Paper gown. Crinkling table. My arm propped like it didn’t belong to me.
“We just need a quick X-ray.”
“Hold still.”
Click.
Click.
Flash.
The screen turned toward the doctor. Not toward me.
His eyes scanning, dissecting.
“It’s a non-displaced fracture.”
Thump.
“And you’ve sprained the surrounding ligaments.”
Flash.
“How long?” I asked.
“Six to eight weeks.”
Six to eight weeks.
Thump.
Flash.
There it was again, that voice calling to me, asking if I’d heard whoever it belonged to. But I was still drowning in my new reality.
Six to eight weeks meant I’d be out until at least Christmas — likely until the new year.
That was my whole season.
Everything I’d worked for was slipping through my fingers and I couldn’t tighten them. I just watched it all unravel, powerless, hope-ridden.
My arm was in a cast, the pain from when they set my wrist still fresh in my mind long after that warm cast had hardened.
Six to eight weeks.
Six to eight weeks.
Six to eight—
“Emily.”
I blinked, finding my father bent down to one knee in front of where I sat on the couch. My mom was behind him, and I realized it was her the voice had belonged to. She wore her stressvisibly like a scarf, like it was choking her out the longer I didn’t respond.
“Did you hear your mother?”
God, my father had always had the best voice. It was so deep, a low baritone filled with kindness. It didn’t surprise me that he was as successful as he was. With a voice and face and charm like his, I’d buy anything he was selling. I’d trust him with my fortune, if I had one.
“No,” I managed.
