Allyson In Between ✔︎

Noah | Deleted Scene 2

* * *

The lawnmower won't start. After three tries, I remember to check the gas. Empty.

The can in the garage is empty, too. I load it in my trunk and go into the house.

My keys aren't in the designated key-bowl. They're not on my dresser either. I search the pile of clothes on my bedroom floor for the shorts I had on yesterday.

"Dodge?" Dad calls.

Shit. Sounds like he's on the warpath.

"I'm in here." I start in on the hamper, pulling out shirts that test my overactive gag reflex.

"Why don't I hear the lawnmower?"

Dad's voice is closer now, harsher. "I need to get gas," I say, stuffing my clothes back into the mesh bag. "But I can't find my keys. Have you seen a pair of brownish shorts?"

"The bathroom floor is covered with—"

"Yes, sir. I'm on it." I hold up the hamper as evidence. "I'll start a load on my way out the door." We exchange nods as we pass in the hallway.

"Shit," Dad says. He stops at the top of the stairs. His frown looks like it was drawn on his face, cartoon style. "You're going to have to re-wash the load that's in there first. Use hot water and a little bleach. They've been in there a while."

"Got it."

"Thanks," he says, with slightly less venom. "Was Gramps all right the last time you were over there?"

"Yeah, he was good."

"Last night he started poking around on his computer and locked us both out of his online banking. Now he says the computer won't start at all. I'm going over there—by way of the pharmacy to pick up his prescription—and then I have to take him to the grocery store so he can pick out his own damned bananas. The last ones I brought him were too green."

And that right there explains the crap attitude.

"Do you need anything while I'm at the store?" Dad asks, moving on.

"Nope." I flip on the bathroom light. The bulb pops and dies. 

"Light bulbs," Dad calls.

"Yep."

The shorts I was looking for are right there on top of the pile. My keys fall out of the pocket—along with my phone. It blinks on when it thumps the floor, showing me a text message from a number that hasn't come across my screen in more than two years:

Hi, Noah. It's Allyson Clark. Thank you for saving my life.

I half-sit, half-collapse onto the cold tile and read it again. My pulse is all over the place: fast and faint one second, pounding slow the next. I want to be Ally's hero. I want to cash in, like Gramps said. Use the opportunity to get close to her again, to beg her to forgive me. But if the rumors are true, Ally doesn't know what I did—what she did to me. She doesn't know what we were to each other. I'm just a guy who pulled her out of the pool.

Until somebody goes up there and tells her the truth.

* * *

The day after Ally was released from the hospital, Mrs. Clark left a message on the answering machine at my house. She told us about Faircrest—rambled on about how some rich lady had turned it into a brain trauma rehabilitation center in memory of her daughter. I drove to Stafford County that afternoon, down the longest gravel driveway I've ever seen, and called Mom from the parking lot. I recited every detail I could remember from that message. Then I went on to describe everything that was in front of me—the red brick colonial mansion, stone outbuildings covered with vines; huge, sprawling oak trees that reminded me of home—anything to keep my mind off the accident. Off the girl I loved, the life I'd ruined. I talked until I could breathe again, until I lost the urge to punch through the windshield. Then I cranked up the car and drove home.