Amy Inspired - Bethany Pierce [54]
I opened my eyes and saw Michael’s face. He said, “Let me look at it.”
I shook my head.
“Amy, let me see it,” he demanded. “We have to make sure it’s not broken.”
Zoë knelt beside him, sobered by the word broken. “Amy, are you okay?”
I straightened my leg hesitantly.
“Can you turn it?” Michael asked.
He took my ankle in his hands. With his help I turned my foot ever so slightly to the right, then the left, wincing as I did so.
“It’s not broken. I think she just sprained it,” he said to Zoë. “But we need to get her on ice.”
“Can you walk if we help you?” she asked.
“I think so,” I managed.
Together they lifted me up from the ground.
“Don’t put weight on it,” Michael said. “Use us as a crutch.”
With one arm around Zoë’s shoulders and another around Michael’s back, I hobbled slowly up the trail. It took us fifteen minutes just to get back to Leonard Field, and by that point I was sweating and close to tears from the pain.
“Wait,” I said. “I need a second.”
I hobbled to the bench that sat half sunk in the mud just outside the trail.
Zoë gaped at the size of my foot. “Come on, Amy, we have to get back,” she said. “It’s freezing, and your foot is getting huge.”
“I know, just give me a few minutes,” I pleaded.
“There’s a bus stop ten minutes away.”
“She’s too hurt, Zoë,” Michael said. “She can’t do it.”
“I can so do it,” I muttered. I stood back up to prove it, balancing my body against a nearby tree and willing myself to stare directly into his eyes, though the pain blurred my vision. “I’m fine.”
“Get on my back,” Michael said as if he hadn’t been listening.
“What?”
“I’ll carry you.”
I said no, but he knelt down on the ground and waited. Humiliated, I climbed onto his back and wrapped my arms around his neck. He sometimes carried Zoë this way, but I was a good five inches taller and more than a few pounds heavier. I pressed my face against his shoulder, praying desperately that none of my students would see us.
At home, he untied the laces of my shoes and delicately peeled my sock from my swollen ankle. I was sporting a carpet of blond leg hair fit for a Viking, but he didn’t seem to notice. He sandwiched my bare ankle between two bags of ice, setting a pillow on the coffee table on which I was to keep my leg suspended. Zoë watched the operation from her reading chair.
“Keep your foot on ice until the swelling goes down,” he told me. “And don’t put any weight on it.”
“I have class at ten o’clock.”
“You’re going to have to cancel.”
“Yes, doctor.”
“Swear you won’t walk on it.”
“I swear,” I said.
I smiled at him reassuringly despite the pain. The scent of his cologne lingered on my clothes.
When the swelling did not go down by the next afternoon, I told Zoë to call Eli—I needed to go to the emergency room. I gingerly tugged on a pair of jeans and hobbled down the stairs, leaning on Zoë to get to the car.
“What are you doing?” I asked when she sat down in the driver’s seat.
“I can’t get ahold of Eli and Michael’s at work. I’m driving you.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Look at your foot!” she said in exasperation.
She held the key aloft, searching the dashboard, staring down at the pedals, the gearshift.
I pointed to the right underside of the steering wheel. “The ignition’s there.”
“I’ve got it,” she said.
“You can drive, can’t you?” I asked.
“Of course I can drive.” She pressed on the gas so that the engine revved. “Oops. Not the brake.”
I reached for my door handle. “I want out.”
“Here we go.” The car lurched two feet and stopped. The sudden change in motion forced the passenger door I’d just opened to slam shut.
“Stop, Zoë. We’re not doing this.”
“Would you chill out?” She started laughing. When we hit and dragged one of Katherine’s rubber Hefty trash cans, she whooped out loud. “Oh, she is going to kill us!”
“If you don’t.”
We crawled out of the neighborhood but hit Main Street like it was the Indy 500. She full-stopped at the first four-way for a complete five seconds, then proceeded to run a red light in town. The