As soon as I said it, I knew it was true. I knew I’d been afraid to mention it before, but now that I had, I realized the only reason I’d been trying so hard with Kingsley was because I was afraid of what would happen with Jason. What Kingsley and I had was nothing compared to the way I felt when I was with Jason. Violet was right again, I had been afraid of it all.
But now I was afraid of what Kingsley would do. I risked a look at him. Sweat was practically pouring off of him and he was white knuckling the wheel.
I opened my mouth to say something and Kingsley put his hand up. “No, you’ve done enough talking.” He stepped on the gas and the SUV started flying down the highway.
I gripped the seat tight, horrified at what was going to happen, but I figured I could warn Jason. I took my phone out of my bag and started to send him a message. Kingsley reached over and grabbed my phone. But I pulled it out of his grasp.
“Don’t you dare text him when you’re with me!” He reached for the phone again, but this time when he leaned over, the steering wheel went with him. Kingsley wasn’t able to correct the spin, and I closed my eyes tight. I could feel my stomach flipping as the SUV continued to spin until we slammed hard into something. I felt a shot of pain as my head connected with glass.
Barely conscious, I kept my eyes and mouth closed, afraid of glass falling into them. Instead, I focused on breathing. In and out. This was a very populated highway. Someone had to see us and call for help.
“Annabelle,” I heard Kingsley say.
I still didn’t want to say anything so I tried to reach out to him but couldn’t quite make it.
“Annabelle, seriously, are you okay?” He reached over to me and took my hand. I squeezed gently and I heard him sigh. “Good, you aren’t dead. Listen, I’m gonna call my dad and he’ll handle all of this. I don’t want to call the police. Just sit still.”
I listened to him call his dad and tell him what was going on. And then he said something I couldn’t grasp.
“I told her not to do drugs. I tried to take the pill bottle from her and that was when I crashed.” He listened for a few minutes as I sat there seething. How could he lie like that? But it just kept getting worse.
“She put something in my drink too. I feel really weird.”
Then I heard sirens, and they sounded close. I doubted his father had called them so I was gracious for some good citizens. As soon as they cut me out of this car, I was going to tell them everything, especially about the drug use.
“Oh shit, Dad, the cops are coming here. Someone must have seen the accident and called.” He listened for a few beats. “Right, I won’t say anything until the lawyer gets to the hospital and I’ll make sure my girlfriend doesn’t either.”
Kingsley started talking to me directly, but I couldn’t focus on his voice anymore. The pain in my head was beginning to get to me and I was fighting losing consciousness. I needed to stay awake. I needed to report this to someone before Kingsley’s lawyer blamed me for the whole thing. Most of all, I needed to talk to Jason.
Kingsley started to shake me and I moaned in pain as the glass seemed dig deeper into my head every time I moved. But he just wouldn’t stop. I swung my arm as best I could in his direction and finally connected with something on my third swing. That seemed to stop the shaking, at least until the firefighters showed up.
With all of the commotion, I could just make out that they were converging on the SUV. Hopefully, they’d get Kingsley to leave me alone. I heard some yelling and thuds coming from the driver’s seat. If I had to guess, I’d say Kingsley was out of the car. Thank God. Then I heard someone else’s voice.
“Excuse me, miss? I’m going to get you out of here. Hold on tight to me.” He gently took hold of my head and moved it from the window to an upright position. I felt a rush of nausea as the world seemed to spin. I risked opening my eyes, hoping that would stop the world from turning, and saw the firefighter. He smiled and showed me the neck brace before securing it.
My neck didn’t hurt, so I was assuming that meant it was broken. Gingerly, I wiggled my toes and felt them move. I let out a sigh of relief. On the bright side, I wasn’t paralyzed. On the down side, I must have had a giant gash on my head, as I felt a wet substance, probably blood, hopefully not brains, fall down my cheek. I forced my mouth closed even tighter to avoid tasting it.
“All right, miss, I’m back with this half back brace. I’m going to slide it behind you and then maneuver you out of the car. Stay extremely still.”
I felt the stiff board slide down my back and I focused on his voice as he talked me through every movement before he did it. Nothing surprised me and this helped me stay still and maintain a semblance of calm. Once out of the car, they put me on a stretcher and I opened my eyes. There was a paramedic putting me in the back of an ambulance before another one drove like a maniac.
I felt the liquid being wiped away as we rode to the hospital. Now that it was gone, I was desperate to tell my story.
“Listen to me, the boy I was with is going to claim I was on drugs, or brought drugs, or spiked him with drugs. I never touched them. Please do a test and prove it. I have nothing on my hands or anything. I heard him talking to his dad, claiming he was going to lie.”
“Okay, I hear you, honey. Don’t worry. I’ll tell the doctors what you said and I’m sure they’ll do all those tests,” the paramedic said in a motherly voice. “Let’s forget about the drugs, those tests will prove you right, and just focus on this cut on your head.”
She continued to treat my head and I tried to ignore the pain that was almost dragging me into unconsciousness, but then I heard my mother’s voice in my head.
“If you fall asleep when you have a concussion, you could end up in a coma.” She was a nurse and liked to ruin playtime with warnings like that. You try sledding down a hill head first when all you can think about is falling off, hitting your head, and falling into a coma. It wasn’t that easy.
Instead, I focused on what I would say to Jason when I saw him. I needed to apologize first. If I had just listened to my heart in the first place, I wouldn’t have been with Kingsley, we wouldn’t have crashed, and I wouldn’t be at risk of being arrested for drug possession. I was responsible for it all and who knew what Kinsley’s family was going to blame me for. My parents didn’t have anywhere near the money his did. In a legal battle, we’d sure as hell lose.
I forced myself to ignore that for now and continued to think about Jason. Assuming he forgave me—I was thinking positively—I’d tell him that I wanted to be with him too. That he didn’t need to wait for me to see what he already figured out. We were perfect for each other. Then we’d share our first kiss—well, technically, it would be our second kiss, but our first one since being honest with the other.
I imagined how magical it would be when those blue eyes stared down at me as his soft lips caressed mine. Once we kissed, I’d fall into his embrace, run my fingers through his out of control brown hair, and hold on tight as we started this crazy rollercoaster together. I was almost relieved. We couldn’t go back to being just friends because I didn’t think we ever were truly just friends. Now, we could only move forward together.
This made me smile and I opened my eyes again. I was being moved. When I tried to look around, I couldn’t because I was still strapped to a board. I could only look up. Luckily, it wasn’t long before a doctor was there, shining a flashlight in my eyes and asking me questions.
No, I wasn’t allergic to any medication.
No, I didn’t have any medical conditions.
Yes, I could feel the needles being stuck into my toes.
I screamed my mother’s number at least three times. I wanted to make sure someone called her. She was a force to be reckoned with and would make sure I got the best care possible. And maybe I wanted to see her. Maybe I needed to see her.
After what seemed like hours, they were done doing tests. I hadn’t broken my neck, and there was no bone damage in my skull. Everyone kept insisting I was very lucky to have such minor injuries. As my head was pounding, my shoulder throbbed, and my hip felt like it had been crushed, I begged to differ.
The pain medication they gave me helped, but it upset my stomach. At this point, I wasn’t sure which was better, the pain or the nausea. But then I heard the best sound ever.
“Well, you tell me what room she is this instant!” It was my mother’s shrill voice. She had found me and was already wreaking havoc. A laugh managed to escape my lips before I was smothered by my intimidating, four foot nine mother. “Oh, Annabelle, I’ve been so worried about you.”
“I know, Mom, but I’m okay.”
“Yes, that’s what the doctor told me when I first got here. Then they started playing games with insurance, but I just wanted to see you so your dad took over with those money grubbing insurance jerks.”
“Good, I’m glad you both are here.”
“Yes, but, honey, there are some police who want to talk to you. Are you up for that? If not, I can make them go away for now.”
“No, I need to talk to them ASAP. It’s fine.” My pulse sped up and panic began to take over. I hoped they believed me. They had to. The other option was too crazy to think about.
“Miss Lewis, my name is Officer Stein,” the cop said as he walked into the room. “And this is Officer Korey.” He pointed to his partner.
Stein had a bit of a potbelly that was probably once a set of rock hard abs. His black hair was slicked back and he seemed to have kind eyes. Korey was a younger guy, maybe five or six years older than me. His wired glasses hid a pair of deep brown eyes. His dark hair was cropped short, his smile was nonexistent, but his muscles were apparent. He was the bad cop out of the two.
They sat down in the chairs across from the bed and took their notepads out.
“Officers, I’m glad you’re here. Kingsley tried to tell a bunch of lies about me. He’s going to tell you all about how I’ve been involved with drugs, but I never touched them. Check my lab reports. And I would never give him any drugs,” I explained very quickly, ignoring the shocked gasps coming from my mother. But to her credit, she stayed quiet.
“Miss Lewis, we know your lab results are clear. The pill bottle that was recovered from the SUV was dusted for prints. The only ones on it belonged to Mr. Kingsley and a woman named Karen Yackey. Mr. Kingsley has a history of drug use, and Yackey of distributing,” explained Stein.
“Oh, thank God! I heard Kingsley telling his father they were going to blame the whole thing on me.” I took a deep breath, relieved they weren’t coming after me.
“With the drug levels in Mr. Kingsley’s system, he’s been using for quite some time now. Why did you get in the car with him if you knew he was using narcotics?” Stein asked.
“Well, he told me that he only used Ritalin when he was fighting fires because it helped him focus. He promised he’d never use around me but…wait a minute.” I looked at them, confused. Ritalin wasn’t a narcotic.
“Miss Lewis, Mr. Kingsley was under the influence of a narcotic. If I had to guess, I’d say it was probably oxytocin. From the levels in his system, I’d say he’s been habitually using for a while.”
My mouth fell open. “He took some pills and then got behind the wheel?” This was obvious, but I was still shocked. I thought he cared about me. True, it was not the right kind of caring, but he put my life at risk. I wasn’t sitting in the hospital because of anything I’d done. Screw that. I was in the hospital because he was an addict.
“Do you recognize this woman?” Korey asked me, holding up a picture.
I laughed, shaking my head as the pieces all seemed to be coming together. “That’s Karen Yackey. The woman you said was known for distributing. She goes to Elton Hall with us. I’ve seen her with Kingsley a lot. He said they were childhood friends, but it makes a lot more sense that she was his dealer.”
Right before we got in that big fight over my poor performance, she had left his room. I wondered if performance issues were a side effect of prolonged pill abuse. If he took something in the bathroom, maybe that would explain the blind rage he felt towards Jason. It also probably explained the slurring.
The officers asked a few more questions about the accident and I answered them to the best of my ability, but my eyes were becoming awfully heavy.
“Okay, Officers,” my mother said. “I think it’s time we let Annabelle rest. We can call you tomorrow if anything else comes up.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Lewis,” Stein replied, handing Mom a card. “If you need anything, please feel free to call.”
“I will.” Then my mother turned to me. “All right, honey, why don’t you try to get some sleep. A doctor is going to be coming in to check on you in about forty-five minutes. You can get a nice nap in between now and then.”
“Seriously, they aren’t going to leave me alone? I thought they said I didn’t have a concussion.”
“They just want to make sure. There will be someone coming in every two hours or so.”
She settled herself into one of the chairs and covered herself with her jacket.
“Mom,” I said, and she looked at me expectantly.
“I’m sorry about all of this.”
“No, baby, it sounds like you just trusted the wrong boy. It happens. One day, I’ll tell you some of my stories before I met your father.”
I smiled at that. My mother was about as straight laced as they came. How could she have had a past? I fell asleep imagining my mother in her pink frilly apron, dancing at a frat party.