SORROW WOODS (7 page)

I don’t really want him staying in my house, but I guess I can’t exactly send him out into

those woods at this time of night with an injured shoulder.

“You can stay here, but you’re gonna have to stay on the sofa and you must leave first thing in

the morning. I don’t want Elodie seeing you; you’ll frighten her.”

He yawns and slowly nods his head. “I’ll be gone before the sun comes up. I just need to rest

for a couple of hours. Thanks.”

I let my head drop back onto the pillow that’s been nestled behind me the whole time. I can

feel the deep ache of my ankle and the stinging of the cuts on my face. I wonder what Elodie will think when I tell her about the events of my evening. I imagine that, despite the fact that Kaiden tried to take me away from her, she will still be disappointed that she didn’t get to see him herself.

Elodie has no fear. I envy her but at the same time, I worry about her. She needs to

understand that not everything in the world is safe and nice like it is here in the woods. I used to think like that, but the more I read, the more I started to doubt. After tonight, I know for sure that it’s not true.

Kaiden

The door to my truck squeals in protest when I push it open, reminding me that I need to oil it. I stare at my house where the people inside are no doubt still sound asleep and climb out of my truck, making sure I don’t knock my shoulder on anything. I still can’t believe Serena relocated my shoulder after simply reading how to do it from a book. And I especially can’t believe that she wrestled and killed a huge wolf with her bare hands, saving my sorry life in the process. That girl is truly something else.

I sigh and walk up the path to my front door. I seriously have no idea what I’m going to do

now. I push my hand into my pocket and pull the list back out. I stare at all the stupid things that I wrote down, and then throw it into the bushes that line the path. I’m not going to rip her away from a life that she’s clearly happy with, just so I can get my hands on a load of cash. Certainly, not after she saved my life and then sorted my shoulder out for me. I push open the front door and creep

down the hallway.

“Oh, thank God.” My Mother pushes up from a seat at the table and rushes towards me,

making her short black hair swoosh around her face. I brace myself, but she stops just short off

hugging me when she notices the sling around my arm.

“What have you done and why are you so late getting back? You promised me you’d be back

last night,” she says, clearly concerned.

I nod. I did promise her that and I know how much she worries about me when I don’t come

back when I say I will. “Sorry Mom, but I got injured and it was too painful to drive all the way back.”

She sighs and sort of smiles at me. “Okay, I understand, but you could have called. I was

worried.”

I nod. “I didn’t think. Sorry.”

She clicks her tongue, but I know I’m forgiven. “What have you done to your arm anyway?”

I’m not sure I can lie to her because I need to get it checked out. Even though it felt

immediately better after Serena finished swinging it about, I want to be sure that she did it right. “I think my shoulder was dislocated, but I pushed it back in.”

She blinks at me. “You relocated your shoulder all by yourself?”

I look around the room. Don’t make eye contact. Don’t make eye contact. I keep repeating

this. I don’t know how she knows, but if I look into her eyes when I tell a lie, she immediately knows I’m doing it. “Yes.”

“Did it hurt?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“Does it hurt now?”

I shrug. “It just sort of aches.”

I watch her eyes scan over my sling before she turns and walks towards the coffee machine.

“Do you want a coffee?”

I smile. Coffee is the only thing that’s kept me going as I drove all the way home with one

arm. “Coffee sounds good.”

She grabs a cup from the shelf and flicks the machine on that hums gently. “After you drink

that, I’ll take you down to the ER so they can check you out properly.”

I want to tell her that I’ll go on my own, but I know she won’t let me drive with just one arm.

She’s probably really annoyed that I drove all the way home as it is, but for some reason she’s

decided to not mention it. “Okay. Thanks, Mom.”

I wonder what Serena is going to do about her ankle. I’m pretty sure that it was just sprained

or twisted, but she won’t know for sure and I doubt her Mother will take her to the hospital. I shake my head. I need to forget that I ever saw Serena.

I shuffle on the most uncomfortable plastic chair that I’ve ever sat on and huff. We’ve been waiting to see a doctor for over two hours now. I glance sideways at my Mother and feel myself frowning.

She’s texting. She never texts. I didn’t even know she knew how to do it. “Who are you texting?”

Her eyes flick towards me and then immediately back to her phone. “Angela. She was

supposed to be coming over for coffee, but I won’t be back in time so I was just letting her know.”

I can feel my eyes widening. “Why was she coming over for coffee? Has something

happened?”

She sighs. “Nothing new to report. She’ll probably want to talk about what we’re going to do

next month.”

“Then why is she coming over for coffee?” I demand.

“She comes over once a week.”

“For coffee?”

“Yes,” she says curtly.

“How come I don’t know that?”

“Have you ever asked?” she returns, sounding exasperated with me.

She has a point. I know they’ve been friends for years now, but I didn’t realise Angela came

to our house every single week. Before I can say anything else, a nurse pokes her head around the corner and calls my name.

“Do you want me to come in with you?” asks my Mother as I stand up.

I snort. “No thanks, Mom. I’m a big boy now.”

She raises her eyes at me and picks up her women’s magazine. I walk slowly towards the

nurse, who stands with a hand on her hip as if she’s annoyed with me. I notice her short, spiky black hair and dark eye liner and smile at her. She’s old but she’s funky. I kind of like that.

“Mr. Matthews?” she inquires.

I nod.

“Follow me, please.”

I do as she says and follow her down a narrow, linoleum-floored corridor until she

disappears into a room.

“Ah, Mr. Matthews,” says a balding, old man with a grey moustache. “I understand from

your notes that you believe you dislocated your shoulder and that you pushed it back in yourself?”

He looks me up and down, his eyes lingering on my make-shift sling.

“That’s right, except I didn’t push it back in myself.”

“Oh.” He flicks back through his papers. “But your notes say that you just told the

receptionist that you did it yourself.”

I nod. “I lied. Sorry, but I was with my Mom and I didn’t want her to know that I had been with

someone else.”

He half-smiles and half-frowns at me. “I see,” he says. He shuffles forward in his seat and

cocks his head. “I’m Doctor Geoffories. Can you describe to me what your shoulder looked like,

where the pain was, and how bad it felt when you thought it was dislocated?”

I tell him what he needs to know, leaving out the bit about the wolf. He taps the side of his

head with his pen before making some notes.

“And how exactly did your
friend
know it was dislocated?” he asks.

“She looked it up in a book.”

He grunts. “A book? Only someone who was medically trained would be able to identify a

dislocated shoulder and manipulate it back into its socket without causing serious injury.”

I shrug. “I saw her read the book myself.”

“So, what did she do to put it back into place?” he asks, still skeptical.

“She bent my arm like this.” I pull it up and across myself like Serena did. “And then she

rocked it backwards and forwards gently until we heard a popping noise and she sort of pressed her fingers into my shoulder.”

He takes some more notes, but I can tell by the frown on his face that he thinks something

doesn’t quite add up in my story. “I think we’ll need to get you x-rayed, just to be on the safe side.”

He nods towards another door where the nurse from earlier is standing, grinning at me. I

have no idea what she finds so funny. “Come on, kiddo. Let’s make sure that friend of yours hasn’t ruined your shoulder for life.”

Ruined my shoulder for life? Serena wouldn’t have done that. It felt like she knew what she

was doing. I can’t have a ruined shoulder. How will I fight with a shoulder that’s no good? I lie on the bed and don’t move a muscle as the white machine hovers over me. As I watch it sweep across the

ceiling, I wonder if I’ve done any other damage to my body.

I remember the wolf standing on my rib cage and chest. I remember head-butting it, which

means that I could have a concussion, but wouldn’t I have felt that by now? I don’t know what lie I can tell my Mother that’ll cover up all of my injuries in one big swoop. I hear a few beeps and a buzzing noise, and then the lights come back on and the nurse steps back into the room.

“All done, kiddo,” she smiles. “Those will take a few minutes and then the doctor will see

you again.”

I glance at the door. “Do I have to go back in the waiting room?”

She nods. “Yup.”

I sigh and head back out to the crap plastic chairs. My Mom puts down her magazine and

asks, “What’s happening, Kai? What have they said?”

I slump down next to her. “They just x-rayed me and then I have to go back in so they can

tell me if it’s alright.”

She nods. “That’s good. Did he feel it or anything?”

I pick up her discarded magazine and flick through the pages of women in bikinis

complaining that they’re too fat. Women are ridiculous. When are they going to realise that guys

actually prefer curves? We don’t want skinny, anorexic-looking women. We like round breasts and

shapely waists. We don’t want to see rib cages and bones.

“He didn’t touch my shoulder. He just asked me a few questions and then told me to go and

have an x-ray.”

She huffs but doesn’t ask me anything else. I throw the magazine down onto the empty chair

next to me and close my eyes. I’m so tired that I think my eyes are hurting more than my shoulder.

I think about Serena and Elodie. I think about the way Serena’s wide eyes followed me as I

stalked around her last night. Did I really do that? Did I really plan to kidnap her and drag her away from everything that she knows? Shit. What was I thinking? How could I have been so stupid?

“Kaiden?”

“No,” I mumble. “I don’t want to.”

“Kaiden, wake up,” my Mother hisses. “You’re being called up again.”

My eyes snap open and I see several people staring at me. “Oh,” I say, “yeah right.” I get up

and follow a different nurse this time back into the Doctor’s office.

“Welcome back, Mr. Matthews.”

I sit down and stare at the black and white pictures he holds up. “How does it look?”

“Your friend appears to have put your shoulder back into place without causing even a

millimetre of damage to your muscle.”

I let out a big breath of relief. “That’s good news.”

“Yes,” he says nodding. “Indeed it is. You’re very lucky.”

“So I can go now?”

He nods. “Do you want some pain relief? I imagine it’s aching a little now.”

I shake my head. “It’s fine. Thanks.”

He smiles at me and puts the pictures back into a brown folder. “Be careful, Mr. Matthews. I

don’t want to see you in here again.”

I stand up and try to smile at him. “Okay, I’ll do my best.”

I walk back down the corridor and push the double doors open so hard that I make several

of the people in the waiting room jump out of their skin. I smirk to myself and nod to my Mother to let her know that we can go.

“Is everything alright then?” she asks, as we step through the automatic doors and out of

the coolness of the hospital.

“Yep,” I say, holding my hand up to shield my eyes, “it’s as good as new.”

“I can’t believe you put it back in yourself. That was very brave.”

I look away.

“Do you want to grab some lunch somewhere?” she asks, hopeful.

I glance over the car at her as she pulls her door open and climbs inside. “What were you

thinking?”

“How about pizza?” She puts the car into gear and drives smoothly away.

I take a deep breath. What I really want is to go to bed and sleep, but I smile at her. My

Mother and I don’t really do this whole hanging-out thing very often, so I guess I should go and show her that I’m not always an asshole. “Pizza is just what the doctor ordered.”

Serena

I feel my mouth drop open and then watch my breath mist out in front of me before floating right

past his face. A swirl of freezing cold air whips across the front of my shins, making me seek shelter behind the door.

“Hey,” he says with a slow, careful smile. I watch his eyes dart down to my ankle before

looking back up at my face. “Are you alright?”

I nod and look at his shoulder and notice he’s not wearing a sling. I should have read some

more of the book to find out how long it takes to heal properly. It’s been two weeks since he was last here.

My ankle hurt and ached for the first few days after I injured it, but it doesn’t hurt anymore.

Maybe his injury has healed too. He keeps blinking and staring at me. He has his arms folded, but I try to look at his hands that are hidden underneath his thick upper arms.

“Do you have a gun with you?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “I’m not a hunter today, Serena. I’m a gatherer.”

I have no idea what that means. I stare at him again and notice him shivering. There’s a part