Joe had been transported by helo to a Tahoe hospital, where a week later he still remained in the ICU. Noah had been released, though he was not cleared for duty, still healing from various injuries including his right leg. Actually, that was a reinjury, from when Olive had accidentally run him over all those years ago. Things she'd put away in the Don't Think About It Right Now file. "How's Joe?"
"Still in a coma," Katie said. "Which is the short story. The long story is that he's in a state of unarousable unconsciousness due to a dysfunction of the brain's ascending reticular activating system, or ARAS, which is responsible for the maintenance of wakefulness."
"He's going to be okay," Olive said softly.
"Yes, because if he's not, I'll climb into his coma and drag him out myself."
"I'll help."
"Misfits unite."
Olive laughed softly. "Misfits unite." It'd been their mantra since she'd moved in with her grandma at age fourteen, right next to Katie's family. Up until then, she'd been homeschooled on an off-the-grid farm several hours north of Tahoe in a remote wilderness that few ventured into. This meant she'd been able to build a fire in three minutes flat but hadn't known the first thing about kids her own age. Nor had Katie, which had made them easy targets at school. Poor Noah—not troubled, not a misfit—had been their reluctant protector.
"Are you close?" Katie asked.
Olive eyed the lake on her right. The azure blue water ran so deep, it could swallow up the entire Empire State Building. Massive groves of pine trees climbed so high in the sky they seemed to brush up against the few puffy white clouds floating by. Just taking it all in lowered her blood pressure. "I'm about to pass your work."
"The library? Great, you'll be here in ten point five minutes. Don't get lost."
Olive laughed. "It hasn't been that long. And I never get lost."
"Not true. Remember when you were taking your driver's license test, and the DMV guy said turn right, but you always mixed up your rights and lefts, and you turned left—"
"I've got that down now," Olive joked, hoping to ward off the whole tale. Unlikely since Katie had never met a story she wanted to stop in the middle of.
"You ended up on a one-way street going the wrong way and totally freaked out, so you rushed to make a right turn, but it wasn't a street, it was a trail, and since it was posted everywhere that no cars were allowed, you failed your test—"
"I remember."
"Your instructor got chest pains and had to be taken by ambulance to the hospital, but it turned out to be just indigestion because he'd eaten four hot dogs at that food shack at the lake, the one that had been shut down for giving dozens of people food poisoning. Do you remember that part?"
"It's ringing a bell," Olive said dryly.
"You made the front page of the local paper. It's rare to make the front page, but you managed it again a few years later when—"
"Let me save you some time, okay? I remember all the stupid stuff I did. I'll see you in a few—" She broke off when a guy stepped off the sidewalk without looking. Slamming on the brakes, she nearly had heart failure before her car skidded to a stop a few feet from him.
When he turned to face her, she sucked in a shocked breath.
"What?" Katie asked.
Olive's car was half in the crosswalk, slightly crooked, the smell of burnt tires assaulting her senses. The guy she'd nearly hit yanked out an earbud and lifted a hand up to shade his eyes, clearly trying and failing to see past her windshield into her rental Mini Cooper.
A whoosh of relief escaped her. Noah Turner himself. He mouthed sorry! and then just continued on his way, his gait un even, clearly favoring his right leg.
"He's sorry?" she muttered. "I almost had a heart attack, and he's sorry—"
"Who are you talking to?"
"I almost ran over your brother."
"Again? He's not going to like that."
