“Tell her that I love her. Tell her-”
“I know. I’ll take care of it.” He wraps his hand around the nape of my neck and gives it a hard squeeze. “Just rest, ok. I’ll see if she’ll come back with me before you’re discharged tomorrow.”
“Yeah, ok. Alright. Thanks, man.”
My mom launches herself at Ryder and hugs him fiercely. “Thank you, Ryder. Thank you for bringing Jay here and thank you for looking out for him. I don’t know what we would do without you.” She kisses his cheek. My dad is next and gives him a quick hug and a handshake, and then Ryder leaves to go take care of my girl.
Ryder
It’s after two in the morning when I arrive at Elizabeth’s house. I get out of my car and instead of going up to the front door, I walk around the side to peer up at Elizabeth’s window. Since Jay’s parents and Julien are at the hospital with him now, their house is silent and dark. I hope the other neighbors are asleep and don’t look out their windows as I have no doubt that I probably appear like a freaky creeper that’s up to no good standing under a tree looking up at a window in the middle of the night. There’s a faint light coming from Elizabeth’s window, so I take a chance that she’s still up even though she hasn’t responded to any of my texts.
I take a lingering examination of the tree that sits between the two houses. There’s no way in hell I’m going to climb this damn tree and fall and break my neck.Jayson and Julien do it, so can you. Hell, even Elizabeth climbs up and down the damn thing. Fine, enough being a pussy about it. I take a few steps back and leap off the ground to grab one of the low hanging branches and pull myself up. This isn’t as hard as I thought it would be, as long as I don’t look down. I take my time climbing and when I reach Elizabeth’s window, I pluck an acorn from a branch and chuck it at the glass. I do it a second time. I remind myself once again not to look down.
Elizabeth’s curtains pull back and I see her shocked face looking at me as she unlatches, then pulls up her window.
“Ryder, what the hell?”
“Hey, Elizabeth. Do you mind waiting to yell at me until I get inside? I hate to admit that I’m a little terrified up here.” My stupid eyes decide at that moment to look down and I go green, stomach rolling like I’m about to puke. Yeah, not the best idea I had coming up here. Elizabeth must see the color drain from my face.
“Ryder, aren’t you afraid of heights?”
“Yep,” I croak. One might find it a bit ridiculous that someone like me, a guy who races cars and bikes – bikes he does backflips and tricks with – would be afraid of heights, but I am.
“Oh, crap. Oh, ok. Here, take my hand and inch forward just a bit.” She guides me on what to do and I breathe a sigh of relief when my feet touch her bedroom floor. My body slides down to follow. Elizabeth sits cross-legged in front of me, rubbing my legs and arms vigorously.
“I don’t have hypothermia.”
“Just shut up. I can’t believe you did that.”
“You do it all the time.”
“I also don’t have acrophobia.”
I have no comeback for that.
Her hands slow their rubbing when she notices my busted knuckles. Without saying a word, she gets up and goes into her bathroom. I can hear Hailey’s voice faintly before a door closes and then sounds of rummaging around. Elizabeth comes back out with a first aid kit and sits back down grabbing my right hand.
“Here. Let me take a look at that.” Her fingers ever so gently feather across where scabs have formed over my middle three knuckles. She takes out a square packet from the kit and tears it open. “This may sting a little.” Elizabeth takes her time wiping away the old blood and applies some ointment. She repeats it all again on my other hand.
“Do I get a lollipop for being a good patient?”
Her light green eyes trail up to my golden ones. She lifts my curled hands to press a soft kiss on each one, then blows. All the blood suddenly rushes to my crotch.
“I’m out of lollipops. Will that do?”
No, I want to say.
I lean back against the wall at her window needing the extra space between us before I do something stupid to make this shitty night go from bad to worse. “Elizabeth, I came here to see how you were doing and to tell you about Jay. You didn’t answer any of my or Julien’s texts or calls.”
“I turned it off. We’re not talking about him right now.”
“No, you don’t understand, Eliza-”
“I said, we are not talking about him right now!” she snaps at me and then immediately backs down, exhaling loudly. “Sorry. I’m not mad at you. I shouldn’t be yelling at you. You did nothing wrong.”
“I understand. But I really need to tell you-” she slaps her hand over my mouth to shut me up.
“I said no, Ryder. I just can’t right now. Please drop it. For me.” Since her hand is over my mouth, I nod yes.
