Chapter 2
“Why am I not surprised to see you here again?” the emergency room doctor says, scribbling notes on his clipboard.
I give him a cheesy grin. “I didn’t want you to miss me.”
Dr. Jones is highly unimpressed. “You think I want to see the same teenagers coming through these doors due to one-hundred percent avoidable incidents?”
The smile leaves my lips as I gulp from his goosebump-inducing tone.
We were only about fifteen minutes out of school when I wrecked it at the skatepark. A serious waste of an afternoon.
Dr. Jones checks over the stitches that an intern sewed above my elbow. “These look fine.” He then applies a bandage over the top to protect them. “Your parents can take you home now.”
I roll down my blood-splattered sleeve to cover the large square bandage. “Thanks, Doc.”
His eyebrow raises and his mouth twists. “Mm-hmm.”
Okay, he’s clearly not my biggest fan. But lighten up. Some stitches on the back of my bicep have to be better to deal with than something life threatening like a heart attack.
“Show me your wrist,” he says, and I comply. “It’s only been a few months since the fracture healed. Any residual pain?”
“Nope, it’s all good.” Actually, I get a dull ache every time it rains, but I’m not telling him that.
“And what about the knee? It was a close call on that injury.”
“It was just a dislocation.”
Dr. Jones raises his eyebrow. “Just? Are you playing it off because it’s nothing compared to the three times you’ve dislocated your shoulder?”
Mom and Dad come back to my bedside after filling out paperwork at the front desk. I’d breathe a sigh of relief if they hadn’t heard Dr. Jones’s tone.
“Is he ready to go home?” Mom asks Dr. Jones. She clasps her hands in front, bracing herself for a lecture.
Dr. Jones always gives my parents a lecture.
“Yes, he’s all done here. Now, you know the drill,’ Dr. Jones tells my parents, and I detect an undertone of sarcasm to his words. “He can’t get the stitches wet for the first two days, and in two weeks he can come back and get them removed.”
“Yes,” Mom says, nodding as a blush of embarrassment highlights her cheeks. “We’ll make sure he takes care of them.”
Dr. Jones looks back at me. “I don’t need to see you coming back in here, you hear? I don’t miss you.”
I nod, hoping I don’t have to explain that to my parents.
Dad gives me a wary glance, and then thanks Dr. Jones for his help.
When Dr. Jones leaves my bedside, Mom strides closer to me. “What were you thinking?”
I lean away from her. “Mom, chill out.”
“Chill out?“ she echoes. “Look where we are, Malakai.”
I sigh. “I know. I’m sorry. I…”
“We don’t need excuses,” Dad cuts in. “We need you to cool it, and stop putting yourself in danger.”
“I don’t,” I argue. “I’m just having fun, and sometimes things go pear-shaped.”
“You’re the reason Jamie’s aunt makes her wear all that safety gear every time she goes to the skatepark with you,” Mom drones on. “Not only Jamie, but all your friends follow you around like you’re a cult leader. For their sake, stop upping the ante every time you hang out with them.”
I roll my eyes hard. “My friends and I are not in a cult. They all have minds of their own. It’s not up to me if they cut their knee or break their arm.”
“But you can control if it happens to you,” Dad says sternly.
Dang, he’s a lot harder to roll my eyes at.
He leans in closer to me. “You need to cut this out, Kai. Your addiction to an adrenaline high gets you in serious trouble. If it doesn’t stop, you can say bye to driving your own car.”
“What?“ I yelp. “You can’t do that. It’s already…”
“The car isn’t leaving the dealership until you turn sixteen. But with one phone call, I can make sure it never ends up in our driveway,” Dad says in a light tone that somehow still sounds firm.
“You can’t be serious.”
“We are more than serious, Kai,” Mom urges. “We don’t want to be back here with you.”
“Yes, I get it.” I sigh. “It’s not like I plan it.”
“You can plan on being safer,” she argues. “Even after your birthday, you can still have your car taken away.”
“I won’t be that stupid.”
“We know that, son,” Dad says, his smile coming back.
“But what if some guy barges into me on the soccer field and knocks me out? It’s not like I can wrap myself in cotton wool every game.”
Dad nods, mulling it over. “If an injury happens on the soccer field, it won’t count toward the car being taken away.”
Mom fires her gaze his way. “It won’t?”
“It’s a sporting mishap,” Dad replies.
“Those concussions are scary,” Mom says with a shiver in her tone. “I can’t watch that again.”
“He’ll be careful,” Dad says, looking straight at me. “Won’t you, Kai?”
“Absolutely.” I sit up taller. “I have an extra practice session with Coach Lyle tomorrow morning to work on my footwork. I won’t let anyone on the field get close to me.”
“Okay,” Mom says softly. “Only injuries off the soccer field will mean no car.”
I gulp. “What if they don’t require a hospital visit?”
Mom clicks her tongue, crossing her arms.
Dad places a hand on Mom’s shoulder and nods at me. “No loopholes, Kai. We’re serious. We can’t have you driving if you’re being too cavalier off the road.”
“Cavalier?” I question.
“Showing no concern for the safety of yourself and others around you,” Mom says pointedly.
I lift my hands defensively. “If you think I don’t care about my friends’ safety, you’ve got it all wrong. I’d never let them get hurt.”
Agreeable appreciation lights up my parents’ faces. “We know, son,” Dad says. “You just need to take the same care for yourself.”
“Okay.” I nod. “It sounds super lame, but I’ll try.”
“You won’t try,” Mom presses. “You’ll do it.”
I double nod. “Yes, Mom.”
A softness appears in her expression. Her thumb swipes the scar under my left eye. “Ever since this happened when you were six-years-old, you’ve been trying to outdo yourself. It’s okay to pump the brakes now and then.”
“I’m not trying to collect scars,” I murmur, looking down at my wrist. That scar is long and twisty, but faint. I have worse ones on my back from close calls when hiking. Thankfully, the ones on my legs always heal nicely.
She pinches my cheek. “You’d better not be.”
I wince at the tender act. “Geez, Mom. I think I prefer when you yell at me.”
She leans in and smacks a kiss on my cheek. “You’re still my little boy.”
I retch and slip off the bed beside her. “Okay, guys. Now, I think we really need to go.”
Dad chuckles to himself and opens up his arms. “Come, give Pappa a hug.”
“Guys,“ I whisper harshly. “We’re in a public place. Can you even be semi-cool?”
Dad scruffs my hair. “Embarrassing you in a public place is a terrific punishment.”
I groan, knowing if I fight this, it’ll only turn out five-hundred percent worse.
Dad pulls his arm around me, walking us in tandem. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he whispers, leaning his head against mine. “Every time I get a call to come down here, my stomach drops.”
“Geez. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to freak you guys out.”
Mom pats my back as we move down the hallway toward the exit. “That’s why you’re going to be more careful from now on. Aren’t you? You don’t need your parents keeling over from early heart attacks.”
I grimace at her. “Morbid much?”
Dad chuckles, his arm pulling around me tighter. “Yeah, Grace. I was just worried about my nervous system.”
“And you don’t think it’s all connected?” Mom replies.
“Guys, we’re leaving the hospital,” I say. “Can we cut the medical talk?”
“Keep us away from this place, and we will,” Mom says with a knowing smile.
And even though Dad still has an arm around me, I manage another eye roll at my mother.
The car ride home is pretty quiet, sitting in the backseat as Mom and Dad yammer about what to make for dinner. Soon we’re home, and Mom tells me my friends are upstairs.
“They are?” I question.
“Mm-hmm,” she replies, unbuckling her seatbelt. “Milo let them in.”
“Oh.” On a day which includes getting stitches, it’s sad to say it’s more surprising that my bookish, loner brother let my loudmouth friends into the house.
Actually, it’s surprising my parents didn’t drag my twin brother to the hospital with them.
“Is Milo still here?” I ask, following my parents into the house through the garage’s side door.
“Of course he is,” Dad replies. “Where else would he be?”
Library. Hiding out at school. Nerdy store where you buy War Hammer figurines.
We move into the open-plan living room, and when I turn toward the dining area, Milo walks out with a glass of OJ.
Milo stops short, stumbling forward and almost losing his juice. He corrects himself, looks me up and down, and adjusts his glasses against his ear. “You okay?”
“Meow,“ Milo’s ginger long-haired cat named Alfred calls after him. His poofy tail sways in the air as waddles behind Milo.
I rub the space above my elbow where they patched me up. “All good.”
He gives a single nod. “That’s good.”
I throw a hand his way. “See,“ I tell my parents. “This is how you’re supposed to react to my injuries.”
Milo’s brow lifts with mild intrigue. “What happened?”
“Just an unhinged rollercoaster of emotions where they went from threatening to take my car away, to group hugging me on the way out of the hospital.”
Milo winces and shakes his head at our parents. “You guys are too much.”
I move toward the staircase. “They’re headcases.”
“Would you two prefer it if we loved you less?” Mom asks with a scoff.
“Yes,” Milo and I answer at the same time.
Supposedly, Milo and I are identical twins.
But, umm, apparently I took up too much space in the womb, which is why Milo’s an inch shorter than me.
And then there’s the whole wrapping of my umbilical cord around his neck, thing.
I definitely don’t see how I could’ve done that on purpose.
The unborn-baby-version-of-me didn’t know it’d result in Milo’s vision issues, hand-eye coordination issues, and his general clumsiness.
I bound upstairs, and the hyper voices of my friends come into focus as they argue and yell.