Chapter 22 Treading Water
Chapter twenty-two
Treading Water
The urgent care waiting room was doing the absolute least with its decor.
Plastic chairs in a color that couldn’t decide if it wanted to be green or gray, a ceiling fan that was moving air around without actually cooling anything, and a telenovela playing on a mounted TV that nobody was watching.
We’d been sitting for almost an hour and the only thing that had changed was the number of people who had walked in after us and somehow gotten called back first.
Deuce had handled his business at the front desk though.
The receptionist had started rattling off intake questions in rapid Spanish and before I could even pull up a translation app the kid was already answering her, smooth and unhurried, like he did this every day.
Got Amina checked in, got the paperwork sorted, and came back and sat down like it was nothing.
Amina’s ankle was wrapped in a temporary bandage one of the cenote guides had put together. It had swollen up pretty good on the ride over but she was keeping it elevated across an empty chair and the color was coming back to her face.
Paris sat beside her scrolling her phone with the particular energy of someone who was bored, but too loyal to leave.
Kyson was on his second coke from the vending machine down the hall, leaning against the wall looking like a man calculating exactly how much of his vacation this was going to cost him.
Wendell sat with his hands folded, patient and unbothered, the kind of man who had clearly spent time in waiting rooms before and had made his peace with them.
Deuce was the only one who couldn’t sit still.
He had been up and down twice already, checking the vending machine, reading the informational posters on the wall in both English and Spanish, and was now back in his seat slumped down, scrolling his phone.
“Bro,” he finally said, directing it at nobody in particular. “We are literally ten minutes from Hartwood right now. Do you know what Hartwood is?”
“Tell us,” I said, already knowing I was about to get a full breakdown.
“It’s an open fire restaurant in the middle of the jungle.
They cook everything over wood flame. No gas, no electricity in the kitchen.
The chef trained all over the world and came to Tulum specifically to build this place.
” He leaned forward like the information was urgent.
“They do a wood roasted fish that people fly to Mexico specifically to eat and we are sitting in a waiting room watching a telenovela.”
Paris looked up from her phone. “How do you even know that?”
“I researched Tulum before we came,” he said like it was obvious. “Who travels somewhere without researching it first?”
“Every single person on this trip,” Kyson said flatly from the wall.
I checked the time on my phone. We were pushing close to an hour and a half with no update from the back. I looked at Wendell. “Listen, y’all don’t have to stay. Deuce got us checked in and these folks speak enough English to get by. I really appreciate you both coming.”
Wendell nodded, already reaching for his hat. “You sure?”
“Positive. Go eat the wood fired fish.”
Amina looked over at Wendell and then at Deuce. “Thank you both seriously. I don’t know what we would have done without y’all in that initial chaos.”
Paris looked up and nodded. “Same. Thank you Deuce. You really saved us back there.”
Deuce stood up, looking genuinely pleased but trying not to show it too much. He gave Amina a small nod. “Feel better. Hope it’s just a sprain.”
“I’m sure it is,” she said. “Your mom seems to know her stuff.”
“She’s never wrong,” Wendell said, the quiet pride of a man who had seen his wife be right too many times to argue with it.
They gathered their things and headed for the door. I watched Deuce hold it open for an elderly woman coming in before letting it close behind him.
Amina watched him go with something soft in her expression. “He is so sweet. Stella raised him right.”
Paris nodded. “He really is. Reminds me of Nique and Nel when they were that age.”
Amina’s mouth curved just slightly. “Maybe Nel, but that boy is way too sweet to remind anybody of Nique.”
Paris put her phone down. “Whoa, whoa. Let’s not act like Nique isn’t sweet. She has an attitude and a smart mouth when you push her, everybody knows that, but she is genuinely one of the sweetest people I know.” She paused. “She’s actually nicer than Nel if we’re being honest.”
Amina looked at her like she’d said something in a foreign language. “Nel?”
“Nel will read you to your face and laugh about it,” Paris said. “Nique will at least feel bad afterward.”
“Barely,” Amina muttered.
“Barely my ass,” Paris said, her voice losing the playful edge. “Nique had our backs all through college and you know it.”
Amina waved her hand. “She had your back because you’re her cousin. That’s different.”
“What about the time she drove to Pensacola for you?” Paris said, leaning forward. “Specifically for you! Not for me.”
Amina’s whole body language changed in an instant. “Paris.” Her voice came out strangled, somewhere between a whisper and a shriek. “Don’t you dare.”
“Then don’t sit here and talk about my cousin like she’s the spawn of Satan,” Paris said, her voice dropping low enough that it didn’t carry beyond their chairs.
Amina’s eyes cut over to me and then back to Paris, the message clear. Not here. Not in front of him.
Paris read it and leaned back, letting it go but holding Amina’s gaze long enough to make sure she understood the point had landed. “All I’m saying is Nique has shown up for people who wouldn’t even claim her in public. So let’s just leave her character out of it.”
Amina pressed her lips together and looked down at her wrapped ankle. Whatever Paris was holding over her head had done what no argument could. Shut her completely down.
I didn’t know what happened in Pensacola and something told me I wasn’t supposed to, but whatever it was had Amina sitting in that plastic chair looking like she wanted to disappear into it.
Kyson caught my eye from across the room and gave me the smallest shake of his head that said leave it alone.
So I did.
“Amina Carter,” a nurse called from the doorway, mispronouncing her last name but close enough.
Nobody moved.
Amina looked at Paris. Paris was already gathering her beach bag and nudging Kyson with her elbow.
“We’ll see y’all back at the resort.” She stood up, stretched, and looked down at Amina with the particular expression of a woman who had already done her good deed for the day.
“I’m tired and hungry and I’ve been sitting in this chair for an hour and a half.
” She glanced over at me then back at Amina. “I’m sure Dex has it from here.”
Amina looked up at me and rolled her eyes so hard it looked like it required physical effort.
I just held out my arm.
She grabbed it without thanking me, which I expected, and we did that awkward three legged shuffle toward the door where the nurse was waiting.
The nurse looked between us, assessed the situation quickly, and disappeared for a moment before coming back with an apologetic expression and a pair of crutches instead of a wheelchair.
“Lo siento,” she said. “No more chairs.”
Amina looked at the crutches like they had personally insulted her. “Of course,” she muttered.
“You want them or you want to keep holding onto me?” I asked.
She snatched the crutches without answering.
The exam room was small and smelled like antiseptic and rubber gloves.
A paper covered table, a rolling stool, a poster on the wall about hand washing in three languages.
Amina sat on the edge of the table with her ankle propped up on a pillow the nurse had slid underneath it.
I was in the plastic chair in the corner trying not to look at my phone every thirty seconds.
The nurse had come in, assessed the swelling, asked Amina to rate her pain on a scale of one to ten, written some things down, and then told us the doctor would be in shortly.
That was twenty minutes ago.
I exhaled slowly, leaning my head back against the wall.
“What are you doing all that huffing and puffing for,” Amina said flatly. “I’m the one who’s hurt.”
“I just want them to hurry up,” I said. “We’re missing the whole day.”
“We wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for your sweet Nique,” she said, the last two words wrapped in something hostile.
“I thought Paris had already shut that down.”
Amina rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “Paris needs to mind her business. Y’all have Nique so twisted up in your heads it’s concerning. She must put something in those products of hers. Voodoo or something.”
I looked at her for a long second. “Why do you hate her so much?”
Amina looked right back at me. “Why do you love her so much?”
The question sat in the room between us, taking up more space than either of us had anticipated.