Should I Stay?

Chapter 13

I watch Zayn, Liam, Niall and Harry disappear down the hall. I mean to follow them but I'm glued to the ground, unable to move my legs. It's only after they disappear around a corner that I rouse myself and trail after them, but they've already gone inside the elevator.

By now I've figured out that I don't have any supernatural abilities. I can't float through walls or dive down stairwells. I can only do the things I'd be able do in real life, except that apparently what I do in my world is invisible to everyone else. At least that seems to be the case because no one looks twice when I open doors or hit the elevator button. I can touch things, even manipulate door handles, but I can't really feel anything or anybody. It's like I'm experiencing everything through a fish-bowl. It doesn't really make sense to me, but then again, nothing that's happening today makes much sense.

I think that all of the boys are headed to the waiting room, but when I get there, my family is not there. There's a stack of coats and sweaters on the chairs and I recognize my cousin Heather's bright orange jacket.

She lives in the country and likes to hike in the woods, so she says that the neon colors are necessary to keep drunk hunters from mistaking her for a bear.

I look at the clock on the wall. It could be dinnertime.

I wander back down the halls to the cafeteria, which has the same fried-food, boiled-vegetable stench as cafeterias everywhere. Unappetizing smell aside, it's full of people.

The tables are crammed with doctors and nurses and nervous-looking medical students in short white jackets and stethoscopes so shiny that they look like toys. They are all chowing down on cardboard pizza and freeze-dried mashed potatoes. It takes me a while to locate my family, huddled around a table. Gran is chatting to Heather. Gramps is paying careful attention to his turkey sandwich.

Uncle Greg and Aunt Willow are in the corner, whispering about something. ''Some cuts and bruises. He was already released from the hospital,'' uncle Greg is saying,

For a second I think he's talking about Louis and am so excited I could cry.

But then I hear her say something about there being no alcohol in his system, how our car just swerved into his lane and some guy named Mr. Westfield says he didn't have time to stop.

Then I realize it's not Louis they're talking about; it's the other driver.

''The police said it was probably the snow, or a deer that caused them to swerve,'' uncle Greg continues. ''And apparently, this lopsided outcome is fairly common. One party is just fine and the other suffers from injuries...'' he trails off.

I don't know that I'd call Mr. Westfield "just fine," no matter how superficial his injuries.

I think about what it must be like to be him, to wake up one Tuesday morning and get into your truck to head off to work. Mr. Westfield, who was maybe perfectly happy or perfectly miserable, married with kids or a bachelor. But whatever and whoever he was early this morning, he isn't that person any longer. His life has changed, too. If what my uncle says is true, and the crash wasn't his fault, then he was what Liam would call ''a poor schmuck,'' in the wrong place at the wrong time. And because of his bad luck and because he was in his truck, driving on the same road as we were this morning, two kids are now parentless and at least one of them is in grave condition.

How do you live with that?

For a second, I have a fantasy of getting better and getting out of here and going to Mr. Westfield's house, to relieve him of his burden, to reassure him that it's not his fault. Maybe we'd become friends.

Of course, it probably wouldn't work like that. It would be awkward and sad. Besides, I still have no idea what I will decide, still have no clue if I should stay or not in the first place. Until I figure that out, I have to leave things up to the fates, or to the doctors.