“I’m sorry, but it is, man.” Sebastian turns saying to Noemie, “Tell him.”
Her brow furrows, perplexed. “What?”
“Tell him. Tell him everything.” Sebastian demands.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Tell him… why, why you were in the hospital!”
“You don’t have to, babe,” I move, pushing myself between them, protecting her. Her fingers dig into my back, she’s scared. Confused. I don’t blame her.
“No, she has to. You have to know!” Sebastian shouts, his face turning a deep red.
“I…” She starts, but doesn’t seem to know how to continue.
I spin around, gripping her shoulders with my hands. “Ignore them.”
“No. You can’t ignore us.” Dennis finally steps out from the group. He looks as serious as he ever has. “You both need to know what’s going on!”
She pats my hands, and nods. “It’s okay, Jez. I don’t mind. I was in the hospital because I had a brain injury.”
“Why! Tell him why!” Sebastian shouts and I glare at him.
She waits until I turn back to her before she continues. “I mean, I don’t remember any of it, but… I was in a car accident. I was in a coma for over a month. When I woke up, I was in the hospital and they told me that’s what happened. Like I said, I have no memory of it at all.”
Dennis looks at me, pity and sadness in his eyes.
So what? She was in a car accident.
It can’t have been the same…
No.
“How long ago, Noemie? I mean, when did it happen?” I ask, already afraid of the answer.
“The accident was three months ago.”
I suck in my breath.
God, please no.
“Are you, are you sure?” I ask, for once hoping to find a lie in her eyes. But it’s all truth.
“Well, like I said, I don’t remember, but yes, it was three months ago. I know, because it was my birthday.”
And every single blood cell in my body freezes.
And then shatters into a million pieces.
NOEMIE
Everyone is quiet. And looking at Jez, and then me, and then back at Jez again.
He’s running his fingers through his hair. Something’s wrong. Something’s horrendously wrong.
“What happened… with the accident?” he asks me.
“I don’t know. I don’t remember.” I repeat. He knows this, why is he asking.
“Try. Try dammit!” He raises his voice, dropping my hand.
“Jez…?”
“Just please, try,” his voice lowers but still tight.
“I don’t know! I just now that they said I was driving the car and I must’ve hit someone. I hit my head on the steering wheel pretty hard, I fractured my skull and I was in a coma! I don’t know anything else.” My head is starting to ache, a thudding behind my eyes, and a sharp pain where my scar is. “I don’t know I’m sorry, I’ve told you everything I know. I don’t remember getting in the car, I don’t remember driving, I don’t remember hitting anyone, I don’t remember anything! I don’t even know what happened to the other person. Paige took care of all that while I was out.”
Jez’s back is turned to me and everyone is watching him. No one is speaking, it’s completely silent.
“Jez…” I reach out, touching his shoulder.
He wrenches it away and spins around. His pupils are almost completely dilated, dark, angry, hard.
“Look,” he says.
And he pulls on the hem of his white T-shirt, tugging it over his head. Why is he doing that?
“Look.” he says again, and takes my hand and runs it over his chest.
He has scars on his chest. I know them well. I’ve kissed them countless times already.
“These are from where the hood of the car ripped the skin from my chest and broke my ribs which punctured my lung in two places. And these,” he moves my hand so my fingers run over the length of his arms, the pads of my fingertip feeling the soft, shiny bumps of the scars on his arms, “are from when the bones broke in my arms and pierced through my skin, when I fell on the asphalt road after being flung ten feet into the air.”
Oh my god.
I can feel my eyelids blinking, as my brain tries to make sense of what Jez is saying. Of why he’s saying these things.
And I think it’s dawning on me.
No.
No, no, no, no, no!
He moves my hand to his right wrist, and he tries to bend it, and I can feel a clicking under the skin, “that is from the clean break of my wrist when I tried to break my fall.” Then our hands move along the length of his fingers, thin and frail, “And these are the three fingers that fractured so badly, they had to operate twice just to align the bones right.”
“All in all, seven broken and fractured bones. One punctured lung. One ruptured spleen. Two pints of blood transfused. Two weeks in a coma. Three months in the hospital. One, two, three, four,” he points to each of his bandmates, and then himself, “lives put on hold until further notice. That, Noemie. That is what happened to the ‘other guy’ that you don’t remember hitting. With the car you drove that night. Drunk.”
He looks at me, like he doesn’t recognize me. Or worse, like he wishes he’d never met me.
No. That can’t be true. He has to listen to me. He has to listen to what I have to say.
“Jez. I don’t remember any of this, I swear to you. Are you sure I’m the one who hit you?”
“Yes, it was you” Dennis says, speaking up. “Jez didn’t know. He didn’t want to know anything about the accident after it happened. But I’ve known all along. I tried to warn you, Jez.”
“How could you get into the car that night, Noemie? How could you, after drinking?”
“I don’t know! I would never have done that. That’s what I mean, not only do I not remember, I can’t even imagine myself doing it.”
“But you did. It’s all in the report. Your blood alcohol was over the limit.” Dennis says. To his credit he’s trying to be as kind as possible, I think. For Jez’s sake.