“Jenna?” he asked softly. Like he didn’t really trust that I was there.
I pried my eyelids apart, blinking and tearing to wash away the dirty water that still coated and blurred my vision. Robert was there, and his friend Jhett. I wanted to answer him, to tell him I was okay, but a haze suffocated my head. I suddenly became aware of a monstrous throbbing in the back of my head, and the length of my back burned, along with the heels of my palms. My eyelids became heavy and I struggled to blunder two little words before I passed out.
“My. Head.”
I awoke to rhythmic beeping.
Something burned when I twitched my nose and it wasn’t the strong stench of disinfectants that I was breathing in. I slowly reached up to learn what it was but my hand was grasped before it got there.
“Jenna?” Sophie. I could sense relief in her voice and wondered how much time had passed since I hit my head.
My head! It didn’t hurt anymore! And my back and palms weren’t burning, though something was snagging the hairs on the skin of my back. Tape, maybe, if they used it to secure the padding on my back. I could tell my scuffed up palms were wrapped with something too.
My head was still a little groggy though. I opened my eyes and saw her sitting beside me, her face just inches from mine, her breath gently warming my cheek. She crossed the sapphires she had for blue eyes and stuck her tongue out at me. I smiled and tried to push her away with the hand she had a death grip on.
“Don’t.” I said. “Don’t make me laugh. I think it’ll hurt.”
Her eyes uncrossed and her tongue retreated, and I was left with a saddened face that was even worse.
“I’m sorry,” Sophie whispered. “I never should’ve bullied you into doing that.”
“You didn’t push me, Soph. I did the jumping.”
“Yeah,” she murmured, but I knew she didn’t believe it, or forgive herself. I think she just didn’t want me to argue with her about it right now.
After a moment of silence, she added, “Robert’s been here to see you. Hell, he’s practically lived here. Seriously, I had to pull the best friend card to get him out.”
Maybe it was the fog that clouded my brain at the moment, but I just didn’t get it.
“You’re in the ICU. They only allow one of us in here at a time.”
“Oh.” Robert had been to see me? And stayed? It was a little weird. I had liked him for awhile but I honestly wasn’t sure if he felt anything in return. I got the occasional smile and we both caught the other looking every so often. But he’s never even tried to talk to me on my own. There were always other people around in a group setting.
I remembered I was gonna be brave that night. We were gonna go find Robert and Jhett after our dip in the pond. Sophie said the jump would be a good practice run. If I could find the courage to finally jump off the cliff, then finding the courage to talk to Robert would be a breeze. Stupid, I know. But it was allowing me to delay our plan and work up some more courage. We knew they were down by the river, like they were most school nights. And Sophie was gonna lure Jhett away for me.
“I know you’ve got the hots for the guy, but seriously, you went a little overboard trying to get his attention.”
“Ha ha.” I sighed deeply. “Great. I finally get to be alone with the guy and I was unconscious for all of it.”
Sophie pressed her lips into a straight line, like she always did when she knew something I didn’t. Worst poker face ever.
“What?”
“Well,” she answered, hesitating, “Robert was the one that gave you mouth-to-mouth, so technically, you guys had your first kiss and you weren’t even alive for it.”
I chuckled weakly and asked, “Was it at least good?”
“I believe he slipped you the tongue.” Sophie winked her left eye.
“Lovely.” I tried to rub the grogginess from my tired eyes. “So long as my virginity is still intact.”
“Iron-clad. Sauron and his army of Orcs couldn’t break through your defenses.”
I rolled my eyes and allowed my hand to fall, snagging some type of plastic wire that was the cause of my nose burn. I pulled gently on it and tubing unplugged from my nose.
“Aw, man! Robert saw me in this?”
“He saw a lot more than that. You were in your undies when you performed the Jump of Doom. ‘Member?”
A wave of embarrassment rushed through me and I was sure more than just my face flushed. Could this get any worse?
“Is there anything else you haven’t told me yet?”
Sophie’s lips pursed again.
I glared at her. “Soph?”
Her eyes watched the ceiling intently while she confessed. “Well, Robert was the only one that knew the whole CPR thing, so he was the one that…” Sophie placed one hand on top of the other, laced her fingers together and moved her arms in a thrusting motion.
Robert was the one that did the compressions to my chest. Great.
“So, technically…” Sophie continued, “your little jump got your relationship with Robert to go from non-existent to rounding first base in seven seconds flat.”
I couldn’t stop shaking my head. And now both hands were trying desperately to bury my face.
“Good thing you wore the lace, right?”
I groaned, moaned and cried all within five seconds. “I did die. I’ve died and gone to my version of hell. An eternity of sexual humiliation.”
“Oh, come on. It’s not that bad. Jhett and I were there. It’s not like the guy tried to fondle you or anything.” With quizzical eyes, she added, “But he has been rather attentive now that he’s seen the goods up close and personal.”
A nurse came in and saved me from having to continue that humiliating conversation. She was pretty, even with her chestnut colored hair loosely thrown into some updo in the back of her head. The tag pinned to her navy blue scrubs said Michelle.
She smiled as she said, “I see you’re finally awake. How do you feel?”
“A little groggy, but no pain.”
“That’s the morphine. Enjoy it while you can because when you get out of here, those gashes up your back are going to itch and ache for a week or so until they really begin to heal.”
“And my head?” I couldn’t feel anything but I remembered the pain when it slammed against the boulder and again when Robert revived me.
“Mild concussion, but the doctor ran some scans and everything looks okay. Just a nasty bump. And now that you’re awake, you’ll be moved out of ICU. But you’ll still have to spend a few days in the hospital, just to make sure there aren’t any complications.”
“Is that it? Nothing else?”
“Well,” she said, eyeballing me while fidgeting with my saline pouch, “from what I got meeting that Headmistress of yours, she’ll probably give you the longest lecture of your life about teenage stupidity, so you might want to prepare yourself for something in that aspect.”
Another groan escaped my throat. Sophie better be forced to attend that lecture as well.
Sophie stayed with me until they moved me out of ICU, but when I woke up after my nap, it was Robert that was kicked back in the chair, completely zombie-fied as he stared at the television. His dark brown waves were tousled and there were bags under his chocolate eyes, and his hand lay gently on top of mine. He looked like he dragged himself out of bed without bothering to check the mirror on his way here. Made me feel grateful and less self-conscious about my own droopy appearance.
“So I hear I have you to thank for the pain in my chest.”
It took him a second to realize that the comment came from me and not the television. He dropped his legs from my bed railing and twisted the rolling chair towards me, refusing to release my hand in the process.
“Hi,” he said, the ends of his lips slowly curling.
“Hi.”
Finally. A private conversation. And all I had to do was throw myself off a cliff, drown in a pond in my undies, and let him put his hands on my br**sts to bring me back to life.
Yay me…
“So did I really hurt you? Because I’ve never done that to a real person before. I wasn’t sure how much pressure to apply to get your heart going again.”
“It’s okay. I’ll take a sore chest over death any day.”
“Good. Because I would’ve broken every rib in your chest if that’s what it took to bring you back.”
Aww…I didn’t know what to say to that. Did he really like me then?
“Look, we’ve only got a few minutes before Sophie comes back from lunch. When you get back to the dorms and start feeling better, you want to catch a movie with me or something?”
Uh, hell yeah! “Yeah, I suppose.”
A soft smile grew on his face and he tightened his grip on my hand. “So what would you want to see? That new Rachel McAdams movie?”
“She doesn’t want to see that lovey-dovey crap. What she really wants to see is that new zombie movie, though she’ll never admit it.”
Robert and I hadn’t bothered to break our eye contact when Sophie interrupted, but now that she had neared my bed, I could sense something strange about her in the corner of my eye. I shifted my eyes to her and my jaw immediately dropped. Embarrassed, my eyes darted back to Robert. So of course his eyes narrowed and turned to see the source of my panic.
Sophie stood there all perky with her hands on her h*ps in a model-like stance, and a smile that showed way too many pearly whites…and a helium balloon that shouted It’s A Boy!!!
“Nice balloon, Sophie,” he said, slightly amused.
“What?” she asked, all innocently. “They were out of Get Well.”
The hell they were. This little stunt was so Sophie. I knew exactly what that balloon meant – that I came into this hospital alone but I was gonna leave it with a boy wrapped in my arms. Sophie probably thinks he’s ready to suckle my br**sts too.
Luckily, Robert had no clue to the workings of our inner monologues. I threw her a contemptuous glare before his head returned my way, but he caught part of it anyway. He quickly returned to Sophie and caught her sticking her tongue out at me.
“Yeah, I’m going to go now.” He squeezed my hand tightly and stood up. “Let me know when you’re feeling better and ready for company, okay?”
“You don’t have to go.” God that sounded kind of pathetic, and a little whiney.
“It’s alright. I’ve got a swim practice to make up, and Sophie,” he glanced her way – she stood all innocent-like, “can clearly keep you entertained. I’ll see you later.”
“Thanks for coming.”
He lifted his hand in a ‘good-bye’ motion before he walked out the door. Once gone, I threw Sophie another disapproving glare. “I hate zombie movies. They creep me out.”
“Which means you’ll spend the entire movie burying your head into his neck and his arm wrapped around you. Win-win.”
4
Two weeks later I was feeling pretty good. The numbing meds had run out but the throbbing in my head and down my back seemed pretty much gone. Sophie drove us into Rutland so we could spend the afternoon soaking up rays in the city park. Being Vermont, we didn’t have long before the cool weather began to push out what little warmth we had.
The nice thing about being seniors now was that we weren’t restricted to the academy grounds. Only seniors could leave the property on week days. All other class levels had to wait for the weekends. So there we were on a Thursday afternoon, laying out on the grass watching a group of guys play Ultimate Frisbee in the park by the large pond.
“So have you made a date with Robert yet?”
“No. I’ve been waiting for the humiliation to fade. I’ll probably go find him sometime this weekend though.”
That and the meds had made me really groggy, and I seemed to have slept away most of my time outside of class. Hopefully he won’t think I blew him off.
“You could always take him down to the pond and have him strip down to his Speedo. Tit for tat, you know? Speaking of Speedos, we really need to go to a few swim meets this year.”
“Eh. With my luck he’ll be wearing boxers, so what’s the point?” I joked.
Sophie lowered her sunglasses and flashed me those gorgeous blue eyes. Some of her dark brown waves fell over her cheeks, and the red in her hair shimmered in the sun. “You’re assuming he’s not going commando under those jeans. Just think about it. You take him to the pond and get him all hot and ready to go. You think he’s gonna actually say no if you suggest skinny dipping at that point?”
“Heads up!” a male voice shouted.
I saw Sophie’s eyes stretch and her mouth fall open, but it didn’t matter. Something smashed into the side of my head before I had the chance to react. A moment of pure pain was immediately followed by nausea. I groaned as I bent over, reaching out to assess my head as shots of pain radiated outward from the point of impact.
Sophie gasped and ripped my hand away to cradle and inspect my head herself. “Oh-my-God-are-you-ok-aaaaayyyyyy?!”
The inside of my head was absolutely throbbing. Moaning, I grumbled, “It’s like a jackhammer in here.”
A pair of running feet suddenly slid to a halt on the ground I was staring at. Clearly male feet by the black and white sneakers and dust-filled socks.
“I am so sorry!” the guy said. At least he sounded cute. “That wasn’t supposed to hit you!”
Sophie snorted. “What exactly was it supposed to do?”
I had inhaled three deep breaths to calm the nausea and throbbing and the guy still hadn’t answered. I looked up just as Sophie got to her feet.