The Drop by Jeff Ross

somehow I managed to pick the man up. He was light, which was good, and we didn’t have far to carry him. We dropped him in the trunk, and Hope slammed the lid closed.
    â€œCome on, lie down on the backseat.” She helped me into the car. I lay on my back, looking at the peeling material of the ceiling. It smelled like cigarette smoke and greasy fast food. Hope slid into the passenger’s seat.
    â€œYou don’t look so good, Alex,” she said. “Can you hear me?” I nodded. But her voice was coming and going. She turned away. All her movements left a kind of hazy trail behind. The last thing I heard was her yelling, “Drop that gun. Drop it, or I’ll blow your head off!” And I thought, Wow, what a crazy girl.

chapter twenty
    Hospitals are always so white. Even when they paint the walls, it still feels white. Or green. But that sick-looking green.
    When I returned to the land of the living, a man in a long white coat had his hand down my top.
    â€œWow!” I said, inhaling hard. Which I shouldn’t have. Because inhaling hurt. “Why does that hurt so much?” I asked. The man in the white coat didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he pulled the stethoscope away from his ears.
    â€œBecause you have a collapsed lung, young man,” he said. “You are very lucky.”
    â€œAm I?” I asked. I didn’t feel lucky. I felt like I was going to stop breathing at any moment and not start again.
    Which might be okay, because if breathing hurt this much, maybe I should just quit it.
    There was a shuffling in the room. I watched Sam rise from a chair behind the doctor. He had stubble on his face, and his eyes were bloodshot.
    â€œSam,” I said. “What are you doing here? Actually, what am I doing here?”
    Sam laughed and reached out a hand to me. “Man, you hit that guy hard. Don’t worry, though, the police were looking for him anyway. He’ll be in jail a long time, thanks to you. Then you stuffed him in a trunk? With a collapsed lung? That is hard-core.”
    â€œI stuffed someone in a trunk?” It came back to me in a flash. The whole mess from beginning to end.
    â€œYes,” Sam said, laughing. “Yes indeed, my man.”
    â€œIs Bryce all right?” I asked.
    â€œYeah, man, he’s fine. His dad came and got him.” He shook his head. “I don’t think that is going to go all that well.”
    â€œNo?” I replied.
    â€œPeople have to accept that they are who they are.” Sam stared at the window for a minute. “Never try to prove to people that you’re something other than who you are, Alex. Just be the best you you can be.” He laughed. “That sounded dumb.”
    â€œIt sounded true, Sam,” I said. “What about you?”
    Sam looked across the room at a man I hadn’t noticed before. A cop. “I have some explaining to do,” Sam said. “But I convinced them to let me stay here until you woke up.”
    â€œBut you weren’t really a part of it,” I said.
    Sam shrugged. “Don’t worry. I’ll be all right. And hey, now that you’re an official member of Backcountry Patrol, we’ll need you out there soon.”
    I smiled. Then the police officer took Sam by the arm and led him out of the room. Hope stepped inside as the door was closing.
    â€œYou’re all right,” she said. I shrugged, which hurt more than it should have.
    â€œSo are you,” I said. “What happened?”
    â€œWell,” Hope replied. “You crushed a lung, dumped a criminal in the trunk of a car, and then I finished off the hard work.”
    â€œWhich was what exactly?”
    â€œConvincing the kidnapper to drop his gun.”
    â€œAnd how did you do that?”
    â€œI said I’d shoot him,” she said with a smile.
    â€œOkay, but he had a gun too, right?”
    â€œSure, but he wasn’t too worried about a