Break ended ages ago, everyone has already gone off to their next lesson, and yet here I am, leaning against the wall like an idiot, waiting for someone who clearly has no concept of time management. Or basic consideration, for that matter.
I sigh, adjusting my weight carefully, trying not to make the pain worse. Maybe I should just go by myself and pretend this whole thing isn’t happening. Maybe that would be easier.
Then I see Kai, dressed in the same disguise he was wearing that day on the bus, walking toward me at what can only be described as an offensively slow pace. Hands in his pockets, shoulders relaxed but poised.
I straighten slightly, watching as he gets closer. He doesn’t speed up, doesn’t even acknowledge that he’s late, just stops a few feet in front of me and tilts his head slightly, like I’m the one making him wait.
“You’re late,” I point out, narrowing my eyes at him.
“Follow me,” he says, already turning, already assuming I’m just going to—what? Magically appear behind him?
I glare. Hard. Then, for emphasis, I gesture aggressively to my destroyed self. “Kind of the one thing I actually can’t do right now.”
Kai sighs, then gives me a slow once-over, raking a hand through his already messy hair. His eyes skim over my limp, my red arms, then stop somewhere near my very unimpressed face. “Well, you—” He cuts off, blinking. Like he’s actually seeing the problem for the first time and not just avoiding it because he can’t be bothered.
“Well, Iwhat?” I prompt, folding my arms, because if I can’t move, I can at least be difficult.
His mouth opens. Closes. But nothing actually comes out of it.
I raise both eyebrows. “You did not think this through, did you?”
His eye twitches. There’s something restrained in the way he stands, like he’s physically holding back from snapping at me. “I just misjudged the extent of your injuries.”
“Isn’t that literally the same thing?”
Kai exhales sharply, shaking his head. Then, with all the warmth of a robot, he deadpans, “One is negligence. The other is optimism.”
I scoff. “Right. Because you’re such an optimist.”
He murmurs something under his breath that I imagine I don’t want to hear. Then he shakes himself off and looks at me, gaze suddenly polite again. “Now, either let me carry you, or figure it out.”
I blink. “You want to carry me?”
Kai doesn’t say anything. He just turns. Fast. One second, he’s standing, glaring, looking like he’s about two seconds away from abandoning me altogether—and the next, he drops onto one knee.
My stomach lurches. What. The. Hell.
I stare. My brain short-circuits. I glance wildly around the courtyard, but everyone’s already gone home.
“What on earth,” I gasp, still gaping, “are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” he says calmly. Then, before I can answer, he taps his back with two fingers. “On.”
I choke. My eyeballs practically launch out of their sockets. “You want to give me a piggyback ride?”
“I want to get to the hospital,” he says, and it’s then that I realize how big of a mistake I made letting him take me. “But you, being physically incapable of functioning, makes that difficult. So—get. On.”
I hesitate. Partly because what the hell, and partly because there is no version of this where I climb onto his back and don’t immediately fall on my face. “I don’t—this isn’t—I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“Would you rather I leave you here?” he offers, and I have an incredibly strong feeling he would not hesitate if I were to say yes.
I open my mouth. Close it. Debate my options. Realize I don’t have any.
Still. There’s no dignified way to do this.
I step forward awkwardly, trying to figure out where my hands are supposed to go. Shoulders? Neck? The rigidity of him is not helping. I go to hop up but completely miscalculate, missing his back entirely and kind of… slamming into him instead.
This was way easier with Bea.
