Down to the Bone (8 page)

“But will he be able to play football again?”
His father’s anxious voice.

Hesitation.
“That I can’t predict.”

Meaning, Jarrett translated, that the doctor wasn’t about to guarantee anything. He dropped even further back in time, vaguely remembering the red lights of the ambulance, the paramedics tending him, the siren as he was driven to the hospital. He recalled wanting painkillers more than anything else. He’d taken plenty of injuries on the field but none had hurt this bad.

They’d moved fast. Modern medicine did not wait. X-rays and an MRI. Even as his father and brother arrived, pale with fear, the doctors had prepped him for surgery. Anesthetic had been local, Jarrett’s body numb from the hips down. The operation had taken nearly three hours. Next thing he knew, he was in a hospital bed, leg elevated and on the road to recovery.

That was...what? Two days ago? Three? They said he’d be leaving soon. Fix ’em and get ’em into physical therapy. That was the way now.

He’d also been allowed visitors: his dad and Frankie, Coach and his teammates.

“You’re going to be fine!” they’d all promised.

All save Mr. Lawyer-Man. Mr. Lawyer-Man worked for the college. He appeared when players tested positive for drugs or were accused of assault or taking bribes. So when Jarrett saw that stern brown face, he’d had a moment of guilt. What had he done to gain the attention of Mr. Lawyer-Man? But Mr. Lawyer-Man hadn’t chewed him out. Instead, he’d pulled over a chair and gazed at Jarrett with paternal concern.

“Hey, Jet,” he’d said kindly, which was weird because Jarrett didn’t know Lawyer-Man’s name. “I’m here to let you know that everything’s taken care of, so you don’t have to worry.”

“Taken care of?” he’d ventured warily.

“There’s the driver’s insurance, and everyone on the team is insured through the college as well,” Lawyer-Man went on, “so you don’t need to worry about any hospital or physical therapy bills. And then there’s the contract you signed for your scholarship. You’re obviously not going to be playing any more games this season, but the doctors are hopeful that you’ll be back, good as new, for next season. If you’re not, however, you still get to stay in college. That was the deal. No matter what injury you sustain, or how it happened, you get a four-year education.”

How...reassuring, Jarrett had thought with a sick, sinking feeling. God. He rubbed at his eyes. He didn’t want to drift anymore. He was so tired of lying in bed, napping or watching the television or eating the hospital food. So tired of having nothing to do but circle around and around that one question that no one but his father had dared to ask: Would he be able to play again?

“Jarrett?”

He opened his eyes, saw first, as always, the raised leg in its brace, then the flowers and football-shaped “Get Well” balloons decorating the room. Then he became aware of himself, of the soreness, his scratchy face.

“Jarrett?” Square glasses, eyes dark as flint, an elfin face.

“Liddy.” God. He was in a hospital gown, unshaven, hair greasy. There were healing scrapes on his cheek and one eye was partially blackened from hitting the asphalt. He tugged, embarrassed, at the thin blanket the hospital had given him. Maybe he could pull it over his head?

“I saw your dad outside. He said I could come in,” she remarked uncomfortably. “I’d have been here sooner, but no one told me. I had to read about it in the school newspaper. Then again, I don’t suppose anyone but you knew how to get in touch with me. The doctor showed me the x-rays. You really fractured your patella.”

“I didn’t. The bumper of a car did.” Emotions churned. A part of him was elated to see her. He even felt a stirring between his legs, which was embarrassing, and mystifying. His teammates had brought in three of the most gorgeous cheerleaders to kiss him and “make him feel better!” He’d thanked the ladies, but begged off, insisting that he was still in too much pain. Yet one look at Liddy had him tenting the sheets.

“Must have hurt.” It was sweet really. She had no bedside manner at all.

“Yeah. A busted kneecap hurts.”

The eyes flickered away and back, darting behind her lenses like fish. “The doctor said they used that new bio-adhesive to piece together the fragments.”

“Uh-huh. It gets absorbed back into the body as the bones reconnect and heal. Pretty cool.” Jarrett said, but he was feeling unsettled now. There was something on her mind, something she was afraid to say aloud, and he had a pretty good idea what it was. “Why don’t you just come out and ask, Liddy?”

“Ask?”

“Ask me if this puts an end to my career in a constructed competition.”

She pushed at her glasses. “The knee should heal well enough for you to—”

“That’s not the point is it? It doesn’t matter that this happened off the field. It still proves your point. One misstep and my future is in the toilet. So maybe I should take this as a sign to find something new?”

“I—suppose—” she stuttered, and flushed guiltily. She had no poker face either.

“Well, I’m not going to,” he told her defiantly. “This accident has confirmed it: football is everything to me.
Everything.
I don’t want to lose it. I’ll give up anything else before I give it up.”

She got the message. He could tell because her face went a bit gray. So, now she knew which way he’d jump if she pushed.

“Anyone who wants to be my friend,” he added, “is going to need to cheer me on. Not try to change my mind.”

She looked sick and sad, which stabbed him right through the heart, but he wasn’t going to relent. He rested back on his pillows and waited.

“I shouldn’t have just dropped by like this. I thought—” She hesitated, then seemed to change her mind. “We’ll talk when you’re out of here and feeling better, okay?”

He was being an asshole and she was being...Liddy. And, dammit, his dick was still interested. It twitched, knowing how close she was. Hell, his hands were interested as well, desperate to touch her, and his mouth—Christ, he felt like he really would be healed if she’d just lean in and let him kiss her.

He wanted to feel her warmth, to smell her. He could, if he just stopped being so pigheaded and said the right thing.

Yet he couldn’t seem to help himself.

“If you don’t want to talk now, then I don’t think we have anything more to discuss,” he observed coldly. “Do you?”

“I guess not.” She conceded and then, to his surprise, she bent and gave him that kiss, a quick, painfully chaste one on the forehead. In the next heartbeat, she was gone.

Ah, hell. He winced and pressed a hand to the undamaged side of his face. Why had he gone and done that? He hadn’t wanted to fight with Liddy, he’d wanted to make up with her. Crap!

His cock, still half-stiff under the sheets, rebuked him and waited, ever hopeful, for her return.

There was a water fountain down from Jarrett’s room. Liddy paused for a drink, then leaned against the wall, emotionally wrung out. Jarrett had looked delighted to see her at first, then embarrassed and then...then she’d hadn’t been able to tell what he was feeling. From what he’d said, however, it had probably been annoyance or anger. Or maybe not. Maybe he’d been waiting for some particular response from her, one she hadn’t given him and so failed the test. It was frustrating, and absurd. She could look at a skull and see its whole history, but she was dyslexic when it came to reading faces.

All she knew for sure was that she’d upset him. And he had certainly upset her. When she’d seen his picture on the front page of the school paper her heart had nearly stopped.
I knew it! I knew it!
It didn’t matter that it had been a car accident. All that had gone through her brain from that moment on was that she didn’t want him hurt or dead.

She hadn’t been able to hide that from Jarrett, how intolerable it was to imagine him hurt or lost.
He
could read faces and, apparently, those feelings had pissed him off.

She sighed, took another drink, and wondered if she ought to go back in, demand they talk it out. She was about to do just that when she saw one of Jet’s teammates came down the hall with a girl. A long-haired, long-legged girl. One-million-year B.C. Babe! Shit. Liddy turned to run, then froze. Jarrett’s dad and brother were coming the other way. Beside the fountain was an alcove with the bathrooms. Liddy ducked in there.

“Mr. Evans,” she heard B.C. Babe greet Jarrett’s dad, “how are you doing?”

Damn. She hadn’t addressed Mr. Evans that way, with such sympathy and concern. She’d just asked for the facts, like the anti-social geek she was.

“Better, Crissy. It was good of you to come,” Jarrett’s father warmly returned. “I think Jet’s awake if you want to go in.”

“Don’t you want to—” she demurred.

“No, no. We’ll stay out here with Bobby and let you two talk.” Liddy could just about hear Mr. Evans’s smile. “He’s gotten sick of us.”

Crissy’s high heels clicked as she stepped into the hospital room. Liddy took the opportunity to peek out. The three males were stepping her way. She ducked back before they caught sight of her. They went past and settled on some chairs next to the nurse’s station.

“Thanks for bringing Crissy by, Bobby,” Mr. Evans said.

“No problem.”

Ah, so B.C. Babe had been Dad’s idea. And now that bitch was alone with Jet. Kissing Jet. Maybe touching him under the sheets. Liddy felt her face grow hot. That skinny cheerleader better not lay a hand on her man, dammit, or she’d show them both how well she knew how to play football! She’d sack the bitch in a defensive tackle!

“That other girl he’s been seeing....” Mr. Evans’s voice got through to her, and Liddy went very still.

“Geek girl?” Bobby said.

Geek girl.
Liddy felt her heart sink. That couldn’t be what Jarrett called her, could it?

“Jet’s not serious about that one, is he?”

“Naw,” Bobby said dismissively. “A geek girlfriend is for helping you pass your classes, not for taking out to clubs or anything. Believe me, when it comes to having a girl on his arm, Jet’s gonna want someone like Crissy.”

A knot rose in Liddy’s throat. She hadn’t thought Jarrett was like that, hanging with her only to get help with his studies. If he had been doing that, however—it wasn’t like she could blame him. Bobby was right. Jarrett couldn’t take her to clubs, or show her off to his friends. An oddity like her with a primitive skull tattoo and nerdy glasses would only embarrass them both. Everyone would stare and wonder what the fuck a fine physical specimen like Jet was doing with such a dork. And it would only get worse if she opened her mouth, like when she’d met Jet’s dad and off-handedly offended him.

 Come to think of it, Jarrett had said as much to her himself. That she was stuck in her rarified world, not suitable for any that he might inhabit.

One brief hour of great sex aside, there was nothing she could offer him but better grades.

“Well, I’m relieved to hear it,” Mr. Evans intoned. “I was afraid Jet was going to end up walking in my footsteps. I married a woman like that girl. All brains. She never let me forget it. Jet probably doesn’t remember, but she had these high expectations for him. When he wanted to go out and play instead of learning pre-school math she told him he was stupid. I know I shouldn’t have put up with it, but I did. Lucky for us, she split not long after Frankie was born. Said we were holding her back. Mailed me the divorce papers and surrendered custody. Best thing she ever did for all of us.”

Liddy had her arms wrapped about herself now. She didn’t want to think she was anything like the woman Mr. Evans was describing, but she remembered all too vividly her first impression of Jarrett.
Homo habilis
she’d called him. Smart enough to make tools and not much else. A dead end hominid. She flushed with shame.

“Jet needs a girl who makes him feel good about himself, not someone who makes him think he’s lacking brains or talent,” Mr. Evans added. “Crissy’s the sort to understand that. Speaking of which, have we given them enough time? Think we should go in?”

“Sure. Why not?” Bobby agreed.

Liddy slunk back as the trio passed by the alcove, Frankie trailing with hands deep in his pockets. She waited till she heard their voices from Jarrett’s room, then slipped out and hurried down the corridor.