Chapter 2
YOU CAN SHOVE YOUR APOLOGY RIGHT UP YOUR…
STATEN
When I brainstormed ways to get free tuition and considered the possibility of an insurance windfall, I envisioned myself jumping in front of a comically large bus shuttle—not rolling over the flashy hood of some douchebag’s expensive car.
Money is tight these days. Joking about almost offing myself is, ironically, the only way I cling to any last morsel of my sanity.
The ambulance ride is a blur. One second, I’m lying on the cold, hard asphalt in front of a dozen of my peers, and the next, I’m lying in a hospital bed surrounded by some pitiful student doctors. Needless to say, embarrassment is a common denominator in the fucked-up equation of my life.
The incessant beeping from the machinery is a death rattle in my skull as nausea stirs in my stomach, and my pulse crashes against the side of my throat with unbridled violence.
Everything hurts. I wouldn’t be surprised if my body blooms in bruises by the time I’m discharged.
Leftover adrenaline still teems in my system, sending seismic shockwaves through my aching, jellified limbs.
I can’t believe I was hit by a car. A car!
And everyone saw. If I see a single video online documenting my mortifying collision, I’m going to switch schools.
Or hunt down the dick responsible and have him finish the job.
He’s lucky I’m not litigious, otherwise I’d be hauling his ass to court.
Fortunately for him, I don’t have the energy to deal with all the paperwork.
In fact, I’ll be content with pretending like this never happened and going about my normally uneventful life.
Doctor Hawthorne shines a light in my eyes, oscillating it to track the movement of my pupils.
Her aged face crumples in concern, her lips pressed into a thin line as she chews over what I’m assuming is unsavory news.
My vision was already fuzzy to begin with, but now it’s like there’s a permanent lens flare obstructing my sight.
“You have a slight concussion,” she informs me with clinical detachment, clicking off the pen light.
“You might experience dizziness, nausea, and trouble concentrating for the next few days. The bleeding on your head was minimal, but there is a bump. It’s crucial that you change the bandage every few hours and monitor the wound for any sign of infection, which includes swelling, fever, and discharge from the site.
I’ll be sending you home with some painkillers that should take care of the pain. ”
I bray with a very loud, very inappropriate laugh. “Does this mean I can skip school for the rest of the week?”
Doctor Hawthorne deadpans, “You should avoid any mentally demanding tasks while you’re recovering. As well as any strenuous physical activity.”
Great, I’ll have plenty of time to rot in my bed while I replay the terrible memory of flying off my bike in front of a sizable crowd.
Not to mention that it’s exam season and I have a psychology midterm in T-minus two days.
A psychology midterm which Professor Abbott claimed would be the hardest of the semester.
I’m not failing the class by any means, but maintaining straight A’s takes top priority over everything else—my nonexistent social life, my laughable love life.
I pride myself on my grades, and if I want to pursue a post-graduate career in the corporate world, I’m going to need to stay at the top of my game.
God, I need some stronger fucking drugs. I hate feeling helpless. I can’t just lie in this hospital bed and forgo my productivity. My brain doesn’t work like that. Call it unmedicated anxiety or an aversion to failure, but I need to constantly be working toward my goals to feel fulfilled.
I try to curb the tears brimming on my lash lines, knowing that once I let the onrush of emotions pierce a fissure in my poorly constructed dam, I’ll be drowning in snot and saliva and irrevocable shame. I rub my forearm over my eyes discreetly.
“Would you like to speak to your boyfriend? He was causing quite a ruckus in the waiting room earlier.”
Boyfriend?
Blame it on the minor concussion, but it takes a minute for my cobwebbed crypt of a brain to piece the puzzle together.
Oh my God. She’s talking about my perpetrator.
My irritatingly attractive perpetrator. Ugh, why did he have to follow me?
Why couldn’t he just leave me to decompose on the side of the road?
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I blurt out a little too quickly. A guy with an ego that inflated wouldn’t take a single look at me—and I wouldn’t want him to. He’s a reckless driver and a stalker. Need I say more?
Doctor Hawthorne nods. “My apologies. I thought—”
Unfortunately for me, the world hasn’t decided to give me a break because Mr. I-Have-No-Sense-of-Awareness barrels into the room like a bull in a china shop, a ripple of worry passing over his extremely defined face.
Now that I’ve wrangled some of my rationale—and subsequently my ability to feel again—I’m privy to the absolute smoke show of a man who’s fretting over me as if I am, in fact, his significant other.
He’s at least a foot taller than me with an insane amount of muscle mass, most likely sculpted from a physically demanding sport or a strict workout regimen.
His hair is coiffed in a haphazardly sexy way, his jawline is sharp enough to grate cheese, and I’m pretty sure those thunder thighs of his could crush a watermelon with little effort.
He also has the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen.
Uncanny, almost. The pelagic zone of an untouched ocean, intercut with filaments of liquid sunlight that cast caustic refractions against a sedge-filled seabed.
Even the frown on his plump—genetically unfair, by the way—lips is irresistible.
“Are you okay? Fuck, I’ve been worried sick. They wouldn’t let me see you,” he rambles, interposing himself in the conversation with—no surprise—zero situational awareness.
But his voice is warm, rumbling from deep within the back of his throat, laced with a genuineness that hastens my heart. There’s a Minnesotan lilt nestled in his tone—one that’s disastrous for my ovaries when paired with the scruffy five o’clock shadow dusting his face.
Even though I give Doctor Hawthorne the universal don’t-leave-me-alone-with-this-man look, she excuses herself to give us some privacy, snatching away my only lifeline.
I still don’t even know this guy’s name, yet he continues to pelt me with a barrage of questions like he’s entitled to know the answers.
“How are you doing? What did the doctor say?”
My untempered indignation abrades the lining of my throat. “What are you doing here?” I bite, hoping that my hostility is enough to dissuade him.
He rears back, his expression crestfallen. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
I snort. “Why? So you’re not held accountable for your actions?”
“No, that’s not—”
“I’m in the fucking hospital because of you. I have a concussion because of you. And now I also have one hell of a medical bill that’ll take me months to pay off. You know not everyone has access to Daddy’s trust fund, right?”
Is he a trust fund baby? I have no idea, but making unbased accusations are the least of my worries right now.
“I covered the bill,” he says instantly.
He did…what? I’m already self-conscious about having less money than the majority of my peers, and now he has to rub it in my face?
I blink a few times. This is somehow more blindsiding than getting hit by a car.
Come on, Staten. He’s just trying to absolve his own guilt and avoid a costly lawsuit. It’s the least he could do, don’t you think? He shouldn’t get brownie points for playing hero. He wouldn’t even be playing hero if it wasn’t for his fuckup in the first place.
Maybe he actually feels bad, though.
Or maybe he wants to keep you quiet.
Not everyone is out to get you.
Not everyone is a friend.
It’s been me and my mom since the very beginning.
When she got pregnant with me after high school, my dad didn’t want to be in the picture, so she kicked him to the curb.
She was determined to raise me all by herself, even though she knew how hard being the sole provider would be.
My mom never had the opportunity to go to college, and finding well-paid jobs without a degree was implausible.
I don’t blame her for not going; she had a newborn to take care of.
But I’d be lying if I said we haven’t been wading in poverty ever since.
I don’t…trust…easily. I’ve learned to only rely on myself to get things done.
My mom is juggling two jobs right now. She doesn’t need to worry about me, and I don’t want to give her a reason to.
I feel responsible for bearing some of that weight—to make both of our lives easier by handling my grades and my tutoring job.
Getting bulldozed by an egregious Lamborghini wasn’t on the itinerary, and now the very delicate balance of things is irreversibly off-kilter. Like, continental shift off-kilter.
Oh, this ass munch is so lucky I’m bedridden. Otherwise, I’d put him in his own goddamn hospital bed.
“I’m not some charity case.”
Nobody knows I’m a scholarship kid, and I’d like to keep it that way.
I don’t belong at Minnesota University. I don’t have the newest iPhone or Prada’s Spring line or anything that screams extravagant.
I’ve been insecure about my financial assets—or lack thereof—for as long as I can remember.
Never being able to pitch in for classroom parties, or afford tickets to go to the movies with friends, or invite strangers over to my quaint little home in fear of judgement.
“I didn’t say you were.”
“You’re treating me like one.”
“I’m trying to do the right thing.”