Page 133 of Tiny Fractures

“What?” Tori says, her voice shrill. “What do you mean it was his mom?”

“Ran was lying on the ground and his mom was kicking him… hard… over and over and over.” His teeth clench as he describes the scene, and I can feel the bile rise in the back of my throat, threatening to bring me to my knees.

“And then she stomped on Ran’s rib cage. Steve pushed her away. God, there was so much blood. And…” Zack trails off.

“God, fuck, FUCK!” Shane groans, raking his hand through his strawberry blond hair, and the look on his face, the way his features contort with agony, makes me think things are worse than I can even comprehend right now.

“What about Ran?” I finally manage weakly.

Everyone turns to look at me as if surprised I’m still here.

“Cat,” Zack says, almost apologetically, as if it’s all his fault, “Ran was coughing up blood. He couldn’t breathe. Steve tried to move him, but that made it worse. I called the ambulance. It was all in slow motion. I just stood there, waiting for the medics to get there. Steve was on the floor next to Ran, screaming at him to keep breathing, but… he couldn’t. He just kept coughing and there was so much blood.” Zack diverts his eyes. “He stopped breathing,” Zack says, finality in his tone.

A feral sound of pain escapes my throat and my knees buckle. It’s official; I’m hyperventilating, my surroundings fading in and out as my vision blurs and my head spins.

Shane is by my side in an instant, his arms supporting me. “Come on, let’s find a place to sit,” he says stoically, holding me tightly against him.

We follow Zack into a private waiting room. Shane supports my weight with every step I take, and Vada hovers on the other side, talking softly to me. Everything around me is hazy. How can this be? Confusion, pain, fear, anger—everything clashes in me at once and I don’t know what to say or do.

When we enter the small, brightly lit room, Steve is sitting in one of the black plastic-and-metal chairs. His face is buried in his hands. I notice the bloody stains—Ronan’s blood—on his shirt and rush to his side and hug him. To my surprise, Frank—Steve and Ronan’s dad—is standing there, facing a doctor dressed in navy-blue scrubs. Ronan didn’t mention his dad was home.

The doctor stops talking when we enter.

“They’re all friends, Doctor Roberts. You can continue,” Frank says, his jaw tense. He sounds anxious and on edge, his arms crossed in front of his solid chest. I wonder how much he knows about what happened.

I look around the sparsely furnished waiting area. There are a few chairs, a couch, and a small TV mounted in the corner by the ceiling. It’s off and there are no sounds except for the doctor speaking and a buzzing coming from a light board on the wall to the left of me.

“We’re prepping him for surgery right now,” Doctor Roberts says calmly. “Once we get in we should get an even better idea of how much damage we’re dealing with. CTs and X-rays can only tell us so much, especially in regard to internal bleeding.”

Internal bleeding? I sit, feeling as though I’m having an out-of-body experience. This can’t be real, it just can’t. This must be a bad dream, and I want nothing more than to wake up right now.

Everyone’s eyes are on Doctor Roberts, the air tense as we begin to understand the extent of Ronan’s injuries. Doctor Roberts pins a number of X-rays to the light board, and although I’m obviously not a doctor, I can immediately tell it’s bad.

Doctor Roberts inhales deeply. “Okay, so I’ll just take you top to bottom,” she starts, tapping on an X-ray that clearly shows Ronan’s head. “Ronan has an orbital fracture right here.” Doctor Roberts points to an area right under Ronan’s left eye.

My hands are clammy and cold, and I try to pay attention to my breathing, to control my inhales and exhales and not hyperventilate again. I’m no good to anyone if I pass out now.

“The craniofacial surgeon is going to determine whether this will require surgical repair once we have Ronan cleaned up in the OR. Right now, the lacerations and swelling are making it hard to see the extent of the damage and if there’s displacement of the bone, but we’ll get that figured out. He’ll need stitches for his left eyebrow laceration and the one below his left eye and the one on the back of his head. His broken nose will heal on its own.”

I have a hard time imagining Ronan with these injuries, only able to picture him the way he looked last night, when I last saw him: his full lips; his intense, green eyes; his lean body perfect, conforming to mine, uninjured, whole.

“Okay, so that’s the head.” Doctor Roberts removes the X-ray of Ronan’s skull and pins a new image to the light board.

I hadn’t realized an image could create such horror until now. My heart squeezes painfully at the sight of the image of the obviously fractured ribs. At first glance, it seems Ronan’s entire rib cage is shattered. All I can do is clamp my hands tightly over my lips, stifling the sound of pain that wants to escape my mouth, and I am eternally grateful for Shane as he moves his arm up and around my shoulder, pulling me against him again. His body feels as tense as mine as we sit and listen and begin to understand just how badly hurt Ronan really is.

Doctor Roberts dives right in, confirming what I had already known—that the injuries to Ronan’s chest are horrendous. “This is what concerns me the most. There are twenty-four ribs in the human body; from what we’re able to tell, seventeen of Ronan’s are broken in thirty-two places. Also, do you see that here?” she asks, circling an opaque area on the left side of Ronan’s chest. “That’s his left lung. It shouldn’t look like that—this is an indication of a large pneumothorax; his lung has collapsed. There’s some damage to his right lung as well, but it appears to be less severe than his left. He has some internal abdominal bleeding, but we’re not sure yet where it originates; it’s hard to see sources of bleeding on X-rays and CTs, but his chest and the internal bleeding will be the first order of business because these injuries put a lot of stress on Ronan’s heart.”

Everyone remains silent as Doctor Roberts looks around the room, waiting for questions before she changes out the X-rays again.

“Ronan’s left shoulder is separated, and his left hand is broken; but when I consulted with Doctor Naveen—the orthopedic surgeon who’s scrubbing in with me—he didn’t think that the hand would require surgical repair. But”—Doctor Roberts pins up a new X-ray—“Ronan’s right kneecap is a different story. There was obviously significant blunt-force trauma to his knee, because the patella is completely shattered. Doctor Naveen is going to do an open reduction-internal fixation—he’ll go in and put the kneecap back together with some hardware. This injury is likely going to take the longest to heal—we’re talking months here—and usually comes with some fairly significant physical limitations. If Ronan was a professional athlete, this would be career-ending.”

“Is he going to be okay, though? Like, he’s gonna make it, right?” Shane breaks the silence, his voice strained, grating against gritted teeth, and we all look at him. His face is full of fear, pain, and worry for his best friend.

Doctor Roberts’ face is warm and full of empathy as she presses her lips together before speaking. “I can’t lie, Ronan is pretty sick right now. But we’re going to do absolutely everything we can to get him through this,” she says compassionately, though her response doesn’t really ease my anxiety.

“How long do you anticipate the surgery to take?” Frank asks. He’s dressed in jeans and a fitted, dark-gray long-sleeved Henley, emphasizing his broad, muscular frame, which honestly looks like it’s weighed down by a million pounds of lead. His handsome, masculine face is grief-stricken.

“I’m not sure exactly how long it’ll take, but judging by what we know so far, probably in excess of eight hours. I’ll send in a nurse to give you periodic updates.”

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