"How bad is it today?" Tracy asked. "They won't give me a mirror."
"It's pretty bad," I admitted. "But you're alive. It'll get better."
She nodded, wincing a little as she did so. "Are you alone?"
"Yeah," I answered, coming over and grabbing a seat next to the bed.
"I thought you might come by alone," she said. "I was kinda hoping for it."
"Oh?"
"I lied to the cop Bill," she told me, her voice hitching, tears running from her good eye as she began to cry. "I remember everything that happened. Every last fucking thing."
She broke down completely, sobs pouring out her, her chest heaving up and down. I got up out of my chair and sat on the edge of her bed. It was awkward with the cast and the pulleys and the IV line but I managed to get my arms around her and her head pulled against my shoulder. She cried hysterically for the better part of five minutes, her tears burning my chest and wetting my shirt. I soothed her the best I could, patting her on an uninjured part of her back and speaking soothing words to her. Finally her sobs quieted down and she got control of herself again. She raised her head from my shoulder and looked at me, sniffing.
"I'm sorry," she said softly. "I don't ever do things like that. I don't ever cry."
"It's okay Tracy," I told her. "Sometimes you have to. Do you feel better?"
She smiled a little, a weak smile at best. "A little," she said. "Can you get me some water?"
I released her and stood up, picking up her glass from the tray next to the table and pouring some of the water from her plastic pitcher. There was a flexible straw in the glass, bent at a ninety-degree angle. I handed the glass to her and she took a long sip. Figuring that the immediate crisis was over I sat back down in the chair again.
"You know something?" she asked. "The day of the accident I was in the sports bar in Harrah's. Linda and I were having a beer and, you know, checking out the guys and I happened to see that they were taking bets for the football season. You could put down money on who you thought would be in the Super Bowl, just like our pool for the baseball season that I asked you about that time."
I nodded. "I really didn't know," I told her, wondering what this had to do with anything. "I still don't, although with Nina's Dad's help I'm actually starting to like baseball a little bit."
She smiled. "But I thought that you did," she told me. "I thought you just didn't want to tell me because you didn't want me taking advantage of your knowledge. I was pissed off at you Bill, I almost hated you because I thought you were depriving me of something that I had a right to."
"Tracy," I started, seeing that a tear was flowing from her eye again.
"Let me finish," she said, fighting to keep her voice steady.
I nodded.
"When I was in the sports bar and saw the football thing I thought about calling you again. I was going to yell at you and demand you tell me who was going to be in the Super Bowl this year. It's supposed to be held at Stanford stadium this year and that's only an hour from Berkeley. I wanted to get tickets, go watch the game and then catch a bus up to Tahoe and collect my money. I figured I had a right to that information. I was gonna call you up and law down the law with you. I was gonna threaten not to…"
She sobbed a little and took a deep breath. "Not to speak to you anymore if you didn't tell me." She sobbed some more. "I'm sorry Bill. I can't believe I was such a bitch, that I was thinking things like that. I was actually telling myself that you didn't love me very much if you wouldn't kick down a little information to me. The only reason I didn't call you was because when I was talking to Linda about wanting to make a bet on the Super Bowl she told me that my fake ID wouldn't hold up for something like that. But I was prepared to do it Bill. I was really going to."
"Tracy…" I started again and then trailed off. I honestly didn't know what to say, what to think about what she'd just told me.
"I just can't believe I was like that," she cried. "I was actually thinking you didn't love me, that you were trying to keep me down or something. I'd completely forgotten that I was still alive because of you, that you'd already showed me how much you loved me by saving me, not once but twice. And how do I repay you? How do I return your love? By trying to get you to exploit what you know against your morals. By calling you up and trying to get you to tell me about a baseball game and then getting pissed at you because you don't know. By wanting to threaten you if you didn't tell me about a football game. By thinking you're some kind of moralistic…" She broke into fresh sobs again. "Oh God Bill!"
"It's okay Tracy," I soothed, holding her hand. "At least you like me now, right?"
She composed herself a little but continued to squeeze my hand almost painfully. "I've had a lot of time to think in here," she told me. "A lot of time. And I realized that I was having a lot of bad feelings for you. I told myself it was because of you withholding knowledge from me. You were on your way to getting rich but you weren't including me in it. Like I said, I felt I had a right to get rich off of you, and do you know why?"
"Why?" I asked, though I suspected the reason.
"Because I was blaming you for this death sentence I have hanging over my head. I realize now how irrational that is, you didn't cause it, you just told me about it. But somehow, in my mind, I thought it was your fault. You were the one that screwed around with fate and caused this. Never mind that fate would've taken me on graduation night if not for your interference, you were the one that put all this in motion and therefore you were the one to blame for it. So then part of me figured that if I got stinking rich all of this would just go away. I wouldn't have to worry anymore about riding in cars. Do you know how damn inconvenient it is to NEVER get in a car with someone? That was all your fault Bill. That was what I thought, what I brought myself around to believing. And then you wouldn't help me get rich to compensate for it. When I went up to Tahoe this weekend, I was a very bitter person."
I nodded, not talking, understanding the source of her feelings a little. I can imagine what it's like living every day wondering if fate was finally going to catch up with you. She probably felt a little like soldiers in a war feel after a while.
"Sometimes I would feel paranoid beyond belief. Like I didn't dare even step outside the dorm room because fate was waiting for me out there. It would send a drunk driver along to run over me and knock me into the duck pond or something just to get at me. Other times I'd think the whole thing was a figment of my imagination, that I could climb into a car with Ted Kennedy and be perfectly safe. I can't even go to counseling about it. Can you imagine how the counselor would react? And I can't tell my friends about it either, although I must admit that sometimes, after Linda and I had a few beers, I was tempted to tell her what happened to you. Something kept me from doing that. The only person I could really talk about it with is you, but I didn't want to talk to you because you were trying to keep me down and you had caused all of this in the first place."
"But through all of that I stayed away from the situation that I knew fate wanted me to get into. I never got in a car with anyone else driving. I rode my bike when I wanted to get somewhere close by, even if it was pouring rain. If I needed to go to The City for something I took BART or the city bus. I was very careful not to give fate an opportunity.
"A few times though, I got into cabs. I didn't really like doing it but I also didn't think it was that dangerous. Cabs are public transportation aren't they? It never occurred to me that a cab driver would be drunk."