“They made me take Rowan’s on the few times I did deliveries.” I pause. “It’s my fault. I should have been keeping track of the minutes.” That was a dumb mistake, and I cringe to think about how it could have wrecked everything. “I almost freaked when I saw you sitting in that classroom. Wasn’t that strange to finally be there—to see it?” I ask, remembering how it was when all of my crash vision stuff fell into place.
“It was spooky and horrible.” He adjusts his hands on the wheel and I notice his knuckles are all scraped up.
I think about all the things that could have happened. “One of the reasons I feel so weirdly detached from this is that I wasn’t seeing it like I was last time. I mean, this time I was focused on the clues and figuring them out. I wasn’t seeing body bags or dead students. I knew I had to trust you and do whatever you said. And that was really hard at first, but in the end, especially in those last seconds, I knew that was the only way to go. You were, like, navigating, and all I could do was listen and follow.” I glance over at him. “And you did it.”
Sawyer sighs and puts his elbow up next to the window. He scratches his head and smooths his finger over his stitches. “No, I didn’t, Jules. That’s the problem. I didn’t stop them. They still managed to hurt people. They still managed to get attention for their hateful shit.”
I shift in my seat to look at him. “Sawyer, you don’t even know what you’re saying. You saved almost a dozen lives! You’re one guy, and you stopped this tragedy from being major. I wish I could’ve stopped that truck before we hit your building, or stopped it down the street before the guy had the heart attack, and saved him. But we can’t do everything—the vision isn’t a total fix; it’s a chance to change a bad thing to something less bad. But there’s no guarantee that everybody turns out fine. Come on, Sawyer,” I say, my voice softening. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. The vision’s gone. You did what you were supposed to do. Maybe . . . maybe those people needed to go through that experience in order to become the people they’re going to be, you know? Maybe that experience triggers something inside of them that will help them become great.”
“And maybe it’ll make them dependent on prescription drugs, or want to kill themselves.” His voice is bitter.
My mouth falls open. “Are you serious right now? You think the vision gods, or whoever, gave us these chances so we can end up watching the people we save turn into drug addicts?”
“How the hell should I know?” he yells. “How the hell do you know? Are you just rationalizing it to make yourself feel better about almost getting killed?”
“I don’t know what I’m doing!” I shout back at him. “I’m just trying to live my life and get through it, okay? So what if I’m rationalizing. So what? At least I’m dealing with this freak thing!”
“Just because it’s over doesn’t mean I’m ready to deal with it!”
We’re both quiet for a long time. And then Sawyer asks in a softer voice, “When we’re acting on a vision, do you ever wonder if we’re invincible?”
And it’s so almost funny in a superhero cartoon sort of way. But really, it’s not funny at all. Because I’ve thought it too.
Thirty-Nine
When we come in, Trey is sitting up in the bed, his arm in a sling and a shadow of stubble on his face. “It’s about time,” he says. He’s got the look of a stoner on his face, and I see he’s got a morphine drip going. Guess Mom and Dad don’t think he’ll get addicted. Eye roll.
“You could’ve gotten shot a little closer to home.” He screws his face up. “Yeah, about that. What the hell happened? I don’t remember anything.”
Sawyer and I pull up chairs and tell him the story. Before we can finish, there’s a knock on the door. A nurse pokes her head in. “Trey, a few of the students you helped save are here. They want to say thanks—is it okay if they come in?”
Trey looks at me. I nod, and Sawyer and I slide our chairs back to get out of the way as Ben and his friend come in. I stand up and introduce Ben Galang, and Ben introduces Vernon, the guy he was with yesterday, who apparently was at the meeting, though I don’t remember him.
Ben looks like he slept in his clothes. His hair is disheveled and his self-repaired glasses can’t hide the dark circles under his eyes. He reaches out his hand and carefully shakes Trey’s hand. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
Trey looks up at Ben and gives him a goofy, drugged smile. “I’m not sure why, but okay.”
Ben glances at me, confused.
“We haven’t quite gotten to the part of the story where Trey came in and busted up the party,” I explain. “I don’t think he knows what he did.”
“That, and he’s a little drunk on morphine,” Sawyer adds.
Trey frowns. “All I remember is someone screaming ‘Die, fag!’ in my face, which really, you know, sucked. Then I took one look at the blood spurting out of my arm and I was like, ‘Wuh-oh, check, please,’ for the rest of the event.” He blanches just thinking about it. “Doesn’t sound very heroic to me, but whatever.”
Ben brings his hand to his mouth and I can see his chin is trembling, his eyes filling up. And then he pulls his hand away and says, “The girl had a gun to my forehead. I have a scrape here where she dug it into my skin. I was a split second away from getting my brains blown out. And then the door flew open, glass went everywhere, and the shooter was distracted.” He pauses. “I got the gun off my head. And she turned and it went off. She shot you instead of me.” Ben’s lips quiver. He presses them together.