1st 5 Pages April Workshop - Kerwin Rev 1

Linda Smith Kerwin
YA Contemporary (with a pinch of fantasy)
Title: Text Messenger

CHAPTER 1 – Of Broken Things

When I was fourteen, my cousin Emily died in a texting-and-driving accident. I thought then that I would never text and drive. I even took an online pledge promising that. It was a promise I had meant to keep. But I broke it…just once.

I was on my way home from my friend Sarah’s house the first Sunday after school got out. The night air was cool, and traffic was zilch. Nonna-my grandmother--was waiting at home with pizza and a movie. My parents and brother had left town this morning, and Nonna and I finally would have some time alone.

I smiled and leaned back on the seat when my phone signaled a message. 

A quick glance told me it was from Sarah. I needed to see this. Sarah’s sister Samantha had been in labor all day, and I guessed there was news about the baby.

My eyes lifted to the darkened road…no traffic in sight. I picked up my phone and quickly read: 

It’s a girl--she’s okay—Sam is not. I need to get to Lansing ASAP. Can you drive me?

My mind whirled. Sarah didn’t have a car. As a new driver, I didn’t want to drive all the way to Lansing. I wanted to go home, but Sarah needed help. I’d call Nonna later. She’d understand. She always did.

Another message: Maddie, please, are you there? 

I bit my lip and hesitated for a moment as I considered what I was about to do. I pushed thoughts of Emily from my mind. I could do this quickly.

I typed: yes--just the one word…and hit send. 

When I looked up, headlights were coming at me.

I was on the wrong side of the road. 

My stomach lurched. I jerked the steering wheel hard to the right. The car went into a spin. Time began to slow down. I watched my phone glide to the floor, and I swore I would have floated away if I hadn’t been tethered by the seat belt. 

Holding fast to the steering wheel, I looked back at the windshield. The night sky was circling around me, passing clouds joining in a hideous dance I was helpless to stop. 

Then came a huge tree. My foot searched for the brake… then nothing.

When I came to, I was in a bed, covered to my neck with a blanket. Something was wrong with my left arm…it hurt, and I couldn’t move it.

I sensed I’d been asleep a long time, but I had no recollection of going to bed. I worked to open my eyes, but they were stuck shut. 

Nothing, though, was wrong with my nose. It was picking up the smell of cigarette smoke--strong and nauseating. I forced my eyelids open to see where it was coming from. 

My vision took a moment to clear, and then I saw the owner of the stench peering down at me. She had a round face full of wrinkles and graying hair under a white cap and wore a nurse’s white uniform straight out of an old movie.

“How are you feeling?” she asked in a rough voice, blowing her smoky breath down onto me.

“Where am I?” I managed to get this totally lame and unoriginal question out of my dry throat, blinking my eyes against the light. 

“You’re at University Hospital,” she replied with a gentle smile.

“What university?”

“The University of Michigan.”

The room we were in was nothing like any I had ever seen at U Hospital. It was huge and crowded. I counted four other beds--ancient-looking beds--in my line of vision through the opening in the bedside curtains. 

There were no TVs hanging off the wall. No bedside phones. No white boards for hospital staff to write on. 

A girl passed by in the hall, her hair a bouffant tower, looking like photos of Nonna as a teen. Was it Nonna? How could it be? Where the hell was I?

I lifted my head again to get a better look, and this time ended up throwing up over the side of the bed. 

The nurse held my head, then cleaned me up, all the while clucking at me. “Dear, try to lay still until the anesthesia wears off.”

“Anesthesia? Why did I have anesthesia?” My voice sounded far away.

“Well, you were in some kind of accident and your arm was broken. They did surgery to repair it.”

In a rush, it came back to me. Sending the text. Seeing headlights. Jerking the steering wheel. Then the tree.

That was it. I must have slammed into the tree and broken my arm. That’s why it hurt. 

“Don’t worry,” the nurse said. “Dr. Roberts will be by to explain it to you later.”

Thank God. Dr. Roberts was my family’s pediatrician and a totally awesome doctor who had her patients call her Dr. Jennifer.

“Did she do the surgery?” I asked.

“She?”

“Yeah, Dr. Roberts, my doctor.”

“Your surgeon is a man. Dr. John Roberts.”

I realized through the fog in my head that I had asked a foolish question. My pediatrician was not a surgeon. 

“I was thinking about my own doctor, Jennifer Roberts. Do you know her?”

“No,” she said, frowning at me. “I’ve never heard of a Dr. Jennifer Roberts.” She shook her head slightly and added, “Anyway, I’m Helen. I’ll be your nurse today.” 

Then she repeated the first question she had asked me. “So, how are you feeling?  Any pain?”

I nodded as I watched the ceiling start to spin. “Some, and I’m a bit dizzy…and confused.”

“That’s to be expected. The anesthesia and the concussion can cause that.”

Concussion? I didn’t ask for an explanation. I was too tired to talk anymore or to reach for my head to check for damage.

Nurse Helen showed no such fatigue. “So, what’s your name, dear? They didn’t get any response out of you in recovery, and you came in without ID.”

“Madison. Madison Gracie,” I managed to get out in a mumble. “What about my purse and my phone.”

“Phone?” she said, leaning closer.

“Yeah, my cell?”

“A jail-phone? I don’t understand.”

Dear God, she doesn’t know what I’m talking about. My eyes closed against the round face. I turned my head to try to escape the stomach-turning stink and said “Can I have something for the pain.”

“Of course. In the meantime, can we contact your family?”

Family! Nonna! OMG! She had to be freaked out with worry. “Yes, please call my nonn--my grandmother.”

“What about your parents?”

“They’re not home.” My eyelids kept drooping and thoughts wouldn’t form clearly in my mind. “Just my grandmother is there.” I almost told her my parents’ cell numbers were in my phone, but even in this fog, I knew she’d think that we were all convicts or that I was crazy.

Maybe I was crazy. Maybe she was crazy. 

Nurse Helen lifted a pen. “Okay, what’s the phone number?” 

I mumbled it out and stopped fighting with my eyelids.

“Her name?”

“Uh…Gabriella Ricardi.”

“Okay. I’ll be back.”

I wanted to thank her, but my lips wouldn’t move.

As she drew the bed curtains, she added, “You just rest a bit now, Gracie dear.”

I was dozing off before I could explain to her that Gracie was my last name, not my first.