Chapter 2

My first awareness after that was a white light and some faraway music.

“Died and gone to Heaven,” I murmured thickly. I heard giggling and curiosity pulled me in the direction of the sound. I rolled my head from side to side slowly and tried to claw my way back to consciousness, like a diver swimming back toward the surface of a deep pond. I blinked and my eyes started to focus, the white light resolving into a large overhead lamp. The music sharpened to a steady tone of a heart monitor and I realized that I was in the hospital. I tried to sit up, but hands pushed me back down and I turned my head, looking for their owners.

I cast my head around, my head still swimming, making it hard to focus, but I spotted my mother standing beside me, looking concerned. I remembered being mad at her for some reason, but it seemed far away at the moment, hardly worth thinking about. I continued to look around sleepily and saw Lana on the other side of the hospital bed, holding me down by the other shoulder. I smiled at her and then blinked again. “What happened?” I asked, my voice still thick.

“You passed out,” she said gently. “The doctor said you’ve got a sprained ankle, some stitches in your leg and a concussion. I guess when you tried to stand up, the concussion hit you and the sprained ankle didn’t help. I brought you here to the hospital and then called my mom since I didn’t know your number. She went next door and told your mom and they came right over.”

I looked around the room and saw Lilly and Becky sitting off to one side and Mrs. Powers standing beside them. “Hi,” I said stupidly, raising my arm to wave a little before dropping it back in my lap. “Sorry to make everyone drop what they were doing.” I frowned a little and looked back up at Lana. “Am I groggy from the concussion still or did they give me something?”

She looked a little sheepish. “Well, you kind of threw up when they took you out of the car so I think they gave you something for the nausea.”

“A Gravol IV,” my mother confirmed with a nod. “It’ll make you a little spacey ‘til it runs its course. I’m going to step out for a moment to talk to the doctor to see when he’s willing to release you. Try not to crash anything while I’m gone,” she said gently and with a slight smile. She slipped out of the room and a silence descended on the rest of us.

I reached up with my hand to rest it on Lana’s where she was still pressing me gently into the bed in case I tried to sit up again. I closed my eyes again, breathing deeply through my nose, catching occasional hints of vanilla and strawberry. I gave a contented little sigh and savored the moment of calm before opening my eyes again. Lana’s mother had her eyes on our hands and was trying hard to suppress a smile. Becky and Lilly were both deeply engrossed in the DS clutched in each of their hands. Becky looked up at me and gave me a grin to let me know she was glad I was okay before going back to her game. Sitting down, she couldn’t see me holding her sister’s hand, but she’d known how I felt about her sister long enough for both of us to be comfortable with her teasing me about it.

A moment later, my mother came back accompanied by an older man with salt and pepper hair and beard. The lab coat and stethoscope named him the doctor as loudly as his name-tag. “How are you feeling Matthew?” he asked kindly, peering at me over the top of his glasses which had slipped partway down his nose.

“I’m okay so long as I don’t do anything that involves my legs or my head,” I said truthfully. “Lana said my ankle is sprained and I have a concussion. I guess that explains part of why I passed out.”

The doctor was looking at the clipboard he was carrying with my chart on it, so he missed the slightly crooked smile on my face. Fortunately Mrs. Powers was behind him. She was having a hard time trying to keep a straight face.

“Yes,” he said with a nod, pulling out a pen and scribbling something on the chart. “Between the pain of trying to walk on the sprain and suddenly standing up with the concussion, it’s no surprise that you collapsed.” He looked up and smiled brightly. “I think we can safely release you today. You’ve suffered a grade 2 sprain, so you can expect to be fully recovered in 4 to 6 weeks. During that time, you’ll want to follow the RICE treatment. Rest the ankle. Ice it for 20 minutes at a time. Compress it with a gently wrapped ace bandage. Elevate it. So I’m afraid you’ll be spending most of the summer out of commission, but you’ll be back on your feet, if you’ll forgive the pun, before school starts. As for your concussion, I think we can safely call it on the high side of mild. You might have some temporary memory loss and confusion, dizziness and drowsiness, blurred or double-vision, headache and nausea. If those get worse or your condition deteriorates, call an ambulance right away.”

“I’ve had all those since I hit the ground,” I admitted.

He nodded and made a note on the chart. “Then maybe better to call it somewhere in the moderate category rather than mild. The old wives tale about staying awake for 24 hours is mostly false, but you do need to have someone wake you every two hours when you’re sleeping tonight and possibly tomorrow. What we’re looking for is worsening of symptoms.” He turned to my mother, continuing. “If it’s difficult to wake him or if he complains of any of the symptoms changing for the worse, call an ambulance and we’ll do a CT scan to look for trouble. Otherwise, his recovery should dovetail with the treatment for the sprain. Rest, some over the counter pain remedies and avoiding sports. He may experience irritability and sensitivity to light during his recovery as well as a few other symptoms. Here’s a pamphlet about treating sprains and one for concussions. I’d recommend crutches for him for a few weeks if he has to move around much. Keep weight off it for at least three weeks and then be very cautious until it’s healed. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to see your family doctor in a few weeks and have him reevaluate his condition.” He looked back at me and smiled again. “Your IV is done and unhooked, so you can get dressed and I’ll send an orderly with a wheelchair. The pharmacy downstairs will be able to help with crutches.”

He was about to leave when my mother stopped him. “Doctor, what about a prescription for pain. The sprain sounds like it’s pretty serious. I know we shouldn’t give him anything too heavy tonight or tomorrow because of the concussion, but after that, can we give him something a little stronger than aspirin?”

The doctor nodded and motioned for her to follow him. “I’ll write you a scrip. You can get it filled in the hospital pharmacy when you’re getting the crutches.” The two of them left the room and I squeezed Lana’s hand before removing it from my shoulder so I could sit up.

“So where are my clothes?” I asked, trying to ignore the dizziness for the moment. “Or were they an unfortunate victim of my throwing up?” I asked apprehensively. I also wondered if I’d been clear of the car before I conjugated my breakfast, but held that question until I got the answer to the first one.

“Your shirt took the worst of it. I think your shorts are still wearable, but the shirt’s probably not worth washing. It was ripped in the fall and had some blood on it,” Lana answered softly. “Your mom brought fresh clothes though.” She put a plastic bag on the bed beside me, still watching intently for signs I was in distress.

“Alright girls, clear out,” Mrs Powers said gently. “Matthew’s going to need a hand getting dressed and I doubt he’s interested in being the center of an anatomy lesson. Go wait in the hall and I’ll help him get ready.”

Becky and Lilly went right away, still playing their games. Lana gave my shoulder another squeeze and then crossed the room and slipped out.

When the door clicked shut behind her, Mrs. Powers came over to me with an amused look on her face. “Okay Champ, let’s see what your mother packed for you.” She dumped the contents of the bag and I was relieved to see a loose t-shirt and gym shorts. She helped me stand and told me to hold onto the bed rail while she helped me strip off the johnny shirt they’d dressed me in. While she was helping me dress, she casually chatted with me. “You’ve lived next door for what? Eight years now?”

“Nine Mrs. Powers. It was just before Becky and I started school.”

“That’s right,” she said brightly, remembering now that I’d mentioned it. She plucked the pair of underwear off the bed and I realized that they’d stripped off ALL my clothes. I wondered if Lana had seen that and I colored. She squatted down behind me and she chuckled. “You’re blushing Matt,” she pointed out. She carefully slipped the underwear over my injured foot and then had me lean forward over the bed so I could raise the other foot without putting weight on the injured one. I was mortified at the view she must have, but the thought of her eyes on me was making me hard. She stood and grabbed the gym shorts to slip them over my feet so she could pull them up. She stood, pulling the shorts and underwear up my legs from behind and her hand accidentally brushed against my cock, making me gasp loudly. “Oh my!” she said, sounding nearly as flustered as I was. She shifted position and looked over my shoulder down at the evidence of my arousal before looking me in the eye. “Lana’s in for the fight of her life to get that fish in the boat,” she said with a smirk and a wink. “Unless she’s already caught it, cleaned it and fried it.” She left just a hint of a question in that and I struggled to think of something to say that wouldn’t make me sound like a jackass.

She laughed a little and pulled the waistband carefully up over the equipment before patting my bottom gently. “Don’t worry. It’s a perfectly natural response at your age. I remember when I was a teenager, the boys would get uncomfortable and squirm at the sight of a lamppost that looked vaguely female. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. It’s nice to see I can still get a rise out of a healthy young man.” She pulled over one of the chairs behind me and had me sit down while she got the t-shirt. Rather than handing it to me, she told me to lift my arms and she slipped it down my arms and over my head.

“So how long have you and Lana been making eyes like that at each other?” she asked curiously. “I could swear last week you were still too paralyzed to talk to her.”

“Just this morning,” I admitted, blushing every shade of red on the color wheel. “She saw me wipe out and sat and talked to me while I tried to stop the bleeding on my leg. We got to talking about it and I told her how I felt about her.” I wasn’t sure if I should be telling all this to Lana’s mother, but secrets were poison in my eyes right now.

“Good for you!” she said emphatically. “You’ve been making puppy dog eyes at her since the second you moved into the neighborhood. Dare I even ask what broke the ice. I’m curious what you said that has her making those same eyes back at you.”

I blushed again and told her. “It’s a long story and I’ll tell you the rest at some point, but she pointed out that I’d spoken more to her this morning than I had in the last several years combined. So I told her that I sort of short-circuit when I see her. I can’t think straight. I can barely remember to breathe. I told her that I was in awe of her because she’s so beautiful. She had to help me into the car and then she told me my bike’s wrecked. It starts getting hazy, but I said something about after having her put her arm around me, I could just float where I wanted to go.”

“Wow,” she laughed and gave my shoulder a friendly squeeze. “I had no idea you were such a silver-tongued devil. And you can call me Patty, Matthew. If I know my daughter, you’re going to be spending more time around our place than you already do.” She winked and assured me that we’d talk more about it some other time.

I smiled, thinking that I’d somehow managed not to enrage Lana’s mother. She’d always treated me well as had her husband. “I was actually doing okay until she kissed me. That’s the last thing I remember before waking up in here.”

“She kissed you and you passed out?” she chuckled. “That’s almost too cute for words. Like a perverse reversal on Sleeping Beauty. And is that why you were muttering about dying and going to Heaven when you woke up?”

I blushed even harder, but nodded.

“That’s adorable and incredibly romantic, but then again, it’s always been like that between the two of you. But I think your chariot is here. Let me get your shoe on your good foot and I’ll stuff the other one in with your old clothes.” She opened the small plastic laundry sack my stuff was in and tipped the shoe in on top of everything else. “Lana was right. It looks like the shirt’s destroyed.”

“I still want to keep it,” I said quickly.

“Why?” she asked curiously as she slipped my sneaker on my foot and laced it.

“I was wearing it when she kissed me. If I can’t wear if, I want to frame it and hang it on the wall,” I said seriously.

Her fingers froze with the knot half tied and looked at me with a look of shock. She gave herself a little shake and finished tying the shoe and patted my knee to let me know she was done. “Wow, Matt. Just wow. You frame it and put it up in your room and then you tell her exactly that and don’t be the least bit surprised if she doesn’t kiss you unconscious again.”

She wiped her eyes and stood, smiling down at me. “How did you get to be such a hopeless romantic?”

“I read,” I said. “Maybe I started to try and figure out the answers to how I felt when I looked at her, but along the way, I found a lot of ideas and came up with a few myself that just felt ... right.” I shrugged. “It’s hard to explain and there’s never been a book that talks about framing a shirt, but yesterday was a pretty terrible day for me and my week went from being the absolute worst to the absolute best. I would never want to lose that touchstone to what happened today.”

We were interrupted a moment later by the door opening. An orderly pushing a wheelchair came into the room and greeted us and started with an explanation that it was hospital policy to use a wheelchair when discharging a patient. I assume he was used to arguments, but I could barely stand on my own, let alone walk. I waited ‘til he had the chair positioned and the brake set before I carefully got to my feet and hopped, with Patty’s help to where I could lower myself into the chair. Each hop had jolted my ankle, driving bolts of searing pain up my leg. By the time I was settled in the chair, I was ashen-faced and gasping.

Patty understood and asked the orderly to give me a moment to recover. I looked up at her gratefully and she squeezed my shoulder with a smile. A moment later, I didn’t feel quite as awful as I had and nodded that I was ready to go.

The girls were waiting outside and Becky said that Mom had gone down to the pharmacy to get the supplies I’d need. We were meeting her there. We all crowded onto the elevator and it was a quiet ride down to the main entrance. We had to wait outside the pharmacy while Mom collected my prescription and crutches. She had another bag with her, but I was too distracted by the morning’s events to wonder what was in it.

I glanced over at Lilly as we waited and she was watching Mom intently. She hadn’t said anything since I woke up and hadn’t even made eye contact with me. I remembered this morning’s conversation and told myself that I had more talking to look forward to instead of less. I sighed and felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up and Lana was standing there, a slight smile on her face, but also a hint of something else. I reached up and took her hand, looking at her curiously.

“Sorry,” she said softly. “I know you didn’t want to go to the hospital or for me to call your folks.”

I squeezed her hand and shrugged slightly. “You did the right thing. I hadn’t realized how hurt I was when I asked that. When I fainted, there wasn’t anything else you could do.” I smiled up at her and she brightened a little.

A moment later Mom arrived with the crutches and I stood experimentally while we adjusted their length for my height. Then it was back to the chair until we were at Mom’s car. That reminded me of the question I’d meant to ask Lana. “Lana, when I threw up ... I didn’t do it in the car, did I?” I asked apprehensively, dreading the thought of her having to clean that up.

She shook her head slightly. “No they had you turned in the seat and had pulled you up when you did,” she assured me.

I nodded and sighed with relief. “Good. I worried about whether I’d left a mess in your car.”

“Nope, just your bike,” she assured me with a giggle as she opened the door of the car for me to get in the passenger seat.

Instead of hopping, I tried the crutches and found the transition blessedly smoother. There were still jolts of pain, but they were much more manageable than if I’d hopped to the car. I buckled in and said my goodbyes to the Powers ladies. My eyes lingered on Lana and I smiled. “See you later?” I asked. She nodded and then blushed furiously and ducked into the car long enough to give me a quick kiss on the lips before pulling back and closing the door. Becky’s eyes were wide and Patty smiled affectionately.

I watched them walk back to Lana’s car, not wanting to be parted from Lana just yet, but knowing that she needed to take her car home and there wasn’t enough room in Mom’s car for the six of us to ride comfortably. Mom and Lilly got in and we started home. The silence in the car was only broken by the sound of the engine and the music from Lilly’s DS. I was uncomfortable, knowing that this morning’s conversation loomed over us and that I couldn’t escape now.

When we got home, I awkwardly maneuvered into the house on my crutches and made it as far as the living room before I needed to take a break. I eased myself down onto the couch, feeling all the aches and pains that I’d picked up in the crash. Mom didn’t wait for me to ask, she came over and told me to lay down. She cradled my sprained ankle gently and put a pillow under it as she got me settled.

“We need to talk about this morning, Matt,” she said firmly, giving me a look that said it was for my own good.

I grimaced, but finally nodded reluctantly. “Alright,” I said. “I’m sorry I yelled at you like that.”

She smiled and nodded, but as I’d feared, things were never as simple as that. “I know,” she said warmly. “I also know that you meant what you said. Yesterday was a bad day. Probably the worst one we’ve ever had as a family. You were right though. Lilly and I were both prepared for what happened in our own way.” She glanced at Lilly who’d taken a seat in Mom’s wing-backed chair and was looking at her feet. Her lips thinned a little, whether from concern or disappointment, I didn’t know. She turned back toward me and took my hand. “Your father and I haven’t been ... compatible for some time,” she explained. “The short version is that we fell out of love. We stayed together and tried to keep things normal, but I suspected that he’d found someone at work that suited his needs better than I did for some time. I didn’t know Lilly was aware of things until last night. I promise you, no one was keeping you in the dark to hurt you. For my part, I’d wanted your father to ease you both into the reality of it so that it wouldn’t be so bad a shock when he moved out for the last time.” She looked down and composed herself. “Clearly, he didn’t want to do that. I’m sorry I didn’t take matters into my own hands to tell you, but like you, I was taken by surprise when he decided that yesterday was the day.”

She’d taken a very soft tone as she explained everything to me and I suspected this was a repeat of the details she’d told Lilly last night and probably this morning. I lay there and listened without interrupting as she talked about how their marriage had drifted apart. She was very careful not to assign blame for that to anyone, but I’d already made up my mind about fault. He’d taken off. The only thing I could blame her for was not preparing me for yesterday. I noticed that she was also careful to skirt around what Lilly had kept from me.

“I don’t expect you to not be angry, Sweetie,” she said squeezing my hand. “Just promise me you’ll talk to me about it. I don’t want you to bottle everything up. It’s not good for you. We’re all going to be upset while we adjust. The only way we can get through it is to lean on each other.” She looked at me intently and smoothed my hair away from my face before leaning over and kissing my forehead. “Alright. I’m gonna go start on lunch. You’ve got to be starving. You barely ate this morning and I know you skipped dinner last night.” Her eyes flicked to where Lilly was sitting and looked back to me meaningfully. The message was clear: Talk to your sister.

I waited till she left the room before I turned my attention to Lilly. “I’m sorry I yelled at you too,” I told her quietly.

She shrugged, still looking at the floor, her face looking quietly miserable. “Don’t be. You were right, like Mom said. I knew what was going on and I didn’t tell you. I didn’t even realize what I’d done ‘til you yelled this morning. That’s when it hit me that you would have told me. You’re right. You never kept anything from me.” She didn’t look up, but I could see tears in her eyes and her voice got more and more choked up as she talked. “I found the pictures just before Christmas so I downloaded an app to his phone that copies his texts and pictures and sends them to an email. A couple of my friends had them installed by parents so they know what their kids are doing with them. I knew some things that Mom didn’t. We went over my laptop last night after dinner. I think she’s gonna show the stuff to a lawyer just to make sure she gets what she wants from the divorce. I feel really bad about keeping that from you. I’m so sorry.” Then she looked up at me and she broke into tears.

I couldn’t get up to go to her so I did the only thing I could think of. I held my arms out to her. “Come here,” I said urgently. She flew across the room and threw herself on me, sobbing into my chest as I held onto her. We’d always been close and this was the first disagreement we’d had in years. I stroked her back and smoothed her hair, letting her cry while I told her I forgive her and that I loved her.

It was a while before she was calmed down and she stayed very still after she stopped crying. I continued stroking her hair and telling her it was okay. It had broken my heart that she’d kept it from me, but I knew now that her mistake had been innocent and her heart had broken over the hurt she had put on mine.

Mom came into the room with a large plate of sandwiches and pushed over the ottoman to set them beside us, before disappearing back into the kitchen. She reappeared a moment later with sodas for the three of us and she pulled her wing-backed chair over to join the two of us.

“Lilly,” I prompted her. “It’s time to eat.” She responded by wrapping her arms around me and squeezing tight for a moment before sitting up and wiping her eyes with a sniffle. Her eyes were blotchy and red from crying, but she turned and picked up a sandwich, taking a bite. I reached out awkwardly and plucked a sandwich from the plate, actually feeling hungry for the first time in what seemed like forever.

We sat in silence while we ate, doing something together as a family, finally getting a sense of what our new family was going to be like. We were all flying blind now, trying to find balance in a world that had turned upside down.

When the last sandwich disappeared and I was nursing the last of my soda, the other topic finally came up. “So, tell us about Lana Powers,” Mom said knowingly, sitting with her legs crossed comfortably, watching me closely.

I blushed a little. “She happened to be at the mall when I spilled off my bike,” I explained to an arched eyebrow from my mother.

“The Mall?” she repeated. “You biked over to the mall?”

I shook my head. “Not right away. I just got on my bike and went as fast as I could. I went a couple of places before I ended up there. I went by the ball field and the high school and few other places, just going as fast as I could.”

She nodded. “You must have been exhausted by the time you got there,” she commented before nodding for me to continue.

I squirmed a little at the scrutiny, but continued. “Yeah. My legs were starting to cramp and my foot slipped off the pedal and it came around and hit my leg. That’s what caused the accident. Anyway, Lana was there right away. She said I went right over the handlebars. She wanted to call an ambulance, but I convinced her not to, so she sat with me instead, while I tried to stop the bleeding from my leg. We ended up talking.” I trailed off, not sure whether I wanted to share everything so soon after what had just happened. Finally I told them the rest in broad brushstrokes, giving them few details but leaving them with the general idea that we’d hit it off once I’d gotten past being tongue-tied around her.

Mom smiled a little and nodded at the explanation. “I take it then that she’ll be spending a fair bit of time around here while you’re recovering?” she asked, waiting for me to nod before continuing. “I don’t know how Patty’s going to feel about it. I suppose I should give her a call this afternoon to see what she thinks of it.”

“She noticed at the hospital,” I said. I skipped over the part about the embarrassing erection I’d displayed when she was helping me dress, but explained the conversation. “She seemed to like the idea,” I told her.

Mom arched her eyebrow, but nodded. “Well, I should talk to her about it anyway, just to make sure we’re on the same page,” she said simply before changing the subject. “I want you kids to think about something over the next few days,” she told us, her face and voice turning serious. “Your dad moved out and now we’re all making changes to our lives, him included. I want you to think about what sort of relationship you want to have with him. Think hard,” she said, looking at me. “What you have to say is going to affect how we settle custody between the two of us. We have to decide where you’ll live, what sort of visitation arrangements we need to make. It’ll also depend on other circumstances, but your input is going to be important.”

I frowned, but nodded. “I think I made myself pretty clear to him yesterday,” I said. “At this point, I really don’t see him being part of my life, but I’ll think about it. I won’t make any decision for sure until I find out what he wants from both of us. If he tries to arrange something I don’t like, that’ll make the decision for me. At this point, my ideal would be for him to just go away, but I get the feeling that’s not going to happen, so if you think it’s a good idea, then I’ll see him on a limited basis, even if only to make sure he doesn’t try anything with Lilly.”

“Try anything? Like what?” Lilly asked, surprised.

I shrugged. “He could try to convince you to go live with him or he could try to get you to sleep with him. It’s not like he doesn’t have a history of putting his penis where it shouldn’t be. You have the proof on your computer, right?”

“I think that’s a little far-fetched, Matthew,” Mom said dryly. “It’s a big step to go from having an affair with a secretary to molesting his daughter. I’m not going to discourage you from looking out for your sister though. Just think about it. Both of you. It might help to write down what you want and the minimum compromise you’d be willing to settle for. And that does NOT mean you can write down that he should die as your ideal, Matthew. Be civil and remember that those statement sheets could be seen by a judge if we have to settle custody in court. Let that guide you.”

I nodded, but didn’t say anything. I silently wondered if hoping he was posted to a research station in Antarctica for the rest of his life was an acceptable ideal.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully. Lilly drifted off to her room to pursue her own interests, feeling better about things since we’d talked. I napped, still feeling drowsy and Mom made sure to wake me regularly to make sure I was still okay.

It was late afternoon when I encountered my next difficulty: stairs. Crutches were awkward enough to make getting around at all an ordeal of hobbling awkwardly. Stairs complicated matters more than I would have thought possible. In the end, I sat on the stairs and raised myself with my good leg to sit on the next highest stair, dragging my crutches behind me. Once I reached the top, I got the crutches under me and made my way to the bathroom which had been the whole reason for the journey in the first place. I wondered about using the crutches to get back downstairs and had a sudden vision of myself laying at the bottom of the staircase in a tangle of broken limbs and twisted crutches. I sighed and decided to just go to my room, so I called down to my mother, waiting until she appeared at the bottom of the stairs.

“Matt? What are you doing up there? How did you get up there?” she asked, surprised.

“It was more difficult than I thought it would be but I needed the bathroom. Rather than try to get back down, I think I’m just gonna lay down in bed. I just wanted to let you know in case I fall asleep. I’m still pretty tired.”