After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away by Joyce Carol Oates Page B

will be my punishment for Mom.
    I am going to walk, not run, across the bridge. It is an old shaky bridge from a long-ago time. The walkway is raw planks! Between the planks you can see the water rushing below. The water is frothy and dark. It is like a river here, not a creek. There has been rain, now the water level is high. Broken tree limbs, leaves, and debris in strange shapes like small drowned creatures rushing below. Suddenly I feel dizzy. It’s terrifying to me. There is only one railing on the outside of the walkway, and this railing comes to about my waist. This is a railing you could fall over. This is a railing coated with rust. There is a strong smell of iron rust. The railroad tracks, the railroad ties, look rusted, too.
    The guy named Rust. That is his name. Handing me two sheets of crumpled paper.
    Crow says you left this in the parking lot.

    He was laughing at me. In the parking lot they were laughing at me. They weren’t laughing at me if Crow was my friend. But maybe Crow wasn’t my friend. Maybe Crow was pretending. Maybe Crow felt sorry for me. It’s like the wreck. Just before the wreck. I try to know what happened, but I can’t know. My head hurts when I try to think. My eyes turn watery, I can’t see. I saw it—I think! In our lane of traffic on the Tappan Zee Bridge. Just ahead of Mom’s car. It was a living creature. I saw! Through the windshield I saw as I punched “CD.” I began to scream, Mom, watch out! My left hand leaped to the steering wheel. I think my hand did this. I think that Mom tried to push my hand away. I think that I screamed. I heard a scream. I heard two screams.
    Sirens! I heard sirens.
    “I can’t. Can’t do this….”
    Panic is coming so strong, in waves up through the loose-fitting planks of the walkway. A panic I can taste like brackish water. A panic that makes my heart pound in my chest like something with a broken wing. I have to turn back. I haven’t gone more than a few yards across the walkway. Not a third of the way across. I have to turn back, clutching at the railing to stay on my feet.
    See, you walk like me, like walking on thin ice. After a bad crash scared of falling through the ice, scared of feeling…
     
    “Jenna!”

    An hour later I’m limping along a narrow blacktop road just outside the park. It’s begun to snow, light, feathery flurries that melt when they touch my face. Not running now and very tired. Even my panic has faded. I glance up, squinting through the snow flurries, seeing a car’s headlights, a car approaching and braking to a stop beside me. Uncle Dwight lowers the window. “Jenna! Thank God! Get in.”
    It’s four thirty, nearing dusk. My uncle and my aunt Caroline have driven out to look for me. They’ve been driving on Post Road, on Lakeview Road, on Rockhill Road, Ferry Road. They’ve been driving into the deserted state park. Aunt Caroline climbs out of the car to hug me. I feel her love for me in her trembling arms. “Oh, Jenna. You’ve been gone for hours, we were so afraid.” Still and stiff in my aunt’s arms, my teeth chattering with cold, I don’t ask, Afraid of what?

19
    “See, people come into your life for a reason. They might not know it themselves, why. You might not know it. But there’s a reason. There has to be.”
     
    How Trina Holland comes into my life. And almost wrecks my life.

    It happens by such chance. I mean, it feels like chance. A few days after the railroad trestle bridge. When I’m still feeling shaky. Worse than ever I hate the buzzer bells at school. (Teachers hate them too. I’ve seen them in the hall, wincing and rolling their eyes when the damned buzzers go off.) This time the bell is ringing for sixth-period classes. My legs feel like lead on the stairs. Used to be I liked classes: now, never. Guys jostle me, maybe on purpose. Nobody teases, Babe, you bald? any longer or grabs at my cap like (maybe) they feel sorry for me. Or (maybe) they’re afraid of me like you’d