Cement Heart(19)

“Holy shit.” Brody barely got the words out, sounding like he’d just had the wind knocked out of him. My head spun again. I felt like I might pass out, so I hurried over to the nearest chair, where I plopped down and rested my head in my hands. What the fuck happened? Two hours ago, we were heckling each other in the weight room about whose ass was going to look better in the tutu, and now they were rushing him into surgery with bleeding in his brain. I desperately wanted to switch places with him. I had no kids, no family other than Gam, no life. I should have been the one with a bleeding brain on my way into surgery. I looked around for the nearest trash can as my stomach rolled.

“Where is he?” A panicked voice grabbed my attention. I looked up just as the sliding glass doors were closing behind Michelle. Pete was filling her in on what the doctor had told him as I walked over to them.

“What the hell happened?” Her eyes filled with tears as she bit her bottom lip to keep it from trembling.

“We were on the ice, doing what we do, and he slid into the boards,” Brody answered as he stared at the ground, deliberately not looking at me.

She wiped her eyes with the tissue Pete gave her and shook her head incredulously. “That doesn’t make sense. He’s fallen a million times before. Was he wearing his helmet?”

Brody nodded and I couldn’t keep quiet anymore.

I cleared my throat. “It’s my fault. We were playing one on one. The game got intense and I checked him.”

Her eyes went from sad to angry faster than I’d ever seen. “You did this?” she hissed through clenched teeth.

I wanted to tell her it was an accident, that I didn’t mean to hit him that hard, but nothing I could say at that moment would have taken away her anger. To be honest, I wanted her mad. I wanted her to take her fury and hate out on me, so I just nodded.

“Michelle, it was an accident—”

The words weren’t even out of Brody’s mouth before the side of my face stung with heat. I never saw her hand coming. She reeled back to hit me again, but Brody wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her back. “Michelle! Stop! It was an accident!”

“You motherfucker!” she screamed at me, flailing like a wild animal in Brody’s arms as tears rolled down her face. “How dare you? How dare you hit him like that? He’s your friend!”

Brody struggled to hold her back. “He didn’t mean to. We were just playing a game.”

“Some fucking game it turned out to be, huh?” she continued yelling through her sobs. “You’re standing here just fine, and my husband is in surgery! I hate you. Even when he’s better, I’ll still hate you! You don’t deserve him!” Ouch.

I couldn’t defend myself against anything she said. She was right, and if Brody had let her loose, I would’ve let her hit me. Over and over. I deserved it.

A security guard walked up to us. “Is everything okay over here, folks?”

“Clearly not,” Pete said, “but we’ll keep it down. Sorry.”

Michelle had finally stopped kicking, but Brody was still holding her. “I’m gonna put you down, okay?” he said softly. “Don’t do that again or they’re gonna kick you out, and you won’t be here when Mike wakes up.”

She covered her face with her hands and started sobbing. Her shoulders bounced up and down and her legs started to give out as she turned toward Brody and wailed into his chest. Once again, he wrapped his arms around her, only this time it was to hold her up.

I walked quietly to the other side of the waiting room, knowing space for Michelle was the most important thing right now. After a couple hours, Kacie showed up and immediately went over to Michelle. They hugged and cried for a solid three minutes while Brody came over and sat by me.

The back of my head rested against the wall behind me as I stared straight ahead, refusing to look at him. “Where’s Pete?”

“He left a while ago. He asked us to please keep him posted,” he said quietly. “Viper, listen, about before—”

“Don’t. I deserved it.”

“No, you didn’t. I understand she’s upset, but this isn’t your fault.”

“Oh, really?” I finally glared at him out of the corner of my eye. “Then whose is it? Because from where I’m sitting, it’s no one’s fault but mine.”

“Accidents happen. You can’t take this on.”

“Whatever,” I snapped, staring straight ahead again.

Do. Not. Cry.

The double doors opened and a nurse appeared. Brody and I collectively held our breath as she looked around the room. “Michelle Asher?”