My Life in Black and White Read Online Free PDF Page B

together again, here is what the nurses do: jack up the pain medication. Which makes you feel great. But weird, too. Like one of those giant sea turtles at the Mystic Aquarium, floating around and around in your silent tank, while the people on the outside stare at you and flap their mouths and tap on the glass, trying to get your attention.
    Talk to me, Beans. How did this happen? Step me through it.
    By the time I could speak, I didn’t know what to say. It’s not that I couldn’t remember what had happened. The image of Taylor and Ryan together was burned in my brain for all eternity. I just didn’t know what to tell my dad, who’d been working so hard for the past decade that he didn’t seem to realize I’d grown up. To him, I was Lexi Beans. A child. Someone to make pancakes for on Sunday morning. Not just regular ones, either. Animal shapes. Needless to say, I wasn’t about to mention the word kegger in my father’s presence, let alone the words blow job .
    “Give her time, Jeff,” my mother said, pouring a cup of water from the beige plastic pitcher next to my bed. “She’s been through a lot.”
    You have no idea .
    “Drink,” she said, pressing a straw to my lips. “Hydration promotes healing.”
    I marveled at the absurdity of her words. “Hydration promotes healing,” like she was some kind of expert. Like she actually believed herself. She was putting on a good show—calm, competent mother in the no-nonsense Talbots shirtdress. Perfect hair. Impeccable makeup. But I knew she was wigging out. After my surgery, I heard her talking to my dad. They thought I was still under, but I wasn’t. No matter how hard he tried to calm her down, to assure her that I would be fine, my mother kept asking the same hysterical questions, over and over: “What if they can’t fix her?” “What if she’s disfigured?”
    “Do you remember anything?” Ruthie asked now. I couldn’t exactly see her because she was standing on my right side, and my right eye was swollen shut.
    I opened my mouth just barely, like a ventriloquist. “Jarrod hit a tree.”
    Then Ruthie hit the profanity button, which sent our mother reeling. “Shhh, Ruth, language. People will think you were raised in a barn!”
    “Your daughter may be scarred for life, all Dickweed gets is a broken bone, and you’re worried about my language ?”
    “Ruth Ann,” my mother said, though it was unclear which bugged her more, the “Dickweed” or the “scarred for life.”
    “Ruthie,” my father said gently. “You’re not helping.”
    “Fine. Forget Dickweed. Rank, ill-breeding maggot pie. Yeasty, rump-fed codpiece. Vain, pockmarked—”
    “Ruthie,” he said again. Not gently. “Knock it off!”
    At which point, my sister shut up and my dad explained to me that they’d spoken to Taylor’s parents. Jarrod was released from the hospital the morning after the accident, with a broken collarbone and a mild concussion.
    “He’s going to be fine,” my mother said, reaching out to smooth the pill-y blue blanket on top of me. “You both are. Thank God.”
    “Well.” My father cleared his throat. “ Lexi is going to be fine.”
    There was a beat of silence. My mother put down the water glass. “What are you saying, Jeff?”
    “I’m saying, Laine, that there may be a case here.” My father launched into lawyer-speak. “Reckless driving. Reckless endangerment. Criminal prosecution. Compensable injuries. DWI — ”
    He turned to me. “Was Jarrod drinking before he got behind the wheel?”
    “No, Dad,” I said, which was the truth. Sort of. I remembered Jarrod working the keg, but I couldn’t remember him actually drinking anything. In the car, his breath had smelled disgusting, but not like alcohol. More like sour cream and onion.
    “Are you sure?”
    “I’m sure,” I told my father. It’s not like he asked me if I’d been drinking. And, anyway, I only had one beer. One beer that I didn’t even want.
    “I need to see the