Читать книгу One Breath Away - Heather Gudenkauf, Heather Gudenkauf - Страница 21

The cold from the floor is seeping through my pants and it feels as if we have been sitting here forever, but it’s only been like half an hour. All I can think about is that after all that’s happened, I’m not going to be able to see my mom. We’re supposed to get on a plane to Arizona tomorrow and spend the week there.

I wonder what she looks like now. The last time I saw her, her hands were all bandaged up, her hair was all frizzled and her face was bright red like she’d taken a walk in the desert without her hat. Her eyelashes were gone and the nurses had rubbed a thick, shiny lotion all over her arms. P.J. and I talk to her every night, but usually for just a minute or two. She’s too tired or drugged-up from pain medication to talk for very long, but mostly I think she just sounds sad. I know she feels terrible that P.J. and I had to go away, especially to Broken Branch, which she always told us she spent the first seventeen years of her life hoping to leave.

From somewhere outside the classroom we hear banging and a crashing sound and I’m sure he is coming our way. Next to me Beth covers her ears with her hands and begins rocking back and forth and I put my arm around her shoulders. I don’t know what’s going on with Beth. She is the tomboy of our class, the one to go four-wheeling and deer hunting, and now she’s just a mess.

“I’m getting out of here,” Noah says. He stands up and moves toward the windows.

“Sit down, Noah,” Mr. Ellery says strictly.

“No way,” Noah answers, trying to make his voice tough, like he’s some sort of badass. But the words come out so squeaky that I almost feel sorry for him.

“Noah, sit down. If someone’s out there he’ll go right on by us if we’re quiet. The door’s locked. He can’t get in.”

“Like a fricking gun can’t shoot its way through this door,” Noah snaps back, and tries to open a window that leads out to the teacher’s parking lot. Another crash echoes through the hallways and there’s the tinkle of breaking glass and far-off shouts and Noah drops to the floor. If I wasn’t just as scared as he was I would have made a crack about it. For a minute the only sound is everyone’s heavy breathing and Beth’s teeth chattering together.

“Who do you think it is?” Drew whispers in my ear. I shake my head. I can’t speak. Beth pulls on my sleeve and I look over at her.

My dad, she mouths at me, and then covers her face with her hands.