Earthbound

To one person, anyway.

I think that’s the day I realized I was falling for him.

Not that it’ll ever happen. Probably. He’s so focused on school and I … I’m kinda broken. Not just my injuries. I’ve changed. In ways I can hardly put my finger on, but I can’t deny it. Concentration is harder than it used to be. Everything is harder, really. My brain injury was considered moderate and my recovery pronounced by the doctors to be “miraculous,” but simply living is a tiny bit less natural, a shade less instinctive. A little less … everything. I’ve mostly come to terms with it. But I don’t know that I’m ready for a real relationship with anyone yet. Or even soon. My life is a tangle of uncertainty.

Besides, he has this girl. Dana. I haven’t met her—I don’t want to meet her—but apparently she’s gorgeous and funny and smart and amazing and … well, an angel come to earth, according to Benson. They aren’t dating. Yet, as Benson says. But he talks about her all the time.

When I can’t get him to change the subject.

He won’t even see me; not compared to that. And I’m not willing to lose his friendship just because I can’t have it both ways.

Pushing away my self-pity, I look down and realize I’ve been subconsciously doodling. Just scribbles. Rubbing my pencil back and forth, essentially. But …

But …

I turn the paper sideways and swallow hard as a jolt of adrenaline tingles down my arms. The dark smudges definitely look like someone’s shadow.

A guy’s shadow. A guy who’s tall and slim and has a hint of a ponytail.

I let the pencil slip from my fingers and clench my fists, trying to get control of my breathing, my panic coming from a completely different source now.

I haven’t drawn a thing since the day my plane went down. Not that I haven’t tried. But art is the symbol of my ruined dreams.

And the reason my parents are dead.

I know technically it’s irrational, but if I hadn’t insisted on going to tour the fancy art school that offered me a scholarship, we never would have boarded that plane. Elizabeth tells me I’m mis-assigning blame. But knowing that and feeling it are two very different things. Every day I fight the guilt.

Sometimes I win.

Most days I lose.

Someone at the school—Huntington Academy of the Arts—saw my work when it was displayed at the Michigan state capitol. They contacted me and requested a portfolio of every piece of art I’d ever done, tempting me with full-color brochures of a beautiful campus where students could apparently take out their easels and paint sunsets at their leisure.

Mom and Dad were skeptical at first, but when the school sent me a full-ride scholarship for my senior year to the tune of about $50K, they had to at least agree to let me go see it.

After the crash I was surprised to realize that I still wanted to go. It felt wrong, yet something inside me still wanted to reclaim what I’d lost.

But the first time I tried to pick up a pencil, it fell out of my fingers. I couldn’t even hold the stupid thing. The doctors told me it was because my brain was still healing; that they expected me to regain all my motor function with physical therapy.

And time.

I insisted Reese call Huntington. After she explained everything, I was surprised how willing they were to defer my scholarship—to let me start up in January when my injuries were healed.

But the fall months passed and I could still barely write my name. Every time I tried, I’d turn into a crying mess all over again. Reese encouraged me through November, December. She told me art was an inherent part of me, part of who I am. To this day I’m not sure why she cared so much. But New Year’s came and even though my hands were better, my artist’s block was all too firmly in place. I called the school myself, on my last day in the neuro-rehabilitation center, and withdrew.

Reese and Jay didn’t try to talk me out of it.

I sigh, loudly. With Benson still AWOL and the weight of anxiety pressing down on me, I cast about for something to keep me busy—to distract me—while I wait. I grab a newspaper from the table next to me and start mechanically reading the words, hardly taking them in. I’m on the second page before I feel an arm drape around the back of my chair.

“Sorry I took so long,” Benson says. I have only a moment to take in a blur of khakis and a pastel green and blue plaid shirt before he’s there on the chair beside me. His breath feels warm on my neck as he glances at the paper, and I feel my fingers tingle. I grip the page tighter and force myself not to lean in—not to press my forehead against his cheek and see if it’s as soft as it looks or gritty with stubble. “Marie had a crapload of filing saved up for me.”

“I hardly noticed you were gone,” I say with mock-loftiness, though my body has practically gone limp with relief. “I was too busy reading about the plague that’s going to destroy the world,” I say, but my humor falls flat.

“That virus again?” Benson says grimly, pushing up his glasses as he leans in to read the story over my shoulder.

“Yeah. They found a new case in Georgia. Dead in twenty-four hours, just like those six people in Kentucky.” I flip back to the front page and point to the first part of the story, then hand over the section.

Since almost dying, I feel like I’m surrounded by death. People are constantly killed in accidents, from diseases, flukes. I know it’s always been that way, but now I’m hyper-aware.

“Sixteen victims so far,” I say quietly. But Benson doesn’t respond—his eyes dart back and forth as he reads. “Jay’s lab just started him working on this,” I add as Benson flips to the second half of the story.

“Really?” Benson’s sudden attention startles me.

“Really, what?”

“Jay’s lab?”

“Yeah. New assignment. You want me to ask him about it?” Benson’s been following the story pretty closely since the first mini-epidemic in Maryland last week. Then Oregon, then Kentucky just a few days ago.

Benson meets my eyes for a second and sits back and pushes the paper away. “Nah. I imagine everybody’s working on it. Hoping to be the one who makes a big breakthrough. It only makes sense.”

“I guess.”

Benson glances down at my backpack. “So what do you need my incredible expertise with?” he asks. Technically Benson doesn’t actually do all that much helping anymore—mostly I just needed the microfiche thing—but we sit and discuss my assignments and readings and he often returns the favor with his own suggestions. It’s why I started reading Keats.

“Nothing but calculus today, actually.”

“Please, a waste of my creative skills. Also, way too hard,” he says with a grin. “I’ll let you do that one on your own.”

“Thaaaaaanks,” I drawl, whapping him on the nose with a pencil.

He pulls my backpack open with one finger and peeks inside. “Don’t you have anything fun in there? Like history?”

“I’m completely finished with my history class for the rest of the semester, as of that paper we researched last Friday. We ate our dessert too quickly.” Since Benson and I are both history buffs, it was just too big of a temptation to work ahead.

“More’s the pity,” Benson says in a faux British accent.

I shake my head at his dramatics. The first time I saw Benson, I thought he was just a run-of-the-mill library nerd. But his comfortable grip when he shook my hand and the way his light green button-up shirt and gray sweater vest had an all-too-purposeful touch of wrinkling told me this was a carefully crafted look—not a persona he stumbled into after a geeky childhood.

In some ways, he keeps me sane better than my shrink. Reminds me of the normalcy life used to have.

He’s an intern from UNH, but even though he’s in college, we’re practically the same age. His birthday’s in August and mine’s in December, so we’re both eighteen, just on opposite sides of the school year cut-off. Not that he doesn’t take every opportunity to bring up the fact that he’s older and wiser.

I’ll give him the older part. But only just.

“I just had to get out of the house.” It’s only a half lie. A few more seconds of procrastination as I try to decide how to start the real conversation.

“Admit it, you missed me.”