Love in the Time of Serial Killers(37)

Although maybe that was just these skates, which were too tight.

Conner skated by then, shouting out, “Watch this!”

I dutifully watched as he turned to skate backward, grinning at me as he skated through the corner before spinning to face forward again. It was so obnoxious, how much he was showing off, but I couldn’t help but bite back a smile. He reminded me so much of the way he’d been as a kid, always desperate for attention, wanting me to watch him climb the highest tree or beat a level in a game or perform a card trick that he would inevitably mess up.

“You watching?” he called as he passed me.

“Yes!” I said, even though I doubted he heard me. He was already yards away, spinning to skate backward again.

I saw it coming about a split second before it happened, and I shot to my feet, as if I could do something to stop it. But of course he was on the other side of the rink, his momentum already too fast. He clipped another skater, who stumbled but was able to right himself, while Conner went flying on his butt, breaking his fall by putting both hands out.

“Conner!”

Skaters swerved around him, but he didn’t immediately get up. He tried to push himself to his feet, but stayed on the floor as the guy in the referee shirt skated over to him.

I started to walk-run on the carpeted area to the other side of the rink, but that would take forever, so eventually I stepped back out onto the slippery floor, skating diagonally across the rink to reach him faster in a way that was definitely not sanctioned by the strict clockwise-only rules.

“Hey,” I said once I reached him. “You okay?”

The referee guy had already helped Conner to his feet and skated away. I supposed Conner was an adult and clearly not unconscious or bleeding, and the demands on a single teenager policing the entire skating floor must be high, but I was still annoyed at the perfunctory treatment.

“Ah,” Conner said, clutching his left wrist with his other hand. “I think I may have broken something.”

I reached out, intending to help guide him off the rink, but stopped when I almost lost my own balance. The chance that I’d pull him down with me was greater than the chance that I’d actually help, especially since now that he was on his feet Conner seemed to be doing just fine getting back to the carpeted part. We finally made it to the benches and collapsed onto one, Conner still holding his wrist.

“Can you move your fingers?” I asked.

He started to waggle them, but winced. “It hurts,” he said.

“Okay,” I said, already unlacing my skates and sliding them off my feet. “Can you get your Rollerblades off yourself, or do you need help?”

“I think I can get them.”

I stood up in my socks, holding the skates by their laces so as to touch as little of them as possible. “I’m going to trade these ugly-ass bricks for my own shoes,” I said. “And then we can head to the emergency room. Is Shani working, or do you want to give her a call?”

“She’s out with friends tonight,” Conner said. “I’d prefer not to bother her. And you think I make emergency room money? I’m an urgent care man.”

I rolled my eyes. “Fine,” I said. “If you can’t get those stupid things off without hurting yourself more, just wait for me. I’ll be right back.”

“We didn’t even get to have a slice of pizza!” Conner called after me as I headed toward the back counter.

I thought about the lukewarm, greasy food they tended to serve at places like this. Literally, that might be the only silver lining to my brother’s dumb ass probably breaking his wrist.



* * *





?“YUP,” THE DOCTOR said once we were all gathered in the exam room, looking at an X-ray of Conner’s bones. “That’s a fracture right there.”

“Can I keep these?” Conner asked, gesturing toward the negative images.

I turned away from him to the doctor, who was tapping the screen of a tablet with the energy of someone playing Candy Crush. We were fortunate to find an urgent care clinic that did X-rays still open after six, although so far the bedside manner had left a bit to be desired.

“So what exactly do you do for a fractured wrist?” I asked. “Will he need a cast?”

The doctor glanced up. “Hmm?” he said. “Not today. We’ll splint it while we wait for the swelling to go down. You can make an appointment a few days out and we’ll take another look. Okay, buddy?”

The last question was directed at some point on the wallpaper instead of to one of us, and then the doctor tapped a few more things into his tablet before leaving the room.

It was a standard-issue urgent care room, which meant that it was bland and inoffensive and yet claustrophobic as hell. The wallpaper was off-white with even offer-white sprigs of baby’s breath printed on it, a single picture of a faded seascape hanging up on the biggest stretch of wall. Otherwise, it was all medical equipment and signs advertising medications or warning you to call if you hadn’t heard about your test results within three days. The sooner we got out of there, the better.

“So does that mean we wait here for someone to splint it?” I asked. “Or are we supposed to go back to the front desk?”

Conner reached over from the exam table to grab the X-rays of his wrist. “I’m paying for them, right? I should get to keep them.”