The Safest Lies Read Online Free Page A

“I’ll find you when I’m done.”
    As the ambulance drove off, I saw him through the back windows, talking to the other firefighters. But the image that stuck in my head was his face, the moment I’d reached for him. The moment he knew we were going to fall.
    Don’t be afraid, he’d said in a whisper, before he knew I was alive, or conscious.
    You’re okay, he’d said, before he knew whether that was true.
    I’d clung to those words, made them into something I could believe in. But in hindsight, I wondered if maybe he’d only been talking to himself.

T he emergency room of Covington City Hospital had pictures of Vermont’s Green Mountains on the walls—which I guess were supposed to be comforting. If only I hadn’t just plummeted off the edge of those same mountains. And the landscapes were interspersed with health notices to Please Wear a Mask if you were feeling ill.
    The medic insisted on bringing me inside with a wheelchair—protocol, she claimed—but I stood up as soon as we were safely inside the lobby, despite the look she gave me. I glanced around the room at the sea of strangers—all watching me back.
    I heard periodic beeping, a loudspeaker crackle, a baby crying. Everything was unfamiliar—the angular walls, the sounds, the sharp scent of cleanser—and I stayed close to the medic as she led me through the lobby. I checked over my shoulder, saw the double doors we’d entered. But there were no windows, no other exits except more doors leading to more halls. I could see the fluorescent glow through the glass panels. A labyrinth of rooms I’d never find my way out of alone.

    I also didn’t see Ryan anywhere—maybe he was already getting looked at. Maybe he was on a different floor. Maybe he’d never find me in the sea of strangers. The medic led me past a bunch of people who looked like they should definitely be wearing masks, past the police hovering near the hallway entrances, to a narrow bed surrounded by blue curtains. I hadn’t stopped shaking since being pulled from the car.
    “Probably just the leftover adrenaline,” she said, watching me stare at my own hands. I curled my fingers in.
    “Yeah,” I said. Not the fact that my hands had barely kept me from falling, or the fear that was oozing out of every pore, turning me anxious and paralyzed.
    It’s just the unknown, that’s what Jan would say. It’s how I got through the first month of high school last year, after it was strongly suggested that I attend our local school instead of having my mother homeschool me any longer. Strong suggestions were things my mother took pretty seriously. And me leaving the house on a regular basis was a big condition of her custody agreement with Jan and the Department of Family Services. Jan was the one who got me a summer job, for that very reason.
    The medic patted my shoulder awkwardly before leaving the area as a woman in scrubs pulled the curtain aside.

    I’m not stuck in the car anymore; I’m not hanging from a cliff; I’m not in danger. And slowly, the shaking subsided.
    —
    The doctor kept shining a light in my eyes, asking me to follow her finger, even as the police officer questioned me. I didn’t have a bump on my head, I didn’t recall hitting my head, but the fact remained that I had been unresponsive until Ryan Baker crawled into my car. I wondered, briefly, how long that had been.
    “Were you on the phone?” the police officer asked.
    “My phone was in my bag.” Both of which were now over a cliff.
    The doctor’s fingers traced patterns on my skull, which was not at all unpleasant—a direct contrast to the officer’s line of questioning.
    “Had you been drinking?” he asked.
    “Other than caffeine? No.”
    “So, you were tired then? Did you fall asleep at the wheel?”
    Of course I was tired. I’d been at school for eight hours, and then spent two more hours tutoring Leo Johnson in chemistry. But these were the types of questions people asked my mom, who had