I briefed Grace on my interview immediately after and she was already writing down the ideas she had for public-records requests. There had to be one student who had been part of the club who would be willing to speak up. We were going to start with all the students who ended up going to Indiana Tech—sending them an e-mail that there was an “urgent matter concerning Coach Bill Triad”—and see if anyone took the bait. It was risky, and most of them would be smarter than to reply back, but it was worth a shot.
The anticipation of the possibility of seeing George in the hallway today was eating me up inside. I was equal parts dying to see him and not wanting to ruin our perfect night.
Grace couldn’t contain her flurry of “I told you so’s” when I told her every adorable detail, and for once, I was so happy to hear that phrase. George was actually interested in me as more than a friend, and I had never been more shocked or delighted.
Suddenly the prospect of homecoming in three weeks sounded less daunting with the possibility of having the best date ever. The posters that hung around the school no longer felt like they were mocking me or rubbing it in my face that I would be going alone for another year, but rather felt like a nice reminder that this year would be different. I could dress up in the all-too-frilly dress and get that pesky boutonniere that no one really knew how to put on their dates, and I could have a normal high school experience to tell embarrassing stories about when I was older.
Once the bell rang to let us out of calc, my stomach was a mess of flutters. I knew this was the time when I’d normally see George in between classes, and I could hardly wait to see his face again. The anticipation rolled over me the entire time I took my quiz, and I could not remember any of the problems that I’d just solved two minutes ago.
Grace and I made our way to the hallway, and I immediately spotted him (hair first, of course). He’d made more of an effort to comb out his hair this morning, and he wore one of his nicer Marvel superhero shirts, the one that wasn’t faded and frayed from being worn so many times.
“Hey,” he said as I walked up to him.
“Hey,” I said back. I felt my body involuntarily leaning toward him again, almost like being within a foot of his presence meant “Welp, I guess I’ve gotta kiss you now.” We were inches apart before he broke the tension and turned down the hallway.
“Want me to walk you to gym?” he asked, his voice suddenly tight.
So PDA was not his thing. Noted. “I want you to create a diversion so I can get out of going to gym for the day.”
“What do you have in mind?” he asked.
“Wait, are you serious? Do you want to ditch?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Or we could at least go hang out in the band hall. No one ever checks in there to make sure kids are in class. We all just kind of congregate there when we don’t want to go to class.”
“Okay.” I smiled. “What kind of tutor am I, encouraging you to skip class?”
“An extremely cool one,” he said.
As we walked to the band hall I was very aware of the distance in between us. As he walked closer to me it took everything inside me to keep my hand from grasping his. I’d never wanted to read someone else’s mind more in my life. Did he feel that electricity between us? Were his hands trying to launch themselves from his body and grab on to mine? I needed something, anything to confirm that this wasn’t one-sided.
We walked inside the hall, and we were welcomed by an off-key symphony of students practicing in the little practice rooms dotting the hallway. There was an extremely tiny girl practicing her tuba in one room, a woodwind quartet practicing in another, and a guy playing the Star Wars theme on the piano just for fun in another. We went through a door at the end of the practice room hallway that led to what had to be considered their lounge. There were groups of kids sitting on a couple of old couches in one corner, but most were sprawled out on the floor working on homework. George explained that everyone gathered here for all school-sanctioned off-periods (or made-up off-periods, like us little rebels today). How did I not realize this place existed? Maybe I would have picked up the flute in elementary school if I knew that this would be waiting for me in high school.
“Welcome to the band hall, the band nerds’ best-kept secret,” he said.
“This is amazing,” I said. “No wonder you never want to eat lunch in the cafeteria. I would totally bring mine here, too.”
“It’s not the prettiest space, but it’s ours,” he said. He led me to a spot that was open on the floor, and he pulled out a notebook. He drew a map of the music hall on his sheet of paper and showed me where each of the band cliques hung out. He reiterated that even though he was new, he fit right in with the other saxophones and stayed pretty exclusively allied with them, sometimes branching out to talk to other woodwinds. The cross woodwind and brass friendships were a little bit more strained, as they were considered the natural enemy in this setting. I loved watching the sparkle in his eye as he talked about it all, and I realized how much our time together was spent talking about me and my problems. I wanted to know so much more about him, and it excited me that this was just the beginning of that journey.
“So, this might explain some of the strange looks you’re getting. It’s generally frowned upon to bring outsiders into the music hall,” he said.
“You’re breaking some unspoken code? For little old me?” I asked.
“There are exceptions to every good rule.” He smiled. Cue the melting heart. When he caught me smiling back at him, his drooped for just a second. Just enough of a falter that the same feeling I got when I thought he’d been interested in Elaine Lawson suddenly came creeping back again. Had I completely dreamed last night at Sandcastle Park? Had he changed his mind about me in the meantime?
“So how’s precalc going? Need any new tutor sessions?” I asked.
“Actually I’ve been doing pretty well,” he said, shrugging. “I think I’m finally starting to get the hang of things.”
“Well, I’m happy to help, you know, considering you took the time to learn the words to a very intricate Eminem song in my honor,” I said.
He barely laughed, not even coming back with a typical retort or challenging me on suggesting that he would have just learned the words for me. I tried to search his eyes, but he was preoccupied with looking down at some random sheet music that he found on the ground. Great. Anything to avoid looking directly at me.
“You can happily report back to Hannah that I’ve been trying to use the Instagram theme that she suggested,” I said. “Though, I’m not sure how Fiyero feels about being in a constant bluish state. He looks like a little Smurf poodle in every shot.”
“I’ll tell her,” he said. He couldn’t even riff off of Smurf poodle? That was some of my best work that he would normally be so down for.
Because I must have been a glutton for punishment, I let the question that had been bouncing around in my head all morning spill out.
“Are you thinking about going to homecoming at all?” I asked.
“I wasn’t,” he said. He wouldn’t look up at me, and I felt like we were in the office again during the impromptu clarinet lesson, when he wanted nothing to do with me. How could it flip so suddenly?
“I mean it could be kind of fun. We’d get dressed up in ridiculous outfits and dance to terrible music, but we’d be able to make whatever we wanted out of it,” I said.
He paused his doodling in the notebook, looking up at me with squinted eyes for a few seconds. I swear my heart stopped beating as I waited for his reply.
“I’m not really a dance guy,” he said.
I deflated. “You’re not really a dance guy, or you’re not really a ‘go to the dance with Savannah’ guy?”
His pause was deafening. I wanted to curl in on myself. For once in my life I’d put myself out there completely with someone who I thought would reciprocate. How had I been so wrong about how we were feeling?
I stood up, leaving the lounge and all the band kids who made me feel unwelcome. Why did I let myself go down this road again? Last night was a pity kiss—a kiss to make his guilty conscious feel better about how upset I was.
“Savannah!” he called after me down the hallway.
I kept my stride, wanting to get as far away from him as possible. He caught up to me, but I pretended like I couldn’t tell that he was walking in my periphery.
“Let me explain, please,” he said.
“I think you’ve already said enough,” I said.
“Savannah—”
“Please leave me alone,” I said.
“Savvy,” he begged.
A teacher poked his head out of the door and took us both in, eyeing me.
“Is everything all right out here?” he asked.
“Everything’s fine,” I said. “George was just leaving.”
“Sav,” he said.
“Just leaving,” I repeated.
He shifted from one foot to the other for a few seconds before turning back down the hallway in the opposite direction. There was silence for a few beats before I heard the sound of George’s sneakers heading off. The squeaking of his sneakers is one of those sounds that will be forever etched into my memory. The pain that I felt as I listened to his sneakers walk away was almost unbearable, and I could feel the tears that I had been holding in fall silently down my face.
I went into the bathroom and washed my face, but no matter how much cold water I splashed on it, I couldn’t hide the red puffiness that came with crying. There was no way I could go back to class looking like this, and my brain was 1,000 percent not ready to focus or learn. Damn it, George, you took away this one perfect day of school for me.
I took out a piece of paper from my backpack and forged a note from my mom that I’d be out for the rest of the day for various doctors’ appointments. The lady at the front desk didn’t bat an eye at my obviously fake note and let me walk out the front of the school, no questions asked.
Norma was still waiting in her beautiful parking space so close to school. I hoped whatever latecomer for the day appreciated the perfect spot that I had cleared for them. On my way home I decided that I would shed no more tears for George. If he was going to be an insensitive ass about my feelings, then I was going to be just as callous back. I would block all communication from him. He should be happy about that—at least then he wouldn’t have to pretend that he was interested in me.
When I pulled into the driveway, I cocked my head. Mom’s car was still there. She should have been at work for hours by now. Maybe she called in sick? I parked on the street, just in case she’d stopped home for a second and needed to head back out.
I unlocked the front door and was not greeted by a bounding Fiyero, but I could hear him whining from somewhere inside the house.
“Mom?” I yelled as I walked in.
No response. A chill moved through my entire body. I rounded the corner into the kitchen to find Mom passed out on the floor, Fiyero resting his head next to her.
“Mom!” I yelled.
My mind seemed to work in slow motion, crouching down next to her and listening for her heartbeat. It was still beating, and I could feel her breath on my cheek.
“Come on, wake up, you’re okay, wake up,” I kept repeating over and over again.
I tried shaking her, hitting her cheeks, lying her on her side, but she wouldn’t wake up. Somehow in the middle of this I managed to get my cell phone out and call 911. I don’t remember what I said on the phone, but someone on the other end of the line assured me that they were coming.
It felt like it took the ambulance ten years to make it to our house. I sat on the kitchen floor trying everything to get her to wake back up. I even got a wet washcloth to pat along her face, but nothing was working. I begged and pleaded for her to wake up, but no matter what I said or who I prayed to, nothing about her situation changed.
I opened the door for the medics in a daze, and one of them kept asking me questions. “How long has she been out for?” I don’t know; I just got home. “Did she come to since you’ve been here?” No. “Do you need to call your dad?” He doesn’t live with us. The questions kept bouncing back and forth between us, but all I could pay attention to were the EMTs crowded around Mom’s body. It was a flurry of activity around her until one them finally said the magic words I’d been waiting for.
“She’s awake!”
I peeked over their shoulders and realized that they’d fastened a neck brace on her and put her onto one of those yellow stretchers like they had in hospital dramas. Her eyes fluttered open for the briefest moment, and it made my heart pound wildly in my chest. She was still in there.
“Mom, it’s okay, I’m right here,” I said.
“We’re going to take her to the emergency room,” one of the EMTs said. “You’re welcome to ride in the ambulance with us, or you can follow along in your own car.”
“I’ll come with you,” I said immediately. The thought of having to control a car right now was unimaginable.
I held her hand for the entire ride, never letting go. The EMTs tried to ask me other questions to distract from the fact that my mom was being taken to the emergency room, but I couldn’t focus on their words. Everything was hazy and blurry around me, and the only thing that I could see clearly were our hands intertwined.
When we made it there, the EMTs helped me get out of the ambulance, and one of them told me what the next steps would be. Mom would go back to see the doctor, and they would help me find the waiting room. A doctor would come out and give me an update about her condition as soon as possible, and I could call whomever I needed to join me while I waited.
The medical team took off with her around the corner, and one of the EMTs stayed to help me find the waiting room, leading me in the opposite direction. He sat me down on the purple plastic chairs, and I became very aware of the people around me. Some of them were sleeping, some on the phone, others crying. I could not stay here alone and be okay.
I got out my phone and dialed the only person I could think of to come and meet me here.
“Dad? It’s Mom. She’s in the hospital. I need help.”