After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away Read Free

in my arm, had to be pulled along on a pole. Talk about weird .

    In the corridor we passed other patients up and about pulling their IVs with them. Mostly they were older. Some of them had become soft-looking like rag dolls. Even the men moved with such caution, you knew they were waiting for pain to strike them like lightning.
    “Jenna, hello.”
    “Why, Jenna, aren’t you looking good?”
    I tried to remember their names. Older people, adults, their names just drifted past me unless I kept meeting them or had to know who they were, like teachers.
    I was impressed with Maria: She had muscles. Arm and shoulder muscles compact and hard.
    My leg muscles were hard from running. Before the wreck I’d tried to run every day, but after the wreck the thought of running was a joke.
    “You go, girl! One hell of a girl.”
    “Oh, sure. One hell. ”
    It hurt when I laughed, like shattered glass being shaken inside my chest.
    Since I’d told my father I didn’t know him, didn’t want him to kiss me, I’d been feeling stronger. My eyesight was coming back, except when I got tired.
    S L O W was how we walked, Maria and me. The hospital floor was like a city block you could walk around, turning each corner until you arrived back where you’d started.

    In the blue I’d been spared this. Leaning on Maria like some broke-back old thing, panting through my mouth. Trying not to see how strangers stared at me.
    Wanting to say, “Think I look bad now? You should’ve seen me when they pulled me from the wreck.”
    In the blue no one ever looked at me with pity.
    In the blue the light was always soft. Out here everything was bright-glaring and felt like sandpaper.
    “Try not to breathe through your mouth, Jenna. Let’s rest for a minute. Deep breaths now. C’mon!”
    Mom used to say, “I wish you weren’t an only child.”
    I wanted to tell Maria I loved her. I wanted to ask Maria to be my friend not just for now but always.
    Except I remembered: After the wreck I wasn’t going to like anybody ever again.
    Why? Because they fly away and leave you alone.
    Too risky.
    Such a feeling of sadness came over me. I couldn’t love Maria anyway, that was ridiculous. Couldn’t return to the track team even as the weakest runner, that was more ridiculous.

    I’d almost made it back to my room, but my legs became weak, and I had to sit in the wheelchair. My face was flushed, I could feel blood vessels pounding inside my ugly shaved head. Maria was going on about how well I’d done, how each day I was definitely improving, the gold cross winked just above the V-neck of her white uniform, and I heard myself say, “You don’t have to be nice to me, Maria. Unless it’s your job.”

10
    People came to visit. Now that I was out of intensive care.
    Now that I wasn’t so freaky-awful to look at. So piteous.
    Girl friends. A few guys. Some of my teachers. Meghan Ryder, the girls’ track team coach.
    Bringing me hurt-girl gifts: flowers, candy, stuffed animals, paperback books in balloon colors.
    Lots of relatives. (From Mom’s side of the family mostly.)
    Ms. Ryder gripped my hand in her superstrong hand. She smiled so you could see the strain in her cheeks like rubber being stretched. On the track team we’d speculated on how old Meghan Ryder was, some of us thinking twenty-five? -six?—and some of us thinking older, like thirty?—and seeing Ms. Ryder trying to smile at me now and the puckers at the sides of her eyes, I had to think older. She told me in a bright, forced voice that I’d be walking again, I’d be running again, she was sure.

    Physiotherapy, Ms. Ryder said.
    Physiotherapy is the secret. Works miracles.
    Smile smile! My mouth got tired from the strain. Maybe it wasn’t my mouth but my visitors’ mouths. Maybe I got tired from watching their mouths. Maybe I got tired from seeing their pitying eyes.
    Aunt Caroline saw. Aunt Caroline seemed to be in charge. When she saw that I was becoming tired, she asked my visitors