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All I could think about now was Craig's beaming smile at the prom and the great joy and excitement we both had felt. How quickly we had fallen from that cloud on which we had been sailing. It was truly as if it had all been a dream and now that dream had become a nightmare.

I didn't have to look at my grandparents' faces to know what awaited me out there. I could feel the gloom and doom coming toward me like rolling thun der. With Craig's mother finding ways to blame what happened on me, heads would bob in agreement and people in our community would say they always knew something li

ke this would happen. They might as well hang a banner on Main Street that read THE APPLE DOESN'T FALL FAR FROM THE TREE.

I hoped I would die on the operating table and everyone's misery would end.

"We should let her rest," I heard my

grandmother say.

"I'll bring you magazines, things to do, Alice," my grandfather promised. "Maybe, when you're able to sit up, they'll let me bring in some paintbrushes, paint and some art paper."

I turned sharply to him.

"I don't want to paint anymore," I said.

"What? Sure you do. You don't give up something like that, Alice."

"It's not important."

"Of course it's important."

"Don't think about it now. You're not in any state of mind to make decisions anyway," Aunt Zipporah said. "I know it might sound cruel to you, but in time, this will all pass and you'll go on. You can't change what happened, but if you let it destroy you, too, then everything anyone says bad about you will seem to be true."

She made sense. I was just not in the mood to acknowledge it. I closed my eyes instead. They all kissed me on the cheek before leaving, but I didn't open my eyes. I wished I could keep them closed forever.

A little while later the nurse came in to check on me, and then the surgeon who was going to do my operation arrived to talk to me about my injuries and describe what had to be done to my hip.

"Your hip-joint socket was broken in four places, Alice," he said. "It's going to be a long operation, but you won't notice because you'll be under anesthesia. To you it will seem like a few minutes," he said, smiling.

I wanted to ask him if he could put me under anesthesia now. I think he saw it in my face.

"Look, Alice, you're a very young girl. You'll recover from this and get strong again."

"The boy I was with will never recover."

"I'm sorry about that. Believe me, I wish I had a chance to try to make a difference. for him, too. have a son not much younger. But right now, we have to give you our attention. I want you to he stronger and have a good attitude about your healing," he said. "It helps."

"Okay. Thank you," I said. He patted my hand, checked my chart and left.

It's easier to say okay than to say anything else, I decided. People leave you be when you agree with them.

My operation was scheduled for a later date. Until then, I was left to heal and get stronger. Tyler sent me flowers and a box of candy. Aunt Zipporah visited me at least a half dozen times, and my grandmother was there every day. My father called, and then he and Rachel sent me flowers and candy as well, but he said nothing about coming to see me. He wished me good luck on my operation and promised to keep in touch and especially to keep in touch with my grandparents.

No one from my school came to see me or even called until two days after my operation.

I found out the operation took nearly ten hours-- the hip joint was that shattered. I was told that we wouldn't know how successful it had been for a while and that I would need some physical therapy.

The day after I was returned to my own room, Charlene Lewis came to see me. My grandfather had gotten me my school assignments to work on as soon as I was able. I had done very little. In the back of my mind was the idea that maybe, just maybe, I would never return to school. I didn't know what I would do as an alternative, but I dreaded the day I would walk back into that building, so when Charlene appeared in my hospital room doorway, some of that dread came in with her.

"How are you?" she asked.

I shrugged.

"I don't know yet. I was operated on and we have to wait to see."

"Very little about you has trickled out, but we did hear that you had something seriously wrong with your hip," she said.