Page 6 of The Last One You Loved
I hesitated, and when he saw it, he looked down and away, throat bobbing as he swallowed hard.
“Dad knows,” he said quietly, still avoiding looking at me. All my senses went haywire. A shiver went down my spine for no reason that I could name except a gut instinct and a well of memories that threatened to overtake me if I didn’t push them away.
“Do you mind me asking what happened?” I asked softly, keeping my tone as neutral as possible in an attempt to be soothing without raising Layton’s red flags.
He still wouldn’t meet my gaze and was running the toe of his shoe over the lines in the tile flooring.
“Got hurt climbing,” he said. “It’s just a bruise.”
But as he talked, his breathing remained shallow in an attempt to keep the pain at bay.
“Your dad looked you over?” I pushed, warring with myself. It wasn’t my business. He was a minor. His dad was my boss and a well-respected man at the hospital and in the community. My stomach clenched, unsubstantiated thoughts based on nothing more than instinct filled me, and I knew?with a panicked sense of certainty?that this was exactly what I’d spent the last ten years of my life working and waiting for. And yet, now that it was here, I was terrified because it came in a form I couldn’t be sure would end well for me.
“It’s just a bruise,” Layton insisted, and this time, he raised his chin defiantly at me, as if daring me—or begging me—to say something different.
Half of me was screaming to just let it go?to walk away. The other half of me, the girl from nowhere who’d promised herself she’d be a shield for those who needed it, was yelling at me to push him into one of the ER beds and demand an X-ray.
He pushed off the wall, took two steps away from me, and then listed sideways as his knees started to crumble. I caught him under the arm with my shoulder so he wouldn’t hit the ground, and he yelped.
We darted looks in both directions down the hall, and I knew I was right. I hated that I was. I hated that I was going to have to do this, but I didn’t have another choice.
“Let’s get you into a bed so I can take a look,” I said quietly.
He didn’t argue. He could barely stand, breathing so erratically I thought he might actually pass out, and I’d have to call for a gurney. If I did that, his father would be called, and this kid wouldn’t stand a chance.
I opened the door of the closest hospital room, breathing a sigh of relief when I saw it was empty. I got him over to the bed, and he sat down, whimpering again as I helped him lie back. When I went to move away, he grabbed my hand, clutching it so tightly his nails almost broke the skin before he dropped it.
“Please, don’t call my dad.”
I swallowed hard, pulled the rolling stool from the corner, and sat next to him.
“Did you really get hurt climbing?” I asked, but I already knew he hadn’t.
He closed his eyes. “Don’t ask me that.”
“How old are you?”
“Fifteen.”
Crap on a cupcake. I debated one last second before saying, “Normally, I can’t conduct an exam or provide any medical care without getting permission from one of your parents, but there are certain circumstances that allow me to sidestep that rule,” I said gently, wanting to reassure him I could look at him if I suspected there was abuse without actually saying the words and scaring him off.
If I found what I thought I’d find, I’d also have to report it. I’d have to report the head of my department, and I already knew that would bring hell down on me. Roy Gregory was a narcissistic ass who I’d already gone toe to toe with several times after I’d wounded his pride by discouraging his sexual overtures.
Layton’s mouth turned grim, jaw clenching.
“Do you want me to call your mom?” I asked, tightening my ponytail and pushing my toes up and down like a ballerina, which sent my knees into a seesaw motion. Both moves were old tells. Ones I’d thought I’d gotten past. Ones that had irritated my mother. But then, any movement I’d made had irritated her.
He shook his head and bit his lip. “She knows.”
My heart fell. Having one parent who filled your life with fear was bad enough. Being afraid to tell the other parent was a different kind of torture that I knew acutely. But I couldn’t even imagine having the second parent find out and do nothing.
My dad, Trap, had turned vicious when he’d found out about Mama. But it hadn’t been his fists he’d used, even when he was known in three counties for doing just that?for being a violent man you didn’t want to cross. It had still been too little, too late.
Painful memories threatened to overwhelm me in a day full of them as I scooted the stool over to the room’s computer. I typed in my ID and password and then asked Layton for his social security number. I was officially crossing the line—the right line, but still one that wasn’t easy to step over.
I eyeballed his file, my stomach growing tauter with each entry I read. Fractured wrist from a tee-ball injury. Displaced shoulder from a climbing accident. Bruised cheekbone from a fall off a skateboard. I wondered how many of those sports Layton actually participated in. I’d heard Dr. Gregory bragging about his extreme-sports addict of a son, but maybe it was all a ploy to cover the abuse.
I donned gloves from the box by the door and took Layton’s temp and blood pressure when normally a nurse would have done it for me. I could have called Sally. She was still on duty in the ER. But there was no way I was bringing her into this.
