Chapter 15

He’d barely gotten his whole dream mapped out for Mindy when the door crashed open and Jerry Parker and Susie Beltone rushed in. Neither Bobby nor Mindy knew, at that point, that Mr. Nelson had informed their parents that, if they missed more than two days of a scheduled detention, that an additional week of detention would be “awarded.” If they missed any of that scheduled detention, then suspension would be automatic. Both missing students were seniors. If they were suspended, neither Jerry nor Susie would graduate from high school. Not until after summer school, anyway.

Parents had called cell phones they’d gotten just for this kind of situation. They’d gotten their kids cell phones so they could find them any time and anywhere.

“We didn’t think you’d be back!” gasped Jerry.

“Where’s your trash?” asked Miss Middlesex, her voice frosty.

“Trash?” echoed both teens.

“The trash you picked up Monday and yesterday,” said Mindy.

“Oh,” said Jerry, looking startled. “We ... uh ... we threw it away.” He smiled. It was obvious, even to Bobby, that he was lying.

“You will have two additional days of detention,” said Mindy. One because you skipped yesterday, and the other because there’s no proof you picked up trash, Monday. I’ll inform Mr. Nelson about this. You two will go pick up trash now. And I want you to save every scrap of it. We’re going to store it for the rest of the week. If you don’t fill up at least one full bag each, then Mr. Nelson has agreed to call your parents in for consultation. Now go. I’d suggest you try filling your bags.”

Bobby had easily recognized Jerry’s lie. None of the teens detected the fact that Mindy’s information about how Mr. Nelson was ready to call parents in was a total fabrication. She’d made it up on the spot. It was unlikely Mr. Nelson would do that at all, unless a suspension was in order. Nor had he already extended their detention, though that was something he was more likely to agree to do.

Finally, the room was quiet again. Mindy’s headache was worse when she turned back to Bobby.

“You can’t come live with me in the summer,” she said, somewhat curtly. “People would talk. No, they wouldn’t just talk, they’d go insane. There would probably be a story about it in the newspaper, Bobby!”

“But I thought...”

“You didn’t think!” she snapped. “That’s the problem!”

It was at that point that the tiny blood vessel that had been weakened by the blow to her head and then abused by the string of orgasms Bobby had visited on her, the night before, leaked enough blood to put enough pressure on the adjacent brain cells that her brain rebelled. The cerebral hematoma had been trying to warn her all day long that something was wrong. The doctor had even told her that if a headache persisted, to let him know, but she’d forgotten that. She’d felt fine, so she’d resumed her “normal” routine. Having two hours of robust sex, however, wasn’t “normal” and the rise in her blood pressure that sex caused, resulted in further damage to her concussed brain.

Bobby, who was shocked by the vitriol in her voice, was astonished as she suddenly went gray and vomited all over the desk he was sitting at. She put her hand to her head, moaned, and her knees gave way. This time Bobby was more nearly ready. He surged out of his chair and caught her on the way down. She was heavy enough that she took him with her to the floor, but he broke her fall. They ended up entangled as her stomach made a second attempt to empty itself. Bobby’s chest got soaked and he almost vomited himself. Her glassy-eyed stare and refusal to answer him sent him running, once again.

It was déjà vu, as he ran to the gym. Coach Zamordo was talking to his players, and turned when Bobby shouted.

“It happened again!” he gasped.

“She fell?” asked Zamordo, incredulously.

“No, she puked and collapsed!” panted Bobby.

Zamordo called 911 himself, this time.

Cerebral edema is dangerous. It can cause a stroke, or worse. There’s really no extra room inside the skull, and loose blood in the brain creates swelling. Swelling inside the skull kills brain cells. Kill enough of them and the computer that runs your body freezes up. It can be difficult to re-boot that computer.

Mindy’s cerebral hematoma caused a stroke. Luckily, she got to the hospital (again!) within what doctors call “the golden hour” after her brain froze up. They were able to treat her and get the swelling reduced. This time, though, she was admitted to the hospital for much more than mere observation. Multiple MRIs were scheduled, to make sure the bleeding didn’t get worse. If it did, she’d have to have brain surgery.

Had it not been for the vomit that covered both the desk and Bobby’s chest, he would have had serious questions to answer. He’d been the only person with her the day before, when she was injured. Now they were alone again when she collapsed. Coach Zamordo reminded the powers-that-be that vomiting, after a head injury, was a symptom of a concussion getting worse, so Bobby was off the hook.

The problem was that Mindy’s emergency contact was her grandfather. Her parents had died when she was twelve, and her grandparents had taken over raising her. Her grandmother had died four years later, of pancreatic cancer. When Mindy went to college, her grandpa was fine. He’d done okay until recently, when his hip and knees began failing and had to go into assisted living. Mindy hadn’t changed him as her emergency contact, mostly because she couldn’t think of anybody else to replace him with.

So now, the only person the hospital would give medical information to was in an assisted living community, fifteen hundred miles away.

That meant nobody would tell the school administration anything.

And of course nobody would tell Bobby anything.

He couldn’t go see her, either, because she was in the ICU, which limited visitors to immediate family members.

In a larger town or city it might not have mattered. It only affected a few dozen people, after all, primarily her students. But this was a small town in a small state, population-wise, and this was major news for people who didn’t have a whole lot to talk about on the gossip side of things. To compound the problem, about the only thing most people knew was that one day, during detention, when Bobby Pendleton was the only one there, she somehow tripped and smashed her head so hard that, two days later, when Bobby Pendleton was also the only one there, she collapsed and ended up in ICU, which meant whatever it was that was wrong with her was bad ... very bad.

The incident with Gerald Hill came up again. Bobby had attacked Gerald Hill and had to be pulled off of him. Lots of kids knew it was because of what Gerald had said about fucking Melissa, but nobody mentioned that part. It was just ‘proof’ that Bobby was a violent person. And now Miss Middlesex was in the hospital.

Melissa, herself, tried to calm things down, but she was a freshman, and nobody took freshmen seriously. When she insisted that Miss Middlesex had been tutoring Bobby for months and nothing had happened, that got twisted into Bobby probably having tried to make a move on “Mmmmm” and she shut him down. He must have gotten furious.

Basically, the rumor got started among the students that Bobby Pendleton tried to kill Miss Middlesex because she wouldn’t do the nasty with him. That rumor spread like wildfire, and it wasn’t long before a parent heard it.

After fielding four calls from anxious parents, the police even looked into it ... for about ten minutes. They were one entity the medical folks would talk to. They weren’t supposed to, strictly speaking, but it was a small town, and the officer who sought the information, sought it from a nurse who just happened to be his wife. Then, when the police wouldn’t release any information to the public, it got worse instead of better. The old mantra of “We can’t comment on an open investigation” didn’t raise anybody’s spirits, with the possible exception of the department spokeswoman who said it. She was the spokesperson by virtue of being the newest member of the force. Like Mindy Middlesex, she was single, and she craved reasons to get in the paper or on TV. There had to be a man out there somewhere who couldn’t resist a mysterious woman in uniform.

What came of that, however, was, “There is an investigation! Bobby did do something to that poor woman!”

It wasn’t until parents started threatening to take their kids out of school if the administration didn’t “do something about that Pendleton menace” that the wheels of bureaucracy slowly began to turn. Vice Principal Nelson was called into Principal Harper’s office. Mr. Zamordo was already there. That discussion lasted about fifteen minutes, five minutes longer than the police investigation, but it was clear to all three men that Bobby Pendleton had nothing to do with what had happened to Mindy Middlesex, other than running to get help for her twice. She’d given him a whole week of detention for not paying attention or participating in class. And that was the week she had to monitor detention! That wasn’t the kind of thing a teacher would do if she was trying to get away from a stalking student.