Page 60

They cannot be hidden among dust and gravel

No, they shall live in the birdsong

In the scent of flowers and in the wind’s whispers.

​— ​Anonymous Swedish eulogy

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Minneapolis, Minnesota

September 2005

Analise

As she did 800-meter repeats, Analise lagged behind the cross-country team around the soccer field during practice. She decided to end her senior season the same way her high school career had started. Average, likable, slightly invisible. When she got pegged in the head with a soccer ball, she awoke to the beginning of a different reality.

The first face to emerge from the darkness was Taylor Barnes.

His expression wore horrified guilt. A horror matched only by Analise’s humiliation. Did a soccer ball knock me out?

Her friend, Missy Halverson, appeared in her line of vision. She whacked Taylor, “Oh my God, Barnes, you practically took her head off! Ana, don’t move!”

Shadows gathered above, and people chattered. She tried to sit up.

“No!” came a resounding chorus. The cross-country coach said, “The ambulance is coming.” She lay back down and closed her eyes.

This is so embarrassing.

“I’ll call your mom,” Missy said. Missy was part-Marching Band, part-Cheerleader, a rare breed of popularity at their school. She sometimes drove Analise home if marching band practice ended early.

When the EMT arrived and walked Analise into the back of the ambulance, she heard him say over his shoulder, “You don’t need to come.”

Taylor answered, “I’m . . . um . . . I’m her boyfriend. Please?”

Boyfriend?

As if things weren’t mortifying enough. Analise turned sharply to look at him, and the world tilted violently.

“Fine,” the EMT agreed, helping Analise into the ambulance.

They placed an ice pack on her head and asked her questions about time and place, ordered her to count backward and say the alphabet backward, which Analise was sure she’d find surprisingly difficult even without a head injury.

She squinted at Taylor, drawn by his fake-appearing eyelashes. Like the ones Missy glued on once, before dragging Analise’s uncoordinated hips to a downtown club’s sixteen-plus night.

She worked to recall exactly when she officially met Taylor Barnes.

Maybe it was at new student orientation. She’d transferred as a sophomore. When collecting her thick orientation packet, he was there in the office and made an awkward joke about killing trees. Perhaps the first day in homeroom when the teacher arranged their seats by alphabetical order, and he said she had a pretty name. Maybe lunch, junior year, when she dropped her milk carton, and he swooped in to rescue it.

Taylor must have caught her scrutiny because he waved a hand in front of her face. The EMT also cocked his head in concern.

“Did you ask me another question?” she said.

“No,” Taylor said quietly, “you looked confused, like you didn’t know who I was for a second.”

Analise arrived at the emergency room. The light was blinding, splitting her head apart. She groaned and turned her face into the starchy white sheets. Someone mercifully turned the light off, only to beam one directly into her eyes. “Look straight ahead,” said a voice, “checking your pupils. Can you lie still for a CT scan? To make sure you’re not bleeding.”

Analise whined, “It was just a soccer ball, not a brick. Does my mom know I’m here?”