Page 6 of Electricity

I knew the way to the hospital because it was on the same route as the elementary school bus, and because of the time that Sarah’d been in a car accident in fourth grade.

Her dad’d gotten side-swiped by a drunk driver at an intersection, and the collision broke her leg when it crunched her door in.

She still had scars from where the pins were—we’d spent that summer doodling between them, thinking we were cool, pretending that someone had given our under-aged friend an illegal tattoo.

I reached the entrance to our trailer park and took a right.

The roads here were one-lane in both directions with wide shoulders and then swathes of gravel and grass on either side, until the grass won and led up to people’s houses again.

I walked in the gravel zone, with the flashlight I’d brought off—the moon was almost full—and a raincoat tied around my waist. The night was as hot as it was humid, and I hoped I wouldn’t need it.

I couldn’t believe Sarah’d slept with Ryan.

Slept with—was such a weird phrase. It wasn’t like they’d been ‘sleeping’ in the cab of his truck.

Or maybe in the back of it, I hadn’t super pressed.

Making love as a phrase was absolutely repulsive—but fucking sounded worse than what it was.

So what word could I used to describe it, if I had to?

I knew Sarah didn’t want me to tell Lacey, but come on, I had to tell someone—if not Lacey, then who?

Besides, Lacey was still on my side of the virgin-line—which gave us some intrinsic loyalty to one another. I hadn’t even had a boyfriend yet, and Lacey had only gone out with a boy twice before her mom’d locked down hard.

I could’ve had a boyfriend, if I wanted just anyone. There were enough boys at Redson High to go around. But most of them were stupid or hideous or stupidious and not worth my time. The few that weren’t—like Liam—had been claimed by one girl or another ever since they’d turned eleven.

Clouds hid the moon and I brought my flashlight out.

I could hear the rain like it was chasing me, a million tiny footsteps just behind, and then I was in it—I barely had time to pull on my coat.

I danced between sleeves, tucking the flashlight in and out of armpits until I was covered, but I could already tell that my coat would not be enough.

This was the kind of rain that’d soak my jeans straight through, and mud was already starting to suck at the bottom of my shoes.

I angled up closer to the road where there was less dirt and kept walking.

When I saw Lacey—when she saw me—if she was not in the hospital for something life threatening to make being this disgusting worthwhile—I started thinking about relative values for assorted illnesses versus how uncomfortable I was and how long I’d be that way, seeing as even once I got to the hospital, I was still going to have to walk back home.

The rain camouflaged the sound of a car pulling up behind me—I didn’t know they were there until they honked their horn and I nearly jumped out of my skin.

“Hey!” someone shouted, from the passenger side of a white four-door, as their lights came in range. They slowed and pulled over toward me. “You go to Redson?”

I nodded mutely.

“My brother goes there too—need a ride?”

The lights of the dash illuminated four college guys, one for each seat.

“We’ve got space,” he went on, jerking a thumb toward the back.

Just then, the rain decided to go from loud to deafening—his mouth moved, but I couldn’t hear what he’d said, although I saw the guy in the backseat smirk.

“I’m good!” I shouted, waving them away.

The guy in the passenger seat looked at me like I was dumb.

“I’m fine, thanks!” I shouted louder, grinning like the idiot they likely thought I was, and took a step or two back from the road.

I could see a collective shrug ripple through their group until the window rolled up and the car zoomed off again with a shoe-soaking splash.

Half a mile away, my blisters were getting blisters—walking in wet socks and shoes guaranteed it. I’d stopped thinking about Sarah or Lacey and was only focused on myself and my current misery.

If I’d let those guys take me to the hospital, I’d be there by now.

Right foot. But who the hell takes rides from strangers?

Left foot. What kind of cynical jerk says no to a ride in the middle of a rainstorm?

Right foot. The kind that doesn’t wind up in a serial killer movie.

Left foot. Was I an idiot? Right foot. Or wasn’t I? Left foot.

Soon, I was too cold-hot-uncomfortable for actual thinking.

If Hannibal Lecter pulled over, I’d have gladly gotten in, as long as he’d promise to let me get all the way dry before killing me.

The rain was ebbing though, I was over halfway there—and this time when a car came up, I was able to hear it approaching.

I turned. The car was definitely slowing down, and its headlights were blinding. I stood still just like deer do, waiting, unable to see anything but the painful brightness of its lights—and then it sped up again, zooming on, in a white blur.

I stood on the roadside, blinking after it, until it rounded a corner and disappeared.

Was it residual light burn from the headlights? Or was it really the same white four-door? If it was, why did they slow down? Why didn’t they say anything? If it wasn’t them—same question! Who does that and why?

I panted, exhausted by the time of night and exertion used thus far, unable to tell myself what I’d really seen, scared of being right, and scared of convincing myself I was not right so I wouldn’t be frightened.

Then, as much as my feet hated me for it, I trudged back into the deeper gravel and muck so I’d be farther from the road—and found myself a very large stick to drag along.

Mercy Hospital appeared like a brightly lit angel on the horizon.

If my life were a movie, and Mercy were a person, I’d be running down an airport causeway toward her right now, arms extended and shrieking.

Instead, it took me another long fifteen minutes or so to reach the edge of its expansive parking lot.

The lobby was closed, but the emergency room was open—I walked through it, and out into the lobby through a side-door like I belonged, and no one questioned me, which made sense.

High school had already taught me that half of life was looking like you belonged—the other half was looking like you had somewhere to be.

There was a map printed on one wall—there wasn’t a ‘Lacey Is Here’ stamp on it, but it did list the pediatric floor, and since Lacey was sixteen like me for two more months before I became the hotter and wiser of our pair by turning seventeen, I figured she’d be there.

I found an elevator and let it take me up.

Three floors and one more map consult later, I was outside the ‘Kids Floor!’ I knew, because it said so, in bright pink letters stenciled over the desk assorted women in scrubs sat behind.

One of them looked curiously at me, and I looked down at myself.

I’d trailed water from the elevator over and despite my coat’s hood having saved me from some of the rain I probably both looked and smelled like a wet dog—the kind you’d shoo away if it came up to you on the street.

However, I was still a ‘Kid!’ so I tried to wag my tail with a winning smile.

“Hi—I’m looking for my friend, Lacey Harper,” I said, walking up to the desk, trying to ignore the way that my wet sneakers squeaked.

She typed slowly, giving me plenty of time to wonder how old the chipped enamel Bison on her lanyard was, before telling me, “We can neither confirm nor deny her being a patient here.”

The first thing I wanted to say was, What are you, a robot? but I caught myself in time.

“Well, I know she is. She texted me. Told me to come. Go ask her.”

She took in my bedraggled state with pursed lips. Her continuing silence rattled me. What if something was really wrong?

“Look—I just walked five miles in the rain because I was worried about her, and I have to walk five miles back. Can you at least tell me if she’s all right?” My voice may, or may not, have broken a little.

Her eyes narrowed and she finished measuring me. “Stay right here,” she said, before standing and walking off.

I did as I was told, for once. The clock over her desk said it was ten PM.

When the nurse came back she had a warm blanket in her arms and said, “Follow me.”

She led me down the hall. The lights were dimmed here, to mimic the nighttime outside, and she tapped on one door.

“Come in,” I heard Lacey croak.

The nurse pressed the door open and handed the blanket to me. “For you.”

I nodded, pulling it up over my shoulders, and went in.

Lacey was there, huddled up on her side, facing the other wall.

I sighed in relief at seeing her without all the tubes and wires and pins I’d imagined.

I waited until I heard the nurse shut the door before sagging over the nearest chair.

“Oh my God, Lacey—what the hell? Do you know how far I walked?”

I slung my feet over one arm and kicked my shoes off. My feet hurt so bad—my shift at work tomorrow was going to suck.

“Yeah,” she said, and nothing else.

I expected words to come pouring out of her like they always did. Lacey had something to say—frequently a hilarious something—about everything. Her silence bothered me more than seeing her with wires would.

I waited as long as I could before hitching the blanket up over my head and going, “Boooooooooooooo,” in a cheesy spooky voice. “Booooooooooooooo,” I went on, standing and lumbering over to the bed to sit down on it before flipping the blanket back. She was still turned away.

“Remember how we were ghosts for Halloween in 3 rd grade? Because our moms were cheap and lazy?” I bounced up and down on the bed a little, waiting for her to face me. “Are you germy? Is this going to be like the time I had mono and we weren’t allowed to share sodas for six months?”

She shook her head ‘no’ back and forth into the pillow.

“Come on, Lacey—what’s up? How was the party? Did you have a good time or what? Why are you here?”

She shook her head ‘no’ again.

I waited and waited and waited, and bounced the bed one more time. “Can you use your words? Because this silent treatment’s starting to freak me out.”

Lacey rolled over beside me to curl up the same way she had been, only facing me this time. Her eyes were red and swollen and ringed with black. “I don’t want to talk about it, all right? I just wanted you here.”

I opened my mouth, exhausted and exasperated, but I managed to close it again before words came out. I gave up and snuggled next to her, like we had when we were younger, watching marathons of Dora the Explorer on TV. Puede usted leer el mapa?

This was not like Lacey. I did not know what to do, while having that pressing feeling that something must be done. I reached for the flashlight, put it under my chin, and then turned it on and made goofy faces with it, until she watched me.

After a minute, she started to laugh—and then, as if that laugh were a pop top on a shaken can of soda, tears started to bubble out from everywhere. Her eyes, her nose, her mouth—all of her frothed as she started to wordlessly shake.

I pulled her to me, panicking—what did you do when someone cried like this?

I hadn’t cried this hard since my dad’d left.

Maybe not even then. I put the flashlight on her bedside table and the room went dim.

It didn’t feel right to interrupt her. She sounded like the storm outside, and each time I thought it’d ebbed, something brought it back on again.

“Lacey, what is going on?” I asked, when I was worried she’d forgotten how to breathe. She took gasping inhales and wiped the back of one hand across her spitty mouth. “Are you rabid? Because I’ve read Old Yeller . I know what to do.”

She shook her head, lips quivering on the verge of another storm cloud. “Don’t joke. No jokes.”

“Tell me. Okay?”

She swallowed audibly, then nodded, and reached up to pull my head toward her lips so she wouldn’t have to talk very loud.