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Me & Jay

What hurts most is that me and Jay are best friends. At least, we were until I pushed him off the train.


Jeez, he'd probably kill me right now if he could. Which he can't, ‘cause I probably killed him. But if he pulls through okay, I'll gladly let him.


I don't know what he's thinking, or even if he can think. All I know for sure is that Jay's in emergency, and I'm stuck flat on my back on this bed on wheels in a hallway at Tensor Medical with a cast on one arm a needle and tube stuck in the other. My sides are like all scraped up, and my body aches all over from cuts and bruises.


But my conscience—that hurts worse than my body.


Poor Jay. I keep seeing the surprise in his dark eyes when I pushed him. Then after—his yucky bloody face, his straight nose all crooked. I have these freaky thoughts, like, will they have to cut off his long black hair to operate? Will there be scars? How will he look after? How will he look at me? Will he even live?


Oh, jeez.


Right now, all my eyes can see are the clean, white walls and the bright ceiling lights. But my mind—which I can’t seem to shut off—it still sees. Yeah, like we're still there in the dark, dirty places me and Jay have been.


How am I gonna explain everything to Jay's mom when she gets here?


Ohmagod, and to the police!


And there's my parents! They'll dump on me for sure. Something like, "Geraldine Thomas! You pushed that poor boy off a moving freight train? What on earth were you doing on a train anyway? Where did you think you were going? You went to Blue Pool? Good Lord, Geraldine, we thought you had more sense than that!"


My folks always call me Geraldine, but I tell everybody my name's Geri with an i. Not that I have a lot of friends. Me and Jay, I guess we're like the outcasts in our class. Naw, not really outcasts. That's too strong a word.