Sarah had her phone in her hand, the screen dark instead of dialing. “Do you think he’ll tell them anything at the hospital if we went?”
I didn’t want to take my eyes off Elio. Forcing myself to look at Sarah was almost torture. “I don’t know.”
“Do you know if he even has insurance?”
“I don’t know.”
She was quiet for a moment, looking up and down Elio’s battered frame. “I know a guy. He’s a doctor at a hospital afew towns over. I can call him and see if he’ll come to your house?” It was a question. I was having a hard time even comprehending what was going on around us, never mind how to answer something of that magnitude. “Instead of getting nowhere with the ER, he can come out and take a look. He won’t ask for payment, and he won’t pressure Elio to make a report. Which, with how he is now, I don’t know if he would agree to filing one anyway.”
A trembling, scared hand reached out to me and grabbed onto my shirt, pulling tight. Elio raised his head to plead with me. “I’ll do that. I-I don’t have money. Please. I don’t wanna go to a hospital. I can’t, Cres, please.”
I let my eyes fall shut for a moment, blocking everything else out. Rushed, panicked whispers filtered through my ears, distracting me.
Finally coming to a decision I hoped wasn’t wrong, I nodded to Sarah and gently cradled Elio to my chest. “Shh, just rest, okay? Everything will be okay. I’ve got you. I’ve got this. I’ll handle it.” I didn’t know if anything I said comforted him.
I wasn’t sure he could even understand my words. All Elio did was cry and beg. Cry and beg. Cry and beg. But my shattered, broken heart still beat for him, so I still had hope that everything would be alright.
GettingElio to my apartment was hell on earth. Sarah was a big help, but he was in so much pain and so loopy, getting him into the car was a monumental task in itself. It hurt to see him like that and not be able to make it better.
He was lying on his back on the couch now, his eyesclosed with little groans of pain escaping him every now and then. The doctor friend Sarah called was almost here, and I was silently begging time to speed up so he could make Elio feel better quicker.
I knelt beside the couch, holding a bag of frozen broccoli over different spots on Elio’s face. Every wince, every slight twitch of his face killed me a little bit more inside.
“Devon is here now,” Sarah whispered from behind me. “He’s bringing his stuff to the door. He’ll get Elio fixed up, I promise.”
Her voice wavered as she said it, not quite matching the positivity she was trying to exude. I didn’t look up, didn’t turn toward her. All of my focus was on making my best friend as comfortable as possible.
Even as Devon let himself in, I stayed stuck to Elio’s side. I could feel his presence beside me, hovering for a moment. I wondered if he was assessing what he’d gotten himself into.
“I’ll need some space, Crescent. Is there a room you two could go to? I’ll come find you when I have more information.”
I didn’t want to leave. I was still glued to the floor, my hand cradling the bag of broccoli for fear that if I let it go, something bad would happen. What, I wasn’t sure. Devon shuffled beside me, probably trying to urge me to move, but it wasn’t until Sarah wrapped her hand around my upper arm that I so much as flinched.
“Hey,” she whispered. “Let’s let Dr. D do his job, okay? Come on.”
Right. Doctor. Devon was a doctor, and he could help Elio. Maybe he could fix him all the way up, or maybe he could inject something into my veins to wake me up from this fucking nightmare.
I pulled the bag of broccoli off Elio’s face, holding it inmy hand until water started to drip down my wrist. I looked at it, frozen with indecision. Where do I put it? If I take it away, what would happen?
“Break it.”
“Tear it open.”
“He’ll die.”
“He’ll die.”
“He’ll die.”
Someone was breathing far too fast, each intake of breath louder than the last. If they didn’t calm down, they’d have a panic attack. Or maybe they already were. I started to look around, wondering who it was, when dark tan hands took the broccoli out of my own, and I realized.
It was me. I was breathing so heavily, the world was starting to swim.
“Go to your room, Crescent. I’ve got him.” Devon’s voice was soothing and calm, but he needed to hurry the fuck up and fix Elio.
Sarah pulled me up from the floor, and I let autopilot take over as we walked to my bedroom. It was a fucking mess, everything in gross disarray, but Sarah didn’t mention it. Maybe she was just as tired as I was. I didn’t ask, though. We were silent as we sat on the edge of my bed together, thinking over the night we’d had.
She sniffled every so often, a wet sound that filled the silence. When she did speak, it was solemn and heavy. “Do you know who did this to him?”
