Band X

Chapter 14: Juicy Interruption

Just when I know the end is near my lips part and I take in a huge breath of fresh air. My eyes fly open and I realize that I'm half on the ground in our driveway and half in the backseat of my mom's car. My brother is shoving me from behind while my mom pulls on my arms. Her eyes are wide and she looks terrified. I want to say something, anything, but my throat is dry and I'm having a hard time forming thoughts in my brain.

When my mom sees my eyes open she starts crying and throws her arms around me. Not softly. No, she's sobbing and taking in deafening, jagged breaths. I disentangle myself from my mother's suffocating hug and press my cheek against the cold seat.

"Can I have some water?" I ask as I try to make my legs work. I force the words out and my voice sounds hoarse.

My dad runs back into the house and when he returns a minute later with a cold bottle of water, I've managed to sit upright in the backseat next to my mother.

I take a big gulp, so big I start to sputter and choke as my throat tightens up. Still, this water is the best thing I've ever tasted and I close my eyes again. I'm so tired. I want to sleep but I also want to know what the hell happened to me. And to Thomas. Our date was so incredible and I can't remember anything after he tried to kiss me goodnight.

God, I hope it all wasn't some sort of pathetic dream. Maybe he never asked me out at all and it was just a figment of my imagination. I start to panic. Have I been in some sort of coma all this time like that woman on the soap opera my mom used to watch, the one who woke up to find that her husband had married her sister and that her son ran away with her much older best friend?

Just when I start to panic and imagine the very worst, that Thomas never liked me after all and that this has all been a warped trick played on me by my overactive imagination, I suddenly begin to think a little more clearly, like a fog has lifted.

"What happened?" I ask.

My mom is still heaving and sobbing so she waves at my dad to take this one. Actually, this might be the only way the poor guy gets to lead the conversation when my mom is around. Keep her crying and he might get a whole sentence out once in a while.

My dad runs around to the driver's side of the car and gets in while my brother buckles into the seat next to him. He looks worried and nervous. "Well, we really don't know yet. Thomas brought you home a little while ago and you passed out right on the front porch."

I'm still kind of out of it but the mention of Thomas' name brings the night into focus. So we did go out after all. A huge relief washes over me when I realize that it truly wasn't all a dream. We really did have an amazing night.

That relief quickly turns to panic when I start to think about where he could have gone after I passed out. Did he just leave me there to be found by my parents who were already peeking out at us from behind the living room drapes? Did they watch in horror as I crumbled to the ground as he ran away as fast as he could?

Or did he ring the doorbell and then run for his life so at least he could say he alerted someone in the house that I was unconscious on the front porch?

I'm resting my head against my mom's shoulder as my dad speeds down the road. My eyes are so heavy that I'm tempted to close them and pass out again but I just have to know.

"Where is Thomas?"

My mom wipes are tears on the back of her sleeve and tries to calm down and answer me. "He went home. Thank God he came and got us when you passed out."

At least he told them I was a heap on the front porch before he ran away. "He just went home?"

My brother turns around. He looks upset, too, and I'm not surprised. Finding me there must have been pretty upsetting for him. He's easily upset but still. A lifeless sister outside the front door would be traumatizing for even the toughest kid. "Yeah, I answered the door after he pounded on it and that's when I saw you and yelled for mom and dad. Mom told him to go home because we had to rush you to the hospital."