by Ella James
“Better.”
As we walk into school, I try to watch him without being seen. I’m always surprised by his height when I stop and pay attention. He’s a full six feet, and in the time he’s been with us, he’s gotten bulkier. His arms and shoulders have filled out, and playing soccer has thickened his calves.
With his haircut and nicer clothes, he’s turning heads, which I notice as I lag behind him.
When I pass my locker, I stop like I always do, and like he always does, Landon keeps on moving, giving me a nod as he continues on without me. His locker is down a little ways, closer to our shared homeroom. He stops and gets his books, while I’m unloading most of mine—because unlike me, Landon doesn’t bring books home. I guess he doesn’t have to.
In homeroom, he yawns three times, eventually propping his elbow on his desk and doing the good ol’ cheek-in-palm routine, shutting his eyes when he thinks no one’s looking. The smile he gives me when we part ways is small and strained, falling quickly off his mouth as he turns toward his next class.
“See ya at lunch,” he says over his shoulder.
At lunch he seems remote, talking to Pax about some game they both play on their phones, then helping Makayla with a pre-cal problem. I catch him yawning twice. He’s got a slice of pizza on his lunch tray, but he doesn’t finish it.
That afternoon in the car, he leans his head back against his chair’s head rest a few times, and rubs his eyes a few other times. We chat about Led Zeppelin, Landon telling me the story of how Jimmy Page met Robert Plant. He mentions that Plant had a five-year-old son die, and tells me that the song “All of My Love” is dedicated to him.
“Wow… I didn’t know. That’s super sad.”
“Yeah.” He leans his head back then and stays that way for a while, and I can’t help but wonder what he’s thinking. I wish I knew him better, but I’m not sure how to get him to talk to me. Maybe he never will, and I’ll just keep watching him the way I do until we graduate.
Sometimes I wish I didn’t want to know him more. That he’d been the seven-year-old my parents thought we were getting. Then I really think about that, and my stomach clenches.
That night at home, I try my best to ignore him. The way he grins at Emmaline’s crazy, made-up, ladybug tap dance. The way his forearms gleam, so thick and tanned, when he washes his hands in the kitchen sink for dinner. The way his fingers look around his cutlery as he eats my parents’ pork tenderloin and asparagus. The way he laughs at my dad’s weirdo patient story of the day.
After dinner, he does the dishes before going downstairs. I’m left with a view of his shoulders as he loads the dishwasher.
In my room, I take a bath and lie there till the water goes cold.
Several hours later, I text him, asking if he’s awake, and again he doesn’t text me back. He tells me on the ride to school the next morning that he just got my text.
I give him side-eye.
“It’s true,” he says. “I was asleep.”
He has dark circles underneath his eyes, so I’m not sure I believe that.
Tuesday is a pretty ordinary school day. I’m moody from the get-go. Nothing bad happens, but I feel like something did. When I see Landon at lunch, talking about Marvel comic books with Pax and complimenting Tia’s hair braid, I decide I maybe hate him.
I forget about soccer practice until the bell rings, and I’m taking apart my clarinet.
“Who killed your kitten?”
I jump. Makayla is wiggling her eyebrows at me.
“Ugh,” I groan. “I don’t know.”
“You’ve been a moody booty all day.”
“I know.”
Makayla hugs me, and I kind of want to cry. Maybe it’s my time of the month.
Outside by the soccer field, I stretch for longer than my norm and keep on tugging at my running shorts. They feel too short. It’s a hot day, but there’s a breeze that makes my ponytail tickle my neck.
Coach is in a mood, too, it seems, making us run harder than usual before practice. Every time I round one corner of our practice field, I see the boys across the way. No matter how much I tell myself not to, my eyes seek out Landon.
After we run, we all get water, and then we split up into teams. I’m playing forward, my favorite position. After such a lousy day, I’m surprised to find I’m really on my game. I’m moving the ball like a boss, headed toward the goal, when I notice Landon running the opposite way on the field that’s parallel to ours. I kick the ball, and right then, Pax’s elbow connects with Landon’s face.
I don’t know what happens—I guess I’m watching him and not my footing. One second, I’m running, and the next, I’m on the ground. I’m on my belly, my chin in the grass, and OH SHIT MY LEG!
My leg. I start to scream, because my brain exploded when my leg did. I can’t think, can only scream.
Tia’s face is over me, then Coach’s, and I’m crying. “I think…” I gasp, trying to get out “I broke my leg,” but I can’t even form the words.
The pain is awful, like a knife that someone’s twisting.
I’m aware that I’m crying, but I can’t think straight. Someone lifts me off the field—maybe two people. I’m being carried. Someone’s chest… My forehead’s up against a T-shirt. Then my ears come back online, and I notice the murmurs rumbling through the chest I’m up against.
I catch the word “fuck” and “Evie…”
I look up, and—Landon. He’s the one who’s holding me. Carrying me. We stop, and someone has my legs while Landon has my shoulders. I’m eased onto on one of the benches, sitting on it with my legs out in front of me. Coach Shelly is by my ankle.
“Evie, I want to take your shoe off. Can I—”
“No! Don’t touch it!”
“We need to know if you can—”
“No!” I start to cry, and I feel Landon’s arms around my shoulders.
Someone else is there by Coach Shelly—it’s Coach DelMar, the boys’ coach. Through my tears, I see him frown down at my ankle. It looks puffy, maybe slightly bluish. DelMar reaches toward it.
“No.” Landon’s voice is right beside my shoulder. “She said no.” He’s got his arms under my arms, making a loop around my upper chest.
“Can you feel your toes, Evie?” Coach Shelly asks.
“I don’t know.” My eyes glitter with tears. “I can’t tell…” I try to move my toes, but nothing really seems to happen. “It just…really hurts.” Kind of like I hit my funny bone—with a butcher knife.
Coach Shelly turns and blows her whistle, causing the crowd around me to disperse, while Coach DelMar inspects my ankle without touching it.
“What’s the pain like? What does it feel like specifically?”
“Like…stabbing,” I say, sounding breathless. Landon’s arms around my shoulders tighten.
“One to ten?”
I laugh through my tears. “Eighty?”
He nods briskly. “Someone needs to take her in.”
I feel Landon shift his weight behind me.
“Evie,” Couch DelMar says, “we can call your parents and wait for one of them to get here, I can call an ambulance if the pain is too bad to weather it out, or one of us can drive you. Landon? Tia? Or Coach Shelly?”
Tears stream down my cheeks, because I can’t think straight. The ankle throbs, making me flinch. “I want to go…right now.”
“I can drive her,” Landon says. He loosens his hold on me, his hands coming up to my shoulders.
“My mom’s surgery day is Tuesday,” I hear myself say. “Em’s friend’s mom takes her home with them and…my dad gets her at six-thirty.”
“So your parents are both at Carolina General?” Couch DelMar asks.
I nod as tears roll down my cheeks.
I feel Landon come around my side. “Evie.” I open my eyes and see his face by mine. “Is that okay? I can do it,” he says. “If you want.” Landon’s eyes shift from my face to somewhere—maybe Jake—and then he regards me with his
lips pressed together.
“Sure.” The ankle throbs, and I curl over, whimpering. I feel Landon’s arm behind my back, and then his other underneath my knees. “I’ll be careful as I can,” he says, as he lifts me.
My whole body feels hot and sweaty, so it’s weird that I’m still shivering as he carries me. I lock an arm around his neck, because I’m irrationally worried he might drop me.
“I’ve got you.” I feel his chin against my hair. “You’re light as a feather, Evie.”
“No, I’m not.” Still crying. I tell myself I need to stop, but I cry more as Landon eases me in to my car’s passenger’s seat, and Tia leans in close to do my seatbelt buckle.
I look down at my ankle, resting in the floorboard. “It hurts…really bad, like this.” Everyone around me talks at once, and then it’s Landon kneeling by me once more. “I’m sorry.” His eyes are sadder than I’ve ever seen them, taking me off guard. “I should have thought about the angle, with your legs down. Jake is gonna drive us in his Jeep, and we’ll sit in the back with you.”
“And so will I,” Tia promises. “Landon will sing songs and I’ll play with your hair.”
“Okay.” I’m trying not to cry as Landon picks me up again. My ankle bobs slightly as we walk to Jake’s silver Jeep.
I cry again, because I’m so embarrassed, and my ankle hurts so much I feel like it might never stop. I know it’s broken—with an orthopedic surgeon for a father, I know what numb toes mean.
“How should we do this?”
“Landon, you sit her up there. You and I will then get in and kind of drag her booty toward the back and maybe you or I can wrap our arms around her waist, while the other person holds her foot in their lap?”
“I’ve got a pillow in the backseat. From that game in Charlotte.”
“Perfect. Get the pillow.”
Everything seems kind of slow now. All my freaking out has made me sleepy. Landon does as promised, setting me down me in the back of the Jeep, and I notice belatedly that Tia must have hopped up first. She gets my hurt, left leg under the knee, preventing my foot from touching the floor, as Landon climbs up behind me, wraps his arms under mine, and slowly, gently, drags me so my butt is in the corner formed by the back of the last row of seating and the driver’s side wall of the car.
Landon peers down at me; his face is upside down from my perspective, but even then, I see him hesitate— “DelMar said to put your head flat on the floor and your foot up, but…do you want to lie in my lap?”
“Okay.”
I barely have the wherewithal to feel excited to be near him. Landon helps me lie back, and I’m in his lap, but not really; he’s got me sort of cradled in his arms.
Jake starts driving, and my thoughts get wispy. I watch the shadows pass over the car’s ceiling, and I feel Landon’s hand in my hair. I’m surprised at first, but all my feelings are turned down. He’s playing with my hair…I think.
I’m so sleepy. Lots of starts and stops, and their hands tighten on me. My ankle throbs, but I don’t feel it that much if I just look at the ceiling.
“You okay?” Landon asks. His voice sounds deep and kind of loud.
I look up at him, try to smile if I can, but I can’t. Tia says, “You’re doing great. We’ll be there soon.”
I feel Landon’s lap beneath me, feel his abs against the back of my head, feel him holding onto me with every turn Jake makes.
“I’m gonna call your dad,” he says at one point, and I listen to him through a fog as he tells Dad what happened and says “we will.”
Jake pulls in beside the ambulance bay, and Landon carries me inside the ER, right into triage, where I’m illogically surprised to see my dad in his white coat.
“You’re here?” I manage in a tinny voice. “I thought you were at home…cause…it’s Tuesday?” I feel dizzy and confused as Landon sets me on a table.
“Not yet, honey. Now let’s see what you’ve gotten yourself into…” Dad kneels while the nurse puts a blood-pressure cuff on me, and then things happen fast. Dad and the nurse are talking in serious tones, and Tia and Jake seem to be ushered out as the nurse lays me back on the table.
“What’s going on?” I ask Landon. My voice sounds quivery, and I feel really cold. He kneels by me, and I think how his eyes look silver, like some gorgeous molten metal.
The next thing I know, there’s green all around me. Shifting green, like curtains hanging, and something… It’s a beeping sound. An annoying beeping sound.
I try to open my eyes, but they feel heavy. I do manage a peek down at myself, and I see that I’m lying down, covered by blankets. Hey, it’s those heated blankets. I’ve seen them…at the hospital.
I must be sick, but I don’t remember what happened. It was something good. I do remember something good…
Next time I open my eyes, my dad is sitting right by me.
“Hey there,” he says, and I get the sense he’s leaning over me. “How’s it going, green bean?”
I look down at my ankle, but I can’t see it for all the blankets. I’m in a hospital bed, in a hospital room.
“Did you…do surgery on me?” My eyes are rolling back in my head even as I ask the question.
“No, sweetheart.” The top of my dad’s head is cut off by my leaden eyelids. “I didn’t need to.”
If this is a dream, I wonder hazily, why isn’t my dad doing surgery? It’s what he does…
I awaken for a third time and feel fresh surprise to see I’m in a dark room, in what I think must be the hospital. My ankle hurts—like, bad. I try to swallow, but my mouth is dry. I cough, and a form materializes from the shadows.
“Evie? Hey…” It’s Landon. He leans over my bed, and then he’s way up close. I feel confused, and kind of scared.
“Landon? What am…where am I?”
Landon sits on the side of my bed, or tries to. I hear a click, and he’s moving the railing. He moves some cords, and I notice an IV. I got an IV? When did that happen?
My ankle hurts.
Tears fill my eyes.
“You broke your ankle,” he says. His voice is soft. His eyes are sad.
“Where’s…my dad? Did…he…do surgery?” The word is slurred. I try to regroup, but I can’t. “Where’s Dad?”
“I’m sorry, Evie. Your dad went home to spend the night with Emmaline. Your mom is here, though. She’s been in here with you, but she’s on call. Another doctor is going to come and take her place, but she’s not here yet. It’s about eleven o’clock. At night.”
“My ankle?” I manage hoarsely.
“It’s wrapped. They weren’t able to say for sure, but they don’t think it needs surgery. Your dad thought the CT scan looked good. It’s just a fracture.”
“Landon?”
“Yeah?”
I blink at his face. “Do you…really like me?”
“What?” He looks surprised.
“I need…someone…here who…really likes me,” I say. Then I’m lost.
I wake up again because my ankle hurts. It hurts. It really hurts. It’s still nighttime. I know because the blinds are dark, no lines of sunshine seeping in around the window-frame. I gasp without meaning to, and then I start to cry.
“Evie?”
Landon is leaning over my bed. I can see his outline in the dark.
“I’ll push the nurse call button.” He does, and I shift my gaze to the door. When no one comes, I whimper.
Landon pulls his chair closer to my bedside. “When we first got here, you passed out. Do you remember?”
I shake my head.
“Your dad said you were in shock. Sometimes it happens when you break a bone. You woke back up and…I think it wasn’t pleasant.” He winces. “I heard you from the waiting room.”
“Oh, wow.”
“I think they gave you something for pain, and after that, they had to move your ankle. I was in there for that part.”
“Really?”
He nods. “Your father got you green-
lighted through everything, so there wasn’t a lot of waiting. You’d had some good drugs by then, and I don’t think you could feel anything. So they re-aligned your ankle. Your mom was there, too. They both wanted you to stay tonight. It seemed like they just wanted to be cautious.” He looks down, seeming uncomfortable. Then he looks back up at me. “I hope it’s okay that I’m here.” He hesitates. “You asked me to stay with you.”
My stomach does a slow roll. “I did?”
He smirks a little. “Buyer’s remorse?”
“I don’t remember. But…no. No remorse.”
The door opens, and a nurse comes in. She gives me something in my IV, or she tries to, but I stop her. “I feel weird. Will that make me feel more weird?”
“What do you mean?” She frowns.
“Like there’s something bad…in here. I know there’s really not. Like, everything’s okay.” My voice cracks. “But…I don’t want to feel weird. I only want some Tylenol.” I tear up, and Landon nudges my arm.
“Who you calling something bad?” His tone is teasing.
“Let me check the orders,” the nurse says. “I’ll give your mom a buzz. She stepped into surgery, but I’m thinking Toradol instead. That way you can feel a little more lucid. Okay?”
I’m confused about what she said, but I nod, because I think I like it. When she leaves, I cover my face with my hand and look at Landon through my fingers.
“I’m embarrassed.”
“Don’t be,” he says quietly.
I rub my leaking eyes. When I move my hand, he’s still looking at me. His eyes make me feel warm, but I still feel weird, too.
“Will you…hold my hand? For just a minute?”
Six
Landon
Seeing Evie hurt like this is fucking getting to me. I wish I could fix it for her, but I can’t do anything. Holding her head in my lap on the drive to the hospital, seeing her eyes close, feeling her shiver—that shit scared me. When I laid her on the table in the triage room and she passed out, I got shooed back out into the ER. That was worse.
