CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Jared
I felt much better after talking to Darby. In fact, I felt like I couldn't even understand the space I'd been in before. I was so light and happy now that it didn't even seem possible to me that I'd been that sad before.
She didn't hate me. It was all going to be alright.
The day went by much faster than I would have expected. I managed to get more done than I ever would have thought possible. I fixed the cracked tile in the bathroom – something I hadn't even known how to do before a few months ago. I did the shopping. I took stuff to the laundromat.
The next morning at work I felt was joking and laughing with the rest of them. If Cody noticed the miraculous transformation, he didn't say anything, which was nice of him.
“Hey! Jared! I bet I can shovel dirt faster than you!” Jeff yelled.
I grinned. “I bet you can. Probably had more experience than me with tons of dirt.”
We all laughed. I was happy.
I had a good day and returned home feeling tired and fulfilled. It was when I got there that I remembered I had to take out the trash.
“Well, there's always something you forget,” I muttered to myself. I lifted the bags and carried them out.
I drove the short way out of town to the dump. I was walking back to my truck when they appeared. Three of them. With baseball bats as clubs.
“We know you,” one of them said.
“Get him.”
I tried to run – who wouldn't? Three against one is stupid odds. I'd tried it once, but only for Darby. I ran. They caught me at the corner. The first blow hit me in the lower back, making me fall forward. The next one took me on the head. I blanked out for a moment, then made a wild grab at the knee of the guy in front of me. Pulled him off balance. He fell.
I howled and he yelled and I made a grab at his throat. I missed. Someone hit me across the ribs. I couldn't breathe.
“Hit him good.”
“Kill him.”
The last thing I needed right now was to die. For someone who had spent a lot of their childhood wishing for just that, suddenly I wanted, very badly, to live.
I tried to stand. Someone kicked me.
I hissed out a breath. I could feel the blood down my face, warm drops from my nose. I could feel the ache in my ribs that told me one of them was bust. Again. I coughed.
I was on my knees, trying to stand. They rained blows down on me.
If all else fails, play dead.
I remembered that rule from Frank. He'd been my friend in the gang – about twice my age and wise like that. He was right.
I played dead.
Someone kicked me again and I managed not to cough no matter how hard it hurt. I wondered if they were going to stop when I was unmoving, or if they'd carry on and really do the job. I was starting to panic when I heard one of them say something.
“Someone's coming.”
They cleared off after that. I would have sighed in relief as I heard their feet slowly crunch across the tarmac, but I could hardly breathe. I waited until I couldn't hear them anymore, then rasped and coughed.
I was still coughing when the person they'd heard coming, came up.
“Hell, buddy. You look terrible.”
It was a guy. He was maybe twenty years older than me. He sounded really concerned. I coughed.
“Ribs,” I said.
He nodded. “Someone beat you up, huh?”
I smiled. Nodded. It occurred to me to ask how else I'd got in this state, if someone hadn't been kicking me, but I didn't have any breath and besides it wasn't the place for being a wise-ass.
“Come on, buddy. You need the hospital.”
“Not that... again...” I whispered.
He laughed. “You been there often, huh?”
I nodded again. I was starting to be unable to see out of my left eye – it was swollen almost completely closed now. I coughed again and my head felt as if it was floating somewhere above my body.
“Come on,” the man said. “Oh, no. I'm gonna have to carry you, right?”
“Can... walk...” I said.
I passed out.
When I woke up I could smell that scary clean smell. Hospital.
I groaned. I opened my eyes. My left I still didn't fully open.
“Hello?” I rasped.
Everything hurt. I felt as if I had been put through a tree-shaker. My arms hurt. My chest was agony. My legs. My head. I didn't want to wake up. Sleep was good. Waking just brought pain.
“Hello?”
“Oh! We're awake.”
I groaned.
“No... I'm awake,” I corrected. Heard the nurse laugh.
“You're full of it, aren't you?”
I laughed. “I try to be.”
She shook her head at me, making sympathetic noises. “You're full of bruises, that's for sure. The doctor'll set your ribs later on.”
“Not... necessary,” I coughed. “Just... painkiller. Please.”
She shook her head. “You're scheduled to have them set. I've given you a painkiller. You can have one in an hour when this has worn off.”
“If this is...with painkiller...I'm glad for...painkillers,” I rasped.
She laughed.
“You'll do,” she said.
I groaned. My next thought was, bizarrely, of contacting Darby. I wanted to ask where my things were. I didn't remember the thugs stealing anything – as it happened, they were after revenge.
“Things?” I mimed a wallet in my pocket, realizing with some embarrassment that I was wearing one of those horrible hospital gowns.
“Uh...in the locker. Can I get something?”
“Phone.”
She passed it to me. “It's quite remarkable that it's not broken,” she said.
I smiled. “Yeah. Thank Goodness.”
She handed it to me and I managed to find a non-painful way to hold it and be able to see it through my right eye. Ever tried texting with one eye only? Well, don't. It's hard.
I gave up and phoned Darby instead. My head was starting to ache. Probably focusing with the one eye was making the pain worse.
“Hello?” She sounded alert.
“Darby,” I said. Then I started coughing.
“Jared!”
“Uh...sorry.” I managed to rasp. “I... I'm in hospital...”
That was when the whirling ache in my head grew and flourished and carried me away into the dark.