“I would have seen them s-sooner if I wasn’t l-looking at you c-clowns.” I take a deep breath, and it hurts. A lot. “I think I m-might b-be sick.”
“It’s okay,” Finn says. “I’ve got you. Just lie still.” His voice is troubled, and his eyes won’t stop shifting around. Danny is sitting on the ground next to us with his arms around his legs, rocking.
“D-Danny,” I mumble.
Finn glances over at him. “You okay, Danny? Jessa’s going to be fine, buddy. Really.”
“My fault,” he says loudly. “My fault. My fault. It’s my balloon. My fault.”
I try to shake my head, but that hurts, too. “No, Danny. N-not your f-fault.”
“No, it’s not,” Finn reassures him. “It’s mine.” He says it grimly, like he believes it. I look up at him in confusion.
“Your fault?” Danny asks.
“Yes. My fault. I shouldn’t have distracted Jessa.”
Danny nods. “Your fault. Jessa shouldn’t be killed by that car,” he reiterates.
I hear a car horn in the distance. My mother has pulled into the library parking lot. Finn looks down at me.
“I’m going to have to pick you up. It’s going to hurt.”
“It h-hurts anyway,” I tell him.
“Mom!” Danny is up and running, yelling out the details of our debacle as he streaks across the grass toward the parking lot. I feel Finn shift beneath me, and a few seconds later, he’s picking me up in his arms. The world tilts as pain screams through every nerve ending in my body. I twist my head to the side and I am suddenly, spectacularly sick.
Somehow, Finn doesn’t drop me, and lays me gently on the ground again.
“S-sorry,” I mumble, trying to wipe my mouth with my good arm. Even that hurts. I’m embarrassed beyond belief. My eyes fill up with tears, and they stream down my cheeks sideways, into my hair.
“Don’t cry, Jessa,” he says softly as he lifts me again. “Please don’t cry.”
He starts toward the car. My mother and Danny meet us halfway, and after a quick introduction and debriefing from Finn, she helps him settle me in the backseat of the car for the ride to the emergency room.
“Someone drove across the bridge?” my mom asks incredulously. “They’ve had that road closed off for forty years. There are signs all over the place! Who would do that?”
“S-some idiot,” I say, keeping my eyes closed. The motion of the car is making me feel sick again.
“Someone in a blue sedan,” Finn adds.
Danny reaches back from the front seat and pats my head.
“That car shouldn’t have killed you, Jessa,” he says.
18
Loopy
I lie still, trying to wrap my fuzzy mind around where I am.
I’m in a hospital bed, and Finn is sitting next to me. There’s an IV in one arm, and a sling around the other. I think I’ve got a bandage on my forehead, too—I can feel it pull when I frown.
“Hey,” Finn says, reaching out to touch my IV’d arm.
I close my eyes and smack my lips at the sticky feeling in my mouth.
“Why do I feel so weird?” I murmur sleepily.
“They’ve got you pretty drugged up.” He moves his hand up to push my hair off my face, and I roll my cheek toward his hand.
“S’nice,” I say. “Your hand is warm.”
“You want to hear about the damage?”
“Sure. Lay it on me.” I smile, totally loopy.
“Well … you’ve got a dislocated shoulder. That’s why your arm hurts.”
“It’s not broken?”
“No. They reset it while you were under, but it’ll be sore for a while,” he explains. “Along with that, you’ve got assorted bumps, bruises, and scratches, and an IV pumping antibiotics into your arm because you got creek water in your lungs.”
“Awesome,” I say, closing my eyes again. “That’s just awesome. I have to write now.”
I can hear the smile in his voice. “No, Jessa. You have to rest. You can write later.”
“No, I need to write it while it’s fresh in my mind.” I open my eyes and smile at him. “While you’re fresh in my mind.”
“Oh,” he says, and I can tell he’s pleased. “You’re writing about me.”
“I always do,” I confess. “Well, almost always. Even before I knew you were you, I wrote about you.”
I try to get up, but the movement makes the room spin madly and I slump back down.
“Whoa. Spinning.”
“Would you like to sit up a little?” Finn asks. “I can raise the bed.”
“Mmmm,” I reply noncommittally. “Where’s my mom?”
“Danny was hungry, so she took him down to the cafeteria. They’ll be back soon.”
“Oh.” I close my eyes, and I think I may be dozing off again. I feel Finn straighten my covers, and then he kisses my forehead. I break into a loopy grin again.
“What?” he asks.
“You kissed me,” I say, and then I giggle. I never giggle.
“It was just on the forehead,” he protests. “I thought you were asleep again.”
“You kissed me right on the mouth,” I explain. I pull my IV’d arm up and put my fingers on my lips. “Right here.”
“I did?”
“Other you did. And you were a pirate.” I open my eyes, and he slowly comes into view. “You look good in black, you know.”