SARAH

 

When they first brought me into hospital from the crash, I was diving in and out of consciousness, feeling the terrible pain in my damaged legs and having a vague idea of what was happening. After that, they must have given me something, because I was unconscious until the next day. During this seemingly endless period of insentience, I plunged into a strange dreamworld. I dreamt of the blue-eyed boy, imagining him in such terrible pain. I was tormented by his bleeding heart and strongly desired to mend it. In my fantasies, I’d come across him in the oddest places, like an orchard I’d visited with my mother as a child. There I found him hiding behind a tree, crying his eyes out. Another time he was in my home, crying in the lounge. Then he was at the offices, then the alleyway that Roxy was assaulted in. The only thing that was constant was his dejected figure.

Whenever I’d approach him, however, it appeared that he could neither see nor hear me, and merely continued to cry jet black tears that ran down his face like black rats leaving a sinking ship. The inky tears filled his eyes so that they too were black as marble, and I spent all night in this odd realm gazing into those terrible eyes, trying to comfort him, screaming at him, shaking him. But nothing would rouse him as he continued to cry.

It was as I stood with him in some dream that I steadily began to awaken to the smiling faces of my father, sisters and little Troy, the black-ink eyes dissolving as my own opened. Once I was fully awake, they each took it in turns to hug and kiss me, my sisters crying as they did. As for my legs, they were up in stirrups, both of them bound in plaster, metal framework sticking out of it all, the sight of it unnerving me.

“How are Holly and the boys?” I asked in a drowsy tone.

“They’re fine,” my father replied. “The boys had bruising from the seatbelts and whiplash. They’d lost consciousness because of shock. Their mom had a minor head injury and concussion. She was released this morning.”

“Thank God,” I let out, crossing myself. “What day is it?”

“It’s only Sunday. You’ve been out since yesterday afternoon when they brought you in, sweetie. They’ve kept you under sedation all night. It’s now twelve, midday.”

“What about my legs?”

“The first, and most important thing, to say,” my father replied, his voice solemn, “is that you’re predicted a complete recovery. They say that you’ll have several scars on your legs, but that they’ll fade with time.”

I felt my vanity peck my heart with its sharp beak at the mention of the scars, but held it off, preferring to concentrate on the part about a complete recovery.

“You were in surgery most of last night,” my father continued, “and they say that it will probably be a month before they’ll be able to remove the pins, and then another month before you're ready for physical therapy.”

“God willing,” was my reply to this.

After that, dad fetched the doctor and she came into the room to check me. Having ascertained that I was okay, she then went through pretty much everything that my father had already mentioned, before leaving. Once she was gone, I decided to ask the single question I had been dying to ask ever since I opened my eyes:

“Do you know what happened to the guy that rescued me?”

“Oh! You mean Josh Kelly,” my sister Lucy announced. “He’s a hero.”

The name vaguely meant something to me and I wasn’t sure whether I’d heard it before, especially his surname: Kelly. I began to get a creeping feeling that I was supposed to know it, a memory from the past whispering to me from the darkness.

“Do you know he was the same guy in the street?” Kay put in, snapping me out of my reverie. “The one you hit.”

“Yes, I did,” I answered. “But I feel I know his name from somewhere, not just his face.”

At that moment I observed that my father’s face had lost some color and I found this a little odd.

“Is he okay?” was my next question, ignoring my father’s pallid complexion for the minute.

“Yes,” Kay answered. “He apparently passed out after he’d saved some more people and was taken away by some men working for his father.”

“And do you know who that father is?” Lucy interjected.

I shook my head.

“None other than Andrew Kelly the billionaire.”

It was then that it hit me. I immediately looked at my father and asked, “Didn’t you know Andrew Kelly, Daddy, from before?”

My father’s face took on a look of discomfort.

“Only briefly,” he said brusquely, before returning into silence.

I decided to leave it there. I knew for sure that my father had known the Kellys more than just briefly. I had a good memory and I distinctly remembered having met Josh once when we were both children. I also recalled his father, Andrew, being a regular among the wealthy litter that decked the floors of my parents’ opulent parties.

Leaving off from Dad for the moment, I turned back to my sisters and asked if Josh was alright after fainting.

“Yeah, he’s okay,” Kay answered. “He was exhausted or something. He was taken away to some clinic.”

“A clinic?”

“Yeah, some kind of rehab place. He’s a bit of a playboy apparently.”

“But now he’s a hero,” Lucy added. “Do you know that after he saved you, he went back into the fire and pulled out another four people?”

“No way,” I uttered in reply.

“Yes way!” Kay burst out, a fidgety excitement running through her body as she sat on the edge of her seat. “Josh Kelly saved the lives of eight people yesterday, including yours. He’s all over the news. Someone recorded him on their phone pulling Holly’s sons out.”

“What caused the crash?” I wanted to know next.

“A tanker flipped over.”

“Yes,” I muttered, placing my finger upon my lips. “I remember it coming past me like a bat out of Hell.”

“The driver lost control and collided with another truck in heavy traffic. The whole thing caused a thirty-vehicle pile up. It’s all over the news—with Josh Kelly the hero.”

“He’s so cute,” Kay suddenly remarked, making me blush.

“Yes, quite the dashing hero,” Lucy added, making my face even redder.

“Sarah,” Kay burst out, observing my colored cheeks, “I do believe you’re blushing.” She turned to Lucy beside her and added, “She is, isn’t she?”

“She is!”

“I am not. It’s just hot in here is all,” I retorted.

But my sisters simply burst into laughter.

While they giggled away like hens, I turned my attention back to my father and noted his look. It was both grave and full of thought, as though he were only physically in the room, his mind away somewhere else, possessed by some serious idea. I realized without a doubt that he had purposefully played down his former association with the Kellys. Ignoring my sisters’ playful mirth, I turned to him and asked if he was okay.

“Yes, of course,” he said, breaking out of his pensive preoccupation. “It’s just everything that’s happened is all.”

But even as he gazed into my eyes and said this, I could tell that my father was still off in that other place. The name Kelly had had a distinct effect on him and I found this curious.

“Well,” Kay abruptly said, standing up as she did and taking my thoughts away from my father, “I have to go back to Roxy.”

“Oh! That’s right,” I exclaimed. “How is she?”

Kay’s mouth twisted into a sad smile and she tipped her head to the side, which is usually a sign that all isn’t well.

“She’s okay in some respects,” she finally answered. “Her stitches are healing and yesterday when I left her to come see you, she didn’t run away from the hospital while I was gone. I half expected not to find her there when I got back in the evening. But lo and behold, she was still there, gazing out of the window.”

“So she’s not trying to leave then?”

“Not at all. She isn’t even talking about leaving. In truth she isn’t even talking. She just lies there staring either up at the ceiling or out the window. I think she realizes that she’s safe at the hospital. Plus they’re keeping her narcotic withdrawal under control with meds, so I guess that’s another reason to stay.”

Having been silent for a while, my father remarked, “It’s probably a little peace and quiet for her. Away from the chaos of the streets.”

“Yeah,” Kay let out. “Anyway, I gotta get back.”

Having said this, she hugged me and said goodbye to the others.

Lucy, Troy and my father remained another twenty minutes after that, but had to leave in order to take the boy to see his family. Embracing them all warmly before they departed, I was soon left on my own to ponder the raging tempest of thoughts swirling in my head. The first thing that ran through it like a runaway train was why my father had purposely misled us on how well he knew Andrew Kelly. As I said, I remembered the man from my childhood, always standing among the rich and powerful that cluttered the extravagant balls and soirees that we attended as a family. In fact, I also remembered Josh Kelly as a boy.

You see, when I’d gazed into his eyes the other night in the street, I had felt as though I’d seen their crystal blue somewhere before. And I was right. It was one summer and we both must’ve been about seven at the time. My family was visiting one of Andrew Kelly’s famous golf resorts in Florida. I think it was early evening because I recall the way the low sun glittered upon the shimmering surface of the lake, the sky a crimson veil. I was playing hide and seek with Lucy and some friends of ours and had gone off to hide in a patch of trees at the lake’s edge.

It was there that I bumped into Josh Kelly as he sat all on his own.