Pieces of Me (4 page)

I would finally be the pretty, popular girl who everyone noticed. Not just an improved me, but a whole new girl. I was the girl who wielded the scissors, who didn’t care if it was okay to hack off someone’s limb. This girl smiled and fluttered her eyes at boys, who grinned back.

That’s who I am tonight
. Maybe forever. Who knew? Anything seemed possible.

I turned up the satellite radio, listening as Ingrid Michaelson’s voice soared.
“I’m a ghost.…”

Tonight, I wasn’t a ghost. I wasn’t invisible. I wasn’t nothing or no one.

Heading around a curve, oncoming headlights blinded me. I gripped the steering wheel.
Where is this house?
Out in the weeds, far from the city limits, far from well-marked streets and stoplights. Far from anything I knew.
New
.

I reached down and grabbed the flyer. The party supposedly started after the football game. Though rumor had it the party started well before and simply took a game break before revving back up again. I wasn’t arriving until after ten. I refused to acknowledge that usually on Saturday nights I was in bed watching whatever behind-the-scenes celebrity crime was profiled.

I slowed to read the cut-and-paste directions again.
Did I miss a turn? No, keep going
.

The tree-lined two-lane road felt like a squeezing tunnel, as if I were driving into an otherworldly reality. I shivered. My headlights picked up the shine of metal and I saw empty beer cans littering the road.
Must be getting closer
.

Movement to the side of the road forced me to slam the brakes hard.

A deer. Four-point buck. Sneaking a peek out from the bushes.

I eased back into drive. Behind me, an SUV roared up, seemingly from out of nowhere, honking. I sped up, wishing there was a place to pull over so I could follow them instead. They sure seemed like they knew where they were going. I was in their way.

Where’s the switchback?

The road abruptly turned and I recognized one of the instructions. “Take the next right after the switchback.”
The next right? That’s a ravine. Isn’t it?
I peered at the landscape as the SUV laid on its horn and swerved around me toward oncoming traffic.

I heard shouts and insults but only made out a few words. Nothing original.

Someone threw a bottle out the back of the truck toward my windshield. I ducked, instinctively, my foot off the gas pedal but frozen above the brake. No way to move. I saw the future, and the present, as it happened in slow motion around me.

The sound of breaking glass and the crunch of impact made me strangle the wheel. Lights blinded me as clear liquid spread over the cracks and obscured my view. I heard horns and screams. Frantic to escape, I spun the wheel and hit the brakes. Light refracted into the cracks of the windshield.

Pretty
.

Am I there yet?

If I remembered hitting my head, or getting knocked out, I might have known how much time passed before I came to.

I wasn’t sure how long I’d been unconscious, but someone must have helped me out of the car.
Where is the car?

I glanced around. Faces were blurry and unrecognizable. I still reeked of Mother’s perfume but also of something else. Warm urine?
Did I pee myself? Please don’t let anyone notice
.

I tried to fit tighter into myself, hugging my arms, crossing my legs.

Shouts and flurries of movement, people carrying bags marched with purpose and intention all around me. Almost as if they didn’t see me, or know I was in the accident.

The smell of hard booze clung to me and the world had a strange phosphoric red glow from flares cops set up along the road. A crowd of people I recognized vaguely from school huddled near one barrier and whispered to one another. They cried and seemed much more sober than when they sped by me and tossed that bottle back.

Where is my car? Mother will ground me for life if I wrecked it
.

A hush fell over the onlookers as arms wrapped around a full stretcher appeared from over the edge of the ravine.

Wait, who’s wearing my costume? Who is she and what’s she doing over in the trees?

As soon as they were on level ground, someone straddled the girl’s chest and started CPR, while another man attached one of those blue inflatable balloons to her mouth. She must have been in an accident too.

They came toward me and I tried to move out of their way but no one seemed to notice me.
So much for starting a new life tonight
.

A policewoman walked toward the group of spectators and I heard her ask, “Anyone know this girl’s name? Recognize her? Are you friends with her?”

A second policeman held a copy of the same party flyer as if it were contaminated, and started speaking into his radio.
I’m glad I’m not at the party; they’re about to be raided by the police
.

“She goes to our school.”

The cop turned sharply. “Was she going to this party?”

“Uh—”

She shook her head. “I don’t care about you kids, we need to find her family.”

A boy I didn’t recognize spoke up. “Sure, it’s a big deal every year.”

“She has to be friends with the group to get invited. So someone knows her.”

“I don’t know her name.” Several more teens shrugged and shook their heads. The sentiment was all the same. They didn’t know the girl.

As the cop walked the periphery, I heard them each in turn express regret, or shrug, or guess, in terrible ways, about the girl’s identity.
She’s like me. She’s an invisible
.

“Is she going to be okay?” One cheerleader pushed toward the front of the pack.

“She’s going to the hospital. Doctors will assess her there.”

“Is she, like, dead?” her boyfriend asked.

The policewoman paused. “I’m not a doctor,” she answered before she walked away to confer with other first responders.

Poor girl, no one knew her.
Maybe I know her? Why aren’t they asking me?
I walked toward the ambulance, intent on seeing her, when they slammed the doors in my face and it started moving.

Rude
.

“Tow truck’s here!” one fireman called out as he passed me to herd the crowd out of the way.

“It’s gonna be tricky to get that Prius unwrapped at that angle.”

“Yeah, dumb kid, probably was texting and not paying attention.”

“They find the phone?” the policewoman asked.

“Nah, but they brought up the registration for your ID.” He handed her the packet.
That folio looks like Mother’s. And her handwriting
.

They moved the barricades for the ambulance to leave and the truck to enter. Just as I was leaning over the registration packet to see who the owner of the car was, it felt as if I was jerked off my feet backward.

“Help!” I screamed, but no one moved.

LEIF

While the scoreboard glowed 31–28, somewhere in the stands scouts from USC, Texas, and University of Florida waited to see if Leif held his own against the opposing senior quarterback. Go Sea Lions.

Leif listened to his dad call out commands from the stands. He knew his phone was blowing up with texts from his dad telling him what to do differently, better, more like a winner. His dad didn’t, or couldn’t, comprehend that unlike his teammates, Leif
left his phone in the locker room. No distractions. He especially didn’t possess his dad’s win-at-all-costs mentality.

The ref blew the fourth quarter start whistle and Leif’s heart thumped a little harder. The kicked football hung in the air and his defense charged. The opposing team’s kick-return specialist annihilated the line, finding holes to run semitrucks through. Get him! Get him!

Leif closed his eyes as the runner crossed into the end zone with the ball cradled snugly in his arm. Jesus. The guys all but stepped out of his way. Dammit, this is a big-enough game without giving them points.

What were the scouts thinking? Did they want to see him succeed or fail? Who was on his side? He forced himself not to study the crowd while his team’s kick-return unit took the field. They got six yards before being stuffed at the twenty. That was a perfect kick; Leif had to run lots of clock and scramble for inches.
It’s now or never
.

He heard his dad’s voice in his head and felt the hand heavy on his shoulder. “Show them what a Leolin is made of. Nothing but number one. Son, make me proud.”

Leif crammed his black mouth guard in place and snapped on his helmet as he stormed the field.

Three downs and he struggled to make a positive play happen. It was as if his offensive line was already in the locker room partying this Halloween night. Their heads were anywhere but on the field. Dammit.

“Focus!” he shouted in the huddle over the crowd noise. “We need a touchdown.”

He’d do it on his own if he had to.

The whistle blew. The ball hiked.

In slow motion, he saw the hole open up and he lifted his arm to pump the throw. The line shifted.

Wrong way.

Cover me!

Leif didn’t so much see the defender coming as hear him. Heard his breath, felt the hot, stale air push through the face mask. Leif let the ball go as the defender lowered his helmet in a bizarre contortion and aimed up with his cleats.

What is happening?

The pop and snap registered first and sounded like special effects in a movie.

A giant question mark hung in the lights above the field as Leif stared up at the cloudless, star-filled sky.
Can anyone else see that?

Silence filled the stadium. The stars held their breath.

“He’s in shock. We’ve got to stop this bleeding.”

Leif tried to move. Who was bleeding?

“Hey, man, stay down. You can’t get up.” Leif’s center held his shoulders down.

Cold seeped up through Leif’s uniform and pads. He opened his mouth, trying to speak, trying to breathe. Trying to think.

Sirens screamed, the only sound for miles around.
Where’d everybody go?

Flashing lights moved in from Leif’s peripheral vision, closer, until everyone huddled over him seemed to be strobing in red and blue.

“Give us room, guys. Back it up!”

They can’t drive on the field. What are they doing?

Did I drink too much at the party?

As if someone hit a switch, the lights and noise rushed back in until Leif couldn’t keep his stomach quiet and turned his head to vomit in the grass.

Great, pansy-ass move to puke in front of the scouts
.

The world swirled and blackened.

Leif fought to open his eyes, to listen to the conversation, the raised voices, the argument in the distance. He touched soft fabric under his hands, not turf. His eyelids felt glued shut but he struggled to open them enough to see, to understand.

Is the game over already? Who’s talking?

He blinked crusty bits out of his sight and realized he was still on his back, but instead of seeing stars above him there was a pocked ceiling of industrial tiles. His head seemed heavier than normal and his neck behaved like a limp noodle. Carefully, he cataloged and tried to make sense. White sheets draped his body and IV tubes were taped to his hands. A pinching binder clip was attached to his index finger. A green-striped curtain surrounded his bed like a wraparound shower curtain. Shower? Bed? Where was he?

The voices outside the curtain strengthened. Angry? Determined?

Leif strained to understand. He was operating underwater.
Is this what being drunk feels like?
He never drank. His body was his temple.

Machines beeped and footsteps pounded, but he recognized his dad’s voice. Leif propped himself up on his elbows. There, against the curtain, his mother’s shadow talked with her hands, like a freak puppet show. He picked out words and tried to move
farther upright to a seated position instead of lying flat. Pain stung with far-reaching tentacles but also perked up his brain. The hospital? He was in the hospital? His thoughts sharpened, swimming to the surface of the medication.

“Don’t yell. We don’t want to wake Leif,” Dad commanded, grabbing Mom’s shoulders in consolation or restraint. Or both.

They thought he was asleep behind the curtain? He needed to listen. The truth was on the other side of that curtain.

Leif fought the medication because he knew his parents were never honest with him. Win at all costs. They’d kept his grandmother’s death a secret while he was at football camp last summer.

“He is fine. He’ll be fine,” his mother screeched. “Just give him ice and a few days of ibuprofen and he’ll be back in full form by league playoffs.”

Leif didn’t think they put people in rooms like this if ice and Advil were enough. Waves of sleepiness crashed over him and he struggled not to drown.
Listen! Focus!

A voice he didn’t know said, “He will not play again this season, Mrs. Leolin. Your son is very badly hurt. He’ll probably need additional surgeries in the future. At this point, we will do all we can to reconstruct his joints using donor tissues, once we are certain his head injury is stable.”

Not play? There was a mistake. They must be talking about someone else. He just took a hard hit. That happened all the time. He needed to get out of bed, move the curtain, and show them.

Leif shoved his legs toward the side of the bed and was immediately hit by a wall of nausea. Dark spots danced behind his
tightly squished eyelids, and cold sweat bathed a tremble across his body. He sagged against the pillows until the pain eased. He didn’t try to move, only to listen.

“Titanium? What are you using?” Mom jabbed with her questions and half swallowed a sob.

“Natural materials will give him the best shot at recovery. But there will be man-made components as well. It all depends on how it looks when we get in there. I’m sorry I can’t be more specific until we have eyes on the damage.”

“But he’ll be able to play in the off-season.” Dad didn’t ask questions, only made statements.

“Sir, with all due respect, I will be happy if your son can walk again normally.”