The Understatement of the Year (30 page)

But Bella’s laser eyes did not retreat. “Graham didn’t get beat up,” she whispered. “
You
did.”

Ugh
. “It was a long time ago, Bella. I’m over it.”

“But he isn’t,” she whispered.

Chivalry be damned, I sat back down in my chair. “I guess not,” I agreed with her in a low voice. “I didn’t really know that until tonight.”

“Was it bad? Must’ve been, if the hospital is freaking him out.”

I didn’t really know what to make of that, since Graham hadn’t even come to the hospital with me. And I didn’t remember it so well, to be fair. “I got through it,” I said, not wanting to go into specifics. “But maybe that’s why I’m over it, you know? I dealt with the injuries. They sucked, but it’s done with.”

Bella looked down at my sleeping boyfriend. “But he’s still duking it out, isn’t he? The hardest-hitting defenseman we have. Trying to intimidate the other team, night after night.” Her eyes never left Graham, even as she spoke to me.

Well, shit. I hoped she was wrong about that. I hoped Graham wasn’t still trying to dole out retribution after all these years. How absofuckinglutely depressing.

Bella leaned down farther, kissing Graham’s hair. “Mmm, helmet sweat,” she said. It was supposed to be a joke, but she looked too sad to pull it off. “Goodnight, sweetie,” she whispered to him. Then Bella walked over to the wall and flipped the overhead light off. “Night, Rikker.”

Then she left.

—
Graham

Someone was trying to press my head into a vice. And
Christ
that hurt.

Prying my eyes open, the first thing I saw was an unfamiliar ceiling. Wait. It wasn’t entirely unfamiliar. I moved my eyes a few degrees, which was painful. But the edges of the room came into focus. A
hospital
room. Memories of last night began flickering at the edge of my consciousness. There was a lot that didn’t make sense. But I knew Coach had been here. And Bella, Hartley and…

I moved my chin to see more. In my left hand I held my hockey helmet, which had a nasty crack in it. Under my right hand lay Rikker’s sleeping head. My heart gave a little squeeze just seeing him there, his strong arms folded onto my mattress, the soft skin at the side of his neck disappearing into the collar of his T-shirt.

Gently, I removed my hand from his hair, though. I never touched Rikker in public, not even a playful punch to the shoulder.

God
, my head hurt so badly. What else happened last night? I’d been confused, and I could picture the faces of my friends trying to calm me down. Rikker, especially. He’d looked shaken. But why?

Beside me, Rikker groaned. He rolled his head around on the mattress, slowly stretching out his neck. Then he picked his sleepy face up and studied me. “You’re awake,” he said, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “We’re at the Central Mass hospital, because you got knocked on the head during the…”

“…Hockey game,” I said.

He blinked at me. “Okay. Good job remembering that.”

A doctor strode into the room then, stethoscope around her neck. She wore honest-to-God combat boots with her scrubs, and a blue jewel in her nose. “Morning, sunshine. I’m just going to look you over one more time before we can release you, okay? Same drill as last night.”

“Last night?” I asked. But as she came closer, I realized that I remembered her. It had been dark in the room, but during the night I’d awoken several times to see her stalking towards me with a light that she’d shined in my eyes while I was trying to sleep. “Oh. Yeah.”

“Yep,” she said. “Every two hours you tried to eject me from the premises. Good times.”

“Sorry,” I managed. “I was confused.”

Rikker moaned into his hands. “Yes, you were. It was a long night.”

The doctor moved around to the side of the bed where Rikker was still sitting. “Now that we’re friends again, I want to look at that contusion on your hip, too. Maybe your boyfriend could step out for a minute.”

Boyfriend
.

The word hit me like an ice bath.
Holy crap
. For the first time it occurred to me to wonder whether my deflector shields had taken a worse beating last night than my hockey helmet or my skull.

I must not have kept the flinch off my face. Because the doctor cocked an eyebrow. “Sorry. My mistake. It’s just that you did an awful lot of yellin’ for him last night. Wouldn’t let him leave the room.”

I turned my head too fast toward Rikker. The result was a new flash of pain. But the troubled expression on Rikker’s face was even worse. “What happened here?” I croaked, afraid of his answer.

“We’ll talk in a bit,” he said. “I’m going to look around for coffee.” He got up and slid out of the room.

“Roll for me, hon,” the doctor said with a nudge to my shoulder.

Reeling, I turned my body so that she could lift the hospital gown that I was wearing. I didn’t remember putting it on. I didn’t remember how I got here, or who drove me.

I had no idea what I might have said last night, and who might have heard it.

Just then, Bella waltzed into the room, sipping from a Starbucks cup.

“Give us a second, sweetie,” the doctor said.

“Oh, I’ve seen it all before,” she said, parking herself against the wall and taking another slug of her coffee.

“Huh,” the doctor said, probing my groin with gloved fingers. “Y’all seem to have more fun in college than I ever did.”

Bella ignored her. “You’re looking better, Graham.”

“How bad was it?” I asked, my voice cracking.

“This will heal up easily,” the doctor said. “But that concussion is going to slow you down for a month or more.”

But that wasn’t what I was asking. “Bella,” I rasped. “What happened here last night?”

She sighed. “You were pretty out of it. And maybe that’s all people will think. That you were out of it.”

“What did I
say
when I was out of it?”

She avoided my eyes. “You just kept calling for Rikker. And whenever he walked away, you’d start yelling for him again.”

Unfortunately, that sounded awfully familiar. I remembered being really confused about where I was, and how I’d gotten hurt.

And I’d assumed the worst.

“Shit.” Even now I fended off a shudder. And now I knew why I’d woken up with my hockey helmet in my hand. Someone was trying to help me remember what happened.

Rikker
.

“Why didn’t he get on the bus with the rest of the team?” There was panic rising in my throat, and when I swallowed, I tasted bile.

Bella’s eyes narrowed at me. “What would you have him do? The choice was between staying with you, which you demanded out loud to anyone who would listen. Or walking away while you shouted his name. He did his fucking best, Graham.”

Rikker walked in then, carrying a white cup of coffee. After he sipped from it, he made a face. Pointing at Bella, he said, “You got
good
coffee. Where’s mine?”

“Patience,” she snapped. “I will drive you both to get something when Graham is released.”

“I’m just going to go over some instructions with you all, and then he can go,” the doctor said. I’d actually forgotten she was in the room with us. “These are for whomever will care for you.” The doctor held out a sheaf of papers. Bella took a half step forward, as if to take them. But then she bit her lip and looked at Rikker.

My boyfriend reached out to take the paperwork.

“Read it through carefully,” the doctor said. “He can’t do it himself, because he’s not supposed to read anything for a while, until the headaches stop.”

“That will make midterms fun,” I grumbled.

“I’ll read them,” Rikker said gruffly.

“Now listen up,” the doctor said. “You’re going to need a lot more sleep than usual. No reading. No aerobic exercise…”

After the doctor gave us a ten-minute lecture about all the things I wasn’t supposed to do for at least two weeks, we went outside. I thought I’d felt bad before, but out in the sun it was ten times worse. The light glinted off the snow banks at the edges of the parking lot. And the glare went like a needle straight to my brain.

“Uhhn,” I complained.

“The car is just right over here,” Bella said, pointing at a green rental sedan. “Graham, you can have shotgun or the back seat. Wherever you’re going to be the most comfortable.”

I didn’t think it mattered. I was going to be miserable no matter what. My head still felt as if angry gorillas had beaten on it. “I’ll take the back,” I said, opening the rear door.

“You know, I’d be happy to drive,” Rikker offered.

Bella shot him a glare over the hood of the car. “News flash, Rik. Even though I possess a vagina, I’m still capable of driving a car.”

He held his hands up in submission. “Easy, Bella. I was just trying to be helpful. One would think that you’d spent all night in a plastic hospital chair. Oh wait, that was me.”

She got in and cranked the engine. “And that’s why I’m driving. I’m the only one who slept. Also, I know where the Starbucks is.”

“I won’t argue with that,” Rikker mumbled. He reclined the passenger seat a few degrees and let out a weary sigh.

“I’m sorry,” I said as Bella pulled the car around the hospital’s drive circle.

“For what?” She asked. “Getting tripped by that fucker last night? Rikker and I will live. We might even stop bitching at each other.”

Putting my head back, I covered my eyes with my forearm. Everything was just so fricking bleak. I’d never been injured at hockey before — not like this. The worst I’d had were bruises and strained muscles. Before we’d left the hospital, the doctor had been careful to tell me that it wasn’t clear yet how much time I’d need to heal. At least two weeks. But I had a bad feeling.

The car made a couple more turns and then stopped. “Do you mind going in for us?” Rikker asked. “I’d really appreciate it.”

I was sure that Bella would tell Rikker to go and buy his own damned coffee. But she didn’t. “Double cappuccino with skim milk?”

Money changed hands. “A couple of muffins would be awesome. G, are you awake?”

I grunted.

“You’re not supposed to have coffee, but you should eat,” Rikker said.

“Not hungry,” I mumbled.

Bella disappeared, her car door slamming. And then there was silence. Even though I couldn’t see him, I felt Rikker’s eyes on me.

“We have to talk,” he said eventually.

“About how I made a complete fool of myself last night?”

He didn’t say anything for a moment. I opened my eyes, and found his unhappy ones looking back at me. “Okay. How about we just skip over the part where I get offended at the idea that your wanting me nearby makes you a…” he made quote marks out of his fingers, “complete fool.”

God, I was such an asshole. “Rik, my head is killing me. We can talk now if you want. But I’m going to be even stupider than usual.”

He sighed. Then he opened the passenger side door and got out. A second later, he opened the rear door and slid into the back seat next to me. Reaching up, he took my head in his hands and began rubbing gently.

Oh, yeah
. The pain was almost bearable when he did that. I did a quick scan of the parking lot (even though it hurt my eyes to shift them left and right) before leaning over to rest my head on his chest.

He kept up the massage, even dropping a quick kiss onto the top of my head. “How about I talk, and you just listen.”

I nodded.

“Good boy. Now, I realized something last night, and I feel like a big idiot for not getting this before.”

His fingertips smoothed down my brow line, and I leaned into him even though I was positive that I wouldn’t like whatever he said next.

“Somehow, I’d sort of forgotten that you were there too, in that alley five years ago.”

I grunted. “Not ever talking about this. You said so yourself.”

He palmed my forehead, holding my head in place against his chest. “New rule. We can talk about it any time one of us has a fucking panic attack in a hospital. See, I always thought that I was the only one who got hurt that day. But that isn’t true, is it? Yeah, the cracked ribs really sucked. But they
healed
.”

His hands were still, just cupping my head. And I hoped he was done with this subject. But no such luck.

“See, this is really fucked,” he continued. “Because now I’m starting to think that maybe my parents did me a favor sending me away to Vermont. They did it for the wrong reasons, of course. But I got to start over in a new place, right? No chance I’d ever run into the assholes who beat me. I got a brand new school, where they didn’t preach about sin all fucking day. But you had to stay there and pretend like nothing happened.”

“Didn’t
have
to,” I said. My silence had been a choice. And I made that choice out of pure cowardice.

He began massaging my temples again. “You were sixteen, G, and you’d just been jumped. I never realized how much that fucked with your head.”