The drive home was awkward, to say the least.
Aimee did her best to fill the tense silence. And besides, she was excited and happy about being pregnant with Kes’s kid. Although she kept trying to rein herself in for Sara’s sake, but Aimee seemed unable to stem her own pleasure. She kept stroking her non-existent bump and talking about changes she and Kes would need to make to their tiny log cabin in Arcata, and what Bo would think about having a baby brother or sister.
I had to smile at that last one.
But Sara just stared silently out of the window, lost in her own thoughts. She hadn’t told either of us what the doctor had said, and she hadn’t looked at the packet of papers that she’d been given. I wondered what she was thinking, whether she was having second thoughts about keeping the kid.
I wasn’t a complete Neanderthal, I did know what it meant to have more responsibilities than the average 18 year-old.
Both of my parents had worked a lot, and with having a brother six years younger than me, a lot of the responsibility to take care of him had fallen my way. I’d put off going to college for a year so I could save up some money and help with the bills. And then I only started my degree part-time, taking a class now and then when I had the time or could afford it.
When Dan started losing his hearing, it had been hard on all of us, but devastating for him. For a start, the kid wanted to be a rock star, and was damn good at playing his guitar and writing songs. Really good, not just kid-good. He could have made it. But then he got the diagnosis of a form of hearing loss that was progressive and permanent.
Thinking back, I reckon that it had begun a lot sooner than any of us realized at the time, including Dan. What seemed like usual teenage behavior—ignoring our parents, playing music too loud, getting into trouble at school—it all made a sort of dark sense when we found out about his deafness.
I tried to be there for him as much as possible during those days. Mom and I went to sign language classes with him, too.
I couldn’t help smiling at the memory. Mom was so shit at it, I don’t think she ever managed to communicate well. She was always mixing up D and F, S and A, so Dan’s name tended to come out as ‘floss’ or something else bizarre.
Or when she tried to get him to bring her a sweet tea by making a T sign with her fingers and shaking them. Dan just smiled and got what she wanted. We never did tell her that she was making the sign for ‘toilet’.
But the best one was when she signed ‘fuck’ instead of ‘work’. We used to crack up over that.
Then Dan went away to a special school for deaf kids. I thought that I’d try to take more classes and maybe even finish off my degree, but the deaf school cost a ton of money and my parents needed me to help out. So I told them that I’d gotten a better part-time job at an auto shop, but by then I’d already started dealing drugs.
And using them.
Stories like that never have a happy ending.
When they died in a car wreck, I tried to straighten up for Dan’s sake, but I was stupid, and young, and grieving.
In some ways, getting sent to prison was the thing that saved me. I’d gotten in with a really heavy crowd, and if prison hadn’t claimed me, I probably wouldn’t be alive today.
I glanced across at Sara, wondering what thoughts were running through her pretty head.
But she didn’t speak and she didn’t even look at either of us, so we let her be.
Back at the carnival, I didn’t have time to do anything except get my ass over to the rig and change into my leathers. The doctors’ meetings had run over and I was late getting back.
The other guys had already warmed up, but I didn’t have time for that if we were going to play the show on schedule. Luke ran me through a few quick stretches, but it wasn’t enough, and my knee was giving me hell from sitting around all day.
Kes threatened to pull me from the act, but I promised that I was fine.
Under the glaring sun, we raced out into the arena, and even through my helmet, I could still hear the cheers and yells of the audience, their faces passing in a blur.
As I took the first jump, a hands free leap where I gripped by bike with my knees, the pain made my eyes water.
I tried to get my weight on my other leg for the landing, but a bolt of pure agony shot through it. It was better on the next two jumps, which were handstands, but the landings still jarred.
Sweat beaded on my forehead and started to drip into my eyes. Even if I raised the visor, I couldn’t wipe my face with the heavy leather gloves on.
I blinked as my eyes stung and my vision was hazy.
I didn’t like it, but my body was forcing me to take a break. I caught Kes’s attention and gestured that I was going to take one more jump and then time-out.
He nodded his understanding, and I saw Luke and Tucker following my cue.
I made my last jump, doing a horizontal three-sixty through the air like a surfer, but my wheel edge caught the landing surface at an angle, and I skidded down to the dirt at the bottom.
It wouldn’t have been so bad if I’d landed on my good leg, but I didn’t, and the pain was so intense, my vision went black and all I knew was deafening silence.
I woke up a few seconds later wondering if I’d died and gone to Heaven, because the view was pretty damn good and surely an Angel was watching over me. But as my vision cleared, I realized that Sara was on her knees in the dirt next to me. I think she was screaming, but my ears were ringing so badly, I couldn’t tell.
“ . . . call an ambulance?”
I struggled to sit up, but she held me down by my shoulders.
“What?”
Kes was next to me, lifting my visor carefully.
“Wait for the paramedics, man.”
Flames of pain were running up from my ankle to my thigh.
“I think I fucked up my knee again,” I groaned.
“Does anything else hurt?”
“Only my pride,” I lied.
Kes grinned and I heard Tucker’s relieved laugh behind me. I squinted up at him.
“Everyone else okay?”
“Yeah, Zef,” he grinned. “We’re all good. You certainly gave the crowd their money’s worth. Can you do that again?”
Then Sara screamed at him.
“Shut up! Shut up! He could have died! He’s hurt! He’s really hurt, and you’re just making a big joke of it!”
And then she burst into tears.
Tucker’s mouth dropped open, stunned into silence. I saw Kes gesturing to Aimee to take Sara away.
“No! I’m not leaving him!”
And she flung herself across my body, gasping and crying. I thought she was going to have a complete meltdown when the paramedics tried to pull her off me.
“Sara, honey,” I gritted out while my whole body felt like it had been run over by a charging rhino, “they’ll do a much better job of getting me onto a stretcher if you climb off of me now.”
“Oh!”
She stumbled back, wiping her eyes and nose as I helped the paramedics get me onto the stretcher.
The crowd was on their feet, expressions of interest or horror, depending on how macabre they liked their shows, so I gave them a quick wave and heard applause and cries of relief.
“We’ll see you at the hospital,” Kes called after me.
I gave him a thumbs up, then relaxed back on the stretcher, my knee throbbing like a mofo. Sara was walking next to me, still crying, so I lifted up my gloved hand and she clung onto it as if it would save her from drowning.
But waking up and seeing her sweet face, thinking it felt like Heaven, I wondered if I was the one who was drowning.
Back at the hospital for the second time in one day, the woman at the reception desk recognized me. Her expression seemed to say, You again, and I saw her eyeing Sara, as well.
She stayed with me while an ER doctor gave me a once-over, taking a history and deciding that I need a CT scan of my head and an MRI of my knee, so I’d have to stay in overnight.
Sara didn’t say much, just asking if I needed water, listening intently to everything that was said.
The only time she spoke was when I refused to have my new Alpinestars leather pants cut off of me.
“Zef, you’re being such an idiot! You can buy more pants, but you only have one left leg.”
I let them slice up my suit after that; I just couldn’t watch them do it.
When they’d finished and junked $1500 of new gear, I was wheeled away for a CT scan.
My head was throbbing, but I didn’t know for sure if I’d hit it when I went down, but maybe I’d given myself a touch of whiplash—that would account for the bitchin’ headache.
When the tech guy had finished, the brace was taken off my neck, so I assumed it was good news, and I was taken back to my room.
Kes, Aimee, Tucker and Zach had arrived and were questioning Sara, but left her alone as soon as I was wheeled in.
“Zef! Oh my God, I’ve been so worried about you!”
Aimee surprised the hell out of me by bursting into tears. We’d gotten off to a rocky start when she’d first started dating Kes again; we’d dealt with that, but we’d never been close.
Kes smirked behind her and mouthed, “hormones.”
Even more surprising was the tight-lipped glare that Sara shot in Aimee’s direction before letting her face go blank.
While I waited for the doc to read the CT scan, I pulled off the sheet and saw my leg for the first time. The knee had swollen to the size of a football, so it would definitely have hurt like hell if they’d dragged off my pants. Sara gave me a knowing look which I ignored.
Finally, after another lengthy wait while Kes got bored and went for coffee—which I wasn’t allowed to drink—the doctor came back.
“Well, Mr. Colton, the CT scan has come back clear, so that’s good. As for your knee, it’s sprained, but I’ll need the MRI to tell me whether or not your ACL requires surgery. I believe you’ve already had it repaired fourteen months ago?”
I groaned and laid my head back on the pillow.
“We won’t be able to schedule the MRI until tomorrow, so we’ll put a brace on your leg to keep you from moving it and make you as comfortable as possible. I’ll also prescribe some pain medication for you.”
“No thanks, doc.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“No to the pain meds. It’s not hurting so much.”
His eyes widened.
“I would strongly recommend that you do. It’ll be done through the IV. And there’ll be prescription for you to take with you.”
Great. Not that I was going to take them.
I wasn’t at all happy about the thought of being medicated or being kept in overnight waiting for a scan, and I glanced at Kes. He gave a brief nod and looked toward Zach who raised his eyebrows in unspoken agreement. Zach left the room following the doc and twenty minutes later a harassed resident told me I’d be getting the MRI shortly.
I could only assume that Zach argued to get it sooner or the doctor decided it needed to be stat.
It was my second time in a metal cigar tube, hearing the booming sound of the imaging in action. I found it oddly relaxing, letting my mind wander, the blackness soothing not suffocating.
There was an inevitability about all of this. Even if I didn’t need surgery, I’d be out for the next couple of months. I wasn’t good with a lot of time on my hands.
Sara looked pale when they brought me back to my room.
“Maybe you should lie down?” I suggested.
She shook her head but gave me a faint smile.
I wished she would. She looked tired, dark smudges under her eyes that told of too many sleepless nights. I felt guilty adding to her stress.
An hour later, the doc was back again, reading from his damn clipboard.
“There’s good news and bad news, Mr. Colton. The good news is that your ACL isn’t torn. You have a grade one sprain, which means that the ligament is mildly damaged. It’s been stretched beyond its normal capacity, but is still able to keep your knee joint stable.”
I closed my eyes in relief, then felt Sara slip her cool hand into mine. I glanced up at her, but she was staring at the doctor, waiting for the bad news.
“Hit me with it, doc,” I said tiredly, hoping that he’d let me go home soon.
“You’ll need complete rest for between six to eight weeks. I’d recommend you wear a brace to protect your knee from instability, and crutches for the first two or three weeks to keep you from putting weight on your leg. As the swelling goes down, you’ll need to start physical therapy to restore function to your knee and strengthen the muscles that support it.”
As I’d expected, but, shit! That was July and half of August out of action. I’d miss the big gig at Pomona on the Fourth next week, but also the busiest part of the season. I was determined to be back in action by the time I met up with Dan. No way would I miss that.
What a shitty awful day this was turning out to be.
Then I realized that Sara was still holding my hand and I quietly pulled free.
While we were waiting for the brace and crutches to arrive, Tucker handed me a pair of shorts and a t-shirt to wear, and my battered Vans. I was used to changing in front of people, even Aimee, but I felt weird dressing in front of Sara. Thankfully, Aimee cleared everyone out of the room—it was getting pretty crowded in there when a nurse came to put an elastic bandage over my leg and showed me how to fix the brace.
With crutches under each arm, I made a few practice steps. Been there, done that, learned the gimp act. But they made me leave the hospital in a wheelchair. Tucker was disappointed when he wasn’t allowed to be the one to push me. Thank God. I didn’t want to fuck up my leg worse than it already was.
I wouldn’t admit it, but I was in quite a lot of pain and my head was still throbbing, as well. The nurse had given me some pain meds and believed me when I pretended to swallow them. She’d obviously never worked in a prison or a psych ward, because otherwise she’d have been watching more carefully. Kes narrowed his eyes when he saw me palm the drugs, but he didn’t say anything. He and Tucker were the only people who knew why I wouldn’t take them.
I just wanted to lie down and . . .
It occurred to me that I didn’t have a room anymore. I couldn’t ask Sara to move out, especially not in her condition, but Tucker had already thought about what I needed.
“You can have my room in the RV, man,” he said. “Ollo said I can bunk in with him, or I’ll sleep in the rig, whatever. No problem.”
Ollo had an RV adapted for his height. I wouldn’t have minded bunking in with him, but having everything low down could get awkward when I couldn’t bend my left leg. It wouldn’t be great for Tucker either.
“Thanks, man,” I said, too sore and tired to try arguing with him as I let my eyes drift shut. “I appreciate that.”
His words seemed to shake Sara out of her stupor.
“Oh no! You have to have your room back! I’m so sorry! I’ll move out. I’ll . . .”
“No, you won’t,” I said tersely. “Tucker’s got it figured out. Just leave it.”
Everyone in the truck fell silent so suddenly that I opened my eyes.
Tucker was shaking his head and Aimee was throwing me a filthy look.
“What?”
Nobody spoke.
“What?! I’m not making a pregnant girl give up her room.”
“I think it was the way you sweet-talked her, bro,” Tucker said, still shaking his head.
When I looked at Sara she was crying. Again. Great. I closed my eyes and leaned back in my seat. I couldn’t deal with her shit as well as my own.
I also suspected that I’d acted like an asshole to her. Hell. She seemed to bring it out of me.