“Go.” My brows crease as he says, “I’m having the assistant coach cover my last two periods so I can cover for you. Go stay with Leti.”
“Go where?” That nagging feeling turns to an icy chill down my spine. “Where is she?”
Trepidation pulls down his expression. “She didn’t tell you, did she.”
My phone rings before I get the chance to interrogate him on my girlfriend’s whereabouts. I’m starting to get the feeling that something is terribly wrong, which is only compounded by the fact that Andrew is calling me. “What happened? Where is she?”
“She’s okay,” he says. “I’m with her right now. The break looks pretty gnarly, but the doctors are fitting her for a cast right now.”
“She’s at thehospital?”
Theo grimaces, mouthing a finalgo, and I’m out the door without a final look back into my classroom. I have my phone in hand and car keys and wallet in my pocket, which is all I need. “Tell me which one. I’m on my way right now.”
“Methodist. They’re gonna get sick of seeing your face around here,” he jokes, but I’m not laughing. “I was about to leave to get her insurance card. She left it at home when she changed purses. I’ll wait till you get here to go grab it. They just admitted her, so we might be here for a while.”
“Do you know what happened?” I ask him as I start my car, and the call switches over to Bluetooth. “I’m surprised she called you. Were you with her?”
“No, and I only know that she broke her right arm trying to shelve some books at work. She fell off the stool when Theo found her,” he says. “You’ve been hounding me all week to work things out, so I called her on my lunch break. I didn’t think we’d get anywhere, but surprisingly we did. Mainly because she sort of freaked me out, apologizing for what she said about my breakup, and then out of the blue asked me to pick her up from the hospital.”
“Who was with her when you got there?” I ask him. “Bella? Your parents?”
“She was alone.” His voice is tight with discomfort. “The doctorsleft her in an exam room when I got here. She messed up the form they gave her trying to fill it out with her left hand. I have everything but her insurance info.”
I digest the information he’s given me in small, bite-size pieces that refuse to make sense in my brain. Her right arm is broken. She was alone and crying in the hospital when Andrew got there. By all accounts, it seems as though she didn’t call anyone to stay with her. I’ve sent her five unanswered messages today, and all this time she’s been sitting in a hospital waiting room by herself untilAndrewcalledher.
Anger, hot and boiling, heats my blood as I stomp on the gas pedal.She didn’t call me.She broke her arm, and she didn’t call anyone to help her. Of all the stubborn, irresponsible, thick-headed stunts the woman I love has pulled, this one takes the cake by a mile.
“I don’t know what she was thinking,” Andrew says when I don’t reply. “Knowing Leti, she probably wasn’t thinking at all. She was a mess when I called, and she’s only marginally calmed down now that I’m here. But she needs someone to tell her everything’s okay. You can yell at her for not asking anyone for help later.”
“Okay.” I give a stiff nod, not that he can see me, and then let out a deep breath as I consider what he’s telling me. “You’re right. Tough love isn’t what she needs right now. I’m ten minutes out, by the way.”
“All right,” he says. “Text me when you get here.”
It doesn’t take long to find the exam room she’s posted in. Her wrist is already bound in a cast, the whole arm wrapped in a sling. Leti glances up as she senses my approach, brown eyes red rimmed and shiny with tears. I texted Theo when I parked to ask him whathappened, and he told me all about finding her in the library, broken arm held to her chest as she cried out for help. Who fucking knows how long she was alone like that before Theo found her.
The only reason he didn’t tell me sooner was because he thought she’d already told me.Sheshould’vetold me.It’s getting harder and harder to let go of the anger holding me hostage. I plan to do some interrogating and a whole hell of a lot of yelling later, but that’s not what she needs from me right now.
Now she needs someone to take care of her.
“What are you doing here?” Her voice is weak, but she sinks into me as my arms wrap around her back. “I was going to call you after they discharged me.”
“Theo’s covering my classes,” I tell her, completely ignoring that last tidbit because I’m alreadythisclose to exploding. “And Andrew will be back soon with your insurance card. Sounds like you two made some peace for the time being, which is good.”
“It feels like more than the time being,” she tells me. “At least, until one of us slips and says something stupid. But it’s the furthest we’ve ever come to making up, which is something.”
“Yeah.” I cup her cheeks and stare down at her, analyzing her face for anything that’ll clue me in on her well-being. “That sure is something.”
“Are you mad?”
My eyes shut tight, because the one thing I can’t do is lie to her.
“You seem mad.”
“I can hold it,” I tell her, wiping a stray tear that falls down her cheek with a thumb. “All I need to know is that you’re safe and whole before we get you home.”
“I didn’t want you to miss class over my stupid broken arm,” she says. “I thought I could handle it on my own. There were too many books in my hands. I was rushing to get through all the shelving I had to do as quickly as possible, and I didn’t think—”
“You didn’t think your safety should come first,” I finish for her. It’s a fight to keep my voice even, but somehow I manage. “You didn’t think your best friend or boyfriend or family would—or should—drop everything they were doing and rush to your side to make sure you were okay. You didn’t think we’d want to know you hadbroken your armand were sitting alone in a hospital waiting room unable to fill out the medical forms, or that you were without your insurance card and in desperate need of help that you were too stubborn or prideful or both to ask for. Do I have that right?”
