Shade Me Read Online Free Page B

love and get married and have tons of babies and maybe we’ll name one Jones just so you can be even more pathetic than you already are. Will that make you stop calling me?
    â€œRelax, I’m not on a date,” I said instead.
    â€œYou’re in the car. I can hear it.”
    I sighed, flipped on my turn signal. I could see the hospital in the distance. “Yes, I’m in the car, but I’m alone. Can’t we do this later? At school tomorrow?” When I can see you coming and run away from you?
    There was a noise, almost like choking, which turned into a drunken sob, and I nearly groaned out loud. “I thought you loved me, Nik. What happened?”
    â€œI don’t have time to talk about this right now, Jones. Go home and sober up. And I never told you I loved you.”
    â€œBut I love you.”
    â€œI know. You’ve told me. And I’ve got to go.”
    Before he could respond, I hit the end call button on my steering wheel. If the phone rang again—and it probably would, if Jones was being true to form—I would just ignore it, no matter who might be on the other end.
    Soon I was turning into UCLA Medical, scanning for a parking space in front of the emergency room.
    The lobby was mostly empty, except for a couple sitting in a corner, the woman holding her head in her hands, the man rubbing a wet washcloth on the back of her neck. ERs always made me think of neon green—pain. I held my breath while I walked by just in case it was contagious pain.
    â€œMay I help you?” a nurse at the front desk asked.
    I let out the breath I’d been holding. “I’m looking for someone,” I said. “I’m not sure who. They called me. I’m Nikki Kill.”
    â€œNikki Kill,” the nurse repeated, typing into her computer. Her eyes went wide. “Oh, yes. You’re here for the one who came in on the ambulance. She’s in Bay Nineteen. Go through those doors and take a left.”
    Suddenly nervous, I wiped my palms on my jeans and followed where she was pointing to a set of double doors. I pushed a button on the wall, and they swung open slowly. I went through and turned left and walked past bays filled with moaning patients and beeping equipment until I found Bay 19. The curtain was pulled closed around the bed, and I could hear the hum and tweet of machines, but no voices within.
    I quickly scanned the area for a nurse or doctor who could maybe give me some answers, but none were around. I turned back to the curtain.
    â€œHello?” I called out softly. “Is anyone in there?”
    There was no response. I pulled back the curtain and stepped into the bay.
    Immediately, my breathing went ragged, and the room began to swoop and swim.
    The girl’s face was swollen, puffy, distorted, nearly unrecognizable. Her hair was caked with blood and lying stiffly across the pillow underneath her. Bandages, soaked through, were wrapped around her head, her neck, her upper arm. And the machines. There were so many machines—wires and tubes snaking out of her, the color of the numbers on their readouts so strong it was practically blinding me. The blood pressure monitor, the oxygen reader, the pulse monitor. Forget their correct colors—all of them were shaded a deep crimson. I felt surrounded by it. I checked my own shaking hands and saw that they, too, were crimson, reflecting the lighted numbers from the machines. I knew this color.
    Instantly, I was eight. I was coming home from my friend Wendy’s house. I’d had dinner with her family, and it was late evening when her dad dropped me off in my driveway. I was carrying a sack filled with Tootsie Rolls and singing the song that had just been on the car radio, totally relaxed, totally happy.
    So relaxed and happy, in fact, I didn’t even notice that the front door was wide-open, the house completely dark and silent. Didn’t notice, until I felt my shoe slide on the tile