The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness Read Free Book Online Page A

was picking Meredith up from Jazz & Tap, so Mel – not even bothering with our father – came roaring down the road in her own car. Me and Henna got taken away by ambulance, Mel and the Silvennoinens followed, and Henna went straight into surgery to put her arm back together.
    The last thing she said before the paramedics knocked her out was, “Mike.”
    “I called Jared,” Mel says now. “He’s going to come by at midnight. The Field.”
    “Good,” I say. “Thanks.”
    Her hand is next to mine on the gurney and she laces our fingers together, squeezing hard. You see how lucky I am? Knowing that people love me? So lucky. So stupidly lucky.
    We hear our mom’s voice before we see her. Mel lets go of my hand. My mom turns the curtained corner where we sit in the emergency room, and the first sight of her face is so worried, so terrified, that suddenly I’m six years old again and have just fallen off my bike and want her to make it better.
    This lasts a full four seconds until she tries to hug me.
    “Ribs!” I pretty much shriek.
    “Sorry, sweetheart,” she says, pulling back. I have to flinch again when she tries to touch my face. “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”
    “Can’t you see the bandages?” Mel asks. “And the blood?”
    “Yes,” my mom says, “why hasn’t anyone cleaned that off?”
    “They did,” I say. “Most of it.”
    Her face softens again. “How bad?”
    I shrug, then I wince because shrugging really hurts. “Gash on my cheek, broken nose, most of my left ribs are cracked, sprained my ankle. Henna got the worst of it.”
    “I saw Mattias and Caroline on my way in,” my mom says, meaning Henna’s parents. “She’s in surgery right now but aside from her arm and a broken collarbone, just bumps and bruises, like you.”
    “‘Just’,” I say.
    “You know what I mean.”
    “I do. We’re lucky. It was scary, though. And weird.”
    “You should see Henna’s car,” Mel says. “It’s been decapitated.”
    “Where’s Meredith?” I ask.
    “Caroline’s watching her for a minute in the waiting room,” my mom says.
    “Someone should tell Dad,” Mel says.
    Mom gets a look of fleeting irritation on her face, then swallows it. “I’ll tell him when we get home.” She looks at us in a particular way. “Listen, I know this isn’t the time or the place–”
    “Then why do it?” Mel says.
    “Do what?”
    “Whatever it is you’re about to do.”
    Mom gets that fleeting look again. “Now that I know you’re all right,” she says to me.
    “Well, I’m not exactly all–”
    “You’re going to see it on the news anyway and I want you to hear it from me first.”
    She stops, and for a confusing second, I think it’s going to be about the weirdness with the deer, which no one has satisfactorily explained and which it would be extraordinary if my mother could do so, but hey, I’m still in shock here, and the idea lodges so firmly in my head, that when she says, “Mankiewicz died,” I try to think if I know any deer named Mankiewicz.
    “What?” Mel asks, warily.
    “This morning,” my mom says, a bit too eagerly. “Stroke. At his house in DC.”
    She stops again, and I can see her try not to smile, which even
she
must recognize is the wrong reaction to this news, in this place, with my nose looking like this.
    Mankiewicz isn’t a deer. He’s our US Congressman and has been since before my mother was born. A million years old, beloved by this congressional district, and utterly unbeatable in every election.
    Now dead.
    “Seven days is the protocol,” my mom says, now not even pretending not to smile. “Seven days out of respect and then I announce my intention to run for his seat.” She lets this news sink in. We just stare at her. “The state party actually called me, they called
me
and
asked
me to run.”
    Her smile hardens for an instant. “And I suppose your friend’s father is going to run as well, but he’ll lose, like always, so it’s pretty much mine for