Page 3 of Over & Out

Don’t brace, Christine. Tuck. That’s Dad’s voice in my mind, loud and clear.

I jerk my knees in close to my body and wrap my arms around my chest only a microsecond before I hit the ground.

I roll, and something hits my shoulder so hard I think I might black out.

But I don’t, because I see trees and sky windmill past me, making my stomach lurch.

Finally my view stills. Tree limbs and a sky bruised with clouds stretch overhead in the window of my visor.

A helmet bursts into view. A warm roughness—fingers, maybe?—presses at my throat, walking around to the back of my neck.

“Can you move?”

The voice is deep. Jagged. Tense.

Muffled behind the helmet.

It’s him. Dirtbag. No, Dirtface.

I try to speak, but it comes out a dry rasp of nothing. Darkness.

More words, but I can’t hear them.

I fight to keep my eyes open. Then I try to speak again. To crack a joke. Oh, look who cares now that I’m dead!

I’m not dead, am I?

My voice doesn’t work. Is that a sign of death? Maybe I’m paralyzed.

Oh my God. I try to say something once more, but this time I must choke on whatever’s left of my saliva, because I cough, my body racking.

Pain shoots through my shoulder. White-hot, blinding pain.

That’s when I freak out. Because I’ve been in pain before. The kind of uncontrollable pain that obliterates everything else. Every thought, every feeling, every sensation.

Between the darkness and flashes of the person over me, I see images of a hospital bed. Of a social worker, her face etched with pity.

A nurse flinching at my strangled screams.

“Hey!” The muffled voice again brings me back. Those images are old. But the screams stretch into now.

I stop, sucking in a ragged breath. It smells fresh, somehow.

“Hey!” he says. “I’ve got you, okay?” His voice is different now. It hums into my temple, and there’s a breeze on my cheek. My visor is open. Or maybe it broke off?

I remember, asininely, that I was clearing weeds before I got on my bike this morning. That my face under my helmet is filthy.

Why am I concerned about that now?

Shock, I realize.

“You’re going to be okay,” Dirtface says, his voice somehow calming me.

I don’t know what I remembered Dirtface sounding like that one time he said something to me. Nasally, maybe. No, jerky. Hot. Asshole-ish.

But it was never like that. Because I remember the truth now. His voice is gentle and strong. It thrums through me like a bow on a cello.

I try very hard to open my eyes, but it’s like they’re glued shut.

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