Crash Into Me

"Alright," she says from the other side of the curtain, "ready for today's question?"

"Fire away," I answer as enthusiastically as I can muster. Which is to say, not very. My sister thinks she's going to teach me to appreciate poetry, simply because she's acing her poetry appreciation class. She knows I took the same one, and like any younger sibling derives sadistic pleasure from getting better grades than I did. Ergo, the game. Every morning she quotes a verse at me, and I have to guess who wrote it. Apparently I'll get some sort of prize if I ever figure one out, but she won't tell me what, and since she selects everything from Bible verses and Shakespeare up through modern-day poets like Cummings and Thomas, and because I've never had much use for poetry, the reward remains elusive.

"To see a world in a grain of sand / And a heaven in a wild flower, / Hold infinity in the palm of your hand / And eternity in an hour."

Hell if I know. "Tennyson?" I venture.

"You asking me or telling me?"

"Tennyson," I say, "final answer."

"Ooooh, so sorry. The correct answer is 'William Blake'. C'mon, Collie, would it kill you to browse the poetry section or even flip through my textbook for a few minutes?"

"Pretty sure I'd die of boredom. Besides, I don't even know what the prize is. What do I get if I win? Suppose I don't like it?"

"Study harder and find out." In my mind's eye, I see the tip of her tongue poking out from between her lips, taunting me.

As I bathe, Lynn maintains a steady stream of chatter about the day-to-day particulars high school life. I squeeze some gel into the magenta bath poof, and Lynn talks about how much she dislikes her Physics teacher. I smooth the soft fabric down one leg, and Lynn informs me that Heather and Chris have gotten back together, again, and asks how many fights it takes before a break-up stays broken. I say it must depend on the couple, moving the loofah over my stomach, washing under my breasts, telling myself over and over that it's only a bath poof, not my sister's hands caressing my skin. My ears turn red and heat stirs between my legs anyway. My nipples stiffen into little rosebud points, and the feel of the loofah gliding over them is too exquisite to experience just once. I jab my teeth into my lower lip so the moan building in my throat doesn't escape.

She asks about breakfast, and I tell her I'll see if Mom's left anything as she sometimes does, then inquire if she has a preference if Mom didn't have left-overs. I cleanse my face as she asks if I'll make bacon, extra-crispy, and I smile because I knew it's what she'd want even before she opened her mouth. Lynn and Dad both like bacon as close to burnt as humanly possible, with a liberal dash of pepper for spice.

Water runs into my ears as Lynn talks about grapefruit and how good it's supposed to be for you. I hear the metallic snaps as the pins in her prosthetic pop into place when she stands and applies her weight, and as I rinse the shampoo out of my hair I realize she's stopped talking.

"Sorry, was washing my hair. What did you say?"

Silence.

Then: "Do you think I'll go to prom with someone this year?"

I clench the bath poof, sending a stream of foamy suds cascading over my toes, and close my eyes. More than anything, she wants to go to a dance. Not show up and sit around like a wallflower, not go with a gaggle of classmates like she has in the past, but be asked, by someone else, to attend. She's wanted it twice as much since she watched me get all dressed up for my senior prom. Brian Macintosh surprised me during third period, and before I could even think, I'd said yes.

Afterwards I kicked myself. Not because there was anything wrong with Brian; he played Varsity basketball, wasn't a complete ass-clown like most jocks, and was easy on the eyes, kinda like David Duchovney in his X-Files days. I planned to decline anyone who asked because I knew Lynn might not go to hers, but since you can't go back and tell someone you weren't serious without causing hurt feelings, I shrugged it off. After all, Lynn was almost sixteen at that point, filling out beautifully, curves in all the right places. Surely she'd have no problem getting a date even if she occasionally used a wheelchair because her leg hurt, or was excused from participating in PE because she was working out the kinks of a new prosthetic thanks to her latest growth spurt.

Then her junior year arrived. Come prom season, she was more than prepared to say yes. All her friends went with their dates. She stayed home with us and had ravioli and bread sticks from the 'real Italian, real fast' place down the street. For her classmates it was the best night of their lives, something to gossip and chatter about for weeks over social media. For her, it was Saturday.

When she brought it up later, I tried to play it off. I told her prom actually wasn't all that much fun, and a bunch of kids wound up leaving early to go to other parties. Pretty sure she knew I was bullshitting though. Brian didn't deliver me home until two o'clock in the morning and I fell asleep that night for the first time knowing what being a princess in a whirlwind fairy tale felt like. When I woke up the next morning to discover I'd reverted back to plain old, basic Colleen, some of the shine wore off. Congratulations on having the time of your life, now get back to the real world.

How do you answer a question like hers without coming off bitchy? 'Sure, little sister, someone will see you for how beautiful you are inside.' People are always saying Lynn's beautiful on the inside. Hell, even Mom occasionally lets slip that little nugget of wisdom about how it's what's on the inside that counts. Am I seriously the only one who thinks she's perfect the way she is? How does...how does shit like this even happen?

But I can't tell her that. I can't tell anyone that. I mean, you start talking to your counselor about how you'd sleep with your own sister if she asked you to, you're not popping a can of worms so much as announcing the grand opening of a whole fucking bait shop.

I sigh, hoping the splashes of water against the tub hide the sound. "I don't know, Lynn. I hope so."

"Yeah, me too." She stands up, only a silhouette visible through the curtain and the liner. With her prosthetic she moves like anyone else, bending this way and that, picking clothes off the floor, pitching them into the laundry hamper, hanging up her towel. I turn the water off after rising out my hair, wanting more than anything to stay in there five more minutes and bang out a quick climax as the thought of her hands caressing my skin explodes through my skull, but I tamp that idea down and step out of the shower. As I wind one towel around my torso, then grab Mom's and twist it around my hair into a makeshift turban, she looks over at me. She's busy threading mint-scented floss through the gaps in her teeth, a habit she keeps much better than I do.

"Well," she says after rinsing her mouth with enough Listerine to bulk-sterilize a dental office, "can't get asked if I don't get to school, huh?"

She beams her flashiest pearly-white smile for my approval, and I give her a thumbs up as I dry myself off. "Looking like a model for Colgate. I'll see you downstairs for breakfast."

As she exits the bathroom, I enjoy the swish of her butt, ensconced snugly in her gray capris. Then I blow out a long breath, grind my face into the towel, and wonder, not for the first time, what the hell is wrong with me.

* * * * *

The days following the crash were chaotic. They kept me twenty-four hours for observation. I had a good-size chest contusion where the seat belt caught me, the airbag burned off a few layers of skin on my backs of my thumbs when it deployed, but after I showed no sign of serious damage from the concussion, they discharged me without a fuss. Lynn, of course, was another matter. It was three days before they brought her out of the coma, and even then she spent most of her time sleeping thanks to high doses of pain medicine. My only solace was her quiet "Collie," when she first came out of the haze and locked eyes with me. Everyone standing around her, and that first whisper was for me. I knew then and there: she would get through this.

Nurses came every couple hours around the clock to inspect her leg, change the dressing, clean the site, that sort of stuff. Like me, she had bruised ribs where the seat belt hugged her during the impact, and thankfully the swelling in her head lessened with each new MRI. Everyone told us how lucky she was, how they'd seen people involved in smaller accidents who suffered worse injuries, that her guardian angel was working overtime, and a litany of other platitudes I eventually just tuned out. All I wanted was my sister whole again, and what use was a guardian angel if they couldn't even give me that?

A week after the surgery to remove her leg, I entered my rebellious phase. Mom and Dad would see me out the door in the morning like normal, but I'd drive to the hospital to be with her instead. When Mom thought she'd fix that by dropping me off at school herself, I walked two blocks and used my lunch money to catch the bus. Finally after a, shall we say, 'heated' discussion involving my parents, the principal, the dean, my guidance counselor and one of the therapists from the hospital, a solution was devised. As long as I maintained my grades and turned in my homework, I would be excused from classes except on testing days. Mom and Dad didn't argue because they knew I'd do whatever it took to be with Lynn, school be damned. The state didn't argue because West Orchard, being a completely private school, didn't take a cent from the government and thus could dictate educational policies on a student-by-student basis. I can personally attest to how much of an education one can get simply spending a few hours a night bouncing back and forth between a textbook and YouTube. My grades stayed where I needed them.

Watching her there broke my heart. Pumped full of pain medication, she spent a lot of time the first couple of weeks just drifting in and out of consciousness, sometimes falling asleep in the middle of a sentence. I got good at repeating myself and picking up conversation threads where they left off. There were a whole host of restrictions on everything from how she sat in a chair to how she could lie in bed. Nurses would periodically check to make sure she wasn't committing the cardinal sins of sitting cross-legged, dangling her right leg off the side of the bed, or God forbid, trying to support her back with an extra pillow.

They had their reasons. Dr. Natal explained how circulation problems can develop without warning in the days following surgery, so she had to be restricted. It still drove me up the wall when she would get comfortable only for someone to show up five minutes later and tell her it was time to move. She went along with it, but all it took was one look in her eyes to tell me she wanted them, and the rest of the world, to go to hell.

Mom and Dad, of course, visited as often as they could but their time was limited. Dad owns his own small accounting business; if he doesn't work he doesn't make money, and insurance for the self-employed is stupid expensive. Mom used to be a librarian part-time, but after Grandma's stroke the year before she needed more help around the house. She couldn't afford in-home care on her fixed income, Mom was her only child so you can do the math.

Every day I brought my bag up to the room, planted myself in one of the chairs beside her bed, and held her hand. When she slept, I pulled out my Nook e-reader or slid one of the rolling tray tables close and poured over homework. When she was awake and felt like talking, I'd tell her about things at home. When she needed to cry, I crawled up in bed beside her and stroked her back while she pushed her face into my shoulder. When it was time for physical therapy, I wheeled her to and from in her chair. When she took her first tentative steps post-op, my shoulder steadied her. She became my world, and I became hers.

Her favorite thing was learning what Harry Potter was up to in his magical adventures with his friends at Hogwarts. Lynn was (and still is) a hardcore bibliophile, but couldn't look at the pages for long before the words all slid together and gave her a headache. I volunteered my service as an audio book and read to her until my voice gave out. One day a nurse making the rounds took pity on me and brought a case of Sprite to keep in the mini-fridge. To make it last we shared each can, and I relished every sip I took, knowing her lips had been there just moments before mine.

Once, when she was asleep, I leaned in close, kissed her on the cheek, and whispered that no matter what happened, I would stay with her. I promised her anything I could give, all she had to do was ask. My family's Irish on mom's side, and we take promises seriously, so if you say it you better be prepared to do it. It was the first time I told Lynn I loved her and meant it in...that way. Just like her, a part of me was broken and it was better to be broken together, I reasoned, than separately shattered.

* * * * *

Three weeks after the amputation, they removed her staples and started a different dressing for her leg. A new doctor, older with thinning hair, a sweaty handshake, and bifocals who always seemed too busy to engage in conversation, started coming around. This was Dr. Michaels, the guy who specialized in fitting people for prosthetic limbs. Fortunately Dr. Natal often sat in while Dr. Michaels hemmed and hawed, looked over Lynn's injury, found a million things not to his satisfaction, and waxed loquacious on how we needed to apply the dressing uniformly so he could take accurate measurements and ensure the fit was proper. More than once my parents cast dubious glances at one another as Michaels recited this fact or another, like a professor lecturing his students, explaining the horror show we could expect if we didn't change her dressing regularly, used an incorrect prosthetic sock, failed to massage the area, or a dozen other things we could screw up. Then with a glance at his watch, he'd swoosh out the door to a round of golf or whatever we were keeping him from. Dr. Natal was left to answer questions and explain things like the differences between a preparatory prosthesis and the real deal, what 'edema' was, and why the socks Lynn would have to wear on the stump came in three different sizes. Nobody explained why Dr. Michaels was too busy to converse with us instead of talk at us. Some people are just assholes, I guess. They don't have a cure for that yet.

Between the surgery, her recovery, and the countless check-ups, fittings, counseling sessions, physical therapy, and everything else that piles up when life curb stomps you, Lynn lost out on an entire year of education. While her friends went on to high school, she repeated eighth grade with a new set of classmates who had no idea what to make of a girl with one-and-a-half legs. They didn't mean to, but you know kids that age and how they can ostracize people who are different.

Somehow I kept my grades up despite not giving two collective shits about the history of Armenia, matrix algebra, and whatever drivel Perler assigned in Poetry Appreciation. I wish someone had told me that wasn't the goof-off class promised by the handbook's description. If two paths diverge in a wood and you find yourself wishing you could have taken the other, then turn your lazy ass around, walk down the trail, and go the other way already. Two paths diverged in my life too, only I couldn't pick the second option, so suck a bag of dicks, Robert Frost. If I could have gone back and chosen differently, I would -- that would literally make all the difference.

* * * * *

Lynn's got her stuff all packed and ready to go by the time I remember where my jeans are, dig them out of the hamper, and pull them on. I only wore them for two days, don't know why I'd chuck them in the dirty clothes basket so early. Mom left breakfast: a heaping pile of cinnamon rolls, scrambled eggs, and bacon (extra crispy) in the fridge, so I warm Lynn's and let her dig in while I pile up my own plate. Two glasses of grapefruit juice complete the ensemble, then we're wolfing it down like we haven't eaten in eight hours.

"So, what'll it be today: the van or the car?"

"Her Majesty requests the van," she says, affecting simultaneously the cutest and worst British accent I've heard outside a Mike Meyers movie. Someone's been watching Downton Abbey reruns. "She pushed herself hard yesterday. 'Tis better to have the chair and not need it, than to need the chair and not have it, yes?"

"The van it is." I shovel a forkful of eggs into my mouth and chase it with the grapefruit juice. "When is prom, anyway?"

She looks over at me, takes her time chewing the strip of bacon, and swallows. "It's, like, three weeks away still. Why?"

"Just curious. I didn't know if they'd do it the same time every year, or switched around." Damn it, why did I have to bring it up? Now she's going to brood. Good job, Colleen.

"Same bat-time, same bat-channel."

"Could you be a bigger dork?"

"You try laying in bed watching TV when all they've got on is re-runs of The Price is Right, Judge Judy, and the Adam West Batman."

"I think I'll pass."

"Some of us," she says with a raise of her eyebrow before finishing off her juice, "didn't get that choice. Besides, knowing which two actresses played Catwoman majorly ups my nerd cred."

"Sure. Among your teachers."

"Maybe I'll take up World of Warcraft."

"Maybe I'll break your laptop."

"I'll bring the Horde down on your ass. Don't mess with me, Collie; I know at least four guys who are level-maxed."

"Yeah, and if I played, I'd be sooo scared. I've watched some anime in my day. Geek thugs are easy to deal with: I flash my tits, and they die of nose bleeds."

Lynn covers her mouth and tries to stifle a laugh, but she's not successful. Before long both of us are cackling like witches, each feeding off the giggles of the other into a recursive loop that only stops when neither one of us can breathe. Was it all that funny? I don't think so, but I don't care because I love the pink hue it brings to her cheeks when she lets herself go.

"Come on," she admonishes as she pushes herself up from the table and grabs her book bag. "I don't want to be late." She walks over to the front door, opens up the wheelchair, and flops down into it, bag balanced on her lap, eyeing me expectantly.

"OK, OK, I'm coming, sheesh." I grab my purse and sling it over my shoulder, push my feet into my beat-up department store sneakers, and wheel her out to the van. Once there, it's a simple matter of fishing out my keys, opening the side door, and setting up the elevator. She ramps herself onto the platform like a champion, and I run the electric lift as it draws her up and inside. I shove the door closed, get around to the driver's side, and hop behind the wheel.

In some ways I prefer driving the van over the car. I like the higher vantage point. It feels heavier and more secure, which is nice when Lynn's with me. But it takes a different type of concentration since it's manual transmission, and while I'm better at driving a stick now after a few years' experience, I'd still rather have my car's automatic. But as always, it's whatever she wants. She could ask me to push her all the way to school in her chair or haul her there piggy-back, and I wouldn't argue.

She's quiet on the drive today, partly lost in the contemplation of her own thoughts, partly exchanging texts with friends, so I turn the radio on low and flip it to the 'we play everything' station, the only place in the city outside of Lynn's iPod where you can hear Miley Cyrus, the Eagles, Eminem, Kenny Chesney and Martin Page in the same music block.