The Ledge by Lesley Choyce

The Ledge by Lesley Choyce

Author:Lesley Choyce
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781459824638
Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
Published: 2019-10-31T16:00:00+00:00


Chapter Eleven

“Let’s go to the library,” I said, for no particular reason.

So we went to the library. Mrs. Jenson heard us as we rolled in and, without looking up, said, “The library’s closed this period.” She too was eating her lunch. But then she stopped and gave us the once-over.

“We just need a quiet place to hang out,” Keira said.

“Like I said, the library is closed,” Mrs. Jenson repeated.

Keira kept looking at her.

“Okay,” Mrs. Jenson said. “But no video games or internet noise. I need quiet too.”

So I rolled toward the big wall of windows, and Keira followed. We both sat there looking out at the dead grass, the dark sky and the lifeless windows reflecting back at us from the other side of the courtyard.

I told her about my recurring dream. She listened to me talk about what I remembered of the day of the wave. It was the first time I’d talked about it in a long while, even though it had played out in my head a million times.

“Have you been back there since?”

“No.”

“Maybe you should. Maybe this is all some kind of PTSD thing like what the news keeps talking about. Seems to me almost everyone on the planet is suffering from some kind of trauma disorder. Most of it sounds like bullshit to me. But maybe you have the real thing.”

“Maybe. But I’m not sure that going back to the Ledge would help in any way.”

“Maybe not. It was just an idea.”

Then something triggered in my head. “But I do know something that would.”

“What?”

“I’ve never been able to figure out how I got ashore, how I ended up in the ambulance. I’ve asked, but no one seems to know.”

“Then let’s figure it out.”

“I’ve tried. The hospital staff said they didn’t know. The ambulance brought me to the ER. That was it. The paramedics who took me in aren’t there anymore, and the ambulance people wouldn’t tell me anything.”

“Bullshit. You want to know the story, and you deserve to find out. Do you think it will help?”

“Maybe.”

“Why do you think you want to know so bad?”

“Because I’m pretty sure I should have died that day. I was out there alone. Not another soul around. I had sealed my own fate, like the idiot that I was.”

“But you didn’t die. And I don’t think you just washed onto the beach and the paramedics showed up.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t make sense.”

“Then let’s track down the paramedics. One of them was a woman, right?”

Keira moved us to a computer terminal and punched some keys. Mrs. Jenson looked over. I thought she was going to chase us away, but she didn’t. She just held a finger to her lips in the classic shush-says-the-librarian fashion.

“This isn’t rocket science,” Keira whispered. I watched the screen as she located the website of the hospital and followed some links to the list of private ambulance companies that served it. “Which one?”

“That one,” I said, pointing to All-County Emergency Service. “But they told me they couldn’t help.



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