Page 7 of The Last One You Loved
I gently probed Layton’s chest and ribs, and his eyes rolled back.
“Stay with me, Layton. Tell me about your favorite sport.”
He drew his gaze back to me, brows furrowing as he concentrated on his motocross escapades. After the exam, I placed an order for an in-room X-ray. I didn’t want to wheel him about the hospital. Hopefully, the name on the file wouldn’t send someone scurrying to ask Dr. Gregory about it, but it couldn’t be helped. I had to have a name to log the request under, and I wasn’t prepared to make one up. I had to keep as many of the I’s dotted and the T’s crossed as I could if I wasn’t going to lose my residency over this.
It was at least an hour later before the tech had come and gone and I’d received the results—cracks to ribs seven and eight, but nothing that would endanger his heart or lungs. It would hurt like hell for weeks, but he’d recover. I explained what I saw to Layton and what he needed to do to take care of himself. Then, I sat at his side on the rolling stool, moving silently back and forth as I pushed my toes against the ground, first one and then the other.
“Want to tell me what really happened?” I asked.
He looked toward the window. “I already told you.”
“Bullshit.” I pulled the sleeve of my white coat up to reveal my forearm. “These were fromboiling water,” I told him, showing off a dozen faded-brown scars that were perfectly round. I could still feel the butt of the cigarette as it singed and the smell of burning flesh. I dragged up the other sleeve to reveal a jagged scar running from my elbow almost to the wrist. “This time, I fell out of a treehouse we didn’t have.”
His eyes grew wider, but he still didn’t say anything.
I pointed under my chin, lifting it so he could see the faded-pink line. “This one was the last one. I supposedly fell skateboarding. At seventeen. When I didn’t own a skateboard and never had. That was the one that finally allowed them to pull me away. I was lucky. I had a…friend…whose family took me in until I graduated.”
My throat clogged with emotions and memories, recalling Maddox and his anger that day. My body relived the utter despondency I’d felt and the pure joy when he’d said he’d never let me go back.
The screechof tires and the roar of Maddox’s 1972 Ford Bronco filled the street outside my house, and I did the only thing I could. I ran for it.
The screen door crashed shut behind me as Mama screamed my name followed by curse words that were all slurred together from the drink in her hand. My heart was slamming against my rib cage, a violent struggle going on inside me, but I didn’t stop until I was pulling myself into the passenger seat.
“Go!” I screamed.
Maddox obliged, hitting the pedal so hard my head flew back against the vinyl seat as the wind swirled around me. He had the hardtop off, and my long hair whipped into my face, sticking to the blood on my chin, as we drove away at a speed that was sure to get him a ticket if he wasn’t careful.
We were halfway to the lake before he finally spoke, drawing my eyes to his newly muscled body, dark-caramel tousled hair, and bright-blue eyes that glimmered in the fading sunlight. What he saw made his hands jerk the wheel, and we almost went off the road before he corrected, straightening the tires back onto the pavement.
“You’re bleeding!” he growled.
My stomach churned, acid burning. I hated that Maddox knew about this part of my life—the drunken mother who hated me enough to strike out when I breathed the wrong way. But he’d been the first to know. The only one I’d ever risked telling the truth to since the day he’d found me hiding as my mother screamed obscenities from the door of our shitty duplex.
“Do I need to take you to the ER, McK?” His voice cracked, worry and heartache in every syllable.
“No,” I told him, pushing a kitchen towel that I’d grabbed against my chin. Another thing for her to hate me for. Another thing I’d cost her.
We were quiet the rest of the way. The lake was where we’d spent most of our free time since he’d gotten his license. Maddox four-wheeled out to the edge of the water, and I climbed into the back of the Bronco. The insides of the vehicle were still a mess with torn seats and rusted sides, but the engine was strong and steady. Maddox had spent every last dime he’d earned schlepping hay and horse manure and bussing tables at Tillie’s to save money for a paint job and new seats. The entire thing would be redone soon.
I reached for a fuzzy blanket Maddox kept in the back, and it revealed a small cooler. I stretched the blanket out as Maddox joined me. He turned on our favorite radio station, using the ancient boombox he’d found in the shed at his uncle’s that was stuffed with memorabilia from his great-grandmother’s time on sets in Hollywood.
When Maddox opened the cooler, it held two beers he’d likely swiped from his older brother’s refrigerator. He opened them both and handed me one.
Was it a problem to be drinking when my mama was an alcoholic? Probably. Did I care at the moment? No. I needed to relax. I needed to escape her violent words. I needed to pretend I didn’t have to go back there when the night was done.
Maddox lay down, reaching for me and tugging me up against him.
My body tingled at every single touch, the heat of him pushing away the cold and heartache. My body yearned to feel more than just these sweet touches. I wanted to feel his lips on mine. I wanted his hands sliding over my skin, making me feel alive.
But he was my best friend, and I didn’t dare risk his friendship for a chance at something more. I didn’t know what I’d do if I lost the one beautiful light in my world. We’d been Maddox and McKenna, M&M, to everyone who knew us since we’d been in the third grade. There hadn’t been a day since then that I hadn’t talked to him, even when he’d had to sneak over and throw rocks at my window to do it. He was the one stable, good, perfect thing in my life.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.
The feel of Mama’s hand shoving my face into the sink, and the splintering pain rushing through my jaw hit me all over again as if it had just happened, and I closed my eyes against it. I’d made the mistake of asking her for grocery money. That was all, but it had been enough to remind her I was there. That she wasn’t the free-spirited, no-responsibilities thirty-two-year-old she wanted to be.
I shook my head, opening my eyes to stare up at the sky as the colors faded from it. The hazy pink and orange slowly blended into gray and then finally black as we drank our beers and comforted each other by just being together.
A trail of light shot across the sky?a shooting star. Of course, it wasn’t really a falling star, but rather bits of dust and rock colliding with the Earth's atmosphere and burning up. Still, I liked thinking of them the way I had when I was a child and hadn’t known better. I liked pretending I could wish on them and that those wishes might just come true. I sent my two secret desires out into the universe and hoped with all my heart that one of them would become a reality.
