Falling Under (Falling 3)
Page 58“Ben, hold on—” I don’t want to fight him, don’t want this pain in her eyes.
But it’s too late. Too late. I see him coming, and I try to move, try to block, but I can’t. He’s too fast, and I’m off-balance. My foot hits the curb, and I stumble backward, out into the street. Headlights bathe me in yellow, a horn blares in my ear. I’m on one foot, on the ball of my foot, spinning, windmilling for balance, but I know this is happening. I see the grille, a Land Rover. I see the emblem, the green and silver, and then I feel my leg shatter, feel the hood sliding under my side and my back, and then my skull impacts the glass of the windshield, and I only have a split second to feel the all-consuming pain, and then darkness rises up within me like a flood. I hear screaming, voices. I’m almost under, fighting to stay above the black cold waters of silence, and I see Kylie, her face above me, tears streaming, her lips move.
Ben is behind her, and why is he crying? He’s not hurt, but he’s bawling, shaking his head, backing away. I blink, blink, but the darkness won’t clear from my eyes, and I focus again on Kylie.
I love you. I love you. Am I saying it? I don’t even know. I’m trying. Are the words coming out? Does she know? Can she hear?
Darkness. Cold. Weightlessness. Is that a light coming for me? Is that what they mean when they talk about the light at the end of the tunnel? I don’t want it. Stay away from the light.
I cling to the image of Kylie’s face. Picture her pale skin lit silver by the moonlight, her eyes the blue of the Caribbean, her lips moving as she tells me she loves me, the impossible beauty of her face and the impossible beauty of the fact that she loves me.
I struggle to hold on to her, onto the warmth, onto reality, onto life.
“Don’t go…please, Oz…stay with me…stay with me…” Her voice is broken, so sweet, and I want to reassure her.
“…love…you…” I think that’s my voice, but is it really out loud? Is that tattered shred of sound my voice?
“No!” Kylie, pleading. “NO!”
I’m falling under.
Silence.
TWELVE: Fallout
Colt
Oh, f**k no. I watched it happen, and I watch his chest struggle up and down, and Kylie is screaming and Nell is pulling at her and I’m silent. I see Jason and Becca, our neighbors. The driver of the Land Rover, puking into the grass. Ben, sobbing like a baby, I didn’t mean it, didn’t mean to, I’m sorry tumbling from his mouth. Jason is holding him by the shoulders. Becca is on the phone with 911. They said not to move him, help is on the way.
I kneel beside Kylie, watching Oz as his breathing goes shallow and reedy, and I watch the blood seeping from beneath his skull.
Without warning, Kylie is lunging across the street, screaming viciously now, not in pain but in hate, in rage. I catch her just before she reaches Ben, catch her swinging arms, clenched trembling fists before they hit him.
Ben lurches to his feet, throwing his father off. “I didn’t mean to…” He stumbles toward her, eyes red, grief and guilt ravaging his features. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t—”
“I told you months ago I’d chosen him, but you couldn’t accept it!” She’s struggling in my arms, but I can’t let go, won’t let go. “I chose him! I love him! You were my best friend, Ben.” She’s abruptly limp. “You were my best friend. How could you do this to me? How could do it to me?” And now she’s limp.
I lift her in my arms. “He’s not dead, baby. He’s not dead. He’ll be okay. He’s just unconscious. Stay with me, sweetheart.” I’m murmuring in her ear. “Stay with me, baby. Look at Oz, okay? See his chest moving? He’s alive, okay? There’s the ambulance—they’ll fix him. They’ll fix him.”
She struggles out of my arms, to her feet, watching everything with sudden manic energy, pacing, as the EMS guys do their grisly work, blue-gloved hands turning red, their voices calm but urgent.
“Will he—will he live?” she asks, her voice cutting through the noise.
One of them looks at her. His eyes are reassuring, calm. “We got here in time, I think. He’s got a good chance.”
A good chance. It’s not much, but it’s something. Better than dead.
Kylie follows them as they lift him inside the ambulance, and no one dares stop her as she climbs in and sits to one side, trying to touch his hand while staying out of their way. The doors close and the sirens go on and the ambulance wails away. Nell has the truck running, and we’re following close behind.
Kate Hyde is in the room as well, sitting across from us, eyes red-rimmed, a Kleenex clutched in her fist. She stares listlessly.
Sometime in the small hours of dawn, a green-gowned surgeon approaches, a face-mask tugged down past his chin, a green cap on his head, rubbing hand-sanitizer on his hands. He glances around the room, pale, pale blue eyes searching. He’s a middle-aged man, a little older than I am, I think, thick-shouldered and fit.
Kylie senses something, wakes up, sees the surgeon. Lurches to her feet. “Is he okay?”
“He’s a fighter,” the surgeon says. “He suffered an extreme trauma to his head, but he stayed with us.”
“Will he—will he be okay?” Kate asks. “When he wakes up?”
The surgeon bobbles his head from side to side. “There’s never any way to tell one hundred percent until he wakes up. I think he has an excellent chance of making a full recovery with no lasting side effects, but I can’t make any promises just yet. We’ve done everything we can do for now.” He sighs. “He’ll have a long road ahead of him when he wakes up. The head trauma was the biggest worry, but he has other equally significant injuries. He broke his femur in three places, and re-fractured his arm. Those will take time to heal, of course, but it’s the head injury that we have to keep the closest eye on right now.”