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I nod frantically, and Landon lets me go. We both crouch down by her.
“Where does it hurt, Rae?” I try to ask calmly.
She holds up one bloody hand, which is obviously cut open. Then she kind of leans to one side, and I see there’s a very gory wound on the underside of her thigh.
I also see something among the brown rubber-mulch-whatever the park has around all the playground equipment: a broken beer bottle, the jagged pieces of which have blended in nicely with the kid-friendly stuff. That’s what she fell down on.
Jesus, what asshole left that there?
“It h-hur-urts,” she wails.
“Oh, baby, I know,” I groan sadly. “It’s going to be okay, though, okay?”
I look down to see if I’m wearing anything I can take off and put on her leg. I jerk up the bottom of my thin tank because I think there’s another one under it, and I find I’m right. It’s thin, too, but I don’t have time to worry about people seeing my bra through it. I pull off the top tank and nod to Landon that I’m ready for him to pick her up.
He has seen the glass, too, and he’s careful not to touch it as he positions himself closer to her. “Rae, darlin’, I gotta pick you up, all right? It’ll hurt, but we need to get you to the car. I’m so sorry, okay?”
She looks terrified at being hurt even more, but she holds her arms out to him. She’s done with this place. I stand, ready to press my shirt against her leg.
The shriek she gives when Landon scoops her up slices through me like that glass and makes my eyes sting. Ihatewhen she’s in any kind of pain.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Landon rushes out as he situates her against his shoulder in a way that looks slightly awkward but doesn’t hit her leg. He can’t really see where to put my wadded-up shirt, so I fix it into place. After he’s got some pressure on it, which Rae audibly despises, he suggests to me under her cries, “Come back for the picnic stuff later?”
I nod. “Do you have the important stuff on you?”
“Keys, phone, yes.”
“Me, too.” Yeah, the blanket and couple of food containers can wait.
I flip off the still-unconcerned teenager, at whom Landon finally snaps, “Be thankful I’m too busy to knock your ass out of that swing.”
Then we hurry toward the car.
A random woman comes up to ask if everything is okay, and I quickly explain that someone needs to clean up the broken bottle. Then I add, livid again, that that boy’s parents need to be found and spoken to, because he’s probably not responsible for the glass, but Rae landed in it because he pushed her.
The woman leaves as we get to my car, and I slide into the backseat so I can hold Rae in my lap. The ride isn’t fun—she has to sit even more awkwardly than when Landon had her, and every small movement hurts her. But we get to the hospital before too long, and we’ve got help seconds after we walk through the door.
It doesn’t promise to be a terribly long visit, thankfully, but it’s still stressful. In addition to the ugly cuts we saw at the park, there are several smaller ones on the backs of her legs, and they all have to be thoroughly cleaned because of how dirty the beer bottle could’ve been. A nurse gives her something for the pain, but it doesn’t seem to help her because she continues to scream and cry.
I comfort her even asIcry, and Landon rubs both of our backs. The bigger wounds actually need stitching up, so she’s given meds that make her woozy and keep her from moving a lot, but she’s still upset and the procedure is still nauseating to watch. Landon is especially helpful there because he had those stitches in his hand recently—he talks Rae through it far better than I do.
When she’s all fixed up, she can finally quiet down and relax a little (and so can I, for that matter). By the time she’s getting a sucker offered to her, there are no tears spilling down her flushed cheeks.
We get information on how to care for her stitched-up wounds and what medicine to give her when. Then we make our way back to the car, suddenly tired, our clothes bloodstained.
As Landon gets us going, Rae says drowsily from where she’s laid across my lap, “I thought I was going to die.”
It’s not very funny, but I can’t help a smile. I can tell by the way Landon’s eyes are crinkled in the rearview mirror that he’s smiling, too.
“Oh, my girl,” I sigh as I gently stroke her hair, “we wouldn’t have let you die.”
She tries to say, “That mean boy….” angrily, but she can’t really manage it.
“I know. I wanted to whip his butt, but Landon said no.”
I hear him let out a breath of a chuckle.
“That’s okay, though,” I concede. “He was right to say no. We had a little blonde damsel in distress to tend to.”
