“Listen,” he said calmly, “Katie’s alright so far. Don’t panic, I’m here. Just call mom, Deb- mom, whatever. I know Wesley’s busy with a board meeting- like I said, I’m here. I’ll wait for you.”
He ended the call and walked for a partially curtained area where Katie was.
“You got quite a bump on your head,” the doctor remarked, touching her gently, checking her scalp for other injuries.
“Ah, you must be Ms. Hunter’s next of kin,” the middle-aged male doctor said, looking up to Joshua. “I’ve ordered for a full CAT scan just to make sure. You’re responding well, though,” he said to Katie. Then he looked at Joshua once more. “How long was she unconscious?”
“A minute, I guess.”
“Well Katie, let’s just wait for the CAT scan alright?”
Katie nodded.
The doctor left them for a moment and Josh walked closer to her stretcher. “How are you feeling?”
“I guess I’m okay. I feel kinda sick though,” she said.
“Did you tell the doctor that?”
“I did.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t get to completely save you to avoid that gash you’ve got now,” he said, eyeing the bandage.
“That sounded like a tongue twister,” Katie croaked.
He smiled and she felt her mouth tweak a little in response.
“I was pretty scared back there,” he admitted, remembering how his entire body went on an adrenalin rush to keep her as safe as possible.
“I’m sorry I caused this much trouble.”
“You just didn’t look where you were going. Was I that scary for you to cross the road like that? Just to avoid me?”
She took a deep breath. “I wasn’t thinking straight.”
“You weren’t thinking, period. If anything terrible had happened to you- not saying this is good at all, I wouldn’t have forgiven myself.”
She wanted to say something biting, but she was too tired to say anything back that needed effort and annoyance.
“Katie!” a familiar voice gasped.
Both Katie and Joshua looked to the right and saw Kat, her nose was red and her eyes were puffy from crying. She stared at them and then rushed for Katie, embracing her tightly at first and loosening it when she realized Katie was hurting.
“Oh God, I was so scared the whole time. I told myself I’d stop crying and then I called dad.”
“You called dad?” Katie gasped.
“And Debbie,” Kat added.
“You called my mom?” Joshua gasped.
“I panicked. I needed to talk to someone that wasn’t Katie or you,” Kat reasoned, holding Katie’s hand. She looked at her twin once more, her brows still furrowed with worry.
“I have to go,” Josh suddenly said.
“What? Why?” Kat said, “Deb and dad’s coming in a few. Can’t you wait?”
And be one big happy finally in the emergency room? “I just have to be somewhere else,” he simply said, hoping Kat wouldn’t bother. He didn’t want to leave Katie but he knew she was in good hands with Kat around.
“I’ll see you guys at home,” he said confidently.
He gave one last look at Katie who was enveloped in a hug, wondering if things would be alright after today.
~
Joshua was right. They were home in four hours. Debbie had arrived at nearly the same time as their father did and the room stifled with festering antagonism from both adults. They barely looked at each other, taking turns to talk to the doctor, which confused the doctor why the parents weren’t asking the questions together.
Debbie left immediately after finding out the CAT scan turned out alright, but their father lingered and dropped them home.
Katie had a sprained wrist, a concussion on her temple, and multiple small abrasions. She was cleared but Kat felt her pain and she knew this, from the way Kat looked at her. Kat had tucked her in bed, something they hadn’t done for each other after they each had a bout of chicken pox, one week apart.
“Katie,” Kat began, “Josh was there. Were you together?”
“We met at the Little Bookshop Down the Corner,” Katie said, unable to lie to Kat.
“On purpose?”
“No. It was by accident.”
“Still, it was lucky he was there. Why’d you leave without him?”
Katie took a breath. “I was in a hurry.”
“To go where?” Kat probed. Something was amiss. Katie was trying to lie but she was always a terrible liar.
Katie said nothing.
Kat huffed. “Look, you’ve been hiding a lot of stuff from me lately.”
“How do you know it’s a lot?” Katie retorted.
“Really, Katie? Are we fighting after you just got out of the emergency room? I don’t like it when you keep stuff from me.”
Katie turned her back against Kat. “It’s no big deal, Kat.”
“You almost died. I’d have to say it was. I mean can you imagine not telling me at all? That’s very un-twin like.”
Katie almost laughed but she bit her lower lip. She didn’t want to look at her twin and she didn’t want to lie to her twin either. “Katie,” she took a breath, “I’m in love with someone.”
Kat froze in place. “Well, we all like someone.” It was fun to hear this from Katie who kept mum about crushes. She wondered what prompted Katie to tell her about this and who he was…
“Who is it?” she couldn’t contain her excitement.
“Josh.”
“Josh from?”
“This house. Josh Caldwell.”
Kat’s eyes bulged. “J- Josh? Our Joshua Caldwell?”
Katie still didn’t look at her sister. “Uh huh.”
“Oh my god,” Kat gasped, taking a seat on the acrylic see through chair across Katie’s bed. “I mean, Katie, oh my god.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “Are you mad?” She didn’t hear anything from Kat for almost a minute, which seemed like an eternity to her. She braced herself for the worst.
“No, I’m not,” Kat replied.
Katie shifted on the bed and slowly turned to face Kat. She saw Kat’s reassuring smile even if her eyes looked bewildered about the whole her liking Joshua thing.
“Tell me about it, won’t you?” Kat began, moving closer to Katie.
Katie took another deep breath and began to talk about how it all began for her, how she found herself liking her future stepbrother, how she fell for him the moment he saw his eyes thankful for her when he had an asthma attack, and how he kissed her in the library and how they both admitted to each other in their own awkward ways that they were fond of each other. Katie told her she didn’t want to go on torturing herself about Josh, knowing they were family and how she found it difficult to move on from it, which was why she walked away from Joshua in the first place earlier.
“Oh, Katie…” Kat murmured, “You really do love him.”
She didn’t want to cry in front of Kat. Maybe she had been overwhelmed by today’s activities, that mixture of emotions. “You- you’re not mad?”
“Why would I be? Josh isn’t our brother, per se. He’s like a boarder, actually,” Kat laughed.
“You’re being really cool about this, Kat.”
“Katie, who I am to demand who you should date? Josh is a great guy, and I just don’t see him that way. You on the other hand, you see him in a more romantic light.”
“What will Debbie and our dad think?” Katie asked, worried.
Kat shrugged. “They’re adults who can’t stick to relationships. Who are they to demand who we should date and love or whatever? And like I said, Josh isn’t our brother. Even more so when they’ll get divorced. Josh will move out, of course. And dad likes Josh.”
“Why are you being so supportive about this?”
“Because I’ve never seen you this in love before,” Kat replied promptly, “and I think it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in a while.”
Katie looked at Kat’s eye
s and saw them all warm and reassuring this time. She leaned over and took Katie’s hand.
“No matter what everyone says, I’ll always have your back.”
Now it was only a matter of facing Josh once more, to know if he felt as strongly for her as she did for him.
~
Joshua walked aimlessly back to their house after the hospital. It was a good twenty minute walk which he didn’t mind doing. He had thought about her a lot that day and had surprisingly gone to the same bookshop as she had. He was more than glad to see her but he didn’t know how to approach her. She gave that look of derision, and if it wasn’t derision, it was more of discomfort.
He hadn’t meant to hurt her. He didn’t know she felt that strongly for him as he did her. He had dated Denise to help himself forget her. Denise was nice but he just wasn’t into her. He thought about how she would feel of course, debated to himself if this was the right thing to do. And when he ended his date with Denise, he found himself feeling alone. It wasn’t a reassuring emotion, unlike when he was with Katie, even if she was quiet most of the time. He liked it when she was quiet. But he liked it even more when she smiled at his wise cracks and his sarcasm.
Seeing her at the bookshop gave him a spring of hope, until he began the conversation with her.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I’d like to stick by what you said. We should move on with our lives,” she had said.
He felt deep down she didn’t mean what she had said, which was precisely why he ran after her. He wanted to profess his love and all that jazz. It was an impulsive decision which saved her life. He could have let her walk out, she could have crossed the road without anyone looking after her. The moment he saw the speeding car head straight for her, he didn’t bother thinking. He just jumped in, adrenalin taking over fear.
A second late, she would have had suffered severe injuries, or worse. Josh still remembered the awful feeling of hoping she was alright, while his eyes were shut tight. He had never seen her look so pale the moment he opened them. Then fear had taken over until he realized seconds later she was just unconscious.
He didn’t care what his mother thought of it. He didn’t care what his stepfather thought of it. He was just glad about the impending divorce. Katie had messaged him twenty minutes after he left, telling him their father and his mother was there and it made for an awkward situation.
He was glad he wasn’t there, then he would have felt even more uncomfortable.
The day he kissed her at the school library was a day he hadn’t expected. It had been done on impulse. No one was there, and she looked so beautiful against the window, book in hand. He had tried to play the cool guy, telling her he wanted to kiss her as casually as that, but in reality, his heart was beating erratically. He was so nervous he was afraid he’d turn her off with his kissing, which he hadn’t practiced on. Josh wasn’t a serial dater and there was a reason for this. It was for Katie.
He had his heart set on her. He had wanted to tell her this in the bookshop. It all started off on the wrong foot and it ended on the pavement. But it was at that pavement that he realized he realized he didn’t want to let go of her. He had never been so sure of anything else in his entire adolescent life.
It was a quiet fight, and there was a quiet finality to the couple’s divorce a day later. Debbie had tearfully said her goodbyes to the twins. Joshua’s arrangements were to be made soon, according to her. Katie didn’t see Joshua the whole day and wondered if he was affected by the chain of events, from her accident to their parents’ divorce.
She was bothered by what happened, despite knowing it was about to happen. She genuinely liked Debbie, even Kat liked Debbie. Debbie and the father probably didn’t fight for it enough in that complicated world of adults and marriage.
She had been at a crossroads, and decided she wanted her father’s happiness, rather than that selfish notion of having them divorce so she could pursue that minuscule chance of romance with Josh. How would it work this time? When things had changed drastically? When Josh was actually leaving the house they had both lived in for two years? Funny how much change a day could bring.
Kat had left early for some extracurricular activities at school that Saturday morning, which wasn’t surprising, considering school was halfway through. Kat had told her to stay at home, telling her not to add any more bruises to her existing ones. Katie complied, busying herself with a book. She had a bandage on her head, an elastic bandage on her wrist and quite a collection of contusions, visible against her pale skin.
She was reading in their townhouse’s mini library, enjoying the quiet and the fresh air coming in from a partially open window, when she heard the door creak. She looked up to see Josh come in with a bouquet of flowers in his hand. She hadn’t seen him in a day and a half and missed him.
He wasn’t smiling. “Feeling better?” he began.
Are those flowers supposed to make me feel better? Wait, those might not even be for me. She nodded and he slowly walked for her and sat on the opposite couch.
“Katie,” he started. Then he stopped himself.
Katie but down her book and tried her best to look at him, and then she looked at the flowers. Then she looked at the small lacerations on his arms and one scratch on his chin. She wanted to reach out and touch him.
“These are for you, by the way. It isn’t for the foyer or anything.”
“How are you?” she asked, eyeing him again.
His eyes followed her trail of sight and saw she was looking at it the little cuts on him. “I’m fine,” he quickly said.
She frowned. “I didn’t see those the other day.”
“Let’s just say you were preoccupied. But these are your normal gashes. I get these a lot when I walk Olive,” he said, referring to his hyperactive husky.
“I gave you normal gashes and I don’t like it.”
“Like I said, I’m fine. I’m concerned about you, though. How have you been doing?”
“I’m alright, I guess. Nothing painkillers can’t manage.”
“Watch out for those. It’s what caused my own dad and mom to break up,” he joked. He saw her smile a little. “There’s that smile I like to see.”
“What are you trying to do, Josh?” she suddenly asked.
“I’m trying to win you over.”
“Because we went through something traumatic together?”
“Let me guess, you read that somewhere?” Josh said.
She nodded. “I realized it was a mirror event of what happened to you a year ago.”
“You held my hand, and I never forgot that day. And that was the day I realized I loved you.”
Katie slowly looked up. “You love me?”
“Don’t you?” he said.
She was quiet, her hands were clasped now. She loved him. And he loved her. It had come in full circle. That quiet feeling turning into something quite loud and real now. He loved her.
“It really is a simple yes or no,” he said, surprised at her silence.
“I thought about it last night. If you’d feel the same way for me, even after that. I’m sure it’s made you realize things.”
He nodded. Hell, it made him realize a lot. “I didn’t want to leave you yesterday, but Kat was there and I thought you might not like it if I was there too.”
“I didn’t want you to go. Nothing’s changed, except maybe for the fact that you now know I love you.”
He found himself smiling, his face reddening a little. “Man,” he murmured, unconsciously touching his neck. He looked up and smiled at her, that endearing smile she couldn’t keep away from. “Wait, you didn’t answer my question. Is it a yes or a no?”
“Isn’t it obvious yet? The way I walked out of there, not wanting to see you.”
“I was confused. I thought it was the whole Denise thing.”
“It was never about her.”
“Then I was right to talk to you in the bookshop,” Josh told her.
She eyed
the scar on his eyebrow again, undoubtedly, the new gashes would add scars. “Your scar gives you a devil may care look,” she said, off-topic.
“Does it make me look handsome- no, handsomer?”
“You’re already okay looking.”
“Okay looking?” he pretended to look hurt, “you’re no supermodel yourself.”
“But you still think I’m cute.”
“I think you’re pretty.”
“You’re flirting with me?” she grinned.
“I’ve tried to flirt with you countless times. You’re either genuinely clueless or you love to play dumb.”
“I don’t want to be called dumb.”
“You’re not,” he smiled at her, “if you were, would I have even thought of pursuing you?”
“There’s this whole part where you think I’m cute,” Katie reminded him. “Even if I look like Kat.”
“You two are different, more than everyone else realizes. Wait, did you tell Kat?”
She nodded and rested her neck against a cushion.
He didn’t look the least bit disturbed though. Like he had known she would tell her twin that in a heartbeat. “How’d it go?”
She looked at him sideways. “It went pretty okay.”
“By okay-?”
“She was cool about it,” Katie said with a faint smile, “it was something I didn’t expect.”
“And I like Kat even more,” Josh grinned.
“Josh, what’ll dad think? What’ll Debbie think?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know and I don’t want to think about it now. He isn’t here now and he hasn’t affected what we’re feeling for each other yet. As for my mom, she’s going to be Debbie, all supportive.”
She nodded, knowing there was some sense to this. She wasn’t denying what her father might feel, he might feel elated or disappointed, but he liked Josh anyway, it would count for something. Another thought crossed her mind.
He shifted and moved to be closer to her, sitting beside her. She didn’t move away. He held her hand, the good hand without the sprain and said nothing else, content with the silence between them, knowing that she felt the same.
Sports Romance: Feeling The Heat Page 139
