Salvation (23 page)

She hurried to his side. The firework had gone out. Whoever had set it off had split. “Are you hurt?” she asked.

He shook his head, his eyes closed, his chest heaving.

She reached for him, but he rejected her touch.

“Then what is it?” she questioned. “I thought you weren’t coming tonight. That you and your father were going to talk.”

Salva’s eyes flew open. “We talked!” He gestured abruptly at the shirt covered in strawberry stains. “And unlike this, that disaster is not exactly going to wash out!”

What had happened? If she could just understand—

“It was awful, all right?!” His hands clenched his head. “It was all about you.”

What?
What had been about her? The discussion with his father? But—

He kicked a charred remnant of the firework. “I told him I wanted to reject the scholarship.”

“You…you did?”

“And you know what, Beth? It wasn’t okay. I knew it wasn’t going to be okay!” The night began to implode around her. Had she been wrong to try to talk Salva out of the scholarship? There was a whole side to him that she didn’t know—his family, the side of him that had never let her in. But his father cared—she knew that much.

Unlike her mother. Beth had tried, and failed, to explain that difference earlier. That despite the fact that her mother had made an effort recently to keep the fridge stocked and attend her AA meetings, sooner or later she was bound to implode. And Beth hadn’t been willing to risk her relationship with Salva on someone that dubious.

But Señor Resendez loved his son.

And Salva was so brilliant. Plus, it was the
wrong
scholarship. “Salva, you’re so gifted—”

“Oh, shut up, Beth!” His words slammed into her stomach. “Life isn’t a dream.”

She reeled backward. She
had
been dreaming. All month.

He kept talking. “It doesn’t matter if we’re gifted. We’re still just two kids from the backside of nowhere.”

She reached for him again, unable to help it.

He flung her hands away. “We might as well face it, Beth. This isn’t going to last. None of it is going to last!” The trumpets were screeching. She felt like she’d stepped into their blare. The smell of the street had switched to smoke, and her pulse pounded beneath her temples.

His eyes had darkened. He shook as he continued: “We might as well end it now.”

What?
Was he breaking up with her?
This afternoon he trusted you,
the voice in the back of her mind argued. But it didn’t matter. None of it mattered.

The music had died.

“Hey, Resendez!” A familiar shout broke through the lull. “You wanta blow this joint?”

Salva’s head turned.

A flash of silver ripped through the air. And he caught the blur.
Keys.

He started to leave. She had always known he would leave. Since September. But that hadn’t stopped her. Had never stopped her from falling in love with him.

Why did she have to accept this now? When she had lost the ability to move. Or breathe.

He’d reached the cones that divided the street from the side traffic.

And there, just outside the cones, sat Pepe Real in his yellow convertible. One arm raised over the front passenger’s-side door in a parting salute toward a blond woman who stood in a food line. His mother, gesturing at her son to move into the driver’s seat. He just waved her off.

Salva reached the vehicle.

Wait!
Beth wanted to shout, but fear had drowned her voice. What would she do if he did stop? Would she run? Plead? Rip the keys from his hand and fight?

He slid behind the wheel.

Tell him she loved him?

The door slammed. And without a backward glance, he drove away.

Headlights swept around the car, burning into the darkness. Salva couldn’t see. Anger seared the backs of his eyeballs, his mind, all the way into his skull. It had to be past one
A.M.
, but there were still too many
friggin’
people on the highway.

Honk!

“Yeah, f-you!” Pepe shouted out into the night from the direction of the passenger’s seat.

The air blasted through the windows. Cold. Salva wanted the cold. Anything to numb the anger.

It hadn’t worked—the night, the car, the speed. He still couldn’t annihilate the memories of earlier that evening. He
had maligned his father. Broken
Papá
’s dream into pieces, then attacked him as if the loss was his fault. Disrespected the one person who had believed in him longer than anyone else.

Another set of headlights blitzed by.

Salva was the one who had failed. Failed to earn enough scholarship money to go where he wanted to go and study what he wanted to study. Why couldn’t he just be happy with what he’d earned?

Honk!

The car swerved. “Relax,” Pepe said.

Salva couldn’t relax—couldn’t come even close to relaxing.

He found himself fighting, over and over again the same arguments. With himself. With his father. With Beth. Salva cringed at the memory of her wounded expression. It had sliced into him. Why?
Why
had she been the one to step right into his path when he’d needed to explode? She wasn’t like other people. She didn’t just brush off insults. He
knew
that. The walking disaster area? He was the disaster. Stomping on everyone he loved as if they were waiting to be crushed.

Honk!

“Christ!” Pepe shouted. “Just pass this guy, okay?”

Another set of headlights blew around the convertible.

Why didn’t I tell Papá earlier about Beth?
Salva knew the answer. He was a coward. She had been right about that. He should have told his father the truth. Should have reintroduced Beth to
Papá
weeks ago.
Should have listened to my damn older sister.

His father thought Beth was privileged. The comment hadn’t made any sense at first. But Salva got it now.
Papá
didn’t know her. He’d seen her in the Cell, and then she’d shown up at his door the same afternoon. As if she hadn’t faced any consequences. And Beth had been wearing that dress. That fancy white dress.

Again the car swerved.

It’s my fault. My fault I want what I don’t deserve. That I hurt everyone—

Bang!
Something plowed into the car. He felt the impact in his entire body. They were spinning. Spinning out of control. Everything was a blur. Panic slammed up to his throat.

His head hit the door. He couldn’t defend himself.

The car was still spinning. No sense of friction. Or traction. Only absence.

Salva slid, and his thigh rammed into a barrier. What the hell had happened to his seat belt?

Bang!
Steel crumpled like aluminum.

And then the pain. There was nothing but pain. No longer any movement. Or sound. Or color. Except the blinding white, red, black splintering pain. At first it was everywhere. His head, his chest. His leg—his leg didn’t feel like a leg anymore. He reached for his thigh, the shattering torn center of agony. And felt bone.
Shit!
And blood. His hands were covered in blood.

He still couldn’t see. Everything was dark. He raised his arm to his head.
More blood.

Someone was screaming.

I should help.
He reached for the door, trying to detach his mind from the agony. From himself. His hand slid off the latch. And then he couldn’t find it. Couldn’t sense anything but the pain.

More screaming.

And then the smell of gasoline.

Out. We have to get out.

He scrambled again for the latch. And the door opened. It was a miracle the door opened. The night rushed in. With even stronger fumes of gasoline.

Oh God, we have to get out of here.

Screaming.

He tried to move.

And realized the scream was his own.

The phone rang, somewhere beyond the grim darkness of Beth’s bedroom.

She rolled, burying her tearstained face in her mattress.
Just two kids from the backside of nowhere,
Salva had said. And that was true. What had made her think she had a right to critique his path for escape?

A second ring.

He had gotten what he thought he wanted, and she had waged her disapproval against him. Because
she
had thought he should want more. A regular Lady Macbeth.

A third ring.
Why
was someone calling? The person on the other end should have figured out by now that anyone sane would be asleep at this hour, leaving only the insane.

Beth covered her ears with her hands. She had flung her pillow against a wall ages ago, then never bothered to retrieve any of the blankets tangled in a heap on the floor. Or to change her clothes.

Riiing!

Perhaps it was actually morning and the darkness that saturated her room was only a reflection of her own devastation. She stretched a hand toward her nightstand and shifted her alarm clock, then squinted at the red characters: 2:20
A.M.

Riii—

“Yes?” Her mother’s voice was rife with anger.
When had she come home?
A lamp flicked on in the main room, the periphery of light piercing the bedroom’s shadows. Beth’s body tensed, prepared for her mother to yell, but instead the voice softened. “Who?” A pause. “Yes, but she’s asleep. I can tell her in the morning.”

Tell me what?

“Oh, you think so?” The voice drifted away. “I don’t know, Keala…”

Ni’s mother?
Beth sat up. Too fast. Her head spun. Had something happened to Ni? Why else would Mrs. Villetti be calling at this hour?

Beth scrambled to her feet, then staggered out into the space with the light.

Ms. Courant looked up from the phone. She seemed to wince. “I’ll ask,” she said. And hung up.

For a moment, silence stretched.

Beth’s stomach churned with fear. “Is Ni all right?”

“Ni is fine.” Her mother’s expression held no comfort. “But she received a disturbing phone call about a car accident tonight involving someone named…Salva?”

No.

Beth backed away from the light.

“Mrs. Villetti says she and Nalani are going to the hospital.”

Hospital?
An image of blood streamed into consciousness.

“They’re coming by here in five minutes, if you want to…”

Beth spun back to her room.
Her shoes;
where were they? She began picking up bedcovers and hurling them onto the mattress.

The light flicked on above her.

“They aren’t releasing details yet,” her mother’s voice continued, “but at least one of the accident victims is in critical condition.”

Critical was serious. Critical was how the doctors had referred to Grandma before she had died.

Beth dropped to her knees and looked under the bed. There were the shoes.

She jerked up, hitting her head on the metal frame.
Dear God, please let him live.
She dragged the shoes out and shoved her feet into them.

“Beth…” Her mother blocked the doorway. “There was also a fatality.”

God, no. Please!

Beth tried to force her way around the barricade. A hand gripped her arm. “Who is this boy?”

He can’t be dead. He can’t!

At that moment headlights pierced the trailer.

Beth tore out of her mother’s grasp and plunged past.

But the screen door refused to open. The harder she pulled, the more the nightmare closed around her. She pounded the screen, then kicked it.

“Calm down.”

Calm down? He could be dead. He could be dead. No! Don’t think that. If you think that, you might make it happen.

Her mother reached for the latch and opened the door.

The Villettis’ Blazer had turned around and pulled up to the curb, the engine still running. Beth raced to the vehicle and climbed in the back. Ni switched positions to sit beside her.

“Buckle up,” Mrs. Villetti demanded.

Beth’s fingers wouldn’t work. Her friend attached the buckle.
Click.
It was twenty minutes to the nearest town with a hospital.

“Luka called,” Ni said. “The team has a phone tree. Pepe’s convertible—I guess it’s totaled. Apparently, there were three vehicles involved, but according to the hospital, the people in the truck and other car only had moderate injuries.”

Which left Pepe. Pepe or Salva.

Please, God, please. Please don’t let Salva be dead. He deserves to live.

It was a selfish, horrible prayer. Of course Pepe deserved to live, too, but Beth couldn’t spare her heart for him.

We might as well end it,
Salva had said.

It could
not
end like this. Those could not be the final words she ever heard from him.

This was her fault. He had argued with his father because
of her. Had left Main Street because of her. Had gotten in that car—that beautiful sleek yellow car—because he had been angry at her.

“We’ll get through this,” Nalani said. “We’ll get through this together.”

But this wasn’t the kind of thing Beth could get through. Death wasn’t like that. Death took. It emptied your reality, sucking the love out of your world. And left you alone.

Were these the last minutes in which she could believe that Salva was alive? A cry escaped from her chest. She could not let him be dead. People weren’t meant to disappear from your life without time for you to plan or prepare or realize that no matter how much time you had to prepare it was never going to be enough.
Dear God, let him live.
Every feeling, every image, every memory she had of him wanted to rush into her brain and feed her plea. He was the boy who had listened when she talked about her grandmother. The one who said “please” when he asked for help. The one who had cried in Beth’s arms. The boy
everyone
followed.

Salva was immortal. He couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t.

Unless she had broken him.

Unless she had made him breakable.

The hospital lights scalded Beth’s brain. Cops, four of them, lined the entrance.
They could tell me,
she thought as she walked through the aisle of black uniforms.
They could tell me if he is alive.