Secrets, Lies and Dragonflies

Chapter 25

I can only hope that whoever's using my phone to call Aunt Amy isn't anyone I know. What if she asks them about last night? My friends have no idea I landed in the hospital. It would be an ambush if our stories weren't just right. And Aunt Amy would soon realize what a fool she's been housing Spencer and me.

Whatever the voice on the other line tells her creates a scowl I've never seen before. "I'm sorry. Exactly who is this?"

I try to listen, but Dr. Griffith is giving me instructions on how to elevate my arm. 

Aunt Amy paces the room.  "Really, just lying in the bushes, huh?...How is she?  Funny you should ask, mister.  She happens to be in the hospital..."

Dr. Sterling is examining my stitches and advises they can come out within the next week or so.  

"...No...You will not bring that here. Just drop it off with me at my restaurant...The cafe at 2061 Main Street in Landry...Oh, you live in Landry?  It's good to know what kind of citizens our town has...Tomorrow it is...Yes, you will see me then, Bucko." Aunt Amy smashes her finger against the end call button on her cell phone.

My stomach sits in my throat. "Who was that?" I ask as innocently as possible. 

"Let's see.  Well, he said his name was Tag. Insists he found your phone after 'running' into you on the trail."  Bitter sarcasm is a new side of Aunt Amy I didn't realize existed.  She's a little bit...scary. 

Dr. Sterling shakes her head, "Running's an understatement, I'd say."  

Aunt Amy looks perplexed.  "What's strange is he sounded like a teenager. I don't know. Guess I pictured this person you described lunging at you as being an overgrown man, but this guy sounded much younger. Not what I imagined."

"How intriguing.  A mysterious mountain boy," says Dr. Griffith, her eyes flickering. 

My mind races to find a normal response if the story I told were actually true. Would I be mortified? Angry? After all, he is allegedly responsible for my major surgery and some fifty stitches combined.  "So, he has my cell phone then?" I say with some grit.

"Right. Yes. He has it and insisted on bringing it over to you right away. He was shocked you were in the hospital.  Just goes to show you what kind of person he is."  She starts to pace.  "For goodness sake, wouldn't he have known?  I mean, the way you looked last night.  Anyone in their right mind would never leave a severely injured young girl out in the middle of the woods all alone."

My only hope rests in this Tag guy behaving like a complete jerk when he drops the phone off tomorrow. At least that would give me some credibility.

Thankfully, familiar voices fill my room jolting Aunt Amy back to her normal, upbeat self. She jumps to her feet, embracing my friends. "Hi, girls."

"Hey, you guys," Lindsey says, chomping on gum with a huge smile.  When she spots me, her face drops.  "Wow."

Abigail is right on her heals.  "Mackenzie Temple, what did you do to yourself?"

Aunt Amy pats me on the head as she rises out of the chair. "I see you're in good hands now. I'm going to walk these good doctors out and then I have to call Mrs. Cannon to check on Spencer.  He's going to want an update."

"No biking for you for a while, young lady," Dr Sterling says.  "We'll see you soon." 

Like a wave washing a shoreline clean, my anxiety levels fade when they leave the room. Finally, I'm with people I don't have to lie to. "How'd you even know I was here?" I ask, wincing slightly from the stabbing pains throbbing against my arm.

"I knew something was up when I sent you like, a hundred texts and you never responded," says Lindsey. "And you never liked any of my posts from the party, not that you ever do, but still."

Abigail leans against the window pane where the rain has retreated to a light spattering. "I ended up calling Vince this morning and asked him to ride by your house.  He said no one was home, but your bike was a disaster on the front yard.  When he found out the restaurant was closed, we knew something was up.  I told my dad and he started making some calls.  Found out you were here and tada...here we are." 

I chuckle, "Nice work, detectives."  Hearing of the trouble they went through somehow makes my pain more tolerable.     

"Well, I have to be honest," Lindsey says so low I can hardly hear her.  "My head has been spinning out of control.  I was sure you told your aunt about the party.  But I could tell by the way she greeted us that you didn't spill."

"Gosh, no.  Of course I didn't." 

"I didn't think you would," Abigail says.  "So what the heck did happened? You're a hot mess."

This isn't going to be easy.  Lindsey's going to freak when she finds out her Neanderthal boyfriend ran me over and possibly even worse, had another girl in the car. I start from the beginning with Tag, the soon-to-be not so mysterious mountain boy. 

Abigail's face cringes at one point.  "Eww. Did you really see him peeing off the cliff?"

"Yeah.  Well, I didn't actually see him, see him." Now comes the difficult part.  "Anyway, I finally got down off the trail and I was flying as fast as I could on Main Street when I saw headlights barreling at me.  Swerving and weaving."  Reliving it, my breath quickens.  "When I screamed really loud, the driver didn't hear me.  Didn't even know I was there.  Because...because he was wasted."  I pause and take a deep breath.  "Lindsey.  It was Chuck.  He hit me with his car." 

The smacking of the chewing gum completely stops. "WHAT? What in the world are you talking about?"

I can't tell if she's angry, upset, or didn't hear me. "I said Chucky—"

"I know you didn't just tell me Chuck Conner hit you with is Jag," she says, now glaring at me.  "He hit you with his car, Mackenzie?" she repeats, as if she didn't hear me correctly. 

"Yes, Linds.  I'm so sorry this happened." I continue to explain how I flew off the car's windshield or at least I think it was the windshield, and skid along the street into the side of the road. I left out the part about the girl in the passenger's seat.

"And you're telling me he just yelled out to you like you were road kill?  He didn't even offer to help you?"  She questions me in the most suspicious way. 

"I told him I was fine," I say, sounding defensive.  "I just wanted him to leave me alone. He was too drunk to be of any help to me."

She counters with a cynical tone I've only heard her use once before when a sales clerk at the cell phone store in the mall told her the new iPhone was on back order. "Well, that explains it.  If you told him you were fine, then what did you expect him to do?" 

Speechless, I wanted to tell her I didn't know what to expect from him and really didn't care. But I definitely didn't expect this kind of reaction from her.

The deafening silence filling the room is almost as unbearable as the pains pulsing across my body. I have a feeling this isn't going to end well.