The Girl Who Fell(64)

He stops at a red light, turns to me. “This isn’t about me, Zephyr. Slice is my friend too. All that jealousy stuff doesn’t matter now. This is different, bigger than us, bigger than my stupid insecurities.”

The light turns green and Alec moves us forward, closer to Gregg, closer to knowing something, anything. “I’m not a monster.”

“I never said you were.”

“No, but you were thinking I wouldn’t want you to visit your friend when he’s injured.”

It was exactly what I was thinking. Fearing.

When we check in with hospital reception, we are directed to the trauma wing. I push against the assaulting smell of bleach and worry and see Mrs. Slicer first. I run to her and she cocoons me under her mothering arms. Just a few feet away I see Mara clinging to Anna’s leg. She doesn’t storm at me. I can’t imagine the weight of this moment that anchors her four-year-old body into stillness.

“I’m so glad you’re here.” Mrs. Slicer pulls me tight enough to join our heartbeats. “Gregg will be pleased.”

“Can I see him? Is he okay?”

She nods, her eyes shadowed with anguish. “He has a concussion, Zephyr, and they want to monitor him for twenty-four hours, but he can have visitors. You can go in when his dad comes out. As you can imagine, we’re all in shock. But grateful it wasn’t anything more serious, of course. So grateful.”

My relief is obvious. “I’m so glad. I was so worried.”

She pats me then, the way I do with Finn, and I feel the depth of love in the simple gesture before she returns to her little ones. I have never seen the Slicer siblings so still. Muted. Like they can’t pull themselves inside right again, even though Gregg will be okay.

I know how they feel.

Alec and I take a seat on the hard plastic chairs that line the hall. My leg bounces frantically, my nervous energy unable to leave me even now. When Mr. Slicer enters the hallway, I jump for my turn. Mrs. Slicer waves me in and I round the door to Gregg’s room.

Gregg takes a moment to register. I think it’s the concussion, making him slow until, “Hey Zipper.” His smile a flower opening. “I thought you weren’t allowed to see me. Isn’t that the rule?”

I want to laugh at his sarcasm because it feels like a miracle that it’s intact, along with his memory, his recognition of me. Everything. “Alec brought me here. He’s the one who came and found me, told me what happened.”

Gregg adjusts to sit higher in his hospital bed, the thin cotton gown straining against the spread of his shoulders. “Huh. I guess all I had to do was get concussed.”

“Not funny. Don’t ever scare me like that again.”

He laughs. “Sorry to inconvenience you.”

I give him a light tap on the arm and he draws in his limb, wincing with pain.

“Oh my god. Did I hurt you?”

“Nah, just playing with you.” He nods to the bag of clear liquid hanging above his bed. “They’ve got me on the good stuff. Everything looks pink. And swirly.”

I smile. “Pink and swirly, huh?”

“Except you, Zeph. You look like shit.” He webs his fingers with mine and I feel his beating pulse there. Strong. Reliable. “You know . . . if that were possible.”

“You scared me, Gregg. I-I don’t know what I would have done if . . .”

“Hey, no bringing down the half-dead guy.”

I smack him on the arm and he laughs.

“You know I’d never do anything to hurt you, Zephyr.”

There are promises, apologies, confessions that fight for the chance to be heard, but a faint knock on the door silences me. I turn and Alec lifts his eyebrows, asking permission to enter.

“Come in, man,” Gregg says, his tough guy athlete voice joining us in the room now. Gregg drops my hand, positions himself even higher in bed.

They exchange the manly secret handshake of locker rooms and Alec tells him, “You had us all worried.”

“So I hear.”

“What happened out there? One second you were fine and then . . .”

Gregg shakes his head, trying to pull up the memory, but I watch it swim away from him, lost to the river of pain medication.

“Coach told us it was a problem with your skates,” Alec says.

I turn to him, this news new. “That’s why the game was postponed? Because—”

“The coach suspected sabotage,” Mr. Slicer interrupts. I turn see him at the doorway, his hands clasped behind his back, his face looking like this is the last news he wants to share.

“Sabotage?” I scramble for the meaning of the word because Mr. Slicer can’t possibly mean it in the traditional sense. The treacherous sense.