Page 25 of Breaking Bristol

“Yeah.”

“Go ahead. I just need to splint my fingers real quick.”

“What?” She reached for my wrists and leaned in, her eyes widening at the obvious broken bone. “Oh my God!”

I pulled my hands away and opened up my kit, taking out the supplies I needed. “It’s fine. Nothing a little tape won’t fix after I set it.”

“I’m gonna throw up.”

“I’ll go in the bathroom, then,” I offered.

“No.” She shook her head and sucked in air through her nose. “I can help you. What do you need me to do?”

I put my back to her and gritted my teeth as I manipulated the bones in my pinky, then without giving it another thought, snapped it back into place. “Shit,” I grunted, but almost immediately the pain lessened.

I turned around and held my hand up, showing her my finger was straight again. “See? All good.”

“I can’t believe you just did that!” She gasped.

“Just gonna wrap it. Get your food, Bristol, before it gets cold.”

“Did you seriously just set your own broken bone?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I did. Get your food, baby.”

She pressed her lips together and shook her head. “All right. I’ll make yours, too. What do you want on it?”

While she fixed our hot dogs, I wrapped my finger and tossed down a couple of ibuprofen. We ended up just standing at the counter and eating, and before I knew it, we’d cleaned up, and she was yawning. “You should get some sleep,” I told her.

“It’s not even nine yet.”

“Wanna play a game or something, then?”

“I wish I could just watch TV,” she whined. “You’re awesome, and it’s been fun… except the whole broken finger thing, but I’m bored.”

I threw another log on the fire thinking of all the ways I could make the time pass. “You haven’t played the Game Boy yet.”

“How do you still have a Game Boy?” She snorted.

“It was my brother’s.”

“You have a brother?”

A shiver wound down my spine, and panic seized my breath. My fingers fidgeted, and I wiped my damp palms on my thighs. She’d opened up to me, so the least I could do was a little bit of the same. “Had.”

Her shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.” I grabbed the Game Boy out of my bag and turned it on. “It doesn’t have the backlight, so we used to take turns playing in front of the fire. We’d push the couch over, lay down all the blankets we could find, and stay up all night.”

“Let’s do that,” she offered.

“Yeah?”

She smiled. “Yeah.”

CHAPTER 8

Matthew

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