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I got home around eight o’clock, right when I knew Mitch’s shift would be starting at the bar. My small house felt so empty and anonymous. I hated coming home alone. I always had.
Right when I plopped down onto my couch, my phone rang. I was shocked to see it was Mitch.
“Hello?”
“Evan,” he said, concern in his voice. “I—I don’t know what to do—”
“Whoa, whoa, what’s wrong?” I said, already standing up.
“Zach just came home and he says he can’t move his arm, and it’s in a lot of pain,” Mitch said. He was clearly panicking, which I’d only heard him do a few times in my entire life.
“Shit. I’m on my way, Mitch.”
I got to Mitch’s house in less than ten minutes. I walked in and saw Zach lying on the couch, grasping his arm, his eyes bloodshot. Mitch was at his side, his eyes wide and worried. Mitch looked completely lost, and it broke my heart.
“What happened?” I said.
“I fell off a tree branch,” Zach said. “I landed right on it—shit, it hurts so much—”
“We need to go to a hospital, don’t we?” Mitch asked.
I went and looked at Zach’s arm, which seemed normal except for maybe a little swelling.
“I’ve seen a few broken arms in my days of teaching, and if this is broken, it’s probably not too bad. But it could still be a hairline fracture, if it isn’t a sprain. We should go to the urgent care in town and have it X-rayed.”
“Okay. Okay,” Mitch said, standing up and scurrying around. “Where the hell are my keys?” he asked after checking every surface nearby.
“Mitch… they’re in your hand,” I said, nodding to the fist he was making around them.
“Christ,” he said, letting out a long sigh. “Okay. Let’s go.”
An hour later, the doctor called Zach in to finally take his X-ray. Mitch and I sat out in the tiny waiting room of the Amberfield Urgent Care.
Against my better judgment, I reached out and clasped Mitch’s hand in mine. I couldn’t fucking help it. He had looked so lost all night, and the instant I squeezed my hand around his, he visibly relaxed.
His eyes fluttered shut for a moment as he let out a long breath. “Thank you. And I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry about,” I said.
“I appreciate this more than you could ever know,” he said. He turned toward me, his eyes full of pain. “I totally froze up at home. I… I’m no good in a crisis.”
I nodded. “I know.”
Once, in middle school, Mitch’s beloved dog Eddie had gotten loose near a highway and Mitch had frozen up in the same way. He was paralyzed with fear, and I had to step up and run after Eddie, luring him over with a scrap piece of hot dog from my lunch. Mitch’s eyes had been watery as Eddie came lumbering back and got a big hug.
“I knew I had to do something, but I didn’t know if driving all the way to the hospital was the right choice, or going to urgent care, or just putting it on ice and hoping for the best… I was so lucky Red let me take tonight off.”
“I’m glad you called me,” I said. “And don’t worry about Red’s. I was there earlier, and the night seemed slow, anyway.”
He shook his head. “I should be able to do these things on my own. I’ve been a father for fourteen years now.”
“You’re always going to be learning more, though. And Zach is going to be just fine. What happened, anyway?”
Mitch nodded toward the exam room. “That’s another reason I was so bent out of shape. He wasn’t just climbing a tree. He was climbing the big tree in the Bensons’ front yard.”
“He wasn’t… hanging out with Andy, was he?”
Mitch shook his head, furrowing his brow. “He won’t tell me what he was trying to do, but he was trying to climb up to Andy’s window. Some sort of… retaliation on him, or something. I don’t know what happened today in school.”
“When they were leaving class today, Andy sort of shoved Zach and muttered something. Maybe it was worse than I thought.”
“Zach isn’t the type of kid to mess with bullies, though. He’s smarter than that.”
I shrugged. “It makes sense to me.”
Just then, the door to the exam room opened and Zach and the doctor came out. I expected Mitch to let go of my hand right away, but I was surprised when he actually squeezed it harder. Zach clearly noticed us holding hands, but Mitch didn’t even seem bothered.
“What’s the verdict?” Mitch asked.
“It’s a bad sprain, but we don’t detect any fracture on the X-ray. Zach is going to need to wear a brace for six weeks, but all in all, he got off easy.”
“Oh, thank God,” Mitch said, sighing. “Come here.”
