Something fluttered in my chest. “And?”
“And he had a stroke. But we were all right there. And we were able to save him.” He grabbed onto the hands that were resting in my lap and squeezed. “Do you believe in a higher power? That there aren’t coincidences? That you lived so you could save him?”
Yes. No. I didn’t, but I wanted to. I needed to. I clung to the doctor’s words. I saved him. I saved him.
I squeezed Dr. Logan’s hands back. “I need to see him.”
Dr. Logan paused and pulled his hands back. “I’m afraid that’s not possible.” He stood and looked around the room for nothing in particular. “Let’s go talk to your mother.”
I remained seated and leaned forward. “Is he still at the hospital?” I had to see him. I had to talk to him. I had to show Troy what I’d done. There was always a chance.
“No, he’s been moved. I shouldn’t have said anything, Delaney. I’m not at liberty to discuss this further.”
I clenched my fist and brought it down on his desk. A picture frame toppled over backward, and two freckle-faced children smiled up at me. “Moved where?”
Dr. Logan desperately shuffled papers, reeling in the life preserver, but I had already caught hold. It was all I had. “He’s in a long-term care facility, Delaney. He still had the stroke. Even if we’d known he was going to have one, we couldn’t have stopped it. But he’s alive because of you.”
I sunk backward. “Is he conscious?”
“Look, I already broke doctor-patient confidentiality.” Which was his way of saying no.
“Will he recover?”
“I’m not the one to ask. I didn’t think you’d recover, and look at you now.” He smiled, but I didn’t. “There’s always hope, Delaney.”
It was all so pointless. I hadn’t saved that boy. He lived, yes, but I hadn’t saved him. He was a vegetable. Like I was supposed to be. Frozen. I had trapped him in hell. The line Dr. Logan threw me wasn’t a life preserver. It was an anchor. And I was sinking fast.
In the waiting room, Dr. Logan spoke to Mom. “The help she needs”—he handed her a business card—“is not from me.”
Pills. Hands tied to the bed. Trapped. Like the last time I was underwater, all I could think was, No, no, no, no, no.
Chapter 16
Mom looked even smaller when we got back home. She stood in the entrance of the immaculate kitchen with her hands on her hips. She nodded to herself, took out a dishrag and disinfectant, and started scrubbing. She scrubbed vigorously, fist clenching the towel, other hand gripping the end of the counter. And then she shifted over and scrubbed the spot where her hand had left an imaginary print.
“I’m going to see Decker,” I said. She didn’t stop scrubbing.
His car was in the driveway, but nobody answered the door. I huddled against the door frame and glanced around. Then I jogged to the side of the house and brushed the snow off the base of the tallest evergreen. I dug out the gray-and-black speckled rock and pried the spare key from the hard-packed dirt.
I let myself in the house and called, “Decker?” His name echoed back from the hardwood floors and bare walls. His room was the same as mine, up the stairs, second door on the left. I knocked but got no answer. His door creaked as I pushed it open. I stuck my face in and said, “Decker?”
Nothing. I swung the door wide open until it banged against the blue wall, another echo shattering the quiet of an empty house. He wasn’t here. The curtains were open. His bed was made. Decker didn’t make his bed. So unless he got up before his mom left for work (which was highly unlikely), Decker hadn’t been home all night.
I walked to his desk and looked at the papers on top. His grades, all Bs, probably his best semester yet. He hadn’t told me. His new class schedule. I wondered if mine had arrived. I didn’t even care. I slid the top drawer open, where he used to keep memorabilia, like old concert stubs and newspaper clippings from his races. It was all still there. And sitting on top of it all was my picture. Not just a picture of me. My picture. The one of me and Decker that I kept above my desk.
He’d taken it from me, which might have been sweet except he stuck it in his drawer full of the past. He didn’t keep it out. I was hidden away with the things he could look through to remember fun things he used to do. I stuffed it in the back pocket of my jeans, then thought better of it and slid it back into his drawer of memories.
A sleek red car pulled into his driveway. The passenger door opened, and Decker came spilling out with the pulsating music. And then Tara Spano sped away in her godawful, desperate-for-attention car. I thought of leaving his room, but there was really no good place for him to find me. So I just stood there, next to the window, and listened to him fidget with the lock on the front door, chuck his boots across the floor, and trudge up the steps.
He held on to the doorframe as he rounded the corner into his room, head down, hair falling into his eyes. He stopped in the entryway, looked at me, looked at the window behind me, and rested the side of his head against the wall.
“I came to check on you,” I said, looking at his desk drawer, making sure I had left everything the way I found it.
“I meant to call. I wanted to call. My mom said you were with him.” His voice cracked and he closed his eyes.
“I tried to help.” I bit my bottom lip hard. Decker looked like crap. I wanted to take him in my arms and rock him back and forth like Mom did for me and shush him and tell him everything was going to be okay. I wanted to, but I didn’t. Kind of like how Decker said he wanted to call me, but didn’t. Besides, someone had probably already comforted him. I looked out the window, and when I looked back at him, he was watching me.
“I was at Kevin’s,” he said. “All night. We all were.” I thought he was trying to say he wasn’t alone with Tara, but the only thing that registered was the “we all” part. They were all together, mourning. Everyone except me. He was with his other friends—our friends—where I hadn’t been invited.
“Not my business.”
“Yes it is,” he said, walking toward the window. Toward me. “I need to tell you something.”
There wasn’t much more I could take hearing. But really, could it get any worse?
“So the thing is, I’m kind of a mess about Carson.”
I gave him my no shit look, mixed with you’re not the only one.
He got it. “Yeah, but look at me now. Now imagine me before. With you.” He stared out the window again, in the direction of the lake.
He was holding his breath beside me, and I remembered the Decker who sobbed over my bed, fingernails missing, face hollow. “I thought you were dead.”
I was.
“And I lost it. I slept at the hospital. Actually, I didn’t sleep at all. I couldn’t eat. I just waited. And I made all kinds of bargains with God. Anyone but you. Anyone at all.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Everyone but you.”
Something clicked. “You think this—Carson—is your fault?”
He lifted his shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. “I don’t know. But it’s a trade. And I know it makes me all sorts of horrible, but I’d make it again.”
I tried to figure out what he was saying, and I shifted uncomfortably. “That’s probably a thought you should keep in your head.”
He grinned, but it wasn’t a happy one. “I know, I told you I’m horrible, but I want to be honest with you. And that’s the way I feel.” He felt guilty, but he shouldn’t have. I was the only one there with Carson. I was right there, and even I couldn’t save him.
Or maybe Decker was trying to explain how he felt about me. Except I was fairly certain I hadn’t hallucinated the red car in his driveway.
“How do you feel about Tara?” I asked.