One Kiss (Editing)

Chapter 8

When I wake up, I'm on a stretcher heading for an ambulance truck.

I hear screaming from somewhere ahead of me, but it's barely audible over my moaning. My whole body stings and aches like I've been stabbed all over and beat with a hammer.

When I look down at myself, I think that I really must have been stabbed.

I'm covered in my blood, and something that glints in the light. Glass? It must be glass. I think to what happened.

I fell from the first story stairwell and to the ground of the living room. We have a glass coffee table in the living room, almost directly below the stairs. I must of fallen onto it. My head starts to pound.

I hear a masculine voice shouting and soon I see Caleb running towards me from the direction of his truck. He reaches me and starts sobbing.

"Why are you crying?" I croak. My throat feels like sandpaper.

"Because you could have died. You fell 10 feet onto a glass table. And we never made up. I'm sorry, Callie. I'm so sorry," he cries with his head down.

I give him as much of a smile as I can manage but don't get to respond before they inject something into my forearm. I feel tired and quickly fall asleep to the sound of Caleb's sobs.

---

I wake up again in the hospital. The smell of chemicals and old people overwhelms me. I hear the steady drip of an IV and turn my head to see tubes everywhere. The motion hurts my neck.

The door opens and a nurse walks in. She sees me awake and smiles.

"How are you feeling?" she asks sweetly.

"Honestly? I feel like I've been hit by a truck or two." She cracks a smile at that.

I hear talking from the hall and crane my neck to see who it is. Even though moving any part of my body makes me wince, I'm naturally curious.

I see a head full of bushy dark brown hair. Isabella.

She turns to look in to my room and I see that her eyes are red and puffy. Everyone seems to be crying except for me.

She sees my open eyes and hers widen. She walks slowly in to my room and straight for me, despite the nurse's warnings.

She stops right next to my bed and reaches for my hand, which seems to be the only part of my body and cut and scarred and scabbed.

"Callie," she says quietly. Her voice sounds tight. "Oh my gosh, Callie... I'm so, so sorry. I can never tell you how sorry I am. And I know Josh feels the same way."

It seems nice, but it doesn't feel genuine. I decide to forgive her anyway.

"It's fine," My voice sounds too raspy to be mine. "I'll live." I try to smile, but it probably looks more like a grimace.

"Is she awake?" I hear someone say from the hall. It sounds like there are a lot of people out there.

"Sounds like it. I'll go ask her if she's up for seeing all of you." My mom walks in and her face softens. "Some of your friends are here, and they'd like to see you."

I'm not sure if I'm up to it, but I think I heard Caleb and Michaela's voices. I give her a small nod.

"Okay, honey." She walks out and says something softly to the group of people in the hall.

Caleb and Michaela lead a group of kids into my room. In the group, I see Lucas, Kenan, and Justin. There's a couple other people I talk to occasionally, but that's mostly it.

"Oh, Callie," Lucas says sadly. He starts closer towards me. Caleb eyes him.

"Does it still hurt?" Kenan asks.

"Umm... I'm cut in like a million places by glass. So no. I feel like a million bucks," I respond weakly.

There's a little laughter, but I suspect it's mostly for my sake.

"Did they say when you're getting out?" Lucas asks, his voice still full of concern.

"No. Not to me, at least," I say as Caleb leaves the room. Where's he going? Is he upset that Lucas is here?

  "Did you hear what happened at school?" one of the girls named Ashley Ford asks.

"No. What drama is stirring up at Darington Central High now?" I ask. Some of them crack a smile.

"Well," Olivia Gregory starts. She sneaks a nervous look at Kenan and Lucas, and Lucas looks away. I have a feeling I know who this is going to be about.

"Well," Olivia starts. "Gwen was telling everyone about how she'd give an award to your cousins for landing you in the hospital. And Caleb overheard..."

Everyone's silent for a couple seconds, then Michaela continues the story with enthusiasm.

"Then he told me, and I told some people, and then everyone in the grade knew, and some weird freshman." Us juniors don't usually talk to the freshman, so that is weird.

"Anyway, so the whole 11th grade knew, and we all made a clever little plan."

She went on to explain that someone had seen a TV show where everyone got in trouble for passing notes, even though only one girl was the one doing it. She explained how the victims made a plan to pass her notes to pass to other people, but the notes were extra sticky. They all got stuck on her, and she got in trouble.

"So, we devised a similar plan in which Gwen was stuck with some answer sheets to a test we were taking, and Lucas even helped us out. He's a good brother, isn't he?" I've always wanted a sibling, though this makes me a little uneasy.

It feels nice to have someone back me up, a whole grade in fact. But I don't like singling people out, even if that person gave me a fist to the face.

I notice Caleb sneak back in with something in his hands.

"Now that you guys have got her flustered, I want to give Callie a gift showing how truly sorry I am," he says as he approaches me with a platter.

On the platter there are about a dozen frosted vanilla and chocolate marble cupcakes. And it's not any old frosting. It's pink, and by the smell of it, buttercream.

Pink buttercream anything is my absolute favorite concoction. When my grandma died when I was 13, I ate it in spoonfuls everyday until I stopped feeling depressed. Luckily, I have a high metabolism.

This isn't only a comforting gift for an injured friend, this is a truce. He's forgiven me, and there's no way I can't forgive him.

Tears of relief spring to my eyes, and I try to swallow them back, but by the look in Caleb's eyes, I know I've failed.

He leans down and gives me a gentle hug, trying to avoid the cuts.

He hands me a cupcake, then hands the rest out to my friends. Lucas takes his with a frown on his face. Maybe he doesn't like sweets.

"Don't worry. There's about four dozen more at your house waiting for you when you get there," Caleb whispers in my ear.

I give him the widest smile I can, knowing I probably have pink frosting on my face.

That's friendship.