After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away by Joyce Carol Oates Read Free Book Online Page B

supposed to think he was headed in this direction anyway? Or he’s following me out of kindness, to see that I really am okay? By this time my face is pounding with heat as in the worst, the very worst and most mortifying half-mile race I ever ran, in ninth grade in my first semester at Tarrytown Day, coming in sixth, which was last, before a crowd of hyperventilating parents, one of whom was my mother. Worse yet, there’s a trickle out of my nose (damn, it is blood), I’m fumbling for a tissue out of a pocket in my chinos. Can’t let this guy see my nose bleeding! Can’t let him see how ugly I am, how ridiculous. I can feel how I’ve sweated through the back of my long-sleeved white cotton shirt and beneath the arms. Hoping I don’t smell of my body.

    It’s almost one thirty P.M . I left Aunt Caroline in the high school parking lot at about eleven thirty A.M . I’m worn out and hungry. Whatever gesture I wanted to make, of independence, self-sufficiency, it’s past making now, I just want to go home and soak in a hot bath.
    I didn’t need my aunt to point out the wood-chip trail beside Sable Creek, a deep, brackish stream that cuts through the town of Yarrow Lake, runs into a state park, and empties into Yarrow Lake about three miles from town. If you’re in reasonably good condition, running four miles to the lake and four miles back to my aunt’s house wouldn’t be much of a big deal, but I guess I’m not in the condition I should be. It’s typical of a runner to be in denial that she’s been incapacitated, willing herself to believe that in another few minutes, if she keeps trying, the hurt will go away.
    Jenna, don’t overexert! Take it slow, one day at a time.
    This is Devon’s warning voice. At the time I rolled my eyes.
    “Oh.”
    A hurt-little-mouse cry comes out of me. Sharp pains in both my ankle and my knee. I have to stop still, really sweating now.
    Of course the guy on my trail hears this. He’s like a hunter with sharp eyes, ears. He trots past me, giving me a wide-enough berth so I won’t be skittish, the way you’d behave with a nervous cat. Then he stops, regarding me with bemused eyes.

    Sloe-eyed. Beautiful dark, lustrous eyes on a guy, with dark lashes as thick as a girl’s.
    He has a kind of hawk face, long and bony cheeked. His eyebrows are so thick, they nearly meet over the bridge of his nose. And his nose is long and narrow, with deep nostrils. Something glitters around his neck: a gold chain. His hair is jet black, and coarse, shaved at the sides and back of his head but longer and sticking up in tufts at the crown. I’m feeling kind of faint, how he’s watching me. How alone I am, in my life.
    Like he can read my thoughts, he says, “Trying to run on a hurt ankle—that’s kind of hopeless, eh?”
    I’m gritting my teeth. Is he laughing at me? I pull the rim of my cap down so I don’t have to see this stranger’s face.
    “Don’t want a ride anywhere? You’re sure?”
    No! I mean yes, I’m sure.
    “Is there somebody with you in the park? Want me to look for them, so they can come help you?”
    Why doesn’t he go away and leave me alone? I am so totally embarrassed.
    I’m resting most of my weight on my left leg. I feel like a flamingo! My right ankle and knee are pounding with pain. The headache I used to get deep inside my head at the hospital is starting, like a flickering light.

    Wish I’d never come out here. Wish I’d gone with my aunt, as she wanted me to. Why can’t I be nice to her, and to my uncle? This is my punishment now, what I deserve.
    If this stranger has a cell phone, I could ask to use it; I could call my aunt and tell her what has happened—she’d drive out to get me. At the same time I’m thinking, No! I can’t trust him. He would know that I was alone in this deserted place.
    The next thing he says makes me shiver: “I got a cell phone back with my gear. Want to use it?”
    Suddenly I’m cold, in spite of being sweaty. My face