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Iwent weightless for one heart-stopping moment, and then in slow motion, my eyes assessed my impact before it hit. I had the presence of mind to feel the way my body had tilted forward, how the ladder had slammed into my shins as it pitched over, and how the wall and floor were going to collide with my body with no way for me to control the momentum.
But then that brief moment of awareness ended, and my vision tumbled with the rest of me. I felt the pain in my shins just before a sharpcrackas my shoulder smashed into the wall. I landed heavily, half on the metal ladder and half on the carpet. The impact jarred my teeth and whacked my head against the floor with such force, I immediately saw stars, and then the world went black before my vision swirled back with muddy colors. Cold paint seeped under me and dripped off my throbbing limbs.
Meg gasped, stepping away from me with her hands to her mouth. “Oh my God!” she cried out with an Oscar-worthy performance.
Footsteps pounded, and as I rolled onto my back, gritting my teeth against agonizing pain along my right side, I heard Archer’s voice. “What happened? Oh my God,” he said, as he walked briskly across the floor. “June, are you okay?”
Tears clogged my throat as I struggled to sit. Archer reached for me, and I jerked away from him. Pain fired along every nerve ending on my right side.
“I’m fine,” I choked out.
Meg gasped again. “My carpet.”
I had managed to get myself into a huddled position, and cradling my right arm gingerly, I looked around me. The drop cloth had slid away with the ladder when it had toppled. Pink and purple swirled in soggy pools on their custom carpet. It had coated most of my legs and under my arms, causing my dress to stick heavily to my skin.Well played, Meg.This absolutely looked like a clumsy blunder on my end.
Archer groaned. “Oh, hell. Megs, lovie, I’m so sorry.”
I shot a glare at Meg over my shoulder before I leaned forward. I attempted to get up, but the pain in my arm yanked me back down.
Meg started to cry. She sniffled loudly, and then like she was trying to hold back her emotions, blurted out a broken sob. Archer went to her and put an arm around her wide shoulder. “Meggy, it’s okay. It’s okay, we’ll fix it.”
I was finding it hard to think about anything but the searing pain in my side and how my shins were warm and wet in a way that I didn’t think was just paint.
“Please leave,” Meg blurted out, suddenly furious. That was real. That, I knew, was true emotion.
I struggled to my feet. Even stunned and in pain, I knew there was no protesting my way through this. Meg had not only made this look like an unprofessional accident on my part, but she’d caused me to destroy truly valuable property. I could deny it, but it was their word against mine. It looked like an accident. “I’m sorry,” I mumbled.You fuckers.
Archer soothed his wife, giving me an apologetic glance. “June, honey, I’m sorry. You’d better go. Do you want me to call you a—”
Meg’s sobbing increased fivefold suddenly, and she leaned heavily against Archer’s chest. I felt my lip curl. “It’s fine. I’ll come back for my things later,” I muttered.
Archer nodded, his attention clearly torn.
With my uninjured left arm, I slid my hand through the pools of paint to find my phone. It had flown off the ladder with the paint, and I found it covered in lilac goo. I didn’t bother to look for anything else. I gathered my sopping dress to my waist and limped my way across the bedroom. My desperation to be out of that house propelled me forward despite the throbbing in my legs and in my shoulder.
As soon as I had the front door in my sights, Archer suddenly appeared beside me. I shrank away from him, but he clamped a hand on my injured elbow under the pretense of helping me to the front door. I cried out in pain, but with robotic indifference to my reactions, Archer continued on like he was helping a damsel to the window of his storybook tower. “June, honey, I’m sorry about that.” I pulled against his hold, but he retained his forced ignorance of my struggle. “Let me help you to the door.”
“I’m fine,” I whispered harshly. Even to my own ears, I sounded pitiful and weak.
Archer looked down at me, his bug-eyes full of delusional chivalry. “You’re hurt. I’m so sorry about this. I am.” We had reached the door, and still holding my elbow and sending lancets of agony through my shoulder and down my ribs, he ignored my whimper of pain.
“Oh, look at you.” He tutted, licking his lips. His other hand smoothed over me, as if to wipe away the paint on my dress. He lingered over my breasts and down my belly, and I shoved at him, but he was determined. He fondled me crudely, bending down to sniff my hair as I buckled under the pain in my shoulder. “Poor baby. I’m sorry this didn’t work out. I am. You take care, June.”
Finally, he opened the door, and the second he released my elbow, I wrenched my body through the doorway and down the stairs. I didn’t look back. I wanted to be brave, but tears blinded my vision, and in a haze of pain, I stumbled away from the towering mansion and into the blistering evening heat. As I limped away, I struggled to clear my phone screen with hands that shook so violently, I didn’t know how I hadn’t dropped it.
Not that it mattered. The screen had shattered so violently, a chunk of glass was missing from the front of it. I managed to get myself through their gates, and then I shuffled across the cul-de-sac. Angrily, I threw my phone to the ground and crushed my molars together to keep from giving in to the waterfall of tears I wanted to release.
I felt like some kind of zombie. The summer day shone bright and full of innocence. Kids played loudly on their front lawns, running through sprinklers and jumping into glimmering in-ground pools. Insects chirruped innocuously, and the savory aroma of smoked barbeque wafted through the air. And yet, despite the mundane rhythm of suburban life, I dragged myself through their neighborhood like some kind of misplaced ghoul.
I made it as far as an enormous boulder at the base of someone’s grandiose estate that had been built up a steep hill. I stumbled into the alcove between the boulder and a Russian sage tree. I was a good three feet away from the street that curved down the mountain. As I sat heavily, I lifted my skirt with a shaking hand to reluctantly look at the damage.
I choked back a gasp. My right leg had a deep gash in the shape of a backwards “L” where the skin had been peeled back by the blunt force of my fall. It wrinkled like a sheet shoved to the end of a bed, and bright blood wept from the thick tissue, mixing with paint and swirling down my skin. My left leg looked bruised and was swelling, but it seemed like most of the impact had been along my right side. I didn’t dare try to understand what had happened to my right arm. I got the sense that if I really knew what was going on with it, the adrenaline would desert me, and the pain would get worse.
Shock was a funny thing. I had a voice in my head, the sensible one, the creative one, the one that excelled at solving problems and pushing me to make good decisions. But as I sat there next to that boulder, slowly tilting to the left so I could lay myself against its cool surface, that voice had faded. It said things in the background, but it was muffled, like it was talking to me through a thick door.
It wasn’t until I saw Amos’ car drive past slowly, headed for Archer’s house, that my awareness jolted back to the foreground. My heart thudded to life, and that voice that had been muffled suddenly shouted in my head like it had taken a pillow off its mouth.Amos! I want Amos! Get Amos!
I shook my head. That was nuts. He was going to be so pissed off with me—did I really need a lecture along with my bleeding leg and injured shoulder? He’d probably tell me this was what I got for being stubborn.
