A Shattered Moment (Fractured Lives 1)

Fifteen minutes later I sat on my bed with damp hair balancing a plastic bowl of Easy Mac on my leg while I searched my iPad for something to watch.

There were plenty of places to dine on and off campus, but going to any of them was always out of the question. Mom and Dad would probably freak when they found out I was pretty much living on ramen noodles and macaroni and cheese rather than the meal plan ticket they bought me when I enrolled. The card was still sitting in my wallet brand spanking new. I figured eventually the shit would hit the fan, but I’d already made it two full months without them catching on.

After several minutes of scrolling listlessly through the selection of available shows, I clicked out of the Netflix app and tossed my iPad to the side. I stared pensively at nothing as I finished the last of my dinner. The loneliness I’d been fighting crept in like a stalker. I wanted to talk to someone. I debated calling Mom, but inevitably that conversation wouldn’t go the way I wanted it to.

I picked up my iPad again and glared apprehensively at the e-mail icon, unsure of what I wanted to do as I gnawed at the corner of my thumbnail. Clicking it would most likely lead to disappointment. If I was smart, I would just put it away. As if I ever did anything smart anymore, I proceeded to scroll through a short list of e-mails searching for one particular response that I knew wouldn’t be there. Only two legit e-mails remained after I dumped the spam. The first was from UCF about registration for spring semester, and the second from the lawyer handling the accident case, informing me that a court day had finally been scheduled. I was surprised Mom hadn’t called me on that one, but then I remembered my phone was still on silent from when I was at the library.

Digging through my bag, I pulled out my phone, and sure enough, I had missed three calls from her. At least it was too late to call her back tonight. Nothing like dodging that bullet.

Closing out the message from the lawyer, I looked at my now empty in-box and swallowed the lump of hurt in my throat. You’d think by now I would have gotten used to the fact that my e-mails were being unanswered, but each time it was like a punch in the gut. I clicked my sent folder and opened the last attempt I had sent, as if reading it again would somehow help.

Kat,

I miss you. I need to talk to you. I know you’re hurting, but I am, too. You don’t have to call me, but please send me back an e-mail. I know you’re back home. We need each other. Please, Kat.

Brat Pack Member for Life,

Mac

I’d sent the e-mail more than three months ago after trying continuously to reach Kat for an entire year. She was the only one of us who’d come out of the accident relatively uninjured. Understandably, she took Dan’s death extremely hard. She shut down completely, refusing to come to the hospital to visit me. It wasn’t until I was released from the hospital that my mom told me Kat’s parents had allowed her to spend the year studying overseas. It all happened so quickly I was shocked. Not that I couldn’t relate to her need to get away, but when she came home over the summer, I truly believed she would finally be ready to reach out to me. I needed her, and yet my e-mails continued to go unanswered. When I moved away from home, I was angry to the point that I vowed never to send her another e-mail again, but there was no way I could stand by that. We’d known each other our entire lives. We were more than friends.

• • •

graduation night 2013

An avalanche of sensations with more pain than the mind can process at once flooded my body. My legs, pinned beneath my seat, which now rested on the roof of the vehicle, felt like they were being gnawed by wild animals. Every subtle muscle twitch and movement hurt. I tried lifting my throbbing left arm to get a better look at it, but the resulting ache prevented me from moving it more than a hair. As if excruciating agony wasn’t bad enough, the dashboard made it impossible to turn my head. I was claustrophobic to begin with. Every instinct in me fought to stand up and move. Bile began to rise in my throat, and I felt the stirrings of dizziness tugging me from every direction.

I slammed my eyes closed, hoping to combat the nausea. Our steak dinner from earlier sat in my stomach like a ton of bricks. I swallowed hard, willing it to stay down. I would not vomit. I tried to force myself to concentrate on something else—the ringing in my ears, Zach, anything.

A strange mewling sound broke through my haze of pain. Opening my eyes, I focused my attention to where the noise was coming from. I couldn’t turn my head, but I had a direct view of the back of the vehicle. I could vaguely see Kat in the third row. She wasn’t moving. Neither was Tracey. Her body lay limp with her head resting at an odd angle where Zach’s side of our seat had been. I surveyed the damage to the Suburban that had always felt so large, but now resembled a crushed tin can. The fact that I couldn’t move was a curse. The distorted view of my friends was too painful to watch. Even if I closed my eyes, the images were already burned into my memory. I wanted to be anywhere but here.

The mewling sound grabbed my attention again. It was Kat.

“Kat? Are you okay?” My voice was raspy and dry. She continued her faint crying noise that sounded like a wounded animal. “Kat, are you okay?” I repeated, clearing my throat in an attempt to speak louder. Focusing on her was disorienting since we were both dangling upside down. I repeated my question a third time, trying to break through her stupor. It was difficult to see in the dark, but it looked like her head turned toward me.

“Can you hear me? What about Jessica, can you see her?”

“No-o-o,” she sobbed. Her voice was thick with tears. “He’s dead. They’re all dead. We’re all going to die.” The words rang through the vehicle in a wail that pierced my tender head. I wanted to cover my ears or yell at her to stop, but I couldn’t do either. Fear and grief were living, breathing beasts in an emergency situation, feeding off panic and threatening to consume you.

• • •

Kat may have lost the love of her life that night, but in the end we had all suffered.

seven

Bentley

“Night, Mac,” I repeated to myself. That was my big fucking move. Are you kidding me? I spend half the day in the library and that was the best I could come up with? My plan to play it cool by giving her the brush-off didn’t exactly come together the way I had intended. Giving chicks the silent treatment and letting them come to me had always worked in the past. The way she whipped around with that cane like a samurai ready to take my head off, she must think I’m a total dick bag. I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking sneaking up on her like that. It surprised me that I had scared the shit out of her so much that I froze rather than ask her out for coffee like I had intended. And then for the icing on the cake, I practically run away like someone was stealing my car or some shit.

Her reaction reminded me of when I was a kid and we found a stray cat huddled under Dad’s truck. He was no bigger than my hand, but man, did he puff up and hiss and spit when we reached down to pick him up. It was all for show, and we ended up keeping him and calling him Gizmo. Not that I was comparing Mac to our cat. I’m sure that would go over about as well as things did today. I just meant I needed to figure out how to get her to trust me.

My Tuesday afternoon class had me getting to the library later the following day. Mac was already there when I arrived, which was what I was banking on. She didn’t look up when I sank down in the seat next to her. Not that I expected her to, but I did notice that she stopped typing on her iPad.

“How can you type on that without a keyboard?” I asked, taking my opportunity to break the ice.

She looked at me, confused, almost like she didn’t understand the question.

I pointed to her lap. “Your iPad. Isn’t it hard to type on it without a keyboard?”