the spikes bring me to tears once more. I know my family won’t help me if I ask them to, so I grind my teeth and do it myself.
I’m not worthy of their help.
Father is watching a football game on DVR and Mother is in their room. I choose the lesser of the two evils.
“Mother.”
She looks up from the TV, pursing her lips. “What do you want?”
“I need to go to the emergency room,” I answer.
“What for?”
“I think my elbow is broken.”
Her annoyance is evident in the look she gives as she rolls her eyes. “You think?”
“Yes. It feels like the last time my leg broke.” During Winter Break when Father slammed it in the car door because he said I was too slow. We told the ER doctor that it happened while skiing even though I’ve never been outside this city. The doctor never questioned why we didn’t go to an ER closer to where we said we were. If he had, my parents were ready to tell him that they thought it was just badly bruised since it wasn’t a clean break. “That’s why I need to go. I’m not a doctor.”
She presses her lips into a line. “I’m busy and you’re not dying. We’ll go to the doctor in the morning.”
I keep my arm against my chest while using the phone in the kitchen. “I can’t sleep over,” I tell Arissa.
“Why?”
“I hurt my elbow and Mother said she’ll take me to the doctor tomorrow.”
White lies. I perfect them with each one I tell.
“What happened?”
“I tripped over one of Victoria’s toys and jarred my elbow when I tried to break my fall.”
“Ouch. Are you okay?”
“I think so. I just took something so it won’t hurt so much.”
“Okay,” she says, accepting my story. “Maybe tomorrow.”
“Yeah. I’ll call you or come over.”
CHAPTER SIX
Mother and Victoria are preparing to leave when I stumble out of bed in the morning.
“Where are you going?” I ask, fighting the grogginess in my head and supporting my left arm across my torso.
“What do you care?” Victoria asks, her lip curled in a sneer.
“Because Mother said she’d take me to the doctor this morning, Smarty Pants,” I answer, annoyed.
“Don’t call your sister names,” Mother scolds while searching through her purse.
“Are you going to take me?” I ask, ignoring the rebuke and the fact that she always prefers my sister over me.
Her medium green irises flash annoyance at me. “You’re not ready.”
“I can be.”
“You have until I find my keys,” she states, her tone indicating she’s not kidding. If I’m not ready, she’s leaving without me, broken elbow or not.
I rush to my room, ignoring bursts of pain as I hurriedly put on shirt, run a brush through my hair, and brush my teeth. Mother is still digging through her purse as I run into the foyer.
“Look who’s Speedy Gonzales this morning,” she says, full of sarcasm.
“Still can’t find your keys?”
“No. We just decided to wait for you,” Victoria answers, then sticks her tongue out at me.
I look around, remembering her fight with Father yesterday. I head to the bar where he tackled her. The keys are fanned out from the keyring on the floor. I pick them up and take them to her.
She snatches them from my hand and scoffs as if she owes me some monumental favor she doesn’t want to fulfill. Like she’d ever do me a favor. “Let’s go,” she says.
We arrive at the doctor’s office and they make no move to get out.
“You’re not coming with me?” I ask.
“Are you a baby?” Mother asks. “We’ll come back when we’re done.”
Soft music plays over the sound system as I enter the office. Young kids sit in front of the large fish tank in the wall, pointing at the fish as they spot them. I head to the reception desk to check in and explain to the woman in scrubs behind the desk why I don’t have an appointment.
“Hold on a minute and let me talk to Dr. Bannister.” She leaves her seat while I sit and stare at the fish tank.
“Sara.” A nurse holds the door open. She takes my vitals at a small station, then ushers me into an exam room. “Dr. B will be right with you.”
I climb the step stool, the paper crinkling as I settle on the exam table. The door opens a few minutes later and Dr. Bannister saunters in while reading my chart.
His grey eyes brighten as he smiles under short, golden hair. “Good morning, Sara.”