Page 8 of Just a Little Crush
Careful not to hurt her more, I slide my arm behind her back and lean in against her, my face pressed to her hair.
“This is from your mum and dad,” I lie. “And they said to tell you they love you.”
“Oh god, you rang them?”
“Their only child is in a hospital bed. Your dad would kill me if I didn’t tell him what was going on.” The idea is laughable. I’ve probably had a good foot on Mr Charlton since I was sixteen, but I’ve known him my whole life and he’s a man I respect.
“OK, that’s enough hugging for now,” the doctor interrupts and I hate him for it, but do as I’m told. “She’s taken a bit of a beating.”No shit Sherlock, I was there.
“I’m fine,” Bec insists, throwing me a wonky grin that looks quite the opposite of fine.
“She’s had some pain relief,” the doctor says.
“Oh no, a needle?” I look down at her arm, scanning for a cannula. “She’s afraid of needles.”
“No, just co-codamol,” he clarifies.
“Phew,” we both say at the same time.
Back in 2004, the year 9 pupils of Manor Road Community School lined up in alphabetical order to get our BCG vaccinations. A mass operation, we were called two at a time into the school hall where the second I saw a needle, I fell out of my chair.
After coming round, I was given a glass of water then shown through to a low bed in the nurse’s office. They covered me with a blanket and told me to stay put until someone came to take me home.
A small voice piped up from across the room, and when I blinked my vision back into focus I’d seen her there, laying on her side on another cot bed, wrapped in a thin blanket.
“Did you faint too?” she asked.
There was no point in lying. Whatever bullshit I might have made up, Bec would have seen right through it.
“Did you know you’re afraid of needles?” she’d asked and I’d shaken my head. “Me neither.”
“I think they’ve forgotten about me,” Bec had said after a while. “My mum would normally come right away.”
The entire afternoon passed, and even now I couldn’t tell you what we spoke about. All I know is that we stayed in our beds, facing each other, talking and laughing until we could barely breathe. When I nipped out to go to the bathroom, I considered going back to class, but in the end I crawled back into my bed and wished it was closer to hers.
When the school bell rang, still no one had come. We figured we didn’t want to get locked in, so we just left. I’d walked her home that day, no great effort when she lived across the road, but we both instinctively turned to take the long way back, through the woodland and out along the fields at the edge of town.
When we were little, our mums walked us to school together every day, but once we were allowed to walk on our own to secondary school, Bec had started leaving early to go with her friends. I’d been butthurt about it and complained to my mum, who’d told me friends would come and go, but Bec would always be in my life. It hadn’t made any sense to me at the time, but I guess it has worked out that way.
I still remember the look on her face when we got to her house that day and I accidentally said“See you tomorrow baby”, instead of“See you tomorrow, Bec.”I’d nearly died of embarrassment, but she’d just smiled as she walked backwards up the path to her door.
I’d been so distracted thinking about her smile, I hadn’t even noticed the new family moving in next door to her.
“My car, Rennie,” Bec says with a pained look on her face. “Will she be OK?”
Jesus christ, the woman nearly lost her life, and she’s worried about her car? I don’t know whether to be mad or to laugh. She’s been driving her Grandad’s ancient Ford Cortina since he stopped and she looks after it just as well as he did. It met a cruel fate, but I couldn’t give a shit about that right now. The only thing I care about is her. I rub my thumb back and forth in her palm.
“I don’t think so sweetheart, those old cars aren’t as strong as new ones. The roof took the full weight of the tree trunk.”
“It sounds like you were very lucky,” the doctor says, tapping away at their notes on a screen.
“She was,” I say. “It missed her by a few inches.” My eyes don’t leave hers when I reach up without thinking and smooth her hair away from her face. Tears fill her eyes and I wipe them away before they can fall. I don’t think I could bear seeing her cry right now.
“Does it hurt?”
“More emotionally than anything else. I loved her.”
“I know you did. I know.”
