Chapter 29 Grayce

I didn’t realize I was running towards the field until I heard Alex yelling my name back in the stands. People’s faces were a blur around me. There was a ringing in my head, blocking out the voices in my ear. A small crowd was hovering around Jaxon on the field, but before I could get to him, a burly security guy with a handheld walkie-talkie and a beer belly grabbed me.
“I need to get out there,” I said breathlessly.
“No one is allowed on the field,” the security guy said. He was holding my arms, his sausage fingers digging into my skin. I didn’t even notice the unpleasant sensation of being bruised. I needed to get to him and ensure he was okay.
“Jaxon!” I shouted.
“I’m sorry, I can’t let you onto the field.”
“Please,” I begged. “He’s my friend. The quarterback. He’s hurt, he didn’t get up . . .”
I’d debated heavily about whether to go to this game and after expressing my concerns to Gavin, I’d lost the argument. He didn’t care if I was angry at the guy, he wanted his story, and he wanted it to be good. So, after begging Alex to come and keep me company through the torture of watching a guy I now despised play football, here we were. And then, like looking at a horror movie unfold right in front of my eyes, the unthinkable happened.
The moment I’d seen Jaxon hit the ground and not get up, my anger at him dissipated—at least temporarily—and I just needed to know that, if anything, he wasn’t dead. I didn’t allow myself to feel guilty that I’d been avoiding him. His nasty comment to Tyler in the library days ago was a constant reminder that I didn’t mean much to him at all, and yet I still found myself trying to get to him, fighting security so that I could see him for myself. There wasn’t a logical reason for it, no explanation that made sense as to why I gave a shit anymore, but there I was as all sense and logic crumbled beneath me.
“Give him some air,” I heard someone say out on the field. An on-site EMT was kneeling next to Jaxon, running his hands up and down his arms and legs. The second medic shouldered some of the other players out of the way as he forced them to part, pushing a gurney.
“Jesus,” I whispered as the first EMT applied a C-Collar to Jaxon’s neck. At this point, it was useless to fight security, and my legs went weak as all I could do was watch from the sidelines.
“Can you hear me, kid?” one of the medics asked. I couldn’t hear if Jaxon answered or not from where I stood.
“Is he going to be okay?” I shouted, hoping that someone—anyone—could give me an answer. Jaxon’s friend Tyler glanced briefly in my direction but ignored me. I knew that if there was ever a time to put my anger with them both aside, it was now. Jaxon’s well-being was far more important than my desire to clunk their heads together and scream profanities.
“It will be okay, Jaxon,” I said, mainly to myself, and I was a bit caught off guard when I heard him say my name. It was weak sounding and tired, but it was still my name, and even from where I was standing, I heard it clearly. “Wait,” I called to the medic. “What did he say?” But they ignored me. “Jaxon, I’m here! I’m right here.”
“Grayce, let’s go,” Alex said. She was behind me suddenly, taking over security’s steel-grip on my arm as she pulled me away from the sidelines.
“Jaxon!”
“Come with me; we’ll meet them at the hospital,” Alex said. I let her drag me away from the field of onlookers and towards the parking lot to where her car was parked and waiting. I couldn’t think straight, couldn’t will myself to take a deep breath and settle down. He wasn’t going to die, was he? No way, he was still alive. He’d just taken a harder than usual hit. He’d had the breath knocked out of him, that was all.
“He’ll be okay, right?” I asked Alex as she backed out of the parking lot. She looked over at me with an expression I figured was supposed to be reassuring but did nothing to soothe my nerves.
“I don’t know,” she said, and reached over and squeezed my hand.
Since we weren’t family, the hospital wouldn’t release Jaxon’s medical status to us, but the kind nurse in the Winnie the Pooh scrubs did assure me that he was, at least, out of surgery and alive.
“Can I see him?” I asked. Alex was standing behind me, looking around the ER waiting room awkwardly as if waiting to catch some strange, incurable disease.
“I’m sorry, visiting hours are over, and your friend is still in recovery,” the nurse said. “You can try back tomorrow.”
“How long will he be here?” Alex asked. She stepped up beside me, finally succumbing to the fact that nobody here had any interest in shanking her. At least, not today.
“That’s undetermined. Depending on his recovery from surgery, it could be a few days to a few weeks.” Behind us, the ER doors opened, and a small group of people came in behind us. I recognized Jaxon’s coach and his best friend, Tyler. They didn’t even glance my way as they made their way up to the reception desk, practically avoiding my existence.
“Grayce, we should go,” Alex murmured. She put a hand on my arm, but I hesitated.
“Are you family?” the nurse asked when I heard them inquire about Jaxon.
“His dad and mom should be called,” I said, stepping back up beside Tyler. “They live a few minutes out of the city.” Tyler looked at me like I’d just dug myself out from a pile of cow shit.
“Don’t bother,” he said. “Coach already called them. They won’t come.”
“What?” I stared at Tyler, slack-jawed. “Why not?”
“My guess is because his dad saw the charming photo of his quarterback son marching in the lesbian parade last weekend,” Tyler said. “He’ll have you to thank when he wakes up and his parents aren’t here to see him.”
“Fuck you, Tyler,” Alex said. She stepped up beside him, looking about ready to bust up his face.
“We can’t release information unless it’s to family,” the nurse said before anyone else could speak. She seemed to be getting impatient now with the pestering, particularly as it was becoming clear that none of us had a right to his medical information, putting us on the path to wasting her precious time.
“Come on, Grayce,” Alex said again. “He’ll be okay.”
“No.” I pulled my hand away from hers and looked at Tyler, to the coach, and back to Alex. “I’m staying here until he wakes up.”
“There’s no need to do that,” Tyler said. He was barely looking at me now, as though fearing he would burst into flame if he stared too long into my dark, dead, virgin soul.
“Are you going to stay then?” I asked him.
“I can’t. I have things to do.”
“Because why wouldn’t you,” I said. “Jaxon is, after all, just your best friend.” Before Tyler could respond with some asshat comment, Alex grabbed my arm and pulled me to the side.
“What are you doing?” she said. “Why is it so important to you to stay here for some loser guy who had nothing but mean things to say about you?”
I hesitated because I wasn’t sure I even had that answer for myself. I’d told Alex what I’d overheard in the library between Jaxon and Tyler because let’s face it … I told Alex everything. And after a string of profanities that would have left a sailor flushing with embarrassment, she’d only agreed to go to today’s game with me because I still had to report on it, and I couldn’t tolerate seeing Jaxon’s face alone. And now, here we were, waiting in the Emergency Room to hear if the guy who was only pretending to be my friend would even be okay.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know why I need to stay, Alex, but I do. Because as shitty as Jaxon Tate is, I seem to be all he has right now.” Her hand dropped from my arm, brow furrowed. I could tell she understood what I was saying, even if she didn’t like it. Like any good friend, she only wanted to protect me from getting hurt again, but this decision was mine and mine alone.
“Do you want me to stay with you?” she asked. To the side of us, the few players on Jaxon’s team, along with Tyler and their coach, turned to leave. Tyler was staring at me as he went, but he said nothing. None of them did. I figured this wasn’t the right time to grab a waiting room chair and bring it down over his head, so I focused my attention on Alex.
“No, it’s alright,” I said. “I need to do this for me.”