She Has A Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be - J.D. Barker Page 0,36

move until we get someone out here,” Willy said. “I’ll ride back out to Brownsville and find help.”

“Where are they?” I said softly.

“Gone. They ran you off the road and didn’t even slow down. I lost track of them after they turned the corner up there.”

“Where’s my shoe?”

“Oh shit, look at his leg. The way it’s bent,” Willy said.

Dunk turned to him. “If you’re gonna go and get help, then go and get help! Otherwise, shut the fuck up!”

“What’s wrong with my leg?”

Willy backed up, the rain running down his soaked head and clothes and puddling at his feet. He got on his bike and pedaled off.

“He’s right, you shouldn’t move.”

I sat up anyway.

Dunk put a hand on my chest. “I think your leg is broken bad. You probably don’t want to see it.”

I did want to see it, so I leaned forward. The world went white for a second as the blood rushed from my head, and then my vision cleared. My right leg was twisted at the strangest angle, an angle it most definitely should not. I was sitting on my foot. I studied my twisted body as if watching a program on television, distant, removed. “Weird. It doesn’t hurt at all.”

“Maybe you’re in shock?”

“I don’t think I’m…”

“No, don’t!”

With my arms at my side and using my left leg for leverage, I pushed myself to a stand. Dunk tried to stop me, but I think he was surprised I was able to move at all. When my twisted right leg unfolded and dropped into its usual support position, he nearly fell over.

“I need my shoe.”

Dunk broke his stare, then peered to the rain. “It’s over there, hold on—”

I watched him run about a hundred feet down the side of the road. He pulled my tennis shoe from the drainage ditch, shook the water out, and brought it back.

“Here.”

The sole of my Nike was torn loose, flapping. I held onto Dunk’s shoulder, carefully raised my right foot, and put it on, then lowered my leg again, testing with a little pressure. “I don’t think it’s broken,” I said. I put a little weight on it, then some more. “It feels okay.” Slowly, I lifted my right leg off the ground, standing only on my left, and extended the right out in front of me, then bent it at the knee, then back again, slow at first, then again, faster. “It feels fine.”

I took a few steps, then a couple more. I walked about ten feet down the road, splashing in the puddled water around me, turned, then walked back to where Dunk stood. His mouth hung open. “I saw them hit you. I thought they killed you. You flew like a thousand feet.”

The entire right side of my body was slick with mud, my jeans had a six-inch tear in them, but when I pulled the material open, I couldn’t find any damage to my skin. My jacket was a mess, too. I took it off, and Dunk examined my arm and back, then the right side of my head. “You’re one dirty son-of-a-bitch, but I don’t see a single scrape. You’re probably bruised, but that kind of thing might not show up for a few hours.”

I heard about half of what he said.

My eyes had found what was left of my bike. The frame was twisted into an unrecognizable shape, the rear wheel somehow mashed into the front. Neither the handlebars or seat were remotely close to the factory-recommended position. The chain was missing. I wascertain this bike would not ride again. “Holy shit.”

“Yeah,” Dunk said. “Holy shit.”

We didn’t wait for Willy to come back with help. Although shaken, there was nothing physically wrong with me. If Willy appeared with an ambulance or worse, the police, we’d need to explain what happened. That would lead into what we were doing, why we were out there in the first place, and neither of us were prepared to talk about that.

We dragged the remains of my bike into the woods between Nobles Lane and the cemetery, then climbed on Dunk’s bike (me on the handlebars). Dunk pedaled on pure adrenaline, and we got back to our apartment building in less than ten minutes. We went to Dunk’s. I knew Auntie Jo would probably be at the diner, but on the off chance she wasn’t, I didn’t want to risk her seeing me in my current state.

Dunk called out when we entered, but nobody was home there, either. He had no