In Your Dreams (In Your Dreams #1)

Chapter 24

I wake up, blinking at the harsh lights stinging my eyes. An antiseptic smell tickles my nostrils, threatening to make me sneeze, and a persistent beeping noise is coming from somewhere above my head. Someone's fingers are curled around mine, and I shift my eyes to the left to find Mom staring at me, tears staining her face as she squeezes my hand.

"Oh, Zip. Honey-" That's all she gets out before I start bawling, mostly out of relief. I have no idea where I am or what I'm doing here, but I know right this minute, for whatever reason, I've never been so happy in my life to see my mother and so I don't care that I'm blubbering.

"Mom." I sniffle, and she brushes some hair off my forehead, pain shooting through me. "Sorry," she says as I wince. "I forgot. Habit."

I raise my hand to my temple to find a quarter-sized knot, and as if pressing on the spot jogs my memory, I picture my head hitting the driver's side window as the car skidded to a stop next to the river. Lifting myself up on my elbows, I find my beautiful Prom dress replaced by a cotton hospital smock that barely falls to my bruised and scraped-up knees. My shins, calves, and feet are a maze of cuts and scrapes, and I realize the antiseptic scent making my nose itch must be coming from me. Wires trail from underneath the smock, and my eyes follow them behind and above me where they end at a heart monitor, the jagged lines on the screen telling me that-for the moment anyway-I'm still alive.

"Lie down," Mom gently commands, touching a button on the wall next to the bed. "You've got a concussion from the accident."

The accident. My mind rewinds through the high-speed getaway from Frank Dozier, to Kieran and me running to the car, to Frank's sunburst tattoo, and to me punching Frank in the nose...

I shift my gaze to my right hand but find only fingertips, my fingers taped together and the hand itself buried under an ice pack, all that looks remotely familiar the charm bracelet around my wrist. "My hand," I almost scream, sitting all the way up this time, but a searing pain in my chest knocks me back.

"It's probably not broken." Mom reads my mind. "Just bruised up. They were waiting for you to wake up to take X-rays, but unless they find out it's worse than they think, you'll be shooting baskets again in a week or so. We'll probably have to keep the fingers taped together and ice it every once in a while after we get home."

The curtain parts and Dr. Partchett, who's been with the hospital for years and went to high school with my mom, comes in and asks me how I'm feeling. "Groggy," I tell him.

"That's normal," he says, mostly to Mom. "After we send her down for X-rays, we'll keep her overnight to be safe, but I don't see any reason why she shouldn't be able to go home sometime tomorrow morning."

Mom nods as Dr. Partchett shines a pen light in my eyes and pokes and prods around on me a bit before leaving us alone again.

"Where's Kieran?" I ask.

"He's here," Mom assures me, and before I can interrupt her with my next question, she adds, "And he's fine. He's got some cuts and bruises, but they checked him out and discharged him a while ago. He tried to come in and sit with you, but the nurses wouldn't let anyone stay with you but me. At any rate, he told me he wasn't leaving, so unless Carlie and Jim dragged him home, I'm guessing he's out in the lobby somewhere."

I start crying again, relieved he's not hurt but also concerned that we're in a lot of trouble, depending on what Kieran told his parents and my mom about what went down earlier. "Mom...about tonight...did Kieran explain..."

Mom takes my good hand in hers again. "He said the power went out at the Stanley Farm, so you two left to...to go be alone." She darts her eyes away and scrapes her teeth across her lower lip, something she only does when she's upset at someone, and I'm guessing the "someone" in this case is Kieran. "It was so dark at the river you misjudged your speed heading down and tried to pull off to the side to keep from going in the water."