“Vail,” he said, snapping his fingers. I tried not to glare as I refocused on him. My cheeks burned. “This is important. They did give you more time. Are you getting distracted?” Dr. Atmeyer stood and walked around the desk. He frowned down at me, and I fought not to cross my arms. “Did you hurt yourself at home?” He pursed his lips, and I reached up to tap my bruised jaw. In my rush to get here, I’d forgotten what I might look like to everyone else. “Accidents follow you around like mosquitoes.”
“No, those are from getting mugged yesterday,” I said, then immediately realized my mistake. I sighed as his mouth fell open.
“You were mugged? Where?” His eyebrows flew high. “Surely not on campus. Was it on campus?” I could already see him doing statistics in his head that he’d have to readjust in the school promotional material if I’d been assaulted on the grounds, and he was coming up with a number he didn’t like. “I’ll get campus security to patrol more near this building.”
“It’s not a big deal. It wasn’t here,” I stressed, and he relaxed a bit, but the concern didn’t leave his face. It would be a lot easier to maintain my outrage at him treating me like I couldn’t tie my shoes if I wasn’t actually hurt at least once a month in a way that required a trip to the ER.
“Were you injured badly?” He darted his gaze down my body.
“You can see my face. I hit my head, but I’m fine.”
“Did you go to the hospital? Do you have a work release?” He rested a hand on my shoulder, and I shrugged him off.
“I—”
“You must take better care of yourself. Do you know what you’ve done for the Humanities Department at this school? Salaries have gone up. Our research funding allotment has doubled. You’re an asset to the department, Vail.”
“Well, sir, it was a mugging, not something I did—”
“And you don’t have those chapters?”
My mind spun and I stuttered out, “Not yet. And no, I didn’t—”
“Well, then I must insist you go get checked at the hospital.” His pursed lips were a death knell to our conversation. Would screaming actually improve anything? My chest tightened, and I wanted to find out.
Lor snuck into the room and mouthed “sorry” to me from near the desk. I got the feeling he might have been out looking for me, to stop me from coming in here to this ambush.
Dr. Atmeyer snapped his fingers at me again, and I clenched my hand into a fist at my side, trying to remember what he’d just asked me. But he hadn’t asked anything, had he? “No, it’s not that bad, re—”
“I insist,” Dr. Atmeyer said, with a note of finality that reminded me of my parents and pissed me off. A small part of me wondered whether or not they’d asked him to keep an eye on me, and if it wasn’t more than his dedication to the school that kept him nipping at my heels. It drove me nuts. My parents loved me, but they’d always worried.
“You’re not going to leavemy officeunless I go, are you?” I tried not to be rude because I hated acting horribly, but I was close to telling him he was invading my space.
“Probably not.” He took the bite out of his words with a smile that had me clamping my teeth on the tip of my tongue. What good would it do to fight with him?
Sighing, I hung my head. “Fine.”
“I’ll go with you,” Lor promptly volunteered. “With me, you’ll get there sooner rather than later.”
“Good boy, Lorcan,” Dr. Atmeyer said, and I didn’t miss how Lor straightened and smiled.
I shook my head and tried not to glare at Lor because this wasn’t his fault, even if he was kissing ass. It wasn’t my fault, either, but I couldn’t help but feel stupid. “Fine.”
The trip to the hospital didn’t take long, though on the way an alarm went off on my phone. There was a frantic search of my messenger bag, which Lor carried, for my bottle of PrEP. The meds hadn’t been too important to me before last night. Usually I took PrEP whenever I remembered, but I should probably stick to a schedule now. I ended up gagging as I dry swallowed but got the pill down.
The ER was busy when we arrived, and I wasn’t bleeding, which meant I sat in the crowded waiting room along with everyone else who wasn’t on death’s door. Bleach fumes stung my eyes as nearby, a thin man in baggy black scrubs cleaned away what I thought were the remnants of blood on the gray floor tiles with a mop. No amount of scrubbing would make them white again.
Overhead, neon lights buzzed like a thousand trapped bees. The mass of humanity stuffed in the chairs to wait all talked and laughed, and one man in a corner shouted at his girlfriend. After some time had passed, it became clear the ranting man was simply shouting in general. The woman who I’d thought was his girlfriend raised a badge from around her neck and told a nurse she was the man’s caretaker, and he was harmless. I shuddered. A small part of me had always worried I might end up stuck somewhere because of the way I was forgetful—sane or not. A baby cried. My heart sped up. Someone laughed too loud to my left.
Lor tapped my arm to bring me back to what I should be doing, and I filled out tons of awful paperwork that made me want to ball all the papers up and burn them. I could read history book after history book, and even novels until my eyes burned, but paperwork killed me. Lor ended up taking the clipboard from me and reading off the questions, which made everything go much faster because I could just ramble my answers to him and he would jot them down.
Eventually, about two hours after the paperwork had been returned to the front, a nicely plump nurse in pink scrubs smiled her way toward me. Her button nose and deep brown eyes were familiar, and I knew I should know her name. “Dr. Mifflin! What happened, honey? It’s about that time, huh? What is it? Cut? Burn? You didn’t fall down the stairs reading again, did you?”
“I hit the back of my head on the sidewalk.”
She clucked her tongue and shook her head.
“He was jumped by some asshole near the university,” Lor said unhelpfully. “It wasn’t his fault. He didn’t just hit the back of his head, he got beat up.”
