The Husband Hour(34)

“Stephanie, I don’t really get why you’re upset. You never, ever mentioned him to me.”

“You know we hooked up!”

Lauren couldn’t believe it. “Yeah, and I asked if you were dating and you said this wasn’t 1985 or something like that. As if it were the dumbest question in the world. And then you never mentioned him again, and the next time I brought him up, you said he was an asshole. So what do you care if I’m…hanging out with him?”

“Hanging out with him? You mean fucking him.”

Lauren felt herself turn white. Was that what she’d heard? “I’m not…fucking him,” she said, the words catching in her throat.

“Well, then I guess this whole thing should be over soon.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Stephanie smiled an odd smile. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you when he realizes he’s wasting his time with you. You’re on your own.”

She turned and walked briskly to the parking lot. Lauren trotted behind her.

“Fine, I should have told you. I’m sorry. It was wrong for me to let you hear it from someone else.” She resisted the urge to ask who had told her. “But why do you care about some guy you hung out with last year?”

“Some guy I hung out with? What do you think we were doing in my room that night, Lauren? Playing Monopoly? Maybe that’s what you do, but we fucked. And it’s the girl code—no, forget that, the sister code—not to sleep with guys your sister already slept with!”

Lauren reeled back as if she had been slapped. That’s what it felt like, a physical blow. In all the months she’d been with Rory, she had not thought about—had not allowed herself to think about—the extent to which he had hooked up with Stephanie.

She realized, standing alone in the dark, long after her sister had peeled off in her car, that she had been living in denial. And fine, maybe Stephanie had sex with a lot of people. And she acted like it never meant anything, and maybe it didn’t. But that didn’t change the fact that what was going on between herself and Rory merited a conversation with her sister. Deep down, on a level Lauren didn’t want to acknowledge, she had known this all along.

I’m going to fix this, she told herself, hugging her arms tight around her torso. I’m going to make things right with Stephanie. Even if it means ending things with Rory.

Lauren walked slowly back to her seat, feeling sick.

Watching the game was now the exact opposite experience she’d had before the argument with Stephanie. Whereas then she couldn’t keep her eyes off Rory, now she couldn’t stand to look at him.

That’s why she missed the freak accident.

Later, she would read all about it—how Rory was in LM’s defensive zone because there was some slack in that area. Penncrest’s Jake Stall passed the puck to teammate Eric Layton, who let it rip with a slapshot. Rory turned to block the shot and it smashed into the lower half of his face.

But in the moment, all she knew was the crowd gave a collective gasp, and all of them were suddenly on their feet. It’s human instinct to follow the energy of the crowd, and so even though she was lost in her own world, Lauren found herself standing, looking at the ice, where she saw the player down. She knew instantly it was Rory. And was that…blood?

She didn’t remember running down the stairs, but there she was on the ice, the assistant coach Jim Reilly shooing her away. Mrs. Kincaid was bent over Rory, along with Coach McKenna and a few others.

“What happened?” Lauren asked, turning to a stranger in the first row. Paramedics raced down the stairs. Rory was sitting up now, a towel against his face, blood seeping through it.

No one spoke to her. A flurry of activity, and then he was gone from the ice.

Bryn Mawr Hospital was a ten-minute drive down Lancaster Avenue, maybe even less. Lauren had been born there, and that had been the last time she was at that hospital—or any hospital. Lauren parked in the visitor lot and hurried to the information desk. Breathless, she asked where she could find Rory Kincaid. “He’s my brother,” she added quickly, figuring they’d only let family see him.

The weary-looking woman behind the desk consulted a computer and directed her to the fourth floor.

The wide, oversize elevator, the antiseptic smell, the people in wheelchairs, all made her feel like an interloper in some adult world where she didn’t belong. The elevator pinged open, and she felt sheer terror. What if Rory was terribly injured? What if he didn’t want her there? Suddenly, showing up like that seemed like a very bad idea.

Lauren stepped out of the elevator and into a jarringly bright corridor. She went down the hall and into a glass-enclosed waiting area, not sure what to do next. Inside, a TV played CNN. Only two other people were in the room, an elderly man and woman drinking coffee out of Styrofoam cups. Through the glass, she spotted Mr. Reilly, the assistant coach, heading in the direction she had just come from. Why not Coach McKenna? For the first time, it dawned on her that the game had continued. The rest of the team was still on the ice, and Rory was here, injured.

She poked her head out of the room. “Mr. Reilly!” she called.

He was surprised to see her.

“Is Rory okay? Can I see him?” she said.

He said she should follow him.

It was the world’s most awkward minute of walking. They passed the nurses’ station and finally reached Rory’s room. The door was open, and Mr. Reilly knocked on the frame. Peering inside, Lauren spotted Mrs. Kincaid. The edge of a hospital bed was in view, but little else.