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I nodded, trying to remain calm. “Show me where.”
She lifted up and put her hand on her lower abdomen. She had been holding below her belly button earlier, now it looked like the pain had traveled to her right side.
I cursed under my breath. My mind raced through what that could possibly mean. Was that still considered her stomach? Or more her girl parts? Shit. I had no fuckin’ clue.
She whimpered again, and I was so not used to that sound coming from her.
“Fuck, babe. When did it start? Did I hurt you?” Panic rose in my chest, and I felt my heart pounding angrily against my chest.
“No,” she winced. “Maybe? I don’t know. What we did felt really good but also…”
“Also?” I pushed her to continue.
“It hurt. I don’t know. It’s been hurting for a couple days.” She paused then added very quickly, “but it was fine ‘til tonight. Then I woke up and it was really, really bad,” her voice cracked.
“How bad? Like 1 to 10?” I asked grimly.
“Really bad, okay? I don’t know, Duke.” Her eyes welled up with tears, and that panicked me more than anything. Because of all the years I knew her, I never once saw her full-out cry. Even when she broke her collarbone back in high school in the weight room, all she ever did was tear up, but tears never streamed down her face like this. And this… this gutted me.
I untangled myself from the sheets as quickly as I could and hopped around my room looking for my shorts, t-shirt, and crutches.
“What… What are you doing?” She used the sleeve of her shirt to clean her tears away.
I threw my shirt over my head and quickly pulled it down. “We’re going in.”
“No, we’re–” She lifted up a bit to look at me, but her face cracked in more pain.
I nodded solemnly. “Yeah, we are.”
I put a hand to her forehead. She was burning up. I tried to keep my voice even so I didn’t scare her as I said, “Claire…”
Her worried eyes met mine. “It’s probably just my period or something.”
“Is it time for that?”
“No, but—”
“We need to go in.”
“It’s fine! You’re just a stupid guy. You don’t know,” she grunted.
I blew out a sigh. “I’m going to ignore that because you’re in pain. But Claire, I do know you. I know when you can tough it out, and I know when you need medical attention. This is the latter of those two.”
“No, you don’t know-”
“Yes, I do!” My voice edged on hysteria then. “I know that you always tie your right skate up first. I know that when you look up in the rink rafters before a jump, you’re actually shooting up a little prayer, and I know that you turtle in on yourself when you’re feeling sad or hurt. You’re a tough girl. You wouldn’t be showing this much pain in front of me if you weren’t really feeling it. You and Ibothknow that,” I deadpanned.
Her mouth clamped shut at that, but she didn’t move.
I felt my teeth grind in frustration. Why was I even discussing this with her? She was clearly out of her mind. She needed—
“Duke…” her voice sounded fully panicked now. Instead of finishing her sentence, she lurched forward and barfed all over her bed.
That could not be a good sign.
“Oh no,” she groaned and pushed her sweaty hair back.
“Don’t worry about it. Let’s get goin. C’mon.”
