Broken Beautiful Hearts(13)

I take them out of my pocket and hand them to Lorenzo.

I don’t want Reed to come to the ER. I never want to see him again. How could he do this to me? My mind keeps going back to the same thought.

What if there’s permanent damage?

Lorenzo helps me into the back seat, and I clench my teeth against the pain.

“We’re parked all the way on the other side of the house, so we’ll be a few minutes behind you,” Lucia says.

“Can someone call my mom?” I ask.

“I will.” Tess whips out her phone and she jogs around to the driver’s side. When she gets in the car, I listen to her side of the conversation.

“She’s okay,” Tess tells Mom.

No, I’m not.

“I mean, she hurt her knee. But other than that she’s okay. Umm … She fell down the stairs.”

“I didn’t fall,” I say under my breath.

Why doesn’t she believe me?

“We’re in the car now. She’s right here. Hang on.” Tess tries to hand me the phone. “Your mom wants to talk to you.”

If I talk to Mom I’ll fall apart, and I have to hold it together until I get to the ER. “I’m all right, Mom,” I yell, loud enough for her to hear me. “I just want to go to the hospital.”

Tess gets back on the phone. “Your mom says she’s on her way.”

The pain has finally caught up with me, and my whole body aches. My eyelids feel heavy, but I fight to keep them open. I’m not letting down my guard with Reed standing outside the car.

When we finally pull away from the curb, I let out a sigh of relief as the crowd grows smaller and smaller through the rear window. Reed stands in front of everyone, watching me.

There’s so much I want to say to Tess, but I’m exhausted.

I’ll just close my eyes for a minute.

I feel the ghost of Reed’s hand on my arm and the pressure from the final push, and my body jerks. My adrenaline spikes and then it bottoms out again, like the crash you experience after pulling too many all-nighters.

“The ER is only five minutes away,” Tess says, her fingers wrapped tightly around the steering wheel.

“He pushed me, Tess. I swear.”

Her eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror. “Maybe it seemed that way because you bumped into him and he tried to grab you. It could’ve felt like a push.”

“But that’s not what happened.”

“Reed would never hurt you. He cares about you more than he cares about himself.”

How can I get through to her?

Trashing Reed won’t work, so I try another approach. “I know the difference between someone pushing me and someone trying to grab my arm. It was a push. Reed lost his temper and flew into a rage.”

“The drugs weren’t his,” she says firmly.

“Tess, all the signs are there—”

She cuts me off. “He’s been moody and temperamental because he’s exhausted. He trains nine hours a day, seven days a week. Then he coaches fighters for another four or five hours before he goes to a sketchy location to fight so we can afford food and electricity.”

There’s no way to get her to believe me right now.

Tess pulls into the hospital driveway and stops near the glass doors to the ER. She leaves the car running and hops out. “I’ll be right back.”

Once I’m alone, the panic hits me full-force. Some of the shock of Reed pushing me has worn off, and now all I can think about is my knee.

What if I can’t play soccer anymore? Permanent damage could keep me off the field—and end my career before it begins. Every once in a while you hear about a situation like this on the news. A high school athlete blows out a knee or an elbow during senior year, and it’s game over. What else will I do if soccer isn’t an option?

Nothing. I’ll do nothing.

Going pro has been my dream for as long as I remember.

The folded acceptance letter is still tucked in my back pocket.

I don’t have a plan B.

Tess returns with two nurses, and the three of them to help me out of the car and into a wheelchair. Inside, a nurse wheels me through a pair of double doors that lead to an examination area, where hospital beds are lined up along the walls and separated by privacy curtains. Once I’m settled in a hospital bed, Tess sits with me as the nurse takes down my personal information.

“Can you tell me where it hurts and describe the pain?” the nurse asks.

“I’ve had some shooting pains, but there’s also a weird pulling feeling. Is that bad?” I ask.

“I’m not a doctor, sweetheart. But don’t worry. This is an excellent hospital.” The nurse takes notes on a form attached to her clipboard. “How would you rate your pain, on a scale of one to ten? One being no pain and ten being unbearable pain.”

“If I don’t move my knee, it’s around a five. But if I bend it, the pain shoots up to an eight or nine.”

More like a ten.

I’m trying to be brave. A ten seems like a pain level of someone who survived a car crash, not a fall down the stairs. But if the nurse asked me to rate how scared I am right now, it’s a twelve.

“How did you hurt your knee?” the nurse asks.

If I say Reed pushed me intentionally, he might get arrested. If Tess weren’t in the picture, I would’ve called the police already.