Accidental Crush (3 page)

Chapter 3:
Visit

Riding over to the hospital with Todd in his old, beat up, beige Volvo is both incredible and horrible. It is incredible because I am actually in his car. With him. Alone. Ok, Sid and Shane are there, too, but it feels like we are alone in my mind. And it is horrible because I have to try my best to act like nothing is different. Todd is just my best friend’s brother and my brother's best friend. Nothing else. I try my best to remember how I acted around him yesterday, before my stomach started doing flips every time I see him. Did I usually sit in the back seat? Because I really want to sit in the front. Did I laugh at his stupid jokes? Would I have told him he sort of smells because he skipped the shower after practice so we can get to the hospital before the rest of the team? Instead, I find myself deeply inhaling because the smell of Todd’s sweaty skin mixed with the scent of fresh cut grass from practice is amazing!

Walking through the hospital's electric doors
, and seeing the familiar speckled linoleum floor and stark white walls of the waiting room, is a completely different experience today than yesterday. Today, I know Ryan is going to be fine and coming home soon. As long as he’s fine I’ll be ok if he stays here for a few more days so I don’t have to share the TV and watch Sports Center. I mean, if you watch the game live, why do you need to hear people talk about it again? That I’ll never understand. However, if he comes home, he will have to go back to school, so there is an upside. If I have to go, so should he. My parents are strict about missing school; you pretty much have to have emergency surgery to get out of it. 

As we approach my brother’s room
, we hear Gretchen talking and we all instinctively stop and step back. She is sitting in the chair next to his bed and I can see they are holding hands.

"I know, but you really scared me last night. I missed you so much today at school
. I walked by your locker between every period. I couldn’t wait to see you.” Gretchen's voice sounds shaky.

"Thanks
, Gretch. You didn’t need to worry. Come on, I'm tough. I can take on a measly little appendix. I mean it's an organ you don't even need. Now, if it was a lung or something—." He laughs and then winces in pain.

"Ryan
,” she says in a disapproving tone. This clearly isn't the first time this has happened during her visit.

"What? I can't help it if I'm funny."

"And cute." Gretchen giggles and leans in to kiss him.

Seriously?
I've heard just about enough. "I can't take any more of this," I whisper to the rest of them. "I'm going in." I push through the doorway to make an exaggerated entrance. "Hi!" I try to interrupt. "Oh Gretchen, you're still here?"

She
looks up at me in shock; her face an instant question of
why wouldn't she be here
. Ryan tries to sit up a little straighter in bed, but I can tell he is still in pain. "Hi, guys. What a great surprise; I didn't realize you were all going to come. I mean, Ash is obligated, but..."

It’s
good to see him not hooked up to any extra tubes or machines. "Ha. Ha. Very funny. I was obligated to be here yesterday because I thought you were dying. I had plenty of other things I could be doing today." 

Ryan
doesn’t miss a beat, “Thanks so much, Ash Bug, I’ll remember that.” UGH. Why did he call me "Ash Bug" in front of Todd? How embarrassing. I feel my face start to flush red again. Why does this keep happening?

Todd fist
bumps Ryan in their usual greeting; boys are so odd. “Ryan you’re looking a lot better than yesterday. It’s good to see you, man. All the guys on the team are heading over. Coach let us out early to make visiting hours, so everyone is very grateful to your appendix.”

Ryan
laughs and then winces. He tries to cover it, but we all notice and promptly ignore it, which is exactly what he would want us to do; my brother has never been one for attention or doting. “Glad my appendix could help.” He says with a smile, then he looks over at Shane who is standing in the corner of the room. I‘ve been so caught up in Todd I didn’t even think about how hard this might be for Shane.

The last time Shane was in a hospital was when he had to fly to Colorado with his parents to identify Roger’s body. Luckily Shane didn’t actually have to go in
to see him but this still had to bring up a lot of bad memories.

“How’s it going
, Shane? Long time, no see.” My brother has always really liked Shane. Since Roger’s accident, he has kind of taken it upon himself to take Shane under his wing.

“I’m good. Little Ash Bug here really helped make my day.” Leave it to Shane to not let that one go.
 There are so many reasons I want to kill him:

1.) "Ash Bug"
—AGAIN. Really?

2.)
Does he have to bring up my detention? I know that’s where he’s going with his comment and now my parents are definitely going to find out. 

“Oh really? What happened?” My brother
asks, suddenly more interested. Even Gretchen sits up straighter to listen.

"Well let’s just say Ash and Sid won’t be coming to visiting hours tomorrow afternoon."

Suddenly it sounds like there is a parade of feet in the hallway. Over twenty guys from the football team walk through Ryan's hospital room door right in time to distract him from Shane's confessional. This is perfect timing for once in my life.

The room
is overflowing with people, and if I have to hear Ryan's stupid "glad my appendix could help you out" joke one more time, I am going to kill myself. My brother seems to have single-handedly helped people get out of pop quizzes, missing homework and football practice while I still got stuck with detention! At one point, my eyes connect with Ryan's and he mouths, "I didn't forget.”

How is that possible? Shouldn't he have a foggy
, drug-induced memory? Just then, a nurse walks into his room, her attention is glued to her clipboard. When she finally looks up, her eyes grow to twice their size. I'm not sure she's ever seen this many visitors in one room at the same time.

"Wow. We need to have football players with appendicitis more often!"
she says, winking at all the guys. "Well as much fun as I'm sure you're having, Ryan does need his rest if he wants to go home soon." 

Gretchen
gives a gasp of joy.

"Sweet! Do you think he'll be cleared to play next Friday's big game?" Barry, one of the linebackers on the team,
asks.

"Well
, I'm going to let the doctor answer that one." Her response is received by a unanimous groan from the entire room. "Come on, boys, let's go," she says as she starts to heard them out like cattle. Thankfully, the nurse ushers all of us out so there is no time for further questioning from my brother, yet.

Chapter 4: Detention

T
he room is musty and filled with fifty years’ worth of teenage sweat. They use the older wing’s classrooms for detention and, as much as they try to cover them with layer after layer of paint, the smell gives their age away. How can anyone concentrate in here? Luckily, unlike in the movies, we don’t have to write an essay explaining
who we are
, we just have to do our homework. 

The most interesting thing about detention
is Blythe, the girl sitting in the desk next to mine. She just moved here from Nashville, Tennessee. We rarely get new students, so she’s definitely been getting a lot of attention. Strictly based on outside appearances, she seems pretty cool. Part of me hates her and part of me wants to be her. Apparently, her dad is a music exec and he got a big promotion in the city and they moved here because it reminded them of back home. Even though our town is small, we are actually only thirty minutes outside of Manhattan. Not that I ever get to go there. My parents’ response is always "next year". It's crazy; I've lived here my entire life and I've never seen the Statue of Liberty in person. We might as well be a thousand miles away; it definitely feels like we are in the middle of nowhere.

Blythe has been here for a month and I
can’t help but wondering if she likes it. Her beat up backpack is filled with intricate, hand drawn, black swirls. She is wearing an ivory crochet vest over a burnt-orange tank top and faded jeans with big holes in the knees, but not the artificial kind of holes you pay too much for, these are the real deal. She’s way too cool to pay for manufactured holes. I could never pull off even a piece of what she is wearing, never mind the whole outfit. She is a junior, so she must be sixteen, yet she looks like she's twenty-five; I bet she has a great fake ID.

She
also has this I've-been-at-the-beach-all-day curly hair. It's the first time I’ve ever really liked curly hair. I have to find out what products she uses! The color also doesn’t hurt; it is a beautiful, strawberry blonde. It almost looks like the orange color of her tank top. It definitely didn't come out of a bottle.

As
I try to search for more information on Blythe from my seat without staring like an insane person, I notice a small tattoo of a cross on the inner part of her left wrist. My family isn't overly religious; in fact, we don't really talk about religion at all. There is always this really uncomfortable conversation when someone dies of "where they went". My parents get very awkward. My mom will always talk about Heaven and my dad will always loudly clear his throat in disagreement. My brother and I learned at a young age not to really ask questions when religion is involved. However, if you have a religious symbol tattooed on your body, what does it really say about you? Are you so religious that you want everyone to know or is it a statement for attention?
Look at me, I'm a good person, but I'm still bad enough to get a tattoo.
I just think, if you're going to get a tattoo, that's an odd one to get. It's like sending mixed signals. Sid catches my attention and over exaggeratedly mouths, "Did you see her wrist?" as she points to her own wrist. One thing Sid isn't, is smooth! 

"Cool right?" Blythe
says, looking right at me.             

CRAP! Did she see me staring at her? "Yeah. Awesome
," I whisper quickly, trying to sound as cool as possible.

"My parents don't know I got it. I always wear this leather cuff to cover it when I'm home."
A little bit of her southern accent slips through as she points to a studded, brown leather bracelet that is now on her other wrist.

"That must make taking showers tough
," I say with a laugh. That is probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever said. What does that even mean? She creases her forehead and looks at me as if she is trying to figure it out. I quickly add, "Yeah, I was thinking my parents would never let me get one."

"Mine didn't
, either, but what they don't know, won't hurt them." She gives me a sly smile. Yup she's definitely way cooler than me. I could never lie to my parents about something that huge. Besides, they'd know, I can’t hide anything.

"Hey
, didn't your brother have surgery?"

"Yeah. He's much better
, though. He might come home tomorrow." Of course she knows Ryan.

"Cool. Yeah
, stinks about his appendix. That happened to me a few years ago, back home. One day, BAM, my appendix decided it was time to come out."

I
am so interested in every word she says that I totally forget where we are and that we aren't supposed to be talking.

"Miss Taylor. Miss Brown. Would you like to come back here tomorrow?"

"No," I answer quickly.

"Sure. Why not? I've got nothing to do in this stupid town anyway." Everyone
is now staring at Blythe and you can tell she loves it. She has this bring-it-on look on her face and she isn't backing down.

Mr. Frankel
looks like he’s completely in shock. He starts shuffling the papers around on his desk saying, "um" a lot. Finally he says, "Great, then make it the entire week; same time, same place."

"Great
," Blythe responds, and I think she really means it.

"The rest of you are free to go
," Mr. Frankel says to the class, clearly unsure of what to do next.

YES! We still
have a full half hour left of detention. Blythe is my hero. I lean over to her. "Thanks!"

She
looks back and smiles. "Anytime!"

Sid and I
can’t believe our luck. "She's pretty cool," I say as we walk down the hall.

"She's awesome
and I totally want that vest she was wearing."

"I know. We are free!!! Oh
, there’s still time; let's go watch football practice!" Before I realize what has just slipped out, Sid starts to laugh. Phew! She thinks I am joking. I quickly start to laugh, too. Saved again. I have to be more careful.

Just
as we turn the corner, Shane comes out of the auditorium holding drumsticks. "What are you guys doing here?" He seems shocked and not at all happy to see us. He quickly hides the drumsticks behind his back.

"It's so good to see you
, too, Shane," Sid remarks sarcastically.

"What were you doing in there and what
are you holding behind your back?" I ask.

Shane
looks so genuinely caught off guard, he doesn’t even have a good excuse planned. "Um, nothing I can tell you about."

This just
piques our curiosity. "What?" we both say at the same time. "I thought we didn't keep secrets, Shane?" I squint my eyes at him as our eyes lock.

“Yeah. You know we're going to find out
, so just make it easier on yourself and tell us now." Sid and I both glance at each other with a flash of excitement. We love Shane, but we love to give him a hard time even more. Besides, he deserves payback for all the detention grief he’s given us.

"Well, I'm not giving up any information.
You have all the clues you need. Figure it out yourselves, if you can. I've gotta go." He turns and walks away, leaving Sid and I standing in the hallway alone. That is so unlike Shane. I'm impressed; he's really not going to tell us.