Page 234 of Faking the Goal

"They gave them to me specifically so I could walk."

"You also fell down a staircase four hours ago."

I push open my bedroom door with my shoulder and carry her toward the bed she's been sleeping in for the last few weeks. I lower her carefully onto the mattress, keeping one arm behind her back until I'm certain she's settled before lifting her injured leg onto the pillows.

"Better?"

"Yes."

I add another pillow beneath her ankle.

She stares at me.

"What?"

"That's three pillows."

"The doctor said elevate it."

"I'm pretty sure he didn't mean until my foot achieves a higher altitude than the rest of Florida."

I ignore that too and crouch beside the bed to check the straps on her boot, making sure nothing shifted while I carried her. The X-rays came back clean, thank fucking God. No fractures in her ankle or ribs, no head injury, and nothing on the repeated abdominal exams that gave the doctor any reason to suspect internal damage. What she does have is a Grade 2 sprain in her right ankle, badly bruised ribs with an intercostal strain along her left side, and a bruise over her hip that the doctor warned will probably look worse before it looks better.

Nothing dangerous.

Nothing permanent.

I must have repeated those two things to myself fifty times since they discharged her.

She'll be sore as hell for the next several days, and the ankle will take longer than that to completely heal, but the doctor wants her taking it especially easy for the next week—minimal weight on the ankle, no unnecessary walking, no lifting, no running around campus, and absolutely no stairs unless she has no alternative.

Personally, I heard Taylor is forbidden from doing anything remotely reckless for seven days.

Apparently, she heard something different.

I stand and reach for the bottle of water I left on the nightstand. "Take these."

She looks at the pain medication in my palm before looking back at me. "I already took some at the hospital."

"Three hours ago. They said you could take the next dose when we got home."

Her eyes narrow. "Did you memorize my discharge papers?"

"Yes."

"Of course you did."

I hand her the pills anyway, wait until she takes them, then pull the blanket over her legs and make sure it doesn't press too heavily against the boot.

Taylor watches me for several seconds before finally letting out a long breath. "Ken-chan."

"Hm?"

"Stop fussing."

"I'm not fussing."

"You carried me from the car, built Mount Everest underneath my ankle, memorized my medication schedule, and you've checked that boot approximately six times since we left the hospital."