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I frowned. “Or I’m really heavy,” I said.
“Hardly,” my father replied. He parked me in a wheelchair and said to me, “I’ll be right back. I just need to park the car.”
I nodded. He jogged around the car and got in while I watched him drive away. Dang the tears that formed in my eyes when I realized that Dad by himself without Mom and Ty was a pretty, nice guy. I got all his attention when it was just us. I wanted more of this. I needed more of this.
Soon, he returned and wheeled me around making funny noises like a car and he was my driver. “Beep, beep,” he said to another couple coming outside. I rolled my eyes at them because he was embarrassing me. They just smiled at me.
“Lord what happened to you, honey?” the lady behind the desk asked.
“Gym class,” I responded. “A wayward shoestring tripped me up.”
“Happens to the best of us. Dad do you have insurance information for our graceful girl?”
My father checked me in, and a nurse took me behind the desk and did my vitals. She examined my chin and let me know that indeed I would need stitches.
A wayward tear rolled down my cheek. “Honey, it won’t hurt,” she reassured me.
“I know,” I sobbed. “I just started a new school. My first day I splattered all over the gym floor busted my chin open and now I’m going to be walking around with stitches in my chin. Looking nerdier than ever. Why can’t I be more like my brother?” I asked her not expecting an answer.
She patted my shoulder and smiled at me. Then my Dad cleared his throat. The pretty nurse looked over my head. “Dad if you would wheel her back to the waiting room, we’ll call her when we’re ready for her.”
“Thank you.” Dad gripped the handles on the wheelchair and guided me to the waiting area away from several other people. He sat beside me and took out his phone. “Calling Mom again to let her know where we are,” he informed me.
“Voicemail?” I asked when he frowned and pocketed his phone.
“Yes.” Dad took my hand and squeezed it. “Abby what was Tyson doing when you hurt yourself? Why didn’t I see him in the office with you instead of Cal?”
I looked away from my father. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me.” The tone of my father’s voice drew my attention to him.
Why hadn’t he seen the riff between me and my brother? We lived in the same house, day in and day out but no one saw the distance between me and Ty that had been occurring over the last two years?
“He kept running laps,” I informed my father. Not that I wanted Dad to be angry at Ty. I just wanted him to see that Ty and I had become strangers.
Dad rubbed his hand over his face and looked away from me even though he continued to hold onto my hand. I loved the feel of his warmth and his strength. I tried to remember the last time he had taken my hand in his like this. The last time, I felt like his little girl.
“Abby Gardener,” the nurse called my name.
Dad released my hand and pushed me towards the nurse. “Dad we’re doing x-rays first so I’m leaving you in a room where I will bring her back.”
Dad nodded and stepped into the room where he was directed while the nurse wheeled me down the hall. “My name is Belinda,” she said.
She knew my name. What was I supposed to say? “Nice to meet you.” The logical choice but I wasn’t up for small talk.
I looked at the hallway ahead, typical gray fake marble flooring. The painted walls covered in pictures of doctors who worked there. I laid my head in the palm of my hand. My chin and ankle throbbed painfully.
“You okay?” Belinda asked.
“My chin and ankle hurt,” I replied.
She patted my shoulder quickly then resumed pushing me down the hall towards x-ray. “We’ll get you fixed up quickly.”
**
An hour later, I was returned to not only my dad but Mom and Ty sitting in the room waiting on me. Mom tilted my head up and looked at my chin.
“You’re a mess,” she declared. Ty snorted. I looked around her at him. “I hope that doesn’t scar and ruin your pretty face.”
