Turn yourself inside out. Pretend your heart, your lungs, your brain, every slimy organ that holds you together, that makes you who you are, is on the outside of your body. On the inside are your skin and hair, the color of your eyes, your clothes, and certainly those pricey kicks on your feet.
So, now who do you think you are? Not so hot, right?
This is the kind of thing Teddy says to me on a regular basis.
I’ve had worse boyfriends than Teddy, but it’s only high school, so I’m sure there’s more to come.
Want to drive over to the hospital and watch the ambulances pull in? He asks. It’s cool.
That’s sick, I say. But I also have nothing else to do. And, the stars are out.
He picks me up in his father’s truck. His father installs mirrors and windows for a living, and there is always stuff in the back, which makes driving around extra perilous. In case of an accident, there’s the danger of all that glass shattering in addition to other potential damage to the truck and either one, or both, of us. It isn’t exactly a comfortable ride. I keep telling Teddy to slow down because I don’t want to wind up with shards of glass stuck all over my right-side-out body.
Teddy thinks I’m funny. He never says I’m pretty, and maybe I’m not. Probably not. He just says I’m cool. That’s about as far out on that limb he’s willing to go.
We sit in the truck across from the hospital. Teddy has snacks for us, a box of Ritz crackers and two cokes. Sometimes, I wonder why I can’t go on a normal date, then I remember because it’s usually boring.
We hear the ambulance before we see it. Then lights are everywhere, whirring around, the ambulance screeching on the last turn, pulling up and stopping short. It’s exciting and scary and awful. The attendants jump out and nurses run double-quick from the hospital, shouting, get ‘em out. It takes six people to pull a big guy on a stretcher who is bleeding so much we can clearly see he’s dying.
I stop chewing crackers. My skin feels creepy, my hair itches.
Teddy drives me home and when I tell him I can’t go out with him anymore he doesn’t ask why.