The Understatement of the Year

by Sarina Bowen

  I turned my head too fast toward Rikker. The result was a new flash of pain. But the troubled expression on Rikker’s face was even worse. “What happened here?” I croaked, afraid of his answer.

  “We’ll talk in a bit,” he said. “I’m going to look around for coffee.” He got up and slid out of the room.

  “Roll for me, hon,” the doctor said with a nudge to my shoulder.

  Reeling, I turned my body so that she could lift the hospital gown that I was wearing. I didn’t remember putting it on. I didn’t remember how I got here, or who drove me.

  I had no idea what I might have said last night, and who might have heard it.

  Just then, Bella waltzed into the room, sipping from a Starbucks cup.

  “Give us a second, sweetie,” the doctor said.

  “Oh, I’ve seen it all before,” she said, parking herself against the wall and taking another slug of her coffee.

  “Huh,” the doctor said, probing my groin with gloved fingers. “Y’all seem to have more fun in college than I ever did.”

  Bella ignored her. “You’re looking better, Graham.”

  “How bad was it?” I asked, my voice cracking.

  “This will heal up easily,” the doctor said. “But that concussion is going to slow you down for a month or more.”

  But that wasn’t what I was asking. “Bella,” I rasped. “What happened here last night?”

  She sighed. “You were pretty out of it. And maybe that’s all people will think. That you were out of it.”

  “What did I say when I was out of it?”

  She avoided my eyes. “You just kept calling for Rikker. And whenever he walked away, you’d start yelling for him again.”

  Unfortunately, that sounded awfully familiar. I remembered being really confused about where I was, and how I’d gotten hurt.

  And I’d assumed the worst.

  “Shit.” Even now I fended off a shudder. And now I knew why I’d woken up with my hockey helmet in my hand. Someone was trying to help me remember what happened.

  Rikker.

  “Why didn’t he get on the bus with the rest of the team?” There was panic rising in my throat, and when I swallowed, I tasted bile.

  Bella’s eyes narrowed at me. “What would you have him do? The choice was between staying with you, which you demanded out loud to anyone who would listen. Or walking away while you shouted his name. He did his fucking best, Graham.”

  Rikker walked in then, carrying a white cup of coffee. After he sipped from it, he made a face. Pointing at Bella, he said, “You got good coffee. Where’s mine?”

  “Patience,” she snapped. “I will drive you both to get something when Graham is released.”

  “I’m just going to go over some instructions with you all, and then he can go,” the doctor said. I’d actually forgotten she was in the room with us. “These are for whomever will care for you.” The doctor held out a sheaf of papers. Bella took a half step forward, as if to take them. But then she bit her lip and looked at Rikker.

  My boyfriend reached out to take the paperwork.

  “Read it through carefully,” the doctor said. “He can’t do it himself, because he’s not supposed to read anything for a while, until the headaches stop.”

  “That will make midterms fun,” I grumbled.

  “I’ll read them,” Rikker said gruffly.

  “Now listen up,” the doctor said. “You’re going to need a lot more sleep than usual. No reading. No aerobic exercise…”

  After the doctor gave us a ten-minute lecture about all the things I wasn’t supposed to do for at least two weeks, we went outside. I thought I’d felt bad before, but out in the sun it was ten times worse. The light glinted off the snow banks at the edges of the parking lot. And the glare went like a needle straight to my brain.

  “Uhhn,” I complained.

  “The car is just right over here,” Bella said, pointing at a green rental sedan. “Graham, you can have shotgun or the back seat. Wherever you’re going to be the most comfortable.”

  I didn’t think it mattered. I was going to be miserable no matter what. My head still felt as if angry gorillas had beaten on it. “I’ll take the back,” I said, opening the rear door.

  “You know, I’d be happy to drive,” Rikker offered.

  Bella shot him a glare over the hood of the car. “News flash, Rik. Even though I possess a vagina, I’m still capable of driving a car.”

  He held his hands up in submission. “Easy, Bella. I was just trying to be helpful. One would think that you’d spent all night in a plastic hospital chair. Oh wait, that was me.”

  She got in and cranked the engine. “And that’s why I’m driving. I’m the only one who slept. Also, I know where the Starbucks is.”

  “I won’t argue with that,” Rikker mumbled. He reclined the passenger seat a few degrees and let out a weary sigh.

  “I’m sorry,” I said as Bella pulled the car around the hospital’s drive circle.

  “For what?” She asked. “Getting tripped by that fucker last night? Rikker and I will live. We might even stop bitching at each other.”

  Putting my head back, I covered my eyes with my forearm. Everything was just so fricking bleak. I’d never been injured at hockey before — not like this. The worst I’d had were bruises and strained muscles. Before we’d left the hospital, the doctor had been careful to tell me that it wasn’t clear yet how much time I’d need to heal. At least two weeks. But I had a bad feeling.

  The car made a couple more turns and then stopped. “Do you mind going in for us?” Rikker asked. “I’d really appreciate it.”

  I was sure that Bella would tell Rikker to go and buy his own damned coffee. But she didn’t. “Double cappuccino with skim milk?”

  Money changed hands. “A couple of muffins would be awesome. G, are you awake?”

  I grunted.

  “You’re not supposed to have coffee, but you should eat,” Rikker said.

  “Not hungry,” I mumbled.

  Bella disappeared, her car door slamming. And then there was silence. Even though I couldn’t see him, I felt Rikker’s eyes on me.

  “We have to talk,” he said eventually.

  “About how I made a complete fool of myself last night?”

  He didn’t say anything for a moment. I opened my eyes, and found his unhappy ones looking back at me. “Okay. How about we just skip over the part where I get offended at the idea that your wanting me nearby makes you a…” he made quote marks out of his fingers, “complete fool.”

  God, I was such an asshole. “Rik, my head is killing me. We can talk now if you want. But I’m going to be even stupider than usual.”

  He sighed. Then he opened the passenger side door and got out. A second later, he opened the rear door and slid into the back seat next to me. Reaching up, he took my head in his hands and began rubbing gently.

  Oh, yeah. The pain was almost bearable when he did that. I did a quick scan of the parking lot (even though it hurt my eyes to shift them left and right) before leaning over to rest my head on his chest.

  He kept up the massage, even dropping a quick kiss onto the top of my head. “How about I talk, and you just listen.”

  I nodded.

  “Good boy. Now, I realized something last night, and I feel like a big idiot for not getting this before.”

  His fingertips smoothed down my brow line, and I leaned into him even though I was positive that I wouldn’t like whatever he said next.

  “Somehow, I’d sort of forgotten that you were there too, in that alley five years ago.”

  I grunted. “Not ever talking about this. You said so yourself.”

  He palmed my forehead, holding my head in place against his chest. “New rule. We can talk about it any time one of us has a fucking panic attack in a hospital. See, I always thought that I was the only one who got hurt that day. But that isn’t true, is it? Yeah, the cracked ribs really sucked. But they healed.”

  His hands we
re still, just cupping my head. And I hoped he was done with this subject. But no such luck.

  “See, this is really fucked,” he continued. “Because now I’m starting to think that maybe my parents did me a favor sending me away to Vermont. They did it for the wrong reasons, of course. But I got to start over in a new place, right? No chance I’d ever run into the assholes who beat me. I got a brand new school, where they didn’t preach about sin all fucking day. But you had to stay there and pretend like nothing happened.”

  “Didn’t have to,” I said. My silence had been a choice. And I made that choice out of pure cowardice.

  He began massaging my temples again. “You were sixteen, G, and you’d just been jumped. I never realized how much that fucked with your head.”

  I didn’t want any of Rikker’s sympathy, and I sure as hell didn’t deserve it. “The only thing that fucked with my head was the surface of the ice.”

  Rikker gave a grunt of disapproval. He wanted a confession from me — some kind of closure for old fears. As if that would help me become a better boyfriend, the kind that wasn’t afraid to hold his hand in the hospital.

  But he was only partly right. That scene in the alley had scared me silly. But admitting it now wouldn’t help. Those old fears had crusted over into something more like disgust. And I’d been trapped in it from the moment I left Rikker alone there to fend for himself.

  You can’t solve that with a quick chat in the back of a rental car. You can’t solve it at all.

  Even so, I relaxed my body against his. I had to. Everything was just so screwed up. I was injured and in pain. And my teammates thought… I didn’t have a clue what they thought. I felt sick just wondering. The touch of Rikker’s hands was the only thing in the world I had going for me.

  The only thing.

  His fingertips made slow circles through my pain. His whisper was so soft that I wouldn’t have heard it if I weren’t practically sitting on him. “What am I going to do with you, G?”

  My eyes had drifted closed, and so when Bella opened the driver’s door, they startled open again. But I didn’t pick my head up off Rikker’s chest. That would have required more effort than I was capable of exerting.

  Bella slid into the driver’s seat and turned around. When she saw us basically cuddling in the backseat, a flash of raw hurt crossed her face. Then, without comment, she passed a cup of coffee and a bakery bag into the backseat. Rikker set the bag in his lap, and took the coffee into his free hand. He kept his other one on my head. The engine fired up, and Bella reversed out of the parking spot.

  We rode back to Harkness that way, with me drowsing on Rikker. He had to wake me when the car pulled up in front of Beaumont House. “Let’s go, big man. Time to get you set up inside. Bella, I’ll return the car if you want.”

  “I got it,” she said, her voice low. “And then I’ll hit the pharmacy for his meds, too. See you upstairs.”

  “Thanks,” I said, my voice thick.

  “It’s nothing,” she said.

  — Rikker

  I followed Graham into the Beaumont House courtyard. He seemed a little unsteady on his feet, and I didn’t want to leave him alone, even though we’d never really walked around together before.

  Not once.

  For some reason, my mind picked that moment to realize just how fucked up our relationship really was. There were people in the world who would have used the word “perverse” to describe the things that Graham and I did in the bedroom. But they had it backwards. What was really perverse was the way we pretended like we didn’t know each other all the other times.

  Graham had to get a head injury before he forgot to get pissy about me walking beside him. Fuck my life.

  At his entryway door, Graham waved his ID in front of the sensor. I followed him upstairs, and into his room. His eyes were at half-mast.

  “What can I get you?” I asked.

  He put his hand over his face. “A new head, or a bottle of Johnnie Walker.”

  “Okay, what’s third on your list?”

  “I need a shower.”

  “That you can have.”

  Graham carried his towel and his toiletries out into the hallway, and I made myself sit down on his desk chair instead of following him. But sixty seconds later, I heard a crash from the bathroom. With my heart in my throat, I shot out of the room and into the bathroom, all the while picturing Graham prone on the marble tiles. But I found him kneeling there instead, staring down at his shower stuff where it had scattered all over the floor.

  “Shit. Are you okay?”

  He looked sheepish. “I stumbled a little. It’s nothing.”

  Standing over him, I pushed one hand through his soft hair, willing my heart to stop pounding. “Let me pick this stuff up. Come on.” I turned on the shower for him and watched him strip. But he looked steady enough, I guess. So I collected the shampoo and the shaving stuff he’d dropped and handed the caddy into the shower stall.

  “Thanks,” he sighed. “I’m okay now.”

  I stood there for a second, wondering what to do. “I’ll be in your room,” I said finally. “Don’t be a stranger.”

  He gave me a half-hearted chuckle. So I pushed open the bathroom door, and almost collided with Hartley.

  “Hey,” he said, his eyes darting to the bathroom door. “Bella texted that you were back. How is he?”

  “He’s better,” I said. “He’s not confused anymore, but his head hurts.”

  “Okay,” Hartley crossed and uncrossed his arms. “That’s progress, I guess.”

  “Sure,” I said, feeling miserable. I was worried about Graham, but I sure as hell wasn’t allowed to say so. “Let’s, uh, give him a minute.”

  “Yeah,” Hartley said. “So, listen. I just propped open the entryway for…”

  But now there were rapid footsteps coming up the staircase. And when I looked down, it was Graham’s mom who was charging up them. “Johnny Rikker!” she squealed. “I have a bone to pick with you.”

  “Uh, what’s that Mrs. G?”

  Beside me, Hartley lifted an eyebrow.

  “My baby has a concussion, and it’s all your fault.” Mrs. Graham reached the landing and launched herself at me, throwing her arms around me in a hug.

  Awkwardly, I hugged her back. “I didn’t trip him. You should really take it out on that bruiser at Central Mass.”

  “Hockey, John. He never mentioned playing hockey until you wanted to try out in the eighth grade.”

  Over her shoulder, I took another involuntary look at Hartley. He was now staring at the two of us with undisguised curiosity. “Sorry about that,” I stammered. “He wasn’t supposed to get his bell rung.”

  “Oh, I don’t really mean it,” she said, releasing me. “Is he okay? I was worried enough to get on a plane at seven this morning.”

  “He’ll be okay. You can see for yourself in a minute.” I jerked my thumb toward the bathroom door, where the sound of the shower had ceased. Then, remembering all the paperwork from the hospital, I opened the door to Graham’s dorm room and grabbed my duffel off the floor. From inside, I pulled the packet of instructions. “Here’s what they sent for… you to read.”

  I stopped myself just in time from putting “me” in that sentence.

  “Thank you, honey.” Mrs Graham took the papers from me and began to flip through them, right there on the landing.

  My sleep-deprived brain was just figuring out that I was handing Graham over to his mother, the same way I’d handed over the paperwork.

  Graham opened the bathroom door then, wearing a towel around his waist. “Mom,” he said, shock in his voice.

  She hug-tackled him. “Sweetie, I was so worried.”

  “I’m all wet. Jeez. Everybody give me a minute, okay?” Graham disappeared into his bedroom, glowering all the way.

  “I’m going to baby him,” she announced. “He’s just going to have to put up with it.”

  Hartley smiled at her. “Good luck with that.” />
  That’s when Bella came charging up the stairs, too. “Oh, Mrs. Graham!”

  “Bella, sweetie!” They hugged, and I noticed just how crowded it had become here outside Graham’s room.

  Bella held up a little white bag. “I filled his prescription. And the pharmacist said not to take these on an empty stomach. So I bought him a sandwich at the deli.”

  “Oh honey, thank you! Here I was practically flapping my arms to come here to take care of him, and the three of you have already done it.” Mrs. Graham rapped a knuckle on the room door. “Michael, can we come in yet?”

  “Yeah,” came Graham’s reluctant voice from inside the room. The door opened, and he stood there, filling the space, a freaked-out look on his face.

  I could see how this would play out. It wasn’t going to be me who sat down beside Graham, asking him whether or not he wanted to take something for the pain. It wasn’t going to be me who read the proper dose off the medicine bottle.

  Ten minutes ago, I’d assumed that Graham and I would spend the rest of the day napping on his bed, so that I could keep an eye on him. But that wasn’t going to happen. I wasn’t going to take care of him. Or even tell him how much I wanted him to feel better.

  That was not allowed.

  Mrs. Graham put her hands on her son’s clean T-shirt, nudging him aside to enter the room. And Bella followed her.

  That left Hartley and I in the hallway, with a nervous Graham practically blocking the way into his room. His wishes could not have been any plainer even if he’d held up a sign reading: You Are Dismissed.

  Message received.

  I shouldered my duffel bag. “Feel better,” I said lamely.

  His answer was gruff. “Thanks.”

  With out another word, I turned around and began to trudge down the stairs. Exhaustion made my legs feel heavy. And when I pushed the entryway door open at the bottom of the stairs, the damp March air gave me a shiver. I stopped to zip up my jacket.

  “Hey, Rikker.”

  I turned to see Hartley jogging up to me. “Hey.”

  When I headed for the courtyard gate, he followed. “You knew Graham in high school? He never mentioned that.”