“With Ian.”
“And the Warriors, maybe; yeah, you bet.” Cara drew a little closer. “And look at the bright side.”
“What?”
“You know.”
“Again telling me what I know?”
“Yeah, that you’d like Alex to ask you out. And once I tell him we’re done, he’ll be able to.”
Sam looked down. “He doesn’t look at me that way. I’m just his tutor.”
“How do you know how he looks at you?”
“Because I keep him looking down at his books, that’s how.”
*
Sam could tell Cara knew she was lying, at least not telling all of the truth. She’d had crushes since she’d been around eight and had never acted on a single one of them. Preferred instead to stare wantonly and longingly at her chosen object of desire, secure in the notion that the relationship would stretch no further.
And here she was a senior in high school and she’d never had a boyfriend, not even close.
Unless you counted Phillip Steeg and you couldn’t really count Phillip Steeg because their date had consisted of eating cookies in his tree house when they were both twelve years old. He’d leaned over to kiss her and ended up slicing her lip with his braces. Sam kissed him back anyway, following the taut look in his eyes as he pulled away.
“Whoa,” he said, “that was nice.”
Sam nodded; it had been nice for her too. Because she’d been thinking of Alex as she kissed him.
*
Cara’s iPhone started buzzing and she checked the text that had just come in. “Huh?” she asked, having forgotten what Sam had just said.
“Never mind.”
“Okay.”
“So you’re not worried?”
“Oh, about Alex? Of course I am. But he’ll be fine.”
“You can’t know that.”
“Yes, I can. I’m psychic. I can tell the future. Like the whole CatPack acing the AP bio exam next week. Right, Sam?”
9
DIAGNOSIS
ALEX SAW HIS PARENTS slip into the curtained-off cubicle in the midst of his initial examination, their heels clacking against the floor ahead of them. He smelled the light, sweet familiar scent of his mother’s perfume, making him feel better immediately.
“The preliminary news is promising,” a doctor with a shock of ash gray hair reported, as he continued his poking and prodding. “He has full use of his limbs, no sign whatsoever of paralysis, and no evident spinal compression or swelling.”
He heard his mother sigh, his father mumble something in Chinese under his breath, sounding like anything but a now tenured professor at San Francisco City College.
“I’ve scheduled a CT scan just to confirm the initial diagnosis,” the doctor continued, “and we’re going to keep Alex overnight for observation. But if everything checks out, he should be able to go home tomorrow.”
Alex’s father was nodding up a storm, the way he always did when stressed. His mother was steadying herself with short, shallow breaths, the picture of calm and repose.
“Will I be able to play next week?” Alex asked, finding his voice.
The doctor seemed reluctant to meet his gaze. “Let’s just take one step at a time, shall we?”
“Yeah, but could you just tell me what you think?”
“I think we should take one step at a time, starting with that CT scan.”
“So you’re not sure.”
“Alex,” his father began, but his mother silenced him with a tight squeeze of his arm.
“That you’ll be able to play football next week?” the doctor resumed. “No, I’m not. Not yet, not until we’ve had an opportunity to do a full work-up and see how you respond in the next twenty-four hours.”
Alex turned away, looking back at his parents. They seemed smaller to him today. And how was it he’d never noticed how tired his father looked or the patches of gray beginning to dot his mother’s hair at the temples? Could have been the hospital’s harsh fluorescent lighting. Could have been. Or …
Or what?