“This should be fun,” Kristen said to her friend David as they were driving to a Yellowcard show in Cleveland from their college about 30 miles away. David had never heard of the band, but Kristen had enough excitement about the event for the both of them. The snow had begun falling about 4 in the afternoon, and for some reason the Cleveland authorities were always very slow about plowing the roads. Kristen supposed that Clevelanders figured the snow would just pile up till morning and then it could all get moved at once. It was very different from how things were in the DC area, where Kristen was from. There, an inch of snow meant an army of salt trucks would be deployed immediately as well as half of all businesses being shut down the next day. David was from Pittsburg, so he was driving because of more experience dealing with snow.

“This going to be the longest trip into Cleveland ever,” David mused. Normally it took about 40 minutes to get into the city, but it’d be more like an hour this time. “This better be good.”

“Oh, it’ll be good,” Kristen said. “Yellowcard is friggin’ awesome live. Sean, the violin guy, he does back flips off the stage.”

David looked away from the road a moment to peer at her through the darkness that pressed into the car, the only light from the blue glow of the dashboard instruments. “There’s a fucking violin?” He asked, a touch incredulity in his voice. He was interested in ska and the more skater side of punk, while Kristen enjoyed things on the rock side of punk and some of what some people might term power-pop.

She reached over and put a hand on his arm to allay his fears. “Dude, it totally fits,” she assured him. The Agora Ballroom was the perfect venue as always, the crowd not too thin and not too overwhelming either, Kristen hitting up the bar on the way in so as to avoid crowds later. David growled at her when she rejoined him, rum and Coke in hand. He was the driver so he didn’t get the luxury of alcoholic indulgement. Kristen left him in the periphery, going down the three steps to the main floor and pushed her way to the front of the crowd, singing along to every song when her band came on stage.

Now, this show was billed a No Use For A Name show, so a lot of people didn’t even know Yellowcard existed and weren’t enthused to see them. When most of the people seemed less than enthusiastic to get some action going, Kristen jumped up on the waist-high stage and ran around Warren, the bass player, and behind Sean, the violinist, and jumped off the stage between Sean and Ryan, the lead singer/guitarist. The bigger guys in the front of the crowd gently handled her and passed her back along outstretched hands as other people started following suit, diving off the low stage and creating a small circle pit. David watched from up on the raised side platforms above the floor crowd. He grinned despite the fact that he knew she couldn’t see him, and he had to admit that Yellowcard put on one awesome show. The crowd had seemed indifferent to them when they had taken the stage but had made believers out of them as the set neared its end.

“Hey,” someone said to David, so he turned to see who it was. It was some guy that was leaning on the railing next to him, watching the show as well. “Hey, man. You know what band’s next?” David frowned at him and shrugged. He hadn’t even been aware that there was supposed to be another group on. Kristen popped up behind them and startled them both.

“Hey, Dave, did you see me?” She referred to her crowd surfing moments ago.

“Yep, you’re so cool,” he said with a hint of teasing behind his words.

“Well, hello,” the other gentleman said, making Kristen turn slightly to glance at him a quick moment.

“Hi,” she said unenthusiastically in reply.

“You know, you’re very cute.”

A smirk grew on Kristen’s lips as she turned her eyes back to the band. “Uh huh. Thanks.”

The young man chuckled. “Oh, you’re one of those rude girls?”

Kristen paused to think about that. What an odd assertion. “No, I’m not rude.” David took a couple steps away to give them some space, laughing silently.

“Everyone’s rude sometimes,” the gentleman said.

Kristen grabbed her drink from next to David’s elbow and took a sip. “I guess so,” she replied, not feeling like going through the hassle of outright telling this high-yellow Good Times Rerun-doppelganger to fuck off. Her eyes caught David’s for a moment as he laughed into his cup of water and she pleaded with him nonverbally to come over and save her. Come on!

David at last made his move, coming over and sliding a pale arm around her shoulders and leaning close to the gentleman so he could hear him over the music. “Dude, you should go hassle someone else.” His words were calm, even, even gentle. The gentleman looked between the two of them, noting the seemed mismatch of the couple. Dave was a taller guy, quite pale, traffic cone orange dyed hair, two lip rings, wearing the common show gear of a black hoodie and large, loose pants, and she was a rather short black girl wearing black framed glasses and a bright orange t-shirt with gray Dickies.

He shrugged. “All right,” he said to Kristen. “I just wanted to tell you that you’re cute.” She smiled and nodded as he started to move away. “Nice to meet you,” he added.

Kristen gripped David by the front of the hoodie. “What in hell took you so long?”

“Like, that second and a half?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought it was funny.” He smirked down at her.

Kristen tracked down L.P., the drummer for Yellowcard, and congratulated him on an amazing set. David knew she thought he was one of the best drummer’s she’d ever heard, and that was a lot coming from Kristen. She was a drummer herself and listened carefully to everything. L.P. seemed grateful, smiling and shaking her hand, thanking her. He came off a little shy but that seemed often how drummers were, not used to being singled out or in the forefront. They didn’t know what to do with the attention. That or they were crazy as hell and didn’t give a fuck.

While No Use was playing Kristen and David made their exit, hoping that the streets would have been plowed some for the drive back. Unfortunately, they weren’t. Like, not at all. There was an inch or two of snow on the main drag through Cleveland, and the highways weren’t any better. David drove very carefully, especially since Kristen was in the car. He could see fit to endanger his own life, but not someone else’s, at least not without express permission or something. Despite all of his efforts, on one overpass the Jetta somehow set into a skid, the front bumper catching the edge of the cement wall past the shoulder, making the car spin. The edge of the embankment was impossible to see because the white snow extended across the grass below as well as the current surface, the edges blending together in the wan light from far away street lamps. The car rolled over three times as it fell down the embankment, ending up on its roof at the bottom.

David came to a few moments after the accident, shards of glass sprinkling down around him as he hung suspended upside down by his seatbelt. His chest and abdomen hurt where the belt had restrained him, but he was sure it could have been worse had he not been wearing it. The smell of acrid smoke and gasoline stung his nose and his vision was wavering as blood built up in his head. He reached up and put a hand on the crumpled roof as he used the other to unlatch the belt. The shifting of his weight as he fell made the car groan as it attempted to maintain its structural integrity. The steel crash cage was doing its job at the moment, but there was no telling how long it could keep it up.

Then it dawned on him.

Kristen.

Where was she? She wasn’t in her seat; the seatbelt looked like it had been broken. David crawled through the narrow space that the ruined window provided, feeling the pieces of broken glass and shrapnel cut into his palms. When his hands finally hit the cold snow outside it was a soothing sensation, the snow turning crimson as he hauled the rest of his body out through the window. He was thankful for his long sleeves and long pants not only for protection from the biting cold outside, but also from the jagged edges of metal and broken glass. David lay on his stomach in the snow for a few moments before flipping onto his back to take a few deep, cleansing breaths, condensation streaming from his mouth and snow flakes falling onto his face. He couldn’t think, his body aching in too many places to pinpoint if there was any serious injury. The cold air piercing his lungs was clearing his head.

His wits about him once again, he crawled back towards the wreckage to try to find Kristen. The windshield seemed intact, so she hadn’t been thrown from the car that way. The car protested again as David reentered the way he had exited and looked into the back seat only to find it empty. “What the hell?” He mumbled to himself in frustration. “Kris? Kris, can you hear me?” He called. When he listened all he heard was the dripping of some fluid inside the hood of the car and the wind whistling around them. “Come on,” he pleaded, partly with Kristen to answer him, and partly with God himself. That’s when he heard it. A groan, low and ominous, a warning bell that he needed to find Kristen and get the hell out of the car. “Shit, shit,” he whispered, crawling over to the passenger side, hoping for some clue of where to look for her.

For some reason he decided to look under (technically over) the passenger side seat, and he found her wedged into the small foot space, the front of her head gashed open and forced between the seat and the armrest on the door. “Oh God,” he breathed, reaching immediately for her and pulling her head away from the door. It flashed through his mind that if she had a spinal cord injury he shouldn’t move her, but it was either this or get squished when the car collapsed. Her head lolled forward as he wrapped his arms under hers and pulled her down, freeing her shoulders from the space and wrapping her limp arms around his neck. He slowly became aware that he was repeating, “Oh, God,” over and over again as he struggled with her limp form, trying to free her left leg as it was folded and wedged beneath the seat. He was trying to be careful. He was trying. But something told him he didn’t have the luxury of time and the more frantic he became, the less he seemed to be able to do. His fingers were freezing up in the cold and her leg was bent and shoved beneath the seat, and it wouldn’t budge. His fingers fumbled with the lever to adjust the seat, the metal so cold it felt like fire on his injured, sensitive palm, but he pushed the seat back and freed her leg, her whole body falling down on him as he did so. David laid her gently on his chest and locked an arm across her. He crept backwards on his back, towards the window and sweet freedom. When at last she was laid on the snow a safe distance from the ruined car, David lay down beside her and passed out.

When he woke up, Emergency workers were swarming about the area, the fire trucks were on the scene, spraying down the car that had apparently burst into flame. Slowly he became aware that one of the paramedics was talking to him, telling him that if the car hadn’t gone up like it had, he and Kristen never would have survived. The fire had kept them warm enough in the frigid temperatures and the flames had tipped off a passing motorist to their accident, who then phoned the police. The late hour and bad conditions had cut down on the likelihood of passers-by in the first place, and finding a conscientious one was a miracle. “What time is it?” David asked, the words coming out more of a groan than anything else.

The EMT stopped shining a light in David’s eye to check his watch. “About 3:00 a.m.” They had been out there more than an hour.

David tried to sit up but the EMT’s warm palm on his chest proved surprisingly forceful and effective in keeping him reclined. “What about Kristen? Is she okay?” David’s eyes swept frantically around himself, not seeing her. “Where is she?”

“Hey, hey, cool down, buddy,” the EMT insisted. “Just relax. She’s being taken care of. Worry about you.”

“She’s okay though?” David gripped the EMT’s blue uniform shirt and demanded to know if Kristen was all right. The EMT calmly removed David’s hand from his uniform and sighed.

“She’s alive,” he said slowly. “She’s not conscious. But neither were you a minute ago, so…”

“Her head was bloody,” David recalled, frowning to remember. “Her leg was twisted up under the seat…” The memory of it caught him by surprise, making him instantly nauseous. He couldn’t believe he’d gotten them into such an accident. He could’ve been more careful. He could’ve realized the bad conditions and just refused to go to the concert all together. It wasn’t like Kristen had a car, so she would’ve been stranded at school. She would’ve been stranded in the warm safety of school.

“Can you stand?” The paramedic was trying his best to cater to David’s interests in order to keep him calm. He obviously sensed David’s growing discontent and heightened nervous reactions. David nodded and the EMT hauled him to his feet and helped him over to the other set of paramedics that were writing things down on a clip board.

“Hey, where’s my friend?” David called to them. Two of them looked at each other then back at David. “She’s okay, right?”

“Oh, right. Yeah,” one of the paramedics began. “Um, she’s on the way to the hospital. Greg didn’t tell you?” David looked over at the guy that was helping him maintain balance on his feet as he shook his head “no.” “She was pretty banged up, not awake, left leg broken real bad. They’ll put her up in the Cleveland Clinic till they know.”

David’s stomach tightened at that last statement. “Till they know what?”

Greg’s hand pat his shoulder as he answered in a hushed, calm voice, that voice that doctors talk to you in when they’re explaining how miserable you’re going to be while you heal. “She had some head trauma, and since we couldn’t get her to wake up, she’s getting some scans right now. The docs will know if she’s planning to wake up sometime soon or not.” David listened in silence, his eyes on his feet, watching the snow melt beneath them, only to harden again in a layer of ice. “There’s always the chance… you know, that she might not… she might not wake up.”

“You guys going down there now?” David asked quickly, speaking over the last of Greg’s statement, not willing to take his word on anything. He had to see her and talk to her before he would believe any of it.

“Yeah, we all are,” Greg said.

“Can I get a lift there?”

“You’ll have to ride in the cab.”

“Don’t care.”

“Hop in.”

David watched through the observation window as Kristen was maneuvered into the CAT scan machine. She certainly wasn’t moving, and he knew normally she would have been. She had gotten hurt during a soccer game once and had needed an MRI done of her knee. It had taken well over three hours because she kept moving. She couldn’t help it, she hated sitting still. A doctor approached David as he watched, the first thing tipping him off to the MD’s presence, the reflection in the glass. “What do you want?” David mumbled, his breath momentarily fogging up the window in front of him.

“Do you know Kristen Jacobs?”

David grunted when he shifted positions, the trauma to his midsection making him lose his breath a moment. “Yeah.”

“We just contacted her family.”

“They’ll be a while in coming. They live in Virginia.”

“Right. I told them, but I need to tell you this as well. There’s a chance that she might not wake up at all, and a broken rib pierced her lung so we had to do a procedure to correct that. She seems stable enough right now but she could always throw a clot…”

David didn’t appreciate the detached tone of the doctor’s words. “Bottom line me, doc,” he cut in, wanting this guy to leave so he could be alone with his thoughts again.

“We’re keeping her alive until the family shows up, but there might be tough decisions to make from there.”

David looked away from the scan and over at the doctor for the first time. He was a young guy with neat brown hair and large brown eyes that seemed much too troubled by the situation to be those of a seasoned veteran. “What kind of decisions are we talking?”

The doctor slipped his hands into his coat pockets. “The hardest kind. She might end up on life support and there’s the choice to let her live or die.” David stared at him, no words coming to his mind in response. “But these first moments could be crucial. If you can stay here and talk to her, just so there’s someone familiar with her-”

“That would help?” He cut in.

The doctor nodded. “Getting her to wake now would be the best. The longer she’s unconscious the harder it could-”

“You guys don’t know dick about comas, do you?” David asked, narrowing his eyes as he spoke, all ready knowing the answer.

The doctor blinked at him, rattled at the hateful tone and directness of David’s question. “Unfortunately medical science is in the dark a lot when it comes to the human brain,” he replied calmly.

“She could wake up tomorrow, she could wake up in three years, you guys couldn’t predict that if you tried. So what the hell are you talking about ‘tough decisions’? What decision is there?” The doctor’s face took on a drained countenance as David turned his eyes back to the CAT scan room. “We just wait till she wakes up.” David noticed that they had put Kristen on gurney and were moving her. “Where’s she going?”

“Room 232. But it’ll be a little bit before they settle her.” The doctor’s words were weary and he seemed to age a few years right in front of David’s eyes. David nodded and shook the doctor’s hand, taking note of the name on his chest. Dr. Conners. Neurologist. “I made arrangements so you can stay over night. And I hope, I really hope she’ll recover.”

David chortled. “Hope,” he repeated under his breath.

Kristen didn’t look at all the way she normally did. Her normally mahogany-toned skin had a flat, greenish hue, and a tube had been inserted in her chest to remove the blood that had filled her lung earlier in the morning. She had multiple stitches across her forehead and they had removed her lip ring for the head scans. When David leaned in close to her he noticed she didn’t smell how she usually did, but had taken on the sterile smell of the hospital around her. He tucked his nose into his clothes to see if he too had absorbed it, but found thankfully he hadn’t. “Hey, Kris,” he said softly, very unsure of how to speak to her when he knew she wouldn’t talk back. She usually carried the conversations. The sun was coming in through the window behind David as it rose in the sky to top the surrounding buildings. The warmth it spread along his back and his limbs made him immediately sleepy. He looked over at the other hospital bed that was made up with fresh linens for him if he decided to take a nap. “Hey, Kris, you know I’m sorry, right?” She would have laughed and said I know you are, now apologize. He smiled at the reply. “Your parents should be here soon. They took the first plane out.” Kristen didn’t get along with her mother and David figured she would kick his ass if she knew he’d been part of the reason her mom was coming out to Ohio. “I don’t know if your sister’s coming.” Kristen’s older sister was out in Texas out doing whatever the hell it was she did. “I told them to bring your dog. His breath could wake you up from a mile away, right?” He laughed. “You know, your doctor seems nice. And he’s kinda attractive too, for a guy. You should see him.”

He found his speech halting and nervous. Kristen was one of the few people in the world he felt at ease with and now he was speaking like he didn’t even know her. He resigned himself to the tiredness that was creeping though him, taking hold of him from the base of his skull and wrapping its tendrils around his head. He placed his head on her thigh, looking up at her face, as the head of her bed was slightly inclined. He tucked his arms up under his head and sighed. “I’m so fucking sorry, dude.” She didn’t respond. His eyelids fell to half mast and through sleep-filmed eyes he thought he saw her acknowledge his apology. But sleep gripped him so fast he didn’t have a moment to verify it.

“You must be David.” The voice woke him with a start. He looked back over his shoulder and saw who must be Kristen’s mother standing in the doorway. He pulled away from the bed, the wounds on his palms sticking to the blanket at first and painfully tugging them open. David stood at attention as Mrs. Jacobs walked in and looked down on her daughter. He ran a hand through his hair and shifted his weight back and forth, trying to find a stance in which his skin didn’t feel like it was fitting wrong.

“You, um, you got here fast.”

Mrs. Jacobs didn’t reply right away. “You were driving, right?” She spoke with her gaze still turned on her daughter, her voice low but uneven.

David let out a slow breath. He knew that this was coming but apparently he hadn’t internally steeled himself enough because he felt the vomit rising to the back of his throat as he attempted to speak again. All that came out was a choked cough that made Mrs. Jacobs look over her shoulder at him. The look on his face was all the corroboration she needed. Mr. Jacobs appeared behind David and stepped cautiously into the room. “How’s she doing?” He asked, quietly enough to only be talking to David, as the two men stood next to each other. Mrs. Jacobs answered, however.

“How’s it look, Howard?” Her words quavered in anger, tears welling in her eyes.

“She looks peaceful,” the older man replied softly, stepping forward to embrace his wife and pull her to her feet. He did not lean close down to his daughter but regarded her from standing, seeing her from far away, the way he had always felt when he was in a room with her. They had never had a very close relationship, not an uncomfortable distance, but one that sometimes plagues opposite sex parent-child relationships. She had always been this beautiful ball of potential energy ever since the day she was born and it was amazing what a separate person from him and her mother she grew into, so much so that he always felt like he was watching from outside a window, unable to affect her in any real way.

“Don’t say that,” Mrs. Jacobs snapped. “Don’t ever say that again.”

Kristen’s face twitched in an involuntary response to the clot in her lung bursting open. David seemed to be the only one to catch it, and he frowned, watching her closely for the next few moments, something inside of him clenching tightly in anticipation. “Why can’t I say that?” Mr. Jacobs asked his wife. She began to answer but David shushed her. She began to protest but he shushed her again, moving close to the bed and leaning over Kristen’s face. He put his ear next to her lips and heard the gurgling when she took a breath.

“Oh, shit,” he whispered and sprinted out into the hallway to find a doctor. He heard the alarm going off behind him as Kristen’s body heaved, trying to rid itself of the fluid that was building in her lungs. The Jacobs stood helplessly by, watching their daughter cough up blood when the first nurse responded, goading them out the door and into the hallway. They saw another nurse connect a plastic squeeze-bottle to the tube that extruded from Kristen’s chest and begin sucking blood from her lung before they were closed out of the hospital room. David found a white coat and explained the situation, pointing down the hallway. The doctor sprinted away, following David’s instruction, and the boy was left standing in front of the deserted nurse’s station, looking down at his distorted reflection in the highly buffed floors.

“She’s alive,” the emergency doctor said to the Jacobs’ and David. “She never was awake, so she probably wasn’t aware of the trauma at all. She’s getting help breathing right now.”

“Can we see her?” Mrs. Jacobs asked.

“She doesn’t look too good right now,” the doctor warned.

“Don’t care, dude. Can we see her, all ready?” David insisted.

The doctor regarded him with a cold stare, his lips pressed together in an attempt to resist the urge to retort. “And who are you?” David’s pale skin obviously gave away his distance in relation to Kristen and her parents.

“He’s a friend,” Mr. Jacobs replied.

The doctor nodded somberly; obviously disappointed he couldn’t get a few orderlies to toss David out on his ass. “Fine. You can go in and see her, but be careful of the tubes.”

The room seemed alive with the animation of various vital signs along with the regular chirp of respiration and heart monitors. There were an uncanny number of tubes attached to Kristen’s body and she looked extremely small there in the middle of the bed. Her chest heaved up awkwardly as the machine inflated her lungs and dropped back down as the pressure inside her chest increased. There was nothing natural about the situation and everyone in the room knew it. “What should we do?” Mr. Jacobs asked, not directing the question to anyone but vocalizing the sentiments of all three of them.

“What do you mean?” David asked him.

“Can she feel? Can she hear us?”

The doctor spoke softly to them. “I can’t even tell you if her body’s condition registers in her brain. I can’t even tell you if she can hear you.”

“Then what good are you?” David asked, looking at the doctor with an amount of malice that he didn’t know he had in him, enough that the doctor took a step back and fell silent.

“Will she wake up?” Mrs. Jacobs asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

“I can’t say,” the doctor replied, mirroring her tones.

“Can we let her live like this?” Mr. Jacobs said to himself.

“What?” Both David and Mrs. Jacobs said together and looked at him as though he had just killed a puppy in front of them.

“At least she’s alive,” David said.

“No thanks to you,” Mrs. Jacobs mumbled. David crumpled at the statement, his face flushing sheet white. He shook his head and brought fingers to his glassy eyes, rubbing them hard enough to bring bright stars bursting in the darkness.

“You should get some rest,” Mr. Jacobs told him. “We have… things to discuss.”

“What’s to discuss?” David exploded, his voice sounding unduly loud in the hushed atmosphere of the hospital room. He dropped his volume before he spoke again. “She’s alive, right? That’s the important thing. That’s what we all want.”

“But is it what she’d want?” Mr. Jacobs asked. His gaze met David’s for more than a moment for the first time. Kristen’s dad had a depth behind his gaze that mirrored his daughter’s, and it projected the softness and compassion that Mr. Jacobs had trouble expressing with his actions or words. He reached out and put a hand on David’s shoulder. “Mrs. Jacobs and I need some time, okay?” David swallowed hard, looking again at his friend before he dropped his eyes to the floor and nodded. He put his hands in his hoodie pockets and turned to leave the room, side-stepping the doctor as he exited.

The next morning, David returned to the hospital early in the morning. There were two doctors conferring outside of Kristen’s room and he moved to walk around them when one of them stopped him. It was Kristen’s Neurologist. “David, right?” He asked.

“Yeah. Dr. Conners. I’ma go see her.”

He took a hold of David’s shoulder. “Wait, um, wait-”

David looked incredulously down at Doctor Conners’s hand, then up to the man’s face, making the doctor pull his hand away quickly. “What’s the problem?”

The doctor searched for words to explain the situation, but opted to show him, opening the door and striding over to Kristen, taking hold of the bottom of her hospital gown. When he lifted it up there were welts on her stomach. “We don’t know what to make of these.”

David stared at them. “She was in an accident. They’re scratches.”

“They weren’t there last night and when the nurses came in the bathe her this morning, there they were.” David fought off the visual of a nurse sponge bathing Kristen that pushed at the edges of his brain and focused on the welts. They were quite prominent and precise. Two long scratches, straight up her stomach on either side of her bellybutton.

“Where’d they come from, then?”

The doctor pulled the gown back down to conceal her mostly nude body. “We’re mystified.” The two men stood in silence for a few moments, looking down at her blank, unresponsive face.

“Could she have done it herself?” David asked, taking hold of her limp hand and squeezing it.

“Not from anything I’ve seen. Have you seen anything promising since you’ve been in here?” David shook his head “no.” “And I checked her brain wave readings overnight and there weren’t any significant spikes.”

“Any significant spikes?”

“There were normal fluctuations…”

“But there were fluctuations?”

Dr. Conners nodded. “Well, yeah…”

“So it could have been her.”

He shook his head. “Absolutely not.”

“You got any other theories?”

“We had someone check for prints, none but the night nurse’s.”

David slivered his eyes at the thought of someone dusting his friend for prints while all she could do was lay helplessly captive in her own body. “Y’all had a busy morning.”

“Indeed.”

“No other theories, then?”

Dr. Conners straightened a wrinkle in Kristen’s gown and shook his head. “None.”

“The Jacobs’ seen this?” Dr. Conners looked past David, out the door.

“They did, yeah. They don’t know what to make of it either.”

David reached out and uncovered the welts again and touched them, feeling the raised skin under his fingertips. He lifted her hand and touched her fingers to the tracks, noting that her fingernails easily fit the size of the wounds. “What’s that?” He touched her skin just to the right of the two long marks and found another small raised area. It was smaller than the other scratches but obviously made at the same time. He and the doctor stood in silence, both of them obviously trying to figure what could have happened.

“Look, I have to go on rounds,” Dr. Conners said. “You take care of yourself and her, all right?” David nodded, not answering. “Her parents should be back soon.”

“Thanks.”

David pulled the chair over to the side of the bed and folded his arms on Kristen’s lap, putting his chin on his arms and looking up at her face. “What’re we gonna do, Kris?” He asked her, still half expecting an answer. He absently traced the scratches on her stomach while he gazed up at her face. He knew she was very ticklish on her stomach and he prayed for a twitch in her face to register the sensation, but there was no such luck. The design under his fingers had to be some sort of sign from Kristen, scratching from the inside of her useless body. It had to be. David wasn’t sure whether he was trying to convince himself that that was true or if he actually deeply believed it. Either way he was determined to figure it out.

Mrs. Jacobs obviously didn’t approve of David touching her daughter the way he was when she cleared her throat and tapped her foot, scowling as David turned to look at them. He silently stood up, moving out of the way so that they could see Kristen. He crossed his arms and stood behind them, watching. “What do you think these are, David?” Mr. Jacobs asked him about the mysterious scratches.

He shook his head. “Dunno. I think she did them herself, but…” He shrugged.

“That’s not possible,” Mr. Jacobs said firmly, finishing the thought.

“Maybe,” David replied.

“It looks like… two of something, maybe?” Mrs. Jacobs asked.

“You two are really fishing for something that’s not there,” Mr. Jacobs said matter-of-factly.

“Well at least we’re looking,” Mrs. Jacobs shot back at her husband, turning around to face him with a hard, hateful stare. “You’ve just given up. You just want to keep her like this for the rest of her life. Well that’s not good enough for me, all right?” She was yelling to stave off the tears that hung tight behind her eyes and below the ball in her throat. “I’m going to sit here until my baby wakes up, and if there’s any sign that it’s gonna happen soon then I’m gonna take it to heart, all right?” Mr. Jacobs looked apologetically down at his wife. He didn’t respond.

“I think the last mark is a period,” David mumbled.

“What last mark?” Mrs. Jacobs asked, looking over at him.

He strode over and touched it, remembering that he had missed it the first time he looked as well. “Here.”

“What’s that do?” Mrs. Jacobs asked.

“Makes it a list. Like, an item number, or something.” David nodded as Mr. Jacobs responded, leaning over his wife’s shoulder to look. “Maybe two? The second item in a list or something.”

All three of them frowned at the markings, thinking. “Well,” Mrs. Jacobs said to David. “You probably know her the best right now.” David looked down at her, blinking his gray eyes and waiting for her to finish her thought. “What lists does she update?” David thought. Could be anything: Buddy list, To Do list… “What’s she most passionate about right now?” She added, taking hold of David’s sleeve and tugging on it, wishing she knew more about her daughter, but realizing that she somehow knew much too little about the daughter she wasn’t willing to lose yet. “I mean, there are things you know as her friend that I don’t.” David was ignoring Kristen’s mom now, thinking about what the sign might refer to.

David, at a loss for inspiration, replied to Mrs. Jacobs. “I can go to her room and look.”

“Will you be able to get in?” Mr. Jacobs asked.

“I have her keys.” Kristen hadn’t had enough space in her pockets the night of the concert and had given him her keys for safe keeping. “I’ll be back.”

In the disaster area that was Kristen’s room, David stood motionless, just picking up the familiar scent he had missed after only a day and a half. Clothes were strewn everywhere and her book bag looked like it had exploded. Obviously she had rushed back here from track practice, showered, and ransacked the place to find what she needed for the concert. Her computer was still on though it was asleep, the green light blinking to indicate it was only lying in wait for her touch to bring it back to life. She only had three pictures on the surfaces in her room and two were of her dog Max, and one shot, oddly enough, of her drum set: the two things she missed about home. Her walls were generally bare outside of a poster of Tre Cool’s drums aflame.

Suddenly it dawned on him what the welts on her stomach could be referring to. A track listing. If Kristen was enthusiastic about anything it was about her music. She loved to support small pop-punk bands that would appreciate her patronage. There was this band from home she was always talking about…

David walked to her CD player and ejected the current disc. It unfortunately had no name on it, only clouds and blue sky. Such an ironic little picture, as Kristen was anything but a bright sunshiny day, and she enjoyed windy, cloudy days, the turbulence and violence of a change in weather pattern, the anticipation before a storm broke open on the land. He played the first track until he came across the chorus, then went to her book case and pulled out all the empty CD cases and attempted to match up the sound with the song titles. It turned out not to be a challenge. He flipped the case over and looked at the picture of five nerdy-looking white kids standing like the Brady Bunch in concert. “Second song,” he said to himself as he skipped the CD to the next track and checked it against the title on the back. This was supposed to be the pertinent track. “What the hell is Waldorf?” He thought about discounting that this was the album he was looking for when the lyric booklet fell onto the floor and fell open to a signed picture of the lead singer. He even wrote her a message thanking her for always coming out to the shows and being a part of the family. David flipped through and found similar notes on the pictures of every member of the group, the blondest of them proclaiming some DC pride and telling her to e-mail him a lot while he was on the road. Good Charlotte… that sounded right.

Remembering his mission as he returned the booklet to the case, he looked down the song list, his heart dropping when his eyes rested on the 11th track, knowing at once that the marks Kristen had somehow inflicted on herself weren’t indicating the second on any list. It was an 11, clear and plain, and Good Charlotte was helping her wishes be known when she could find no other way to convey them.

Let Me Go.

The song title was simple. The prospect behind it was almost unfathomable. David knew, somewhere inside he had always known Kristen would have preferred to go quietly. Nothing as drawn out and artificial as the “life” she lived right now. He was selfish, though. He didn’t want to let her leave him like this. She couldn’t. He knew she wouldn’t unless she had to. She was trying to tell him that yeah, she had to go, it was a done deal. It wouldn’t be easy, no goddamn way, but David decided he would grow some balls and attempt to understand her wishes. This wasn’t his decision anymore; it wasn’t even her parents’. Kristen had made the choice all ready.

Attempting to explain the situation to the Jacobs’ was the hardest thing David ever had to do. Mrs. Jacobs held the CD case in shaking hands, tears dripping onto the plastic shell as he spoke softly to her. Dr. Conners listened silently to the parents as they decided to discontinue the use of the machine that artificially inflated her lungs. Watching her go was almost easy. She took a few shuddering breaths on her own, then exhaled her last, looking more peaceful than she ever had since coming to the hospital. David still held the CD in his hands, turning it over and over as it happened.

Good Charlotte’s CD didn’t leave David’s player, and he caught every show that was within reasonable distance from school. Finding the opportunity at a show at the Ballroom, the same venue that Yellowcard had played the night of the accident, David came up to Paul as he ordered a drink from the bar. “Hi, um, great set,” he said softly.

Paul looked over at him and smiled. “Hey, thanks. We really like Cleveland, you know?”

David smiled weakly. “Yeah. I, uh… do you remember a girl named Kristen Jacobs?”

Paul felt the weight of David’s mood press in on him and his smile faded as he pushed a bar chair out for David to sit down. “What does she look like?”

David dropped his eyes from Paul’s soft, sympathetic gaze and described her to him. “She was from DC,” he added. “She was all about you guys…”

“Oh!” Paul said, a spark of recognition jumping into his eyes. “She was like, this tall.” He motioned up to the middle of his chest. Kristen was a small girl, but had made up for it in personality.

“Yeah, that was her.”

Paul nodded and smiled again. “She’s awesome! I haven’t heard from her in a while. How is she? Is she here?”

When he had set to the task of cleaning her room, David had found an envelope with tickets to this concert in it along with something to give to the guys. “She, uh…” He searched for a way to put it delicately and succinctly. “She’s gone, Paul.” He didn’t give the bassist time to reply. “I found this for you guys. She was… she would’ve given this to you if she were… here.” He dug in his pocket and held out a small silver medal on a thin silver chain. It was barely bigger than a dime. “Here, take it.” Paul put his hand out and David lowered it into the palm. He squinted at it in the dimness of the club after he studied David’s downcast face for a few moments. He ran his fingers over the front face of the medal in silence, then turned it over to see what was on the back, noticing the cross. “It’s an Our Lady of the Highway religious medal.” Paul looked up at him again, his brown eyes obviously conveying his understanding of the situation and the emotion David was trying to hold back. “I looked it up,” David added.

Paul stammered, looking for words. “I… I don’t know what to say-”

David looked away from Paul, at the foyer, at the people going in and out of the bathrooms. “It’s supposed to keep you guys safe on tour, while you’re traveling.” He fished in his pocket for the note she had written and gave it to Paul. “This is yours.” It was actually addressed to Paul and David had opted not to read it. He figured Kristen and Paul had had consistent correspondence for a good while now. “You guys just… just remember her, okay?”

Paul took David’s hand into a firm handshake and bent to look up into his face, wanting to impress the image on his memory. “What’s your name?” Paul asked, voice deep and soothing.

“I’m David.” Paul’s eyes reminded him of Kristen’s, deep and gummy brown, stare gentle and sharp all at once, direct and comforting.

“How long’s it been?”

“A month and a half,” he replied, tears springing to his eyes despite struggling to batter them back. He blinked them away, vision blurring, clearing, blurring again. Paul wrapped him in a quick bear hug and thanked him for coming, for bringing final tidings from a long-time mutual friend. Then he offered to buy him a drink, the standard healing practice for too many 20-something males. “No,” David whispered, regretfully declining. “I think I’m just gonna go.” He motioned over his shoulder with his thumb and sniffed. “You guys take care, all right?”

The cold air outside smacked David hard and he turned his face up to the night sky, the moonlight lighting up his pale features. A wind circled about him, ruffling his hair and gently kissing his skin, the breeze almost warm to him despite the usually frigid northerly winds of Northern Ohio winters. A light snow sprinkled from nowhere, the sky completely clear above, stars shining bright. With a visible exhalation of breath that was carried away on the wind, he at last forgave himself for what had never been his fault, and finally had the peace he needed to at last let Kristen go.