Page 37

I’m given a room and a hospital gown, folded up in a neat square like Davey Beet’s bandanna was. A nurse asks if I need help changing, or if I want privacy. I opt for the latter, even though you’d think I’d had enough of that by now.

I empty my pockets, setting Davey’s knife and my flint on the little table next to the bed. Then I untie my fireboard and whiskey bottle, lining everything up. My pants ease off without being unbuttoned, my underwear following. I loosen the blanket at my neck, folding it neatly like it’s important, even though it’s got mold and blood and I don’t even know what all on it. My hands go to Davey’s hat, which I ease off reluctantly, sitting it with everything else.

What’s left of my shirt can fit in my fist, but I have to call in a nurse to help me with the sports bra. I’m too weak to hold my arms and get tangled in it, so she sits me down and does it for me.

“Honey, honey, honey,” she says, looking me up and down. It’s not embarrassing, because there’s not much left to see.

I have to sit on the little shelf inside the shower to get clean, my bad foot perched on a stool outside of the water flow. The woods comes off me in a small pile of sticks and dead leaves and dirt at my feet, all of it washed and sanitized, sucked down the drain along with three more ticks that I find. I feel even thinner once I’m done, like without the woods on me I’m not really me anymore. I’m someone newer, cleaner. Someone a few pounds lighter without all the dirt.

I look in the mirror for the first time and meet this new person.

I’m different; there’s no doubt. The angles of my face are sharper, eyes sunk deep. I’ve got a lighter strip of skin around my forehead where Davey Beet’s hat kept the sun off me, and some dirt still stuck in the creases of my neck even though I scrubbed good.

And my hair . . . the nurse had warned me they might have to cut it off, it’s such a mess. It’s one huge tangle, every strand wound with another, all of it shifting together when I try to lift a single piece. It’s cold and heavy, hanging halfway down my back and still dripping when I open the door.

And there’s my dad.

“Ash—” He breaks off, like my whole name is too much, too heavy. I move to go over, lose what balance I’ve got left, but Dad’s there, and he catches me. I fall into him, the hard zipper of his jacket jamming right through the hospital gown and into my ribs, because he’s lifting me right up off the ground, the tips of my toes barely touching the linoleum. He puts me back down and I sink onto the bed, my rat’s nest of hair dripping onto the sheets.

He’s unshaven, eyes bloodshot, dark circles all that seems to be left of his face. Dad’s probably lost ten pounds himself.

“You look like shit,” I tell him.

“You look worse,” he says, and sits next to me.

He’s so much bigger than I am, so much heavier that the bed sags, and I lean toward him, my head on his shoulder. We just sit there, me soaking in his warmth, his arm resting across my shoulders.

And then I ask him to comb out my hair.

Dad says there’s reporters outside.

Apparently, I’m a big deal, and most of the country is celebrating that I’ve been found. Since 99.9 percent of them didn’t know I existed until I was gone, I know better than to be flattered. Dad shows me on his phone where someone started a fund for my medical bills, and while the donation amount is big and the number keeps growing every time he refreshes it, I somehow doubt it’s going to be enough.

They move me closer to home, to a hospital in the right state and the right county. A squad takes me, the staff hustling me out a side door so that the reporters don’t spot me. I’m something of an odd celebrity, the Girl Who Lived, a hillbilly Harry Potter. Reporters keep wanting to talk to me, and news vans hovered outside the hospital for a few days before they realized that when Ashley Hawkins says no, it means no.

I know what I look like. I know what I sound like. I might be a hero right now but as soon as I open my mouth there’ll be a thousand people saying my accent is cute, and another thousand or so making fun of me for it. I’m not here for them. I didn’t live so that people could do impressions of me. I’ll keep my words and my voice for those that know me.

Meredith and Kavita are waiting in my room when I get there, Kavita smart enough not to bring flowers or balloons, Meredith emotional enough to bring both. Dad leaves us alone so that we can talk, headed back to the house to bring me some of my own clothes, which I’m finally allowed to wear. My friends settle into chairs by my side, both nervous.

“Hey,” they say at the same time, Kavita giving Meredith a soft punch on the arm.

“Guys, it’s fine,” I say.

“No, I mean—” Kavita says in a rush while Meredith just starts crying.

“Stop,” I tell them both, and they do.

“You didn’t know,” I say, before either can interrupt me. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Meredith nods like she wants to believe it, but Kavita’s frown tells me she’s not going to let herself off the hook quite so easily.

“We thought you went home, Ash, I swear,” she says.

“I did,” I tell her. “I took the long way.”

Meredith snorts—something I haven’t heard her do since fourth grade—and uses the edge of my bedsheet to wipe her face, which I doubt my nurses would like, but it’s so Meredith that I don’t care. She’s here; she’s in front of me; she’s my friend, and you take them with the good and the bad—something they’ve been doing for me for years, and I never thanked them for it.

And I will. I’ll say all the things I knew needed to be said when I thought I was dying. But I’ll do it when I’m healthy so they can’t make light of it and say it’s the drugs talking. I’ll do it when I can stand on my feet and look them in the eye so that they know how true it is. I’ll do it when I’m ready and they are too, when I’ve got a good handle on who this new Ashley is and she’s found the right words.