“Uh, okay.”Fletcher Allen. I didn’t even have a pen. I looked around, and Hartley was standing beside me. “Can you… I need something to write on.” He turned on a heel and walked off. “Okay, Skippy. Does Rikker know how to get there?”
“Yeah, he’ll know where it is. And I’m going over there now to see what I can learn.”
“How did you hear about this, anyway?” I had a wild hope that maybe Skippy was just wrong. Rikker’s Gran was just about the heartiest old lady I’d ever met.
“My mom was there at church. She called the ambulance. This only happened like a half hour ago. Mom sounded pretty shaken up.”
Damn. “All right,” I swallowed. “I’m going to find a car. And it will take us about… three-and-a-half hours of driving time. Maybe four.” In my panic, I couldn’t remember how long it had taken us to drive it at New Year’s.
“I’ll call you when I hear something.”
“Thanks,” I said, uselessly. I ended the call, thinking only about the fact that I needed to borrow some wheels. Who had a car?
I looked up then. And every guy in the locker room was staring at me. Atus, actually. Because Rikker was still curled into himself. And my free arm was on his back, my palm on his neck, my fingers in his too-long hair. It wasn’t sexual. But it wasn’t how you touch a teammate. It was the touch you gave your boyfriend when his world was splitting in half, and there wasn’t anything you could do to stop it.
For a long second, I just went still. It occurred to me that I could jerk my hand off of Rikker. Any other day, I would have done just that. But for once in my sorry life, there were more important things to worry about. So I took a long breath in through my nose, and left my hand right where it was. “We need to borrow a car,” I said. “We have to get to Vermont. Like, yesterday.”
The deep silence lasted a little longer, until Bridger McCaulley broke it. “My girlfriend has a car. But I’ll have to find her and get the keys.”
I stood then, ready to take him up on it. And I moved my hand to the top of Rikker’s head, my fingers in his soft hair. Until now, I’d failed Rikker at every opportunity. But not today. His grandmother had said that her years with him were a joy. She was practicallyburstingwith pride for him. I could do that, too. I could stand here, claiming him as someone who mattered to me. It was really the least I could do.
“You can take mine,” someone said. I turned to see Trevi fishing a set of keys out of his pocket. “And I’m parked right behind the rink.”
“Thanks, man.” I let go of Rikker only so I could catch the keys as he tossed them.
“I’ll walk you out there,” Trevi said, heading for the door.
I bent over Rikker, still feeling eyes on my back. “Come on, Rik. Let’s go see her.” I squeezed his shoulder.
Numbly, Rikker stood up and walked out after Trevi. He’d left his duffel bag on the floor.
At some point Hartley had come back with a pad and a pen, which I no longer wanted. “What’s the problem?” he asked as I hoisted Rikker’s bag onto my shoulder.
The locker room was still listening to every word I said. “Rikker’s grandmother in Vermont — that’s where he lived after his parents kicked him out. She collapsed today. We don’t know why.”
“His parentskicked him out?” Hartley sputtered. “Like, permanently?”
“Pretty much. Gotta run.” I left the locker room without so much as a glance back over my shoulder.
Trevi drove a Volkswagen Jetta in cherry red. “Thanks, really,” I said when he showed us his car. “I’ll take good care of her.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Minutes later, Rikker and I were speeding up the interstate. For a hundred miles, he said almost nothing. He sat in the passenger seat beside me, his eyes on the road. During the long stretch on highway 91, I reached over to palm his thigh. And he took my hand absently, holding on to me with dry fingers. I didn’t know what was going through his head. I only knew that it wasn’t good.
“Where does your uncle Alan live?” I asked at one point. Because we really needed to call him. “Somewhere near Atlanta, right?”
“Yeah.”
As we drove through Central Massachusetts, I felt Rikker’s phone vibrate in my back pocket. Since I was driving, I ignored it. If the news was really dire, they’d call back. And there was no way to get him there any faster, anyway. But as we crossed into Southern Vermont, the phone began to vibrate again. So I pulled off the highway in Brattleboro, stopping at a gas station. I set the gas nozzle to fill Trevi’s tank, and then I took a look at Rikker’s phone.
There were two text messages from Skippy. The first one had read:I’m @ the Fletcher Allen ER waiting room. No news yet. The recent message said:She’s alive but unconscious. Being treated for stroke.
I replied:Thx. Just hit VT border. -MG
Ducking back into the car, I took a look at Rikker. His head was tipped back on the headrest, staring at the windshield.
“Rik?” He turned to look at me, but his eyes were blank. As if I could see right through him. “Skippy texted that she’s alive, but unconscious.”
