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Chief looked at the floor.

“I’m okay now,” I said when she handed me the phone.

Dad was quiet long enough that I regretted starting there.

“Tell me what happened, babygirl.”

I looked at the closed door. “I don’t really know.”

“Then don’t guess,” he said. “I’m coming.”

I gave the phone back.

The nurse spoke to him for another minute, then asked Chief and Sadie to wait outside while she talked to me.

Sadie picked up my bag.

Chief didn’t move.

“Right outside,” the nurse told him.

His eyes found mine. He didn’t move a muscle. Just waited.

I was slow, but I realized he was asking me. I nodded.

He left reluctantly, carrying his bag by the top handle instead of putting it over his shoulder.

The nurse pulled the curtain around the bed and asked me more questions. I told her about the sound. The hole. How I thought I’d been looking at it for a second.

I didn’t tell her what Chief’s face had looked like when I came back.

That felt like something I should keep.

Through the door, I heard a man tell him lunch was over.

“I’m waiting for her dad,” Chief said.

“You can go back to class. She’s with the nurse.”

There was a pause.

“I’m waiting.”

He didn’t sound defiant.

He sounded like there wasn’t another thing he could do.

A chair scraped against the floor.

The man let him stay.

Dad found him there.

I knew because I heard his voice change when he said Chief’s name.

The nurse opened the door. Dad came straight to me, touched the side of my face, and looked at me for a long moment.

Then he asked whether I was ready to go.