“How did you know Johnny saved me from the fire?” Her words came out like an accusation, but it was meant more for the boy in the bed than the woman at her side.
“Gus,” Principal Bailey answered succinctly. “He told me that Johnny had found Shad and was carrying him on his shoulder when Gus went into the school. If not for Johnny, Shad would have most certainly died. No one would have found him in that locker.” She paused and looked at Johnny as if trying to impress what she was saying upon his memory. Then she looked at Maggie. “Gus said you told him that Johnny carried you out as well.” She waited for Maggie to pick up the telling of the story.
Maggie nodded briefly. The memory of being swept up in Johnny’s arms felt like a mirage, but she clung to it. “He did carry me out! You did!” She looked at Johnny fiercely then, daring him to disagree. “I didn’t want to leave you. I told you to let me stay with you. But you carried me out. I don’t know how, but you did.” Johnny was unfazed by his own heroics. He shook his head once, negating her words.
Maggie gagged on the emotion in her throat, and her eyes began to sting at the indignity of it all. Why did he keep shaking his head? If you truly loved someone, how could you forget?
“You don’t remember me? You don’t remember anything at all?” Her voice shook, and her stomach heaved in dread.
It was his turn to be fierce, and she could see he struggled to rein in his temper. “I remember everything just fine! I remember going to the new school looking for Roger Carlton. There was a bunch of kids all gathered to see a fight – but Roger Carlton didn’t want to fight fair. He set up a little ambush. He messed up my car. I remember Billy running down the hallway waving that damn gun. I remember Billy yelling out. I remember going over the balcony, falling. I remember Billy….” Johnny stopped then and ran his hands up into his hair. The familiarity of the gesture hit Maggie like a physical blow. She gripped her hands tightly in her lap to keep from reaching out to him, to keep from touching him. He wouldn’t welcome her touch.
“Billy’s dead, isn’t he?” Johnny choked out. “I need to tell my momma. She’s not gonna take this well.”
Maggie’s lips trembled, and the tears swam in her eyes. Oh, dear God! He was just realizing they were gone?! Oh, Johnny!” She hid her face in her hands, overcome with sympathy. This wasn’t happening.
“Johnny….” Jillian Bailey stood and touched his shoulder. “Momma already knows. All of that happened a long time ago.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Johnny was yelling again, so loudly the entire hospital would be coming down around them. “None of this makes any sense! I don’t know you! I don’t know HER!” His eyes flew to Maggie, who had reached for him again, needing to comfort him, needing to touch him. “I don’t know where I am or what I am doing here!” Maggie dropped her hand and reached for the bars on Johnny’s bed. Her legs trembled and her heart bled.
The door banged open again, and this time Fatima wasn’t alone. A bevy of medical people swarmed the room.
“OUT!” Fatima roared, pointing at the door. “Jillian! Take that girl back to her room.” Johnny had pulled his IV out of his wrist, causing blood to stream down his raised arm, and he was attempting to pull the bandages from his shoulder. Someone pulled Maggie from Johnny’s side, yanking her hands from the bars that were supporting her. Fatima bodily restrained Johnny as someone injected something into him. His shouting and struggling lessened almost immediately. Jillian Bailey wrapped her arms around Maggie’s shoulders and led her from Johnny’s room. Maggie collapsed onto her bed and sobbed. Jillian Bailey sat beside her, crying quietly with her, until the sun nuzzled its way into her hospital room, slipping golden fingers through the slats in her blinds and reminding her that life continued, whether or not Johnny had lost his.
***
Maggie begged to see him again, regardless of his feelings for her. His despair and fear made her almost crazed with worry. He was alone, his entire world gone, and Maggie knew acutely what that felt like. Alone without a friend in the world. She would be Johnny’s friend, even if friendship was all he wanted. She pleaded with whomever would listen, beseeching them to allow her access to him. Finally, toward the end of the next day, Jillian Bailey came back to her room and shut the door firmly behind her. She looked dead on her feet.
“Maggie,” Jillian Bailey sat on the foot of her bed. “I know you’re asking to see Johnny. I know you have feelings for him, and you’re worried about him. You can’t see him right now, though. He doesn’t remember you, and he doesn’t want to see you.”
Maggie nodded, taking the blow in stride. “I won’t ask him for anything or make him uncomfortable. I just want him to know he isn’t alone.”
Maggie swallowed the tears in her throat and kept her face composed. She was good at that. Many years of being disappointed and rejected had made her an expert. She’d never been hit or slapped or abused, but she’d been shunned, neglected and ignored. One year she’d been placed with a new foster family right before the holidays. They didn’t want their “family” time at Christmas “interrupted”, and they didn’t want extended family who would be visiting to feel “uncomfortable.” So she had spent the holiday in her room, listening as sounds of revelry and laughter floated up the stairs from the gathering below. It had sounded like fun. They had brought her a plate of food on Christmas Eve but had almost forgotten on Christmas day. She had many stories like that one. Lonely was something she was intimately familiar with, and something she didn’t want Johnny to suffer from, even if she wasn’t his preferred company.