Page 40 of False Start
“I’m in a lot of pain,” I grit back, annoyed that medical professionals carry this expectation of their patients. I’m not here to put on a show; I shouldn’t have to make a big scene to convey that something is broken.
“Could have fooled me,” the doctor says under her breath.
Or maybe she can tell I’m still high, which is likely keeping me from feeling the full force of the break.
“So now what?” Harvey asks the doctor.
“Now, she can take this discharge paperwork down the hall to ortho and they’ll make her a cast for the next six weeks, and this prescription down to the pharmacy on the third floor for pain management.” She doesn’t look up from the paperwork to deliver the news.
“Six weeks?” I shout, every possible plan and hope going out the window.
“If all goes well, yes. I’ll take a look in six weeks to see if we need any more time,” she confirms.
“Fuck.” Harvey exhales. “Is she going to be able to skate?
“Does she need her wrist to skate?” the doctor asks her, like I’m not even here.
“No,” I answer for myself. “I don’t need my wrist to skate.” I stand, annoyed, and grab the discharge papers from her with my good hand.
Harvey’s following behind as I make my way down the hall to get my cast. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t like doctors.” It’s not a lie; it’s just a really simplified version of the truth.
“It’s not the end of the world.” She’s trying to reassure me, and it feels odd coming from her. “It’s just like skating with a bigger wrist guard.”
I laugh. “Except if I fall, I break my wrist twice as bad.”
“Thatisthe gamble.” She shrugs just as we get to orthopedics.
“You don’t have to stay for this,” I feel compelled to say.
“It’s fine.” The corner of her lip curls up, and she peers down at me. “I’m kind of enjoying seeing you in pain.
“Good to know that my misery is what it takes.” I throw her a sarcastic look just as we get called back to the little office.
The doctor looks to be in his seventies, little tufts of white hair scattered at the top of his head, the only fullness on the sides. He wears round, metal-rimmed glasses and greets me with a warm smile.
“The swelling is pretty bad, so I’ll have to make the cast bigger to accommodate since the injury is so recent,” he explains. “You’ll need to come back in a week or two for a new size, for comfort. By then, we may be able to get you in a softer cast.”
“That would be great.” I try to paint a smile on my face, to pretend I’m not in pain or that I don’t want to just get home and blast my face off until I can’t feel anything.
Anything.
Including the gaping hole shredding my heart, where Ican still hear Lonnie whispering of their disappointment in my recent decisions.
18
HARVEY
She’s nothing like I thought she’d be, and the more time I spend in her presence, the harder it is to hate her. Instead, I want to fix her, fix the parts she’s so obviously struggling to heal herself.
She’s skeptical, and with reason. I kicked her ass not just a few days ago, and then today, I found myself splitting my knuckles over her on the Wolverine’s pivot. Watching her get picked on activated something inside me that couldn’t be held back anymore.
The thing I’d been fighting this entire time, ever since she came to Skateland after Lonnie’s death. The very thing I tried to mask for contempt. It was just fucking obsession, desire.
Something even more.
She hasn’t spoken since we arrived at the hospital pharmacy, the pain obviously setting in to the point where dissociation is the only thing keeping her together. Staring at a spot on the brick wall, her focus is on the furthest thing from herself. I’m standing at the counter, waiting for thepharmacist to come back with her medicine while she sits on a bright blue chair pushed against the wall.
