Page 29 of Run
Axel and I both crumble to the ground, and Ethan pulls me toward him.
“Ari, are you OK?” I hear sirens in the distance. “Ari? Look at me. ARI?!”
My eyes snap to his as the first police car skids into the driveway, followed by an ambulance. An officer approaches with urgency, but also with caution. “This man,” Ethan’s mom tells the officer with a shaky voice, pointing an equally shaky finger at Axel, “he attacked them. He abuses this girl. He’s an animal. He would have killed them.”
The officer takes in the scene, then yells over his shoulder toward the ambulance. “We’re gonna need a gurney over here!”
Axel is barely moving next to us. As if he’s contagious, I push myself with my hands and feet and crawl backward. Ethan never leaves my side, taking my face in his hands and forcing meto look at him. Finally, my eyes focus on him—on his busted cheekbone that is already discolored and starting to swell. It needs stitches. I put my hand overtop his on my face and he hisses and pulls it back. His right hand is mangled from the blow of Axel’s hammer. Three of the fingers are purple, two are twisted in an unnatural direction, and at least one of his knuckles is shattered—I can tell just by looking at it.
Another vehicle pulls into the driveway and an EMT comes rushing to my side. “His hand …” I try to speak, but nothing comes out.
“Shhhh,” Ethan says from beside me. “Don’t try to talk.” Then to the paramedic, “Help her, please.” It’s then I realize I’m hardly getting any oxygen into my lungs, wheezing and sucking in mouthfuls of air that never make it down my trachea.
“You’re going to be OK, honey.” The female paramedic straps an air mask over my head. I reach out for Ethan, grabbing his injured hand and pushing it toward the woman. “Yes, we’re going to take care of him, too. Don’t you worry.”
After adjusting the strap around my head, she brings her gloved hands back to the front to adjust the mask, and stops when we all see blood on them. “He smashed her head back on the concrete,” Ethan explains from beside us.
I reach my hand back to touch my head, but the paramedic stops me. “It’s OK. You’re going to be OK.”
The clang of metal next to us causes me to turn and see two EMTs lift Axel onto a stretcher and strap him in. I know he’s alive because I can see the rise and fall of his chest and some involuntary arm movements.
It’s not long until I am also strapped to a stretcher.
A shrieking rings out and I turn to see Miss Vida running down the road. “Alfonzo? Ari!” She stumbles to a stop when she arrives and takes in the scene, her face falling as her eyes land on me,then Ethan, then they dart around until she finds Fonz. Arms spread wide, she runs to him.
“I’m OK, Mom. I’m OK,” he says as she pulls him into a hug. “I’m good, Mom. Seriously.”
She releases him and comes toward me. “Ari, what happened?” Her soft hand strokes my cheek as I continue breathing through the mask. I try to speak but she shakes her head. “No, never mind. Don’t answer. Just rest.”
I hear the static of a police radio and turn to see James put his hands in the air as an officer frisks him, then moves to do the same to Ethan. “What? Why?” I try to ask, muffled, through the mask, and sit up as far as the straps of the stretcher will allow, but the female paramedic stops me.
“The police just have to ask them some questions. I’m sure they’re not in any trouble. That man over there,” she points to the ambulance that Axel was loaded into. “Is he your dad?”
I nod, then shake my head, then nod again.
“Stepdad, sort of,” Miss Vida answers for me, holding my hand tightly. The paramedic looks between us.
“Is your mom home?” she asks me. I shake my head.
“Stepmom,” Miss Vida again answers.
The paramedic gently presses my shoulder so I lay back. “Don’t worry. We’ll take your friend to the hospital so they can look at his hand, OK? He’ll be right behind you.”
They roll the stretcher I’m strapped to onto the ambulance and shut the doors, but not before I hear Fonz tell his mother, “There goes his scholarship.”
Looking out the window as the ambulance pulls away, I take in the scene: Fonz is hugging his mother who is in tears—as is Ethan’s mom, with hands over her mouth while a police officer crouches down beside Ethan, who is now on his knees. At least his hands aren’t cuffed, I assume, due the injury.
It’s all because of me.
Ethan isn’t going to be able to play baseball this season, and he’ll probably lose his scholarship to play college ball. And he may be arrested for hurting Axel.
It’s all my fault.
Because all I do is bring disaster.
That’s why no one ever wanted me, not even my parents.
That’s why I should never have been born.
