He helped me to my feet, and I stumbled to his car. A few minutes later, I was in the emergency room getting my cracked rib taped up. Dr. Shepherd wrapped the bandages around my side as I winced and bitched.
“Do you have to make it so tight?”
“Do you want a punctured lung?” she retorted. “We’ve been through this before. You know the drill. I’m sure your father will remind you of everything you need to do until it’s healed.”
“No way,” I said. “I’ve got a game on Friday.”
“If you get hit again, it’s going to be a lot worse. You should stay away from contact sports for three weeks.”
“You know that’s not going to happen.”
“Thomas? Thomas! My God, what happened?”
Right on cue.
“It’s nothing, Dad,” I told him as he walked over and started shining a penlight in my eyes. “Paul went for the ball; I went for the ball. You know how it is.”
“Are you dizzy?”
“I didn’t hit my head,” I told him. I glanced at Dr. Shepherd, who had an amused smile on her face as she wrote some shit down on my chart.
“No headache?”
“No headache.”
“Well, thank God for that.” Dad took a step back and tilted his head so he could look at me straight on. “You have got to be more careful, son. You know if you get hurt too bad, you won’t be able to play pro. Isn’t that what you want?”
“Of course it is,” I said. I tried to keep my eyes up toward his as we said our lines. It was hard, though, because my side was still aching.
“I was going to write him a script for the pain,” Dr. Shepherd said. “Do you want me to send it down to the pharmacy to be filled here?”
“That will be fine, thank you,” Dad responded. “I’ll pick it up on my way out. Thomas, why don’t you let Jeremy drive you home? He’s still in the waiting room. I’ll pick up your script and be home right after you.”
“Sure,” I replied. I found Jeremy in the waiting room, and we walked back out to his car.
“Thanks for sticking around,” I said. “Dad will probably be here a couple more hours. I hate hanging out at the hospital.”
“No problem,” Jeremy said. “Paul and Mika went and got your Jeep and took it back to your house. I got the keys out of your bag. It’s in the back seat.”
“Cool.” I hadn’t really thought about my car. I tried to breathe a little deeper, but it still hurt a lot. I wondered if Dad would actually let me have the pain pills or if I was going to need to stock up on Motrin. I leaned my head against the cool window as the mist turned into rain.
“Thomas?”
“Hmm?”
“You landed on your back,” Jeremy said.
“Yeah? So?”
“You didn’t fall on your left side—not even on your stomach. How did you crack a rib on your left side?”
I glanced over at him and saw that he was looking at me out of the corner of his eye.
“Maybe it was how we collided,” I said with a shrug.
“I thought about that, too,” Jeremy replied, “but he didn’t hit you there, either.”
“You obviously have the eyes of a ref,” I told him as I turned back to the window. “Blind as a fucking bat. The x-ray says I have a broken rib, so you must have missed something.”