False Start - Jessica Ruddick Page 0,87

little.

“I love you too. We’ll get through this.” I put down the plate I’d been rinsing so I could turn to embrace him, but before I could, he was gone.

***

I CHECKED MY phone for the millionth time. Normally, I tucked it in my bag during class, but Carson’s consult with the doctor should have ended by now, and I was anxiously waiting to hear his prognosis.

Around me, my classmates chuckled, making me realize I hadn’t heard a word the professor had said in the last ten minutes. Dr. Novikoff was one of my favorite professors because he managed to insert humor into the otherwise dry topic of biomedical materials.

I’d wanted to go with Carson to his appointment, but he’d been adamant that I go to class. It was a role reversal from when I’d had my concussion, but since I was behind because of that, I couldn’t argue with him. I hated that he was at the appointment alone. He would most likely need surgery and a cast, then at least six to eight weeks of recovery time, and perhaps physical therapy after that. That was the best I could tell from my limited medical knowledge and what I’d learned online. He tried to act like it was no big deal, but I saw right through his charade. The injury had shaken him, but he refused to talk about it. He’d shut me out. That hurt, but I pushed the hurt aside because this wasn’t about me.

Dr. Novikoff dismissed class, and I sighed. I’d been a complete waste of space for the past hour. Though I’d been physically present, my mind had been elsewhere. And my notebook page, which was normally full of notes at the end of a lecture, was blank.

As I walked out of the lecture hall, I called Carson, but it went to voice mail. Damn it. I had a copy of his schedule, so I knew where he should be if he was done with the doctor, but I seriously doubted he was in class. He had a hard enough time forcing himself to go to class under normal circumstances.

I was so distracted, I walked right into someone. I’d been holding my phone in front of me, and it banged painfully into my teeth as I collided with the person’s chest. Smooth, Becca.

“Sorry,” I said immediately. “My fault. I wasn’t paying attention.”

“I see that.”

I looked up to see that it was Evan I had crashed into. I sighed with relief. At least it was someone I knew instead of a stranger. Evan already knew I was a spaz.

“Sorry,” I said again.

“It was my fault, actually,” Evan said. “I called your name and stepped in front of you to get your attention, but it didn’t work. Obviously.”

“I’m sorry.” You’ve apologized three times. I think he gets it. “I’m a little distracted. Carson had an appointment with the doctor.”

Evan winced. “His arm looked bad.”

“Did you see him?” Maybe I was wrong, and Carson had come to campus.

He shook his head. “No, I meant on Saturday when it happened. It was obviously broken.”

I frowned. “Really? You could see that?” I had been much closer than Evan, but I hadn’t been able to determine that absolutely.

“They kept replaying it on the jumbotron.”

“Oh.” I’d been so focused on Carson on the field that I hadn’t looked at the screen at all. I had been freaked out enough, so it was probably better I hadn’t seen his broken arm blown up to the size of a bus on the screen. Yikes.

“He’s tough, though,” Evan said. “He’ll bounce back.”

“That’s what everyone keeps saying.” I was really sick of hearing it. No one knew him like I did. I wasn’t worried about Carson physically because he was the toughest person I knew. But I couldn’t help but remember the hollow expression that overtook him whenever he thought no one was watching. He was obviously putting on an act, and it ate at my insides that he felt like he had to do that with me. He’d built an unnecessary, impermeable wall between us.

Concern was all over Evan’s face. “Is everything else okay?”

I pasted on the same smile Carson had been wearing the last two days every time someone looked his way. He wouldn’t want me discussing his injury with anyone, not even Evan. “You know me. Just worrying.”

He gave me a strange look. “I do know you, and it’s not like you to worry unless there’s something to worry about.”

And there it was—reassurance that