Beautiful: Truth's Found When Beauty's Lost Part 10

The Anonymous Blog about Life at West Redding High November 10

I almost shut down the blog after Stasia Fuller and Ellie Summerfield were in the accident that took Stasia's life. It is still unknown what exactly happened, though despite rumors, neither of them was intoxicated. That is a fact. Why Ellie was with Stasia instead of with Ryan has inspired the wildest rumors. The truth: Ryan had been drinking, and Ellie didn't want to ride with him. They had an argument, they did not break up. It wasn't Ryan's fault. It wasn't Ellie's. It wasn't Stasia's. None of them did anything wrong.

Ellie Summerfield is in guarded condition even after three weeks. The family asked that no other details be revealed at this time.

So now "The Outsider" is fighting gossip like a superhero against crime, how do you like that? We will continue to update you on Ellie's progress. A fund in memory of Stasia Fuller has been established through California North Bank. The Outsider homecoming, unlike our school's, has been canceled. Sorry, Erica.

Don't let them hurt me anymore." Ellie wondered if the tears that rained through every part of her were coming out of her eyes.

She begged everyone who came close enough to hear her whisper. They told her how strong she was, how proud they were of her, how she was getting better, that she'd get to come home before long, and dozens of other empty words meant to make her stronger. Ellie let them speak until they'd listen. Then they'd see her lips move and try to hear her words, at least at first.

"Please, please, please, Ryan, don't let them do this to me anymore."

"Dad, help me."

"Mom, they're hurting me."

Pastor Franklin, P Frank to the youth at church, was praying when she woke to pain. Her mind screamed with it.

"Why won't G.o.d help me?" she said hoa.r.s.ely. And where had G.o.d gone from her? Ellie tried to go deep inside of herself, to that place safe from the searing pain.

A memory came. Grandfather Edward had shouted at her, shaking her by the arms, and she wanted to run away. The gate was locked, so she ran into the house and hid beneath the piano bench. Burying her head in her arms, she cried till the carpet was wet and her cheeks burned from the salt. Jesus, I want my mom and dad, she'd prayed. Before long, Dad was there. He woke her from beneath the bench and carried her to the car. Ellie knew Jesus had heard her prayer. That Jesus was good, and Grandfather was bad. But now Jesus seemed as dead as her grandfather. He wasn't helping her now.

And no one was saving her. They said that the doctors had to do it, take her to the torture room and pull away her skin, to make her heal, to make her ready to go home.

"Just let me go, please. It's too painful," Ellie said to anyone.

"You're so strong. You've always been so strong."

"I've never been strong." And she knew that was the real truth.

"Yes, remember when . . ."

And whoever was there with her would tell some story from her past.

"Please let me die. Please, G.o.d, why won't You let me die?"

And then her eyes would close and it seemed only a moment and they'd be at her again. The little razors, sizzling with fire, digging into her, always on one side: her face, her neck, her arm and stomach and leg. One half had been burned, then; that's what had happened. She was a monster on one side.

Ellie heard a gurney wheel up beside her bed. She saw a yellow balloon floating around the room. A window was open, and she feared the balloon would be lost outside. An old man lay on the gurney, and Ellie knew him. He turned toward her and glared. Grandfather Edward sat up in his hospital bed.

"You did this," he said.

And they were standing in a garden. The flowers by the house had been ripped from the earth all along the neat border. Dark, upturned earth and toppled petals littered the ground.

"What did I tell you about letting Humphrey into the backyard? Everything is ruined."

"You didn't tell me anything," she cried.

"What are you, stupid?"

She ran in her hospital gown and hid between the couch and the chair. After a time, she heard a television and peered out to see Megan watching TV with their grandfather.

"We have Twinkies," Megan said, holding one out to her.

"If she wants to stay there, let her. If someone wants to act like an injured dog, then that's what they'll always be."

And then Ellie was sinking. Her hand reached up toward wakefulness, but she couldn't reach it. Images came, the huge brown eyes of a deer, the sound of Ryan's song on her phone with darkness all around, the scent of something burning-was it her or was it Stasia?

"Ellie!" someone shouted to her. And there were masked faces all around, peering down at her, wheeling her somewhere, tearing at her flesh again, sticking a needle in her neck, opening her eyes and s.h.i.+ning a light.

"We've got to get the fever down or she isn't going to make it."

Why all the work and effort for a life in ruin?

Dad's reading voice came through the fog. It had been there awhile, she realized. She knew the words he read. The words were grace to her, peace within the pain. She could smile from inside and imagine such a place.

"'Everyone was cheerful as the Dawn Treader sailed from Dragon Island. They had fair wind as soon as they were out of the bay and came early the next morning to the unknown land which some of them had seen when flying over the mountains while Eustace was still a dragon.'"

Dad cleared his throat and paused.

"Read more, read more," Ellie said quietly as she and Megan used to say when they were kids.

Dad leaned in closer. "Well, what do you know? I thought I was reading to myself."

"You haven't read Narnia in a long time."

"I had a hard time picking which book to read from."

"I'm glad you chose that one. I've always wanted to sail on the Dawn Treader." Ellie glanced around the room. "Where is Grandfather? I had a dream that he died."

Dad closed the book. "He did die. He died over a month ago."

She shook her head. "He was here."

"No." Dad shook his head. "Even if he were alive, I wouldn't let him in here. But he's dead, Elspeth. He's dead."

Ellie nodded her head, but she didn't believe him.

When she woke again, there was no one there.

"Grandfather did this to me," she said aloud.

"Ellie? Did you say something?" Megan was there, sitting in the corner with a magazine. She came closer.

Ellie wondered if she should repeat it, and then decided that someone should know. "Grandfather did this. He was standing in the road. Stasia tried to miss him."

Megan remained there, but she didn't speak for a time. Then she said, "You know that he died. Before this happened."

Ellie nodded. Of course he would come back after death to destroy her. He probably saw her wearing the bracelet. And then when she lost it, he wanted to hurt her.

"So you know he couldn't do this to you, right?"

Again she nodded. "He's dead. That's right."

But Megan didn't believe her. "Tell me what you saw."

"He was here in the hospital. And then we were in the garden. And then I was under the piano bench. And by the couch."

Again Megan didn't respond. She wasn't like their parents, so quickly dismissing what was happening to her.

"It will be okay," she said finally.

"He said I'd turn out this way, and now he's making sure of it."

A cell phone beeped. Ellie had forgotten all about things like cell phones. Cell phones and student council meetings, swim meets, football games, picnics near the dam, organized lockers, Vanessa, Tara, the guys . . .

Where was her cell phone now? All her phone numbers, and her purse? She'd forgotten about her purse. What had been in there anyway? She couldn't remember, except for her wallet. Her purse had been essential. And now she remembered nothing about it. Which purse had she taken that night? Then she thought of the bracelet. Her mother would think that Grandma's bracelet was lost in the accident, perhaps. Had anyone tried searching for her things?

"He wasn't a very nice man," Megan said slowly. She settled back down in a chair and picked up the magazine.

Ellie stayed awake for a while. The hospital sounds were muted with the door closed. Her mind was clear enough to realize that much of what she'd thought was real, wasn't. She hadn't seen her grandfather in her hospital room. She hadn't gone to the garden or under the piano bench. There was no yellow balloon floating around the room, though other balloons and flowers lined a wall.

"What happened?" she whispered and barely heard her voice.

"You were in an accident," Megan said, moving to the chair beside her.

Ellie tried to nod. Yes, she knew that.

Other people had arrived. She heard Mom crying, and Uncle Henry said, "Should we go? Should I take Jane out so she doesn't scare her?"

Scare who? Ellie wondered, then realized he'd meant her. Her mother's crying might scare her. Why was her mother always crying?

"You're going to be okay," Dad said again with conviction. Too much conviction.

There was peace or at least escape in the darkness. She wanted to stay there. She wished for a heaven that was simply sleep, the deep unknowing and unfeeling place she'd found. When they forced her awake, awareness came upon her with such pain and horror.

"I need to know what's happening. How bad am I?"

But no one would answer her.

A sense of the unfamiliar pervaded the house. Megan felt as though she was visiting after years of someone else living there. She stood in the entryway with the cold November afternoon sending chills beneath her coat.

Ryan carried in her suitcase. He'd driven Megan the two hours home without much conversation. In the past few weeks, both sets of parents had insisted they come home during the week and get back to school. They'd begun sharing rides to Davis on the weekends.

"Here," Ryan said after wheeling the suitcase to the stairs. He handed her a plastic bag. "Sorry about the wrapping. But happy birthday."

Megan took the gift, trying to hide her surprise as she muttered a thank-you. "Guess I'll see you at school tomorrow."

Ryan shrugged. "I wouldn't be there if I didn't have to be."

Megan nodded.

"I better take off. You okay here?"

"Yeah." Megan was going out with James later, but first she wanted a long, hot shower to peel away the hospital scent.

Ryan left, and Megan sat on the stairs and unwrapped the bag he'd given her. She smiled. It was a book about tattoo artists and their work. How was it that Ryan could pick out something so perfect, while her own parents had given her money and apologies, and most everyone else forgot her birthday completely? She understood, of course she did. But today she thought that if Ellie hadn't been the complete center of the family before, she most certainly was now.

After Megan turned up the thermostat, she thought how her birthday would have been today, without the accident. Ellie would have brought coffee to her room and sat on the edge of her bed. Megan would groan that it was too early, but she'd take the coffee. Mom would be cooking French toast, and Megan would have made plans to meet Naomi to get her eyebrow or nose pierced-her parents couldn't stop her now. Ellie would say, "Happy birthday! Can you believe you're eighteen? You're an adult. You can vote now. I bought you something you're going to like." And despite all their differences, Ellie did always get her a gift that she liked. Maybe that was how Ryan knew to buy that book.

The first time she'd come home after being in the hospital for over a week, Megan had walked through the downstairs and then the upstairs, expecting to find the house the way she'd last seen it the night after the accident, with her parents' bed unmade, dishes in the sink, food stuck to plates. But everything had been cleaned. It smelled like someone else's house with a vanilla scent instead of her mother's favorite orange air freshener. Some ladies from the church had come, which was nice but only added to the strangeness of being home without her parents or Ellie.

As she walked upstairs, Megan remembered that first day and how she'd opened her own door to see the bed made and her clothes picked up from the floor, dresser, and bed. Neat, clean stacks rested in a laundry basket by the bed. She'd felt a rush of anger that someone had invaded her room, touched her clothes, looked at her things. She ended up sleeping in Ellie's room instead of her own.

She went to Ellie's room. She stood beside the bed and wished to see her sister with her agenda, coming back from running before anyone was out of bed, or saving the planet before 9:00 a.m.

She lay down on Ellie's bed and looked around at her sister's organized room.

Megan didn't want to be home in this empty house. She didn't want to stay at the hospital. She just wanted life to be back to normal. And yet, it would never be normal. Too much had happened, and things like eighteenth birthdays couldn't be celebrated again.

So she would celebrate with James, and maybe she'd call Naomi, Lu, Will, and the others. It was time to stop living with the cloud of death hovering all around.

Chapter 9.

THE OUTSIDER.

The Anonymous Blog about Life at West Redding High December 10