September of 2004, in the aftermath of a school shooting, new student Connie Turner avoids the young man who saved her younger brother's life, while battling with a shameful awareness that she is not the same as before the event.
Meanwhile, Max Nat...
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September 28, 2004
"...room 2K346."
A girl whispered her friend as she passed them on her way to the vending machines. He was in room 2K346. Connie Turner slipped past the soda machine into an obliging elevator.
The elevator dinged as it opened up into the ICU wing of Grace Memorial Hospital. Machines whirred and beeped in the quiet rooms. There was a restriction against visitors, allowing only family. But in the chaos, none of the nurses or doctors were paying much attention to her. She had always been good at being invisible, especially since they'd moved to Cleargate, New Hampshire.
Connie paused outside the door of the room. It was dimly lit with coming night, the blinds drawn halfway down. The bed sat at the opposite end of the room beside a glass wall. Wires curled and hooked into his long arms, the gentle hum of the machines keeping him alive filled the little room. His expression was oddly serene. His shoulder where he'd taken the bullet was bandaged. He was over six feet tall, yet he seemed so small in that hospital bed.
Tip toeing as though she risked waking him, Connie took a seat on the edge of the plastic chair at his bedside. Tentatively, she reached for his hand only to pull away, nervous she would disturb the needles hitched into the veins running between his knuckles.
Connie cleared her throat. She had seen enough TV shows and movies to know that coma patients could sometimes hear loved ones speak to them. But she wasn't loved by him, he didn't even know her. What was she even doing there?
"Hel- hello." Her voice cracked, her throat raw from crying. "You don't know me." She paused as though to wait for a reply. She sighed heavily and dropped her face in her hands. "I'm a stupid girl."
"Hello?"
Connie hopped to her feet as two adults walked into the room. The man was dressed in a Boston Marathon t-shirt and flip flops, the woman in a tweed jacket and pencil skirt with her hair twisted into a knot on the top of her head. Both of them had reddened eyes, pale lips. Their expressions, though quizzical, were exhausted beyond measure.
"Who are you?" The woman asked. Though her voice was weak, there was a note of authority to it that made Connie straighten her posture. "Are you friends with Max?"
"No, I'm sorry. No-"
The woman cocked her head to the side, the man giving her a faint frown.
"What I mean." Connie took a deep breath through the tears threatening to choke her. "When it happened, Max saved my little brother. Brandon was hit in the leg, a flesh wound. He's on a lower floor. Max pulled the... the shooter out of the way. My brother said that if Max hadn't at that right moment, the bullet would have hit him in the chest..."
Her ramblings threatened to melt into sobs. Connie stopped herself. She couldn't cry in front of his parents, not with their son shot and in coma in the bed behind her. What was she doing there? She was a stupid girl. She should have just sent flowers and a thank you card. But Hallmark felt so inadequate for what she owed them, what she owed Max.
