Smashed by Lisa Luedeke Page B

Have I been stabbed by a piece of broken glass? But there is nothing there; the wound in my chest is inside.
    Then I see him.
    Alec, in the passenger seat next to me.
    His eyes are closed, his jaw slack. Dried blood covers his mouth and chin like cracked paint. For the first time, I realize that he is there, and that he could be dead.
    And if he is, I have killed him.
    I shake Alec’s shoulder hard, but he doesn’t respond. The pain in my chest screams. The sound of my own breath, heavy, labored, fills the car. Even the slightest move I make feels like a knife thrust between my ribs.
    “Alec. Alec, wake up!”
    I put my hand on his head. He is hot. That means he can’t be dead, right? Dead people are cold. Rigor mortis sets in. I pick up his hand and move his fingers. He isn’t stiff. He is alive, I can tell, but his face and head are bleeding.
    I call his name again. I have to do something. Where is his cell phone? Does he have it? I can’t remember. A thick tangle of brush and branches have swallowed his side of the car and poked in his window, but my side looks clear. I push with my left elbow. Miraculously, the door opens.
    “Katieisatyou?” His voice is soft and low and his words tumble together. He sounds younger, like a little kid. Like my brother when he was three years old.
    “Alec?” I whisper. “Are you okay?”
    “I’m okay,” he slurs. “R’you okay?” He turns his head slowly toward me, resting his bloody cheek on the seat back. “Don’ worry ’bout me.”
    “I’m going to find someone.”
    His eyes are shut. “Okay. I’m okay,” he mumbles.
    The ground outside the car is uneven; I stumble, lose my balance, spin toward the earth. The world melts and blurs, the ground rushing to meet me. I lie in the wet leaves. Time slips away.
    Somehow I get up, gripping the wrecked car until the world stands still. Each arm, each leg conspires to pull me back to the ground. My tongue, thick and dry, sticks to the roof of my mouth. A can of beer lies on the floor, driver’s side. I open it and take several long, deep pulls.
    Slowly I begin, counting my steps, watching my feet: one, two, three . . .
    *     *     *
    The empty beer can slips from my hand. My mouth and throat are desert dry, cracked like parched earth. I see visions: fountains; rivers; lakes; glasses of lemonade, pink, with ice.
    Mosquitoes emerge from the thick wet forest and land on my head, legs, arms—any bit of flesh. Tiny black flies swarm around the blood on my shoulder. Little bites of pain, a frantic urge to scratch, but moving—reaching, twisting, slapping—is too hard. The pain is too sharp in my chest. The insects devour me.
    I walk forever.
    *     *     *
    The sun is higher in the sky now, edging above the trees. On a stretch of Route 117, just outside town, the dirt road meets the pavement. I stumble toward an abandoned Sunoco station. An ancient public telephone booth stands near the locked-uprestrooms. The glass is dirty and scratched, the folding door broken. I try to remember Matt’s telephone number, which I’ve known by heart since I was twelve—then everything goes black.
    Ron Bailey finds me on the ground covered with cuts, bug bites, and blood and reeking of beer and vomit.
    *     *     *
    I try hard to drink the Coke Ron has put in my hand and not throw up as we drive fast down the bumpy dirt road toward Alec.
    “Jesus,” Ron says under his breath when he sees the car. “Jesus H. Christ.”
    When we arrive, Alec is conscious. He has slid into the driver’s seat of his wrecked car, toward the door I’d left open—the only door not pinned shut by trees, the only way out.
    “Jesus Christ, boy! What in hell were you thinking?” Ron says. “Can you move?”
    Alec nods and pushes himself out of the car. Ron holds Alec steady and helps him into the truck. “We need to get you to a hospital. Buckle up, boy.”
    Alec is shoulder to shoulder with me in the cab, his head resting