Secrets, Lies and Dragonflies

Chapter 26

Breaking into the abyss of deafening silence, a ringtone plays from Lindsey's back pocket. She digs to retrieve her phone. "Hey, Hottie. Where have you been? I've been trying to call you all morning," she says sounding all Marilyn Monroe. Without another word to me, no eye contact, not even a wave, she leaves the room.

Abigail instantly slides up to my bedside. "Wow, Mackenzie. What a bomb shell. This is unbelievable. You look terrible. Like...."

"...road kill?" I say, letting out a little smirk.

She laughs. "How'd you even get yourself home?"

I can only shrug. "Not sure. It's all just a blur. But Abigail, what's worse is he had some girl with him."

"What?" She grows quiet for a moment. "Well, maybe it was his sister or cousin or something?"

"He doesn't have a sister, according to Lindsey, remember? And to be honest, I didn't get the sense it was a platonic thing. The girl called him Babe."

Abigail winces. "Boom, boom. Double bomb shell."

"Yeah, right. I don't even know if I should tell Lindsey about the girl. She already seems angry—and at me. Like I had anything to do with him driving drunk and crashing into bicyclists and maybe even pedestrians, too. Who knows what kind of path of destruction he left behind?" My skin crawls just thinking about what that Neanderthal did to me. To Aunt Amy. To Spencer. And he's getting away with it—just like Rob. "What do you think I should do?" I ask of my only confidant.

"I don't know. I think the best thing to do is wait it out. Give it some time. We don't know how this whole thing between them will land. Who knows? They may end up together for a long time. She's completely infatuated with him and if she finds out he was with someone else after he dropped us off..." she says, shaking her head looking as stumped as I feel.

"I know. It'd wreck her. But it worries me that if she lets him get away with doing what he did last night and..."

"Yeah. I get it. You're right. It would be awful. But he seemed genuinely sorry for being such an idiot. Besides, a guy like that can get any girl he wants so it's not like he's lurking in the shadows waiting to pounce. If I were you, I'd let it go."

"You really think so?"

"I do. Look, it's not like he declared his love for her. They're at the beginning of their relationship." Her phone beeps. "It's my dad texting me from the car loop downstairs. Said he'd come up to see you, but the rain is pretty bad. Says to get better." She rises from the chair looking frazzled and leans in for what turns into a very awkward hug due to the cast on my left arm and stitches elsewhere. "I'll come by tomorrow though and check on you, if that's okay?"

"Yeah, okay."

Lindsey joins Abigail at the doorway and sticks her head in my room to wave goodbye, still on the phone. No conversation with me, but she makes sure Aunt Amy isn't ignored. "My mama said for you to call us if we can help with anything," she says.

"I think we'll be good. Please give her my thanks. And thank you, girls, for coming to see her. I know it means the world to Mackenzie."

If she only knew.

Aunt Amy is followed in by a gurney carrying a little girl, maybe Spencer's age. She's out cold, attached to a bunch of machines. The sound of a heart monitor pulses. Walking in with bags, balloons and a box of tissues, a weary woman finds a corner shelf and unloads. The medical staff writes on the dry erase board directly in front of the little girl's bed. First the name of the nurse, Jackie, RN. Then the aid's name, Barbara, right under Nurse Jackie's. In the special instructions section, she writes: AUTISTIC – NONVERBAL