Page 61 of Go Luck Yourself
Loch exhales. A staccato pant.
“You should’ve eaten more. You’re woozy,” is his response.
He starts us off again as two of the volunteers reach us. They offer to take over helping me, but Loch assures them he’s got it.
A sweep of caustic awareness washes over me: relief.
I don’t want anyone else holding me like this.
We make it to the water table. The volunteers not only produce a first aid kit, but they also get the race’s on-call doctor to head up. Loch lowers me into a metal folding chair behind the table while we wait for him.
I toss the bloodied beanie in the trash and reach for the first aid kit—to find it in Loch’s lap.
He’s crouched before me, ripping open a box of bandages and antibiotic ointment.
My face sears with heat. “I can handle this on my—”
Loch gives me such a rebuking glare that I lurch back on the chair. The impact of my spine hitting the metal forces out a breathy “Sorry.”
Sorry?
I mean, I’m used to apologizing for my very existence a lot, but—sorry?
Loch’s glare softens.
“Do na apologize, Kris. Just stay still.” He readies a sterile wipe. “Might sting.”
And he gently dabs at the scrape on my right knee.
I watch him, jaw gawped open.
The volunteers are busy getting water to the next wave of racers. Loch’s doggedly focused on bandaging me. So no one sees the seismic shift happening across my face; I can feel the stunned stretch of my expression, but I can’t stop it. Can only stare down as Loch finishes one knee by soothing his thumb over the tab of the bandage, an anxious scowl on his face.
He takes my other leg in his hand, brushes the frayed edge of my tights aside, and ghosts his fingers over my kneecap as he checks the wound.
I had no idea,no idea,how sensitive that part of my body was.
The heat from my blush sizzles across my chest. Burns, burns, goes atomic as it settles in my gut.
What…
What’s happening here?
A cart drives up as Loch’s bandaging my other knee, so it’s the doctor who steps in and dresses my temple and shoulder. And thank god for that—I’m not sure how much more of Loch’s ministrations I could’ve handled.
The doctor checks the response of my eyes to light and a few other tests until he nods definitively. “No concussion. You’re lucky. Fall like that? But it’s superficial wounds. You’ll be fine.”
Lucky.
No. That’s—no. I’m reading into things.Luckywould’ve been not trippingat all.
“No concussion,” I repeat dazedly.
Loch is behind the doctor, and his anxious rigidity goes out with a grateful breath.
So I’m the only one mortified.
Everything I said to him. Everything Ifelt.With nothing to blame it on but myself.
