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Bowie had reached and tugged on the strap of the seatbelt to make sure it was fastened. “I think I know my way to the hospital, but speak up if I’m making a wrong turn.” He’d talked to me in the car as I bit my lip and used the long sleeves of my bridesmaid gown to dab at my eyes. When we’d arrived, he’d carried me again to the doors and then walked behind as they’d rolled me in a wheelchair. He’d caused such a scene in the waiting room due to being a Woodsmen football star that almost immediately, they’d taken me to the back to be examined.
“You definitely don’t have to stay,” I’d said as they prepared to bring me to a different room for x-rays. “I’m fine. All good.” I still hadn’t looked at what was happening at the end of my leg with my foot, because I’d had a terrible feeling that it wasn’t good at all.
“I can wait in that lobby,” he’d answered.
“No, it’s just going to attract even more attention if you do that. Please don’t stay. Please don’t,” I’d repeated. I wanted him to get back to the party, to have fun and attract attention for Aubin instead, what she’d expected for her wedding.
He’d nodded a little. “Ok, then,” he’d said, and turned to go.
“Thank you! Thank you for helping me!” I’d called after him, but I wasn’t sure that he’d heard. Saturday nights were busy in the emergency department.
That had been the last time we’d spoken. I’d been in a total state while in his car and had been focused on trying to keep my emotions together so that I didn’t cry all over the place. I wasn’t sure I’d said anything at all to him for the whole ride to the hospital, and then I’d thrown him out. He was probably itching to leave, anyway, but it had been rude and thoughtless, and I wished I could apologize to him as well.
But Garrett Bowman was busy with being a professional athlete and most likely, he hadn’t given that night another thought. I had thought about it way, way too much. When I was working, or when I was lifting weights with my arms or doing crunches, and when I was making dinner with the help of the knee scooter—I thought about all of it. I was still thinking about it as I made my way to join my squad on the practice field.
“You’re back!” our captain Danni said when I walked out onto the turf, and she ran over and gave me a huge hug. “I’m sooo glad to see you without the cast or the boot on your leg!” A bunch of other girls ran to hug me, too, even though I hadn’t actually been gone. They’d missed me in the routines, they said.
“You add that pep,” Trinity told me. “You have that extra bounce in your step.”
I sure hoped I still had it. I’d been working out, but that had been hard with my foot immobilized, and doing any tumbling moves with only one leg was next to impossible if I didn’t want to break more bones. I was only supposed to be marking today, which meant performing the motions of the routines without actually putting in all the energy and going full-out, but I still found myself winded at the end of practice. Sam and Rylah looked pleased anyway. He said I’d done all right, and she said I reminded her of the Cailleach, but when I looked that up as I walked to my car, it wasn’t a very flattering comparison.
Oh, well. It was over, and I—
“Hey there, Lissa. You look different without the red paint.”
I looked up, way up, at Garrett Bowman.
“Oh!” I exclaimed. “I’ve been thinking about you.”
“Is that right?” He grinned at me. “It’s nice to see you again.”
I nodded and then remembered to use actual words. “It’s nice to see you, too.” And my boyfriend Ward wouldn’t even know about it, because he couldn’t get into the Woodsmen football facility since he wasn’t an employee. I felt guilty, though, thinking like that.
“It’s been a minute,” Bowie said. “Is your leg all better?”
We both looked down at it. “Today was my first day back on it,” I answered. “Mostly on it. I think it was ok.”
He had more questions about the injury and how it had healed, and being someone who was probably hurt a lot himself since he played a violent sport, he was knowledgeable about wrapping techniques, physical therapy, and pain treatments.
“What you’re saying, though, is that you’re on the mend. I don’t need to carry you today,” he concluded, and smiled at me again. He had such a friendly smile, such a friendly way about himself in general, but I’d seen him on the field in action. I’d been up close to it as I was in my Wonderwomen uniform on the sidelines at game days, and he certainly wasn’t smiling then. When Bowie played, he was one of the toughest defenders in the United Football Confederation, someone without any mercy at all. In fact, he’d broken a guy’s arm in a game the previous season—by mistake, but it had been vicious.
That was hard to reconcile with the happy person who was grinning down at me. “Thank you for what you did at the wedding,” I said. “Thank you for picking me up and bringing me to the hospital. It was very nice of you to leave the party like that, to leave all your friends and help a stranger who’d just made a speech that made her sound insane. I was lucky that you were there.”
“You weren’t lucky at all,” he responded. “You got your pretty dress covered in paint and then that jackass shoved you down. What happened to him?”
“To Ward?” I shook my head. “Nothing. What do you mean?”
“You didn’t explain to the doctors and nurses what he did, or call the police? That was what I was telling you to do in the car as we drove to the hospital.”
I remembered him saying something about that, but I’d been trying so hard not to cry or make any moaning noises that I hadn’t paid too much attention to the words. “No, of course I didn’t want him to get in trouble with the police.”
“Of course?” he echoed. “Did your father or your brother get in a few licks, instead?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head again. “I don’t have a brother and my dad…” He wouldn’t. “Ward didn’t mean for me to fall. It was accidental.”
“Was that guy your boyfriend?”
“Heismy boyfriend. We’ve been together for six years, since I was fifteen. We’re getting married,” I explained, and held up my hand to show off the promise ring that Ward had given me when I’d turned eighteen, the little circle of gold with the knot in it. “We’re a couple.”
