forbidden memory detonating within me like I stepped on a land mine.
The gray truck is coming at us, at the passenger door, can’t stop in time, trapped in Mom’s Toyota with its growling muffler and Rosie inside, thin door of metal and glass not enough to protect her. My world collapses on impact, my forehead smashes into the windshield, breaking glass. Rosie is screaming. Save her. Little blond ballerina in pink is broken. Legs twisted under the crushed front of the car. Bone and torn flesh, one leg is cut and bleeding. The other, somehow, is not there. Broken ballerina, crooked one-legged ballerina in a jewelry box, music tinny and distorted before it grinds to a terrible, silent halt.
“Hey, buddy, can you open your eyes for me?” A stranger’s voice. “It’s going to be okay. We’re taking you and your friend to the hospital.”
My eyes fly open to stare at the silhouette of a man in shadows leaning over me, blue and red lights swirling behind him.
“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth which is the true wealth.”
Strange. Someone is quoting Thoreau. “What did he say?”
“I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.”
Then I realize I’m the one quoting Henry, to calm myself, to make space from the memory of the accident, the ballerina, alive but broken.
“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”
“What is this kid talking about?”
From somewhere near his left shoulder, I hear Cameron telling another officer. “His name’s Hank. I don’t know his last name.”
“Hank,” says a police officer, “Did you take anything tonight that might have made you sick? Have you been drinking?”
Henry’s words are beads in a rosary, my desperate prayers. “The universe is wider than our views of it.”
“He might have just passed out when he saw what bad shape his friend is in,” says an EMT. “He doesn’t exhibit signs of drug or alcohol abuse. I think the kid is just in shock.”
“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation,” I whisper, shutting my eyes tight. So sorry, Rosie. Mom. Dad. So sorry. I failed you all. And I will myself to just slip away, just die, in that moment on the ground outside Henry David Thoreau Regional High School. Let me die.
“Not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves.”
Someone wheels a gurney over to where I’m lying on the ground, and the EMTs reach burly arms down, ready to lift me onto it and shoot me off to Emerson Hospital.
But no, I can’t give in. Waving away their arms, I scramble to my feet. Can’t let them take me. It’s not time yet. There’s that thing I still have to do. What was that again? Hailey. I promised Hailey. Something.
“I’m okay,” I say quickly and make my rubber legs hold me up to prove it. “Really, I’m fine.”
The cop and the EMTs look at each another. “You need to get checked out at the hospital,” the cop says gently.
I shake my head adamantly. I clear my throat and gather my wits. “Is Jack all right?” I finally say.
“He probably will be,” the EMT says. “His vital signs are stable now, thanks to you. Do you happen to know what he took?” I tell them everything I know, which isn’t a whole lot, about the pills from Magpie and about the prescription drugs he stole from Thomas’s medicine cabinet.
“We’re going to need to take a statement, so even if you refuse medical care, we need to take you to the station,” the cop tells me, then turns to say something into the radio on his shoulder.
“But I have to perform. I need to get inside.” I jut a thumb toward the school, indicating the muffled pounding of bass and guitar, the wail of a singer’s voice. “I’m probably up next. Can’t let my friends down.” My voice lacks emotion, a stiff robot version of myself.
The cop pulls off his cap, wipes sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his jacket, and looks at me doubtfully. “You sure you’re up to this? You look like you could collapse any second.”
“No, it’s cool. I’m fine.” But my hands are shaking, and in truth, I wonder how I’ll manage to play guitar now. Still, I need to get away from these cops and avoid talking about Jack, which is just