18. Fourteen Years Ago
PENNY
The auditorium was full, our music was playing, and Joey was dancing well. But inside, I was a wreck. I had to get my mind off of Gavin. On the first Cheshire Cat lift, Joey dug his nails into my thigh, making my leg tremble as he held me. “Get it together,” I seethed behind my big, bright smile. He maintained his own smiling mask as he held me up.
At one point, as I was facing the audience, I caught a glimpse of my father and Kiki smiling widely, their faces full of pride. It gave me a surge of confidence to know that my family was rooting for me, even if Gavin wasn’t there.
A moment later, I was about to perform the grand jeté. I distinctly remember being in the air and feeling my back leg touch my head. I was in slow motion. I’d never gotten that kind of extension. I remember smiling, knowing that I was executing the move flawlessly. I was in the air with my arms outstretched and my head back when I felt Joey grab my front ankle. Then everything went black.
A few seconds later, I could feel myself on the ground writhing in pain. It felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to both my knee and my head. I didn’t know exactly what had happened—all I could see was Joey standing over me, looking penitent. The music was still playing but I could hear the audience murmuring and stirring.
“Cut the music!” I heard Doug yell.
The music went out. A moment later, my father was at my side, on his knees, my mother hovering over him in shock. Doug came to my other side. “Don’t move,” he said.
“What happened?” I said in a weak voice.
Doug pointed at Joey and yelled, “Get the hell out of here!”
I looked up and saw Lance, Ling, and Kiki standing quietly behind my mother. Their eyes were wide, their expressions pained. “Where’s Gavin?” I asked.
“You hit your head, Sweet Pea,” my father told me.
“Where’s Gavin?” I repeated.
“He’s not here,” Ling choked out. I didn’t understand.
“What happened, Doug?” I asked.
“You’ve been hurt, Penny. An ambulance is coming. Don’t move.” He stared into my eyes, looking sorry and sad.
“How?” was all I could say. I was moving in and out of consciousness. My knee was throbbing.
“Please just stay still,” Doug said.
I looked at my dad. “My knee. It’s bad.”
“We don’t know that yet,” he said.
But I knew.
My dad rode in the ambulance with me. Once we arrived at the hospital, they couldn’t give me pain medication until they were able to do a CAT scan to make sure my head was okay. Once that was out of the way, they gave me morphine and did an MRI on my knee. Lance stayed at the hospital with my dad all night. My mom took Kiki home and Ling left for an early-morning flight to her parents’ house in California. She had finished finals early as well and wanted to take advantage of the downtime before graduation. She asked me if I wanted her to cancel, but I just shook my head. What could anyone really do?
I tried to call Gavin, but his phone went straight to voicemail. Throughout the night, I went in and out of sleep. Lance stayed, refilled my water cup every hour, and tried to comfort me as my dad slept in the waiting room.
“You don’t have to stay,” I told him.
“I want to,” he said.
IN THE MORNING, the orthopedic surgeon came in. He was thin and absurdly tall, at least six foot six, but his face was kind as he hovered over my hospital bed. Lance was slouching in a chair across from me, and my dad was standing next to my bed as I lay there helpless, my strong body just a broken pile of bones.
“Hello, Penny. How are you feeling this morning?”
“I’m in a lot of pain.”
He nodded. “We’ll get you something for that right away.” He walked out and talked to a nurse, then returned a moment later. “Let’s look at your MRI and X-ray results.” He put scans up on a light board and then turned to me. “You had a mild concussion, but otherwise you’re fine—”
“What about my knee?”
“I’m getting to that.”
“Cut to the chase, doc,” I said. A moment later a nurse was pushing morphine through my IV. I felt my chest tighten up and the wooziness of the drug settle in.
“You have some torn cartilage—”
“That doesn’t sound too bad, Penny!” Lance chimed in excitedly.
“Let me finish,” the doctor said. “There’s a piece of cartilage between your femur and tibia that gives your knee stability.”
“The meniscus,” I mumbled, thinking about Doug.
“Yes,” he confirmed. “There’s a significant tear in your meniscus, as well as a tear in your ACL.”
“You can repair them both with surgery, though, right?” my father asked.
“Both tears are very severe, I’m afraid. We’ll do the best we can. We have a great team here, but there are no guarantees that your knee will fully recover. It’ll take time.”
“Will I be able to dance again?” I could hear myself talking but I was starting to fade from the morphine.
“All I can say is that you’ll need surgery and several months of physical therapy before you’ll be able to walk properly. Every patient recovers differently, and I’ve seen star athletes make remarkable recoveries. But that’s the exception, not the rule. Recovering from two severe injuries at the same time . . . perhaps it’s best to adjust your expectations now.”
My eyes were starting to close. I’ll never dance again, I’ll never dance again, I’ll never dance again.
Lance stood up, smoothing the hair out of my face and holding my hand.
The doctor was looking at me strangely. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“Can I have morphine?”
“The nurse just administered a dose. You should close your eyes and get some rest. We need the swelling to go down around your knee before we can get to work.”
I looked at my father. His eyes were watering. The room started to go dark. The doctor was still talking, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. Lance was asking him questions. I didn’t even know why Lance was still here.
“Dad?” I mumbled. He grabbed my hand and squeezed it.
“What is it, Sweet Pea?”
“Where’s Gavin?”
He shook his head. “Get some sleep, baby girl.”
AFTER A SOLID day in the hospital, my phone went dead. I hadn’t heard from Gavin. If he needed to find me, it wouldn’t be that hard—after all, my parents’ phone number was tattooed on his hand.
Three days passed. The swelling went down in my knee and I was scheduled for surgery. My dad seemed to be taking my injury worse than me, though I was looped up on so many drugs I don’t think I really knew what was going on. My mom and Kiki were there a lot, Ling seemed to call every hour on the hour, and I literally couldn’t get rid of Lance.
An hour before my surgery, my family went to the hospital cafeteria to get some breakfast while Lance sat in a chair in my hospital room, studying. He looked up when he noticed me stirring after a short nap.
“Are you ready for this?” he asked.
“Lance Stone, you are a dead ringer for Tobey Maguire. Have I told you that?”
“Yeah, like nine hundred times in the last three days.” We laughed. I was on so many drugs, I couldn’t even remember what day of the week it was. “Do you like Tobey Maguire?” he asked.
“He seems nice, and he’s cute.” That made Lance smile.
“I can’t be here when you get out of surgery but your family will be. I’m pretty sure I’m the only person who still has a final left.”
I shook my head. “Don’t worry about it. You’ve done enough.”
He looked at me tentatively. “I know there’s nothing between us, Penny, but I’d like there to be.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He stood and came toward me. Taking my hand in his, he said, “I know this isn’t the first thing on your mind, but I want to see you through this thing. I’ll be here for you, and then you can decide if you want there to be something more between us, too.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
Moments later, my family was back and the nurses were prepping me for surgery. My dad held my hand as they wheeled my bed down the hallway.
“Everything’s gonna be okay. I love you.”
My mom mouthed the words, I love you, too.
“Count backwards from twenty, Penny,” someone said.
“Twenty, nineteen, eighteen —”
“PENNY.” A SHORT brown-haired nurse I had never seen before was hovering over me. “You’ve just had surgery and you’re in recovery. You’re coming out of the anesthesia. How are you feeling?”
“Gonna throw up.” They sat me up and gave me a little tub to throw up into.
My parents came in and stood on either side of my bed. “The doctor said the surgery went well,” my father said. “You have a long road ahead of you, but this was the first step and it was a success.”
I don’t think I even cared at that point, I was so exhausted and depressed. “Oh. Good. Where’s Keeks?”
“She’s at a friend’s,” my mother said.
They wheeled me back to my regular hospital room and tried to get me to eat some broth, which I threw up immediately afterward.
At around six p.m., my mother was getting ready to leave.
“You should go too, Dad. You need a shower. Your pits are stinking up this entire hospital floor.”
“Our funny little Sweet Pea is back,” my dad said.
“Just go, I’ll be fine. I’m gonna take a nap.”
“Come on, Liam,” my mom said. They held hands and started to leave the room together. Were things getting better between them? Had my injury brought them closer? Hopefully something good comes out of this.
My dad stopped in the doorway and turned around. “Please try to eat something, Penny.”
“I will, Dad. Don’t worry.”
Doug came to see me shortly after my parents left. He told me the dean at CSU had questioned Joey about the accident, and that the dance department was withholding his degree. He told me my life wasn’t over, that I’d get better, that I’d find satisfaction as a teacher. None of this brought me any relief.
He hugged me and told me to hang in there, then he left. Once he was gone, I flipped on the TV and dozed off to the opening jingle of The Golden Girls.
WHEN I WOKE up, the room was dark and the TV was off. My knee was aching so intensely I thought I was going to die. I went to press the button on the remote to call the nurse but was startled by a figure in the corner, leaning up against the wall. He stepped into the light.
“Gavin?”
His expression was one of deep sorrow. There were tears in his eyes.
“I’m so sorry, P,” he choked out.
“I need morphine,” I said.
He went to the door and peeked into the hallway. “She’s in a lot of pain,” he told someone before coming to my bedside. He collapsed onto my chest, tucking his head under my chin. I felt his body shaking. He was really crying.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. I didn’t hold him. I couldn’t bring myself to show him any affection. My arms stayed at their sides.
“Where have you been?”
He stood and wiped tears from his face. “Lottie threw my phone into a lake. I called your parents’ house the day after your performance but no one answered. I thought everything went well. You had that routine down. When I called your cell, it went straight to voicemail.”
“You got into a fight with Lottie and left the auditorium. I saw you.”
“I’m sorry, Penny. I fucked up.” The nurse came in and pushed morphine into my IV. “I finally got ahold of your mom this morning and she told me what happened,” Gavin said. “I went looking for Joey. I was gonna break his legs.”
“Please don’t do that. He’s going to be punished. Believe me.”
“How do you feel?” He was searching my eyes.
“Fucking fantastic. Did you and Lottie break up?”
He studied me closely. “No, we just had a fight.”
“You missed my performance because you got into a fight with your girlfriend. You weren’t there for me like you said you would be. You should leave. I don’t know why you’re here.”
“I’m trying to be here for you now. I told you I’m sorry. It was a miscommunication, Penny. A badly timed fight. That’s all.”
I started feeling groggy from the meds. “You said you wouldn’t miss it for the world,” I slurred. “What a lie.”
“Penny, I love you. You’re my best friend. I fucked up and I’m sorry.” He was squeezing my hand. “Please forgive me.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m dating Lance now,” I lied.
He swallowed hard. “What? I thought you didn’t date.”
“I never said that. I said that I wasn’t ready to date when we met. I said I would see where our friendship took us, and I asked you to wait. You didn’t. And when I needed you most, you weren’t there. I hardly knew Lance before this accident but he’s been here every day—unlike you. The only reason he’s not here now is because he’s taking his last final. In fact, he’ll be here soon.”
Gavin was shaking his head.
“You should leave before he gets back.”
“You’re overreacting,” he said. “Don’t go jumping into some bio-nerd’s arms.”
“I resent that. My father is a microbiologist. A very intelligent, kind, loving, loyal, and reliable man.”
“How many times am I going to have to say I’m sorry?”
“Until I feel like forgiving you, I guess. Look at me!” I pointed to my knee, wrapped in a wad of bandages and elevated in a sling.
“I’m looking at you. I always see you, Penny.” His eyes were intense.
“No, look at me.” I started to cry. “I’ll never dance again.”
“Shhh, don’t cry, please. Your mother said the surgery was a success.”
“I’ll never dance again. Not like before.”
The nurse came in. Gavin and I went quiet. She saw the tears and said, “I’ll ask the doctor to up your dosage. We brought it down before you went into surgery, but clearly you’re in a lot of pain.”
“Thank you,” I mumbled, though I wasn’t in the kind of pain she thought I was.
Gavin was staring—no, more like glaring—at me. The nurse came back a moment later and pushed more morphine through my IV.
That heavy-chested feeling hit me again and my vision got fuzzy. Gavin’s expression turned sympathetic. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
I shook my head.
“Don’t date that guy. Please, P.”
“Go.”
“I love you.”
“Go be with Lottie.” I was fading from the meds. “Go,” I slurred, and then I was out.