Page 48 of The Life and (Medieval) Times of Kit Sweetly

Before I can really process her email, Mom rushes into the waiting room.

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MOM’S FINGERS DIG INTO MY BACK AS SHE HUGS ME.

“What happened?” She glances around the lobby. A fat glob of syrup stains her yellow uniform and she smells like cigarettes. Her voice strains as she looks around, as if she might find Chris out here somewhere, among all the Castle staff. “Is he okay?”

I hug her, clinging like I haven’t in a very, very long time. “I don’t know,” I whisper.

Something about being held by my mother breaks me. I desperately want Chris to be fine, but I don’t know if he will be. Fear hollows out my insides like someone scooping the guts out of a Halloween pumpkin.

We hold each other, standing together in the middle of the waiting room.

“He’ll be okay.” I say, trying to reassure myself as well. I rub Mom’s back as she cries.

“Kit?” Jett’s voice touches the edge of our circle, bringing me out of the moment with Mom. He’s holding a Styrofoam takeout container. “I’ve got to go home. But I’ll check on you later. Once I get my siblings sorted out.”

“You don’t have to do that,” I say, shaking my head.

Mom gives my arm a squeeze and heads over to the nurse’s station.

Jett thrusts the takeout container toward me. I open it and a laugh spills out of me as I take in the gooey, gloopy stack of food.

“Pancakes?” My stomach rumbles.

“I picked them up from your mom’s diner because we missed our late-night after-work breakfast. Plus, my mother always says feed a cold, but breakfast a worry.”

“Thank you,” I say. I throw my arms around him. He stands aloof for a moment and then leans into me. I don’t care what rules I’m breaking for the moment. It’s good to hold Jett.

He pulls away first and rummages in his pocket. He pulls a plastic fork out and hands it to me. “See you soon.”

Before I can say anything else, he plants a quick kiss on my cheek and turns away.

I hold my hand to my cheek, a smile finding its way to my lips. Layla walks in at that moment and shoots a look toward Jett’s retreating back. I shrug, still grinning.

“Kit. Chris is awake. C’mon.” My mom grips my hand, and I grip my pancakes, and together we stride down the hallway toward Chris’s room.

AS IT TURNS OUT, THEY WON’T LET YOU KEEP TAKEOUT CONTAINERS of pancakes in the ICU. So, I have to leave them in the nurses’ station fridge. Mom goes into Chris’s room first, but I linger by the fridge, still holding the container. Delighted Chris is awake. Unsure I want to see him all banged up and injured.

Being a Knight was supposed to be fun. Something Chris and I practiced together. Everything at the Castle is scripted, sorted, and planned in advance. People aren’t supposed to get hurt.

So what happened tonight? How did Chris injure himself so spectacularly?

As I stand there, hand on the fridge door, our first training session comes back to me.

Chris was seventeen and had moved up the ranks to top Squire. He was still in high school, but his tryouts for the Knight position were coming up. He needed someone to practice with, and I was the only one available and willing to help. I was almost fifteen and had just been hired at the Castle. I spent every minute that I wasn’t handing out cheesy souvenirs watching the Knights.

Every day for the month before his tryouts, Chris and I would get the bus over to the Castle after school and watch the Knights’ mock fights. Chris would record them with a phone he’d borrowed from his girlfriend, and then we’d practice the moves back at home after school.

Every weekend, the clang of blunted metal practice swords would ring out throughout our house.

“Outside!” Mom would roar. Dad usually wouldn’t look up from whatever bottle he was trying to find the bottom of.

Chris and I would then take our battle down the stairs and into the yard, dancing across the turf like Westley and Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride.

At first it was about trying to sword fight gracefully and avoid each other’s blows. Then, we’d work on the skill exercises. We didn’t have our own horses (shocker, I know), so we’d hang a set of rings from a low-hanging tree branch and ride our bikes up the driveway with long sticks in hand. It was remarkably stupid and incredibly fun.

“Hold that lance!” Chris had shouted during one of our first training sessions. “You’re meant for more than wenching, sister of mine! RIDE!”