wanted to hug her, but I couldn’t. Not up here, when the wind was getting fiercer by the second and staying steady required both hands. My breathing sped up and I tried to push the fear away, tried to keep it from taking me over completely.

“I’m so sorry, E.”

“Yeah,” she spit out. “Everyone’s sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry.”

She was shaking a little. We had to get down; she was seriously losing her shit. I could feel this strange pressure on my chest, a tightening. I didn’t want to talk about parents splitting up—people leaving—this far above the ground. I didn’t want to talk about it ever.

“Well, I am,” I replied, ever-so-slightly irritated. I was doing everything I could for her…right?

“I’m fine. I mean, like, no one’s parents are together. Yours aren’t.” She turned back to me and I saw toughness in her eyes, around her mouth. I recognized it. Sometimes, even when people smiled, their expressions shifted for a microsecond and you saw the truth: pain. The worst was when people laughed to cover up how angry they were. I could always hear the harsh.

I flinched and forced myself to breathe more slowly. In. Out. In. Out. Everything is going to be okay. This isn’t about me. In. Out. In. Out. “You’re right; they’re not. And I’m totally fine.”

“Exactly. Anyway, I have to tell you something else.”

“Okay.” I bit my lip as Emily leaned over the platform’s railing. Her eyes looked a little wild and unfocused, like she wouldn’t mind one bit if the wind simply carried her away with the jet stream. I held my breath, wondering if I should do something, if I should scream or try to grab her arm, but she pulled herself back toward me. The darkness of the night seemed to close in on us as her eyes snapped to mine. They looked so strange, like miniature Magic 8 Balls, whirling and whirling to find an answer to a particularly difficult question.

“What?”

“Just a sec.” Emily reached into her pocket and opened up a mini plastic pill bottle. She popped two and swallowed, not even needing water. I couldn’t do that. “Cramps. I swear I’m on the rag every three weeks. Yesterday, I took like twenty extra-strength Tylenol and all it did was make me want to vom.”

“Anyway…” I prompted.

“Anyway, I kissed Reno and I…I’m sorry, Robin, I like him…I...” Her voice was barely above a whisper. I had to lean toward her to hear, and when I did, the steel we were both on let out a small groan. “I don’t understand,” I said, trying to get closer to her.

“Please, please, please promise me you’re not mad?” Emily was clutching my arm, her eyes wide. She looked afraid.

“What do you mean?” Nothing was making any sense. I didn’t feel good at all. I wanted off of this thing. It all suddenly felt so stupid, coming up here. I felt trapped.

“Robin—” Emily didn’t have the chance to finish what she was trying to say. I heard a loud clanging sound and Emily cried out. She slipped first as the shrieking bar under our feet violently gave way. She grabbed for me but I was so stunned I didn’t—couldn’t—catch her, or myself. The ground had already fallen out from under me (
Reno and Em?),
and now it seemed to matter little that it was happening for real. Emily screamed as she plummeted down to the earth, and I screamed as I slipped, too, falling, falling, falling after her.

Emily had stepped on one of the loose bars that night. I saw the place, now, where a crossbeam hung down, limp, not two feet from where we clung.

“ROBIN! ROBIN!” Josie yelled, two inches from my face. I blinked and heaved again, panicking. My whole body shook and my breathing had shortened into panting. This time, nothing came out. I jerked when I realized where I was. “WHAT THE
FUCK!
Don’t black out. Robin, Jesus, calm down so we can get off of this thing. What the hell is
wrong
with you?”

“I…I…” I gasped, trying to get control. I could barely whisper, “I don’t know, I don’t know...”

“Okay. Okay. I’ve got you, you crazy bitch. Jesus. Climb down. One step. Jesus.” Josie’s hand was closed around my waist in a vise grip. We climbed down like that, one step at a time. I kept stopping and Josie had to literally tell me what to do with my legs. It took forever, but she was strong. It took so long I thought we’d never reach the ground. I was whimpering, not forming any words. When we tumbled to the ground, I started sobbing.

Josie had saved my life. I knew that.

She must’ve known it too. She sat there with me, holding her head in her hands, clutching a cigarette like it was a life raft in an ocean full of sharks.

“I don’t know what the shit just happened,” Josie said, when she finished her smoke. “But we have to get to the hospital.”

“Tylenol,” I said.

“What?” Josie stood up.

I repeated myself, louder this time. “Tylenol. Emily said she took twenty Tylenol the day before we climbed the Sling Shot.”

“So?”

“So, it’s bad if you do that. Like, really bad. I saw a thing on TV….” I trailed off, shaking.

She pulled me up and dragged me to her car. I let her.

I couldn’t stop sobbing.

CHAPTER 44

THE DARKNESS

Two nurses stopped Josie and I the minute we arrived on the right floor. I’d managed to pull myself together enough to not look like a mental patient. You could tell Josie had made a decision to not talk about what had just happened. Her mouth was set in a hard line.

“We’re here to see Emily,” I mumbled to the nurses. “Emily Sampson. Coma.”

“She’s been transferred back to ICU. Follow me,” one of them said.

“I—don’t feel good.” I touched my head, which was suddenly pounding. My vision was strange again. I tried to focus, to follow the nurse.

She looked at my face. “Are you the girl who was in the accident with the patient? You should take a seat. You look kind of green around the gills.”

“Yes, but that’s not important. It was too many Tylenol. Check Emily.
Tylenol.”
My vision closed in completely. “I haven’t eaten today, I don’t feel…”

I passed into the darkness, letting it enfold me.

CHAPTER 45

ABOVE IT ALL

I sat at the top of the hospital room, looking down at myself sleeping off the stress and hypoglycemia of the day. It was as if the hospital was a giant dollhouse and someone had removed the roof, creating a ledge at the tops of the walls. My legs dangled down into the room. I gripped the ledge, terror welling up in me. I didn’t know where I was, and I had to get to Em.

“Robin!” Emily’s voice was excited, with a hint of a giggle. “There you are!”

I grabbed the wall ledge even harder with both of my hands. Emily was next to me, about a yard away, looking very pleased. She wore the clothes she had worn the night of our accident. Even the flip-flops on her feet were the same, but she looked different, glowing. I risked freeing one hand and held it out in front of my face. It glowed, too.

“
Emily
.” I didn’t feel the terror anymore. I didn’t feel anything at all, just peacefulness. The air smelled like it did in June, when it was thick with humidity and oxygen and life. I reached for her. I wanted to hug her, to make sure she was real, but she kept floating away from me.

“I like it up here.” Emily stood up on the ledge and walked back and forth like a gymnast on a balance beam. I stared at her, worried that she would fall.

“I miss you, Em. So, so much. Everyone does.” I reached out for her again. The air became like water, flowing around my arms. “We’re all praying for you to wake up.”

“What do you mean?
You’re
the one who needs to wake up, Rob.”

I stared at her. She came closer to me. Her eyes were filled with worry and her hand reached out to my face.

“Wh…what?” I gasped.

“When do you think you will? I don’t think I can stay up here with you for very long. I’ve been so worried, Robin. No one knows why you won’t wake up. No one knows.”

I breathed. “You’re the one…Emily, you’re the one who has been asleep all this time. I wasn’t hurt badly.”

“Okay, Ro.” She came closer and stroked my hair, which was long again. It was the kind of gesture someone makes when you’re sick or need comforting. I couldn’t feel her glowing hand on my hair; I just saw that it was there. Her eyes were full of tears. “Just please don’t die.”

“I’m not going to die,” I said, startled.

“We fell. It was all my fault,” Emily said. Her face crumpled and she put her head in her hands, but when she looked up again, she seemed okay.

“It was an accident, Em. An accident.”

“I guess it was. I never meant for anyone to get hurt, least of all you. I hope you haven’t been in pain. Or lonely. I think about that a lot, you know. They had to do surgery on your head right after it happened, but ever since then you’ve been in this little room all by yourself…”

She was obviously confused.

“Reno,” I said, changing the subject. “What did…?”

“Oh God,” Emily said. “It was a mistake. I was, you know, trying everything I could think of to feel better and Reno’s like,
solid
, you know? I’m so sorry, Robin. He’s yours. He’s always been yours. When you wake up, you have to realize that. You have to be together.”

“He doesn’t like me anymore,” I sighed.

“Yes he does,” she said, her eyes pleading with me to believe her. “He does. He misses you.”

“It’s not important.” I brushed Em’s words away and scooted to my left, veeeeery carefully, and gave her a hug. This time, she didn’t float away. She hugged me back so hard I was sure I’d get a collapsed lung. It was wonderful. When she pulled back, I saw she wore the necklace with the best friend charm. Somehow, even though I didn’t remember putting mine on, I did too.

“Listen,” she said in a whisper. “I, I love you. Okay? Please come back to us.”

“I love you too, E.” I gulped. Why were we saying it now, when we never had before?

“I’ll see you soon. We’ll get donuts.” She was clutching my hands really hard. She nodded and I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, she was gone.