Soul Fire (8 page)

Mr. Harrison, our math teacher, came into the room. His bearded face swayed in front of me, his lips forming words. Finally, I got a breath of air and struggled upright. Scooping up my books, papers, and backpack, I staggered out of the room, muttering that I was going to the nurse’s station.

Nauseous, I bolted down the hall to the girl’s bathroom, burst through the heavy door and into a stall. Slamming the stall door behind me, I leaned against it, panting, sweaty, and ill. It was a relief to be alone. A minute or so later, I heard the outer door close softly and sensed that someone had entered the washroom. No footsteps. No sound. Was I mistaken? A familiar scent wafted up my sensitive nose, but I couldn’t place it. A movement near the floor caught my eye and I glanced down. The back side of a cell phone! Click, click, click.
The camera
!

Lightning fast, I grabbed the wrist and pulled it upward against wall. There was a shriek. Furious, I yanked with all my might. The phone hit the floor and her other hand slid out to grab it. I kicked the cell away and let go of her wrist, at the same time rushing out of the stall. She tried to escape. I grabbed her long hair and jerked her backward hard. Her face looked up at me. Stunned, I stared at her. “Lisa,” I whispered. My friend. Or so I had thought. We were both in Harrison’s math class, both on the precision team, and we had known each other for years. A memory flashed through my mind: last year’s Christmas party with our skating team. I had drawn her name for the gift exchange, and knowing her passion for cats, I had given her a dainty silver necklace in the shape of a kitten. Overwhelmed, she’d hugged me.
What had changed?

“Let go,” she yelled. “You’re hurting me!”

I released her. “Why?” I asked, my voice hushed.

She pulled away from me, and quick as could be, grabbed her cell off the floor and fled. I cursed myself for not picking it up first. I knew what Lisa was trying to do. There were a few nasty girls in this school who used their cells to snap photos of girls sitting on the toilet. They posted these embarrassing photos on a website they called,
Peekaboo.
I stood there trying to comprehend why Lisa, once my friend, someone I had known for years, would do a thing like that.

Her desire to hurt me brought deeper pain than what I had just received from Rand. I turned and looked in the mirror. Had I been living in a bubble all this time? Angrily, I splashed cold water on my face, washed my hands, took a deep breath, and walked out. My eyes fixed on the exit sign and I hurried toward it.

I had to get away, but where would I go? Home was out of the question. I had no job. My one remaining friend was in class. The pool was booked during weekdays, and I would stick out in the library. As I crossed the grounds, I looked around for Delta, but there was no sign of him. I walked around the neighborhood aimlessly for what felt like hours. A cold, damp wind was blowing and I was chilled through. In misery, I stopped at the community park. There were no benches, so I went over to a cluster of overgrown shrubs and leaned against an old fir tree. After a while, I slid down the trunk and hit the damp ground, my forehead falling onto my knees. I stuffed my hands between my legs to warm them. Tears seeped into my jeans. My emotions churned—a cauldron of chaos, my thoughts in turmoil.

I was scared. I had no experience at being ‘hated’. Nor did I have any answers or ideas about how to get out of the mess I was in. I was trapped.

Never in my life had I felt so defeated and alone.

The cold and the dampness seeped into my bones. My feet and legs were numb. I hurt where I’d been punched and kicked and I hadn’t moved for what felt like hours. It began to rain, declaring a fitting end to the day.

Something brushed my arm. “Come on,” a voice said and I felt two strong hands reach for me. “It’s starting to rain.”

“No.” I twisted away.

He lifted me up, and I found myself looking at Delta. He pulled off his Tarantula jacket, turned it inside out, and put it over my shoulders. Then I felt his arm around me. My legs had lost circulation, so I could barely walk. He half carried me until the circulation returned to my feet. Neither of us spoke and when we arrived at his house, he put his finger to his lips. “Quiet now,” he cautioned me. I followed him upstairs and he motioned to the couch. I collapsed onto it while he disappeared, returning a few minutes later with two cups of hot chocolate and cheese sandwiches. I wasn’t hungry or thirsty.

He stuffed a half sandwich into my hand and put the hot drink on the coffee table.

“Heard what happened,” he said, sliding into the armchair opposite me. Again, I wondered how he had come across me in the park. “Rand is a real piece of work. He’s simple and he’s a horror show. You okay?”

I shook my head.

“Have the hot chocolate. It’ll warm you up.”

I looked down at the cup. “No little pink pills?”

“After, if you promise not to pass out again.”

I picked up the hot mug and let its warmth thaw my icy fingers. It tasted delicious and suddenly, I was hungry and tried the sandwich. Not bad.

“Thought you were going to avoid school for a few days.” His tone was almost reprimanding.

“I should have listened.”

“Let things cool off,” he warned me again.

“Don’t worry, this morning did it for me.” I took another bite of the cheese sandwich.

“You tell your parents what’s been going on?”

“No way.” I took a few sips of hot chocolate. “How do I get out of this mess?”

“Change schools.” He reached into his jeans pocket. There it was, the bag with little pink pills. He shook a couple onto the coffee table and then put the open bag down next to them.

“Your mom home?” I asked, my eyes glued to the pills he called X.

“She’s always home. Remember to be quiet.”

I nodded and reached for one, popping it into my mouth. I wanted to obliterate any memory of this morning. Even to feel nothing at all would be an improvement, so I scooped up a couple more pills and downed them. “Hey, stop!” He grabbed my wrist, but it was too late.

Like last time, I started to feel better . . . good actually. I drifted for a while, savoring my reprieve. The room grew hot and then stifling. Whew. Had to get rid of my clothes. But not in front of… what’s his name…Dave? I weaved my way into the bathroom and threw cold water on my face. Even the water felt hot. Weird. I stuck my head out the door and yelled, “It’s frying in here. Turn off the heat." I staggered down the stairs, seeking the cold outdoors when I realized I was going to barf. It splattered across the clean kitchen floor as I raced for the back door. Bolting through it, I was barely able to catch my breath, my heart racing, my thoughts fixed on reaching the cold air outside. I made it out and then collapsed, my heart galloping like a crazy horse in my chest, my skin on fire, and a single terrifying thought zapping through my brain:
God help me!

I awoke in a private room adjacent to the hospital’s emergency ward. Tubes and wires were everywhere. A nurse was on one side of me and my parents were on the other. Everyone looked grim. Mom had aged. Her youthful face was haggard. Her sunken, red-rimmed eyes met mine.

“Mom?” Who’s squeaky voice was that? Mine?

“Oh, Ashla, what were you thinking? You almost died, do you know that?” she blew her nose and gripped my hand. Her fingers were icicles. “It was touch and go for hours while they pumped you out, put you on a ventilator, gave you injections, and the whole time…” a sob racked her body and Dad put his arm around her, “we waited to hear if you were going to make it,” she wiped tears away, “or not.”

Dad wiped his eyes and reached for my other hand. I could feel the tension in his fingers.

“Sorry.” It came out a whisper.

“Ashla,” he said quietly. “Why?”

Why?
Nothing intelligent came to mind, so I remained silent as I searched my malfunctioning brain for a decent excuse. Nothing popped up. How do you tell your parents that you, their pride and joy, the product of their lifetime of labor, had blown it and just couldn’t live with that simple fact? How do you tell them that you couldn’t look at yourself in the mirror and see anyone worth looking at? That instead, you saw a stranger who could no longer hold her head up. How do you tell them that you’ve lost your way? That you’re adrift like a ship in a malicious sea—with no one at the helm?

How do you tell them that you don’t know how to go on with your life?

“Ashla, can you hear me?”

I nodded despondently.

Dad wiggled my limp hand in his. “Ashla?”

“Sorry . . . ” I whispered again and closed my eyes. Looking at the love in their faces, and seeing their worry and confusion, made me feel like such an ungrateful, undeserving creature. I had the best parents in the world. Too bad they no longer had a daughter to be proud of. If only I could turn back the clock to the day of the accident. If only I’d turned around that fateful day and gone down the other run with Tara. Or, maybe if I had gone down the West Face slower, I would have arrived at Blind Jump a second or two later and missed hitting Justin.

If only
.

I’m young, yet I feel like my life is over. Ruined. I’m plagued with so much guilt it’s intolerable.

I must have drifted off to sleep because the next time I opened my eyes, I saw Celeste standing beside me, chewing on the knuckle of her middle finger. She only did that in times of extreme stress, like right before a race. “Oh, Ashla, you scared me to death! I thought you were going to die.” She put her head on my shoulder and threw her arm around me best she could. She was such a good friend. Always there.

Finally, she stood up, tore a tissue from the yellow box by the bed, and blew her nose daintily. “It was an accident, right? I mean you weren’t trying to off yourself? Right?”

I nodded.

She frowned. “Is that ‘yes, it was an accident’ or ‘yes, you were trying to off yourself?’”

“Accident,” I whispered. Had to say that, although I wasn’t so sure myself.

I don’t remember finishing this conversation. A while later, they moved me upstairs to a mini ward, but the other beds were empty. Sometime after that, Dad came in alone. His clothes hung from his frame. Why was he getting so thin?

He stroked my hair and sat down in the chair beside the bed. Neither of us spoke and I soaked up his companionship. Dad meant the world to me. Always had. After a while he said, “Ashla, talk to me. Tell me what’s going on.”

I looked into his kind brown eyes. “Can’t live with it anymore,” I choked out.

“You mean the accident?” he asked, knowing the answer. I nodded.

“Ashla,” he said firmly, “listen to me now. Listen carefully.” I settled my eyes on his familiar, loving face. In the matter of a few seconds, he explained something he called,
The Y Factor:

"Life offers us choices and many opportunities to make them.

As a youth, if you make an error in judgment it's really about the fact that you are young and still learning to make the right choices. When you’re learning, you don’t always get it right. Sometimes, you make a mistake, and sometimes someone gets hurt.

It’s what you do next that defines who you are. A good person must determine how to live with what they've done.
Normally, that requires you to do everything in your power to make it right.

What that means is that right now, this minute, you are standing at the doorstep of another opportunity."

As usual, Dad had summed this up into a simple package that made so much sense. His words brought me incredible relief. I no longer felt like a criminal, an outcast, or a loser. I was a girl who’d screwed up and made a terrible choice.

He squeezed my hand. “Is this where you are right now, Ashla?”

I nodded, wiping my eyes with the sheet. “So, how do I do that, Dad? How do I fix this?”

He smiled and rubbed my arm. “You’ve made the leap, Ashla. You’re where you need to be. You're ready to take the next step.” He put his hand on my chin and lifted my face.

“You’ll do the right thing this time, Ashla. I know you will.”

Three days later, I went home. Mom watched me continually as though she was checking my psychological temperature to be sure it was remaining around normal. Before I left the hospital, I’d had a visit from the in-house psychiatrist. He had sat down by my bed and stared at me for the longest time. Having heard that one must look a psychiatrist in the eye or be labeled as having low esteem or some other such thing, I stared right back, wondering what exactly he was getting out of the whole experience. Eventually, he said, “Have you given any thought to what happened?”

I wasn’t sure which
happening
he was referring to, so I gave him what Mom calls the one size fits all answer. I told him that I’d failed myself, my parents, my friends, not to mention Justin Ledger, and his family. I’d mishandled the whole situation and had gone the wrong way—I don’t think he got the double entendre. “I won’t be doing that again any time soon,” I assured him. He didn’t look like he believed a word of it, but being overloaded with other, more pressing cases he said, “Well then, take my card and if you get in trouble again, give my assistant a call.”

Humph. So much for support systems.

It was Saturday, so our house was quiet. The daycare was closed for the weekend, my grandmother was resting in her room, thank goodness, and Dad had taken Anika with him on errands. Mom made tea for the two of us. I suspected one of those mother-daughter talks looming, and I was eyeing an escape route.

“I’ve been wanting to ask you about last Wednesday,” Mom began, motioning me to join her at the table. When I was seated on the edge of the chair, she asked, “How well do you know the Anderson boy?”

“Who?”

“Dell Anderson, the boy you were with.”

“You mean, Delta? His real name is Dell?”

“I gather you don’t know him very well.”

I shook my head. “Seen him around. He hangs with the Tarantulas.” I shuddered, thinking about them, their drugs, and my foray into their grim world. Mom interrupted my reverie.