Page 1 of Fall for Me

Chelsea

I’d asked for a sign. Instead, I dreamed of darkness.

Everything around me was pitch black, as if I’d woken in the middle of the night underwater.

But I could breathe.

Once, as a kid, we went camping. All five of us kids in a giant 10-man tent while Mom and Dad slept in the tent trailer next to us. I woke up when something jabbed at my ribs—my brother Jude elbowing me in his sleep—Dad always said Jude slept like a beached trout. But when I opened my eyes, I couldn’t see my hands in front of my face. I was so scared, my stomach went fluttery and I cried out to Mom. I thought I was dead. Mom came for me, wrapped me up in her arms, and sang sweet songs with her face pressed into my hair. It was good you called for me she said. I didn’t used to. I used to curl up in silence and terror.

Maybe I was in a tent now, camping with friends? Or maybe that fear had come true. Maybe I was dead; my whole life a dream, and I was eight years old again, in heaven.

I felt the tug of something immeasurably sad on my heart. I blinked as if that would help me see, and somehow it did. Only I opened my eyes to something bad. A man—a good man—pulling me toward him, his face panicked. His features lit up as if in a spotlight, his mouth open.

A terrible, grinding crunch.

Then, more darkness.

* * *

There was light in the darkness now. Low, just pinpricks in the dark, but there. Green and red, flashing and still. A clock, with fuzzy numbers. 2:17AM. I was inside, in a room.

I’d woken up, and I was still breathing. Was this the answer I’d been looking for?

But something wasn’t right.

Muffled voices came from somewhere outside this room; and when I turned, a dull, throbbing pain in my face. I noticed with some confusion that there was someone in a chair next to me, slumped in sleep.

I was in a hospital, I realized. And there was someone keeping vigil beside me. The thought was like a soft hand holding me. Mom used to fall asleep in the chair next to my bed, when I was too scared to sleep alone.

The man was just a shadow in the dark. I had three brothers. But I knew the shape of them, and this wasn’t one of them. He was tall; his long legs bent in front of him. His head was tilted down, hands curled around the armrests. He shifted. Snored, maybe. His dark hair flopped against a shadowed face I couldn’t see.

I tried to speak, to ask him who he was, but no sound came out. It didn’t matter; I remembered what it was like to not speak. I spent years not saying anything at all. My parents took me to specialists, but no one knew why I wouldn’t speak. But I remembered you could learn more by not speaking. So I didn’t try again. I just watched the man, letting myself fall into the comfort of his presence. I knew he was good. Only someone good would care for me like this.

My eyelids fell, and darkness washed over me. But I was used to the dark, too. I let it swallow me up like a blanket.

* * *

The next time I woke up, it was daytime. Voices murmured, and there was a clink of something at the end of this bed.

“I’m fine to stay,” the voice said. It was deep and slightly rumbly, like rocks rolling along the floor of the Quince River. I closed my eyes, letting it wash over me. I knew this voice, but my sluggish mind wouldn’t put together who it was.

“Okay, well, just a few more minutes while I talk to Dr. Lee.”

Cass.

I opened my eyes. Two people walked toward the door. One of them was my big sister Cassandra, and she was walking out of the room. The other looked like… my dad.

That’s when I knew something big must have happened.

To me.

Dad had been gone for almost a year. We didn’t think he was coming back. But there he was, looking older, his shoulders stooped.

Through the fog, my stomach fluttered.

Dad.

I swallowed. I wantedto speak this time, but I couldn’t. Cass! I tried to move, but my hand only fluttered against the blanket.

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