CHAPTER FOUR

ANTHONY’S POV

My head was spinning a bit and my hands were trembling slightly, but other than that I felt completely fine. Mr. Cornell along with the school’s nurse insisted that I went to the hospital so now I was lying in one of our town’s general hospital’s beds, watching the doctor as he stared at the EKG machine monitoring my heart rate.

I turned my head to the side because I did not understand what the machine was displaying and I was a little bored. Blake was sitting by the window, his hair a little bit messy and falling all over the place. His face had a little more color now since the last time I looked at him in school. I wanted to be mad at him; after all it was his stupid friends that almost killed me, but I couldn’t because he saved me. And if he saved me, didn’t that mean he wasn’t part of their little murder-plan?

“Well, you look fine Anthony. Your heart rate’s normal and all the swelling has gone down. Your airway is all cleared up too. That EpiPen really did help you out there. We’ll just need to call your parents or guardian to sign your papers.”

“No,” I screamed before I could stop myself. If my mother heard about this, she would freak out even more than she did when she saw me in the hospital with a broken arm. As much as I didn’t like Blake, I wouldn’t want my mother being mad at him even more because of something his friends did.

“I’m his guardian.” The doctor and I turned to face Blake. He was now very close to my bed and looking at the doctor so seriously. “I’m his guardian,” he repeated. “I’ll sign the papers.”

The doctor looked at him skeptically, like he couldn’t trust his declaration. Blake said, “I’m eighteen. I’m his big brother.” That seemed to be good enough for my doctor.

“Big brother?” I asked as soon as the doctor left. Blake shrugged lazily.

“I am older than you. Not my fault you were born in December.”

My heart felt funny all of a sudden, like there were feathers in there tickling it. I was surprised he knew my birth month and was about to tell him so, but then remembered that Stella, his mother, liked to celebrate my birthday and made Blake help out in the preparations. That made me let out an involuntary laugh.

“Glad to know that almost dying amuses you so much.” He took a sit on my bed and peered down at me intensely. His gaze made me uneasy and I blushed really hard.

“You look a little flushed there, Pearce. Are you sure you’re okay? You want me to call the doctor for you?”

“This caring look doesn’t suit you well, Lindell,” I said and grabbed a pillow from underneath my head. Then I threw it at him. “Up.”

“There are no chairs in here, Pearce,” he whined. I am slightly taken aback by how cute he sounded like that but shook the thought away quickly. “My feet are killing me.”

“You were just sitting by the window. Go back there.”

“Need I remind you that I just saved your life? Tell me, will you have been here right now telling me to go sit by the window if I didn’t carry about your EpiPen?”

I didn’t say anything, mostly because I was stunned at the information reaching my ears. I thought that he had somehow managed to open my locker, just like he did before when he and his gang of misfits stuffed it with animal feces, and retrieved my EpiPen stashed away in my backpack. I didn’t know he carried it about himself.

“Well, I’m hungry,” he announced after a beat and stood up. “Want me to get anything for you?” He didn’t wait for my reply and strutted out of the room, looking shockingly sexy.

I sat in silence in that little cubicle that is my own side of the hospital room. The readings on the EKG machine seemed normal, but for some reason my heart didn’t feel or act normal. It kept skipping beats and thumping irregularly and aching but it was a good kind of ache. It felt like it did when I looked at Gary. It felt like it did when I first had a crush on Blake…

“Duddeee!!!” I nearly jumped out of my skin when Blake rushed back in screeching. His eyeballs were popping out of his sockets and his face was beet red.

“I just saw our dads here and I think they saw me.” He didn’t give me time to react to this news. Quickly, he jumped into my bed and scooted really close to me. Then he pulled me down so I was lying down right next to him and he covered us both with the little duvet there. We were facing each other, our breaths mingling, our skin touching. I could see how brown his eyes were and I could hear the slightly panicked, irregular beating of his heart since my hands were forced to rest slightly on his chest.

We stayed quiet like that for a few seconds without hearing anything.

“Blake, I don’t think our dads are…”

“Shhh,” he hissed and placed his huge palm over my lips just as we heard footsteps approach. The little distance between us was bridged as Blake moved even closer, making sure that my palm now rested fully on his chest. I could feel his pecs.

“I could have sworn I saw Blake here just now,” James, his dad said. He was standing right beside the curtain that was supposed to serve as a covering and separation from the other patients.

“How could you have seen him?” I heard my dad ask. “He is supposed to be in school right now. All our kids are.”

James didn’t relent though. I could feel his gaze settle on us even though there was a curtain there blocking his view from our covered bodies.

“I don’t know…I just feel he’s here…”

“James, we have to go. My back hurts. And you’re still bleeding.”

“Right, right,” James responded as if just coming out of a trance.

“Do you think we should still be playing golf at this age?” my dad asked as they walked away.

“What do you mean ‘at this age?’ We’re only in our early forties!” Their footsteps faded away and soon they were gone. Blake released a breath beside me and I was reminded once again of our closeness. He on the other hand didn’t seem fazed about it all.

“That could have been a disaster,” he whispered. He had a goofy grin that made him look exceptionally handsome. I hadn’t seen Blake smile that much so close to me in a very long time. Whenever I saw him smile in school or at home, it never really reached his eyes and it was never at me. Laughing is what he did at me.

“We would have been in so much trouble. Well, I would have been in so much trouble…”

I didn’t make a sound. My head was all confused and I was feeling weird inside. Blake’s hand was slightly grazing mine, and my palm was still planted firmly on his chest. This position made me a little uneasy and I turned red just like I always did in uncomfortable situations.

“Pearce, are you alright?”

“Hot,” I said dumbly. “Duvet. Hot.”

He quickly uncovered us and I sat upright.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize we were still under.”

Blake acting like a douche, I was used to. But him being nice and caring and even apologizing to me was undoubtedly new territory and it freaked me out. He didn’t even say sorry when he broke my arm and his mom threatened to file a lawsuit against him for physical assault. I couldn’t decide if he was just pretending and that it was all part of his plan to humiliate me or that he actually cared.

“What are you doing, Lindell?” I asked. I needed to be sure. My brain was starting to interpret some things the wrong way and I did not want it to go that far. Not again.

“What do you mean?” he asked, his eyebrows creasing.

“You offered to come with me to the hospital…”

“Because I get to skip class for the rest of the day.”

“Then you said you were my guardian…”

“Because I couldn’t have my mom or your mom finding out you got hurt again because of me.”

There he went again confusing me! His friends were the ones that hurt me, but he was taking the blame for it. Was he really that good a friend or was he part of the whole thing and now felt guilty?

“You offered to get me something to eat,” I continued. This seemed to amuse him because the corner of his lips tugged upwards.

“You didn’t have lunch earlier. I didn’t want you starving to death after I heroically saved your ass with an EpiPen.”

“You carry around my EpiPen! Why?”

“Because my mom is obsessed with you and she would rather have you alive than dead.”

“And now…” I wanted to talk about under the duvet, how he was so close to me and I could hear his heartbeat. How his hand touched mine and I felt a tingle and how he smiled so warmly at me for the first time in years. But I didn’t say that. It would be too embarrassing and awkward and he would laugh at me again.

“And now what?” There’s a way Blake Lindell looked at you and it felt like he was boring deep into your soul, like he could see your deepest, darkest fears and that he could take all your fears away just by that one single look. He was looking at me in that way now.

“And now…you apologized to me for almost suffocating me. That’s not like you.”

He frowned now and panic struck me. I had touched a nerve. I had made him go back to the way he was with me. I didn’t know why, but it scared me a little. For the first time in years, I wanted the old Blake. The Blake who helped me learn how to ride a bike when the other kids laughed at me for not knowing how to. I didn’t want the Blake who was mean and hated me. But instead of me to shut up, I kept talking.

“You and I…we don’t like each other. We’re…we’re always arguing and you and your friends go out of your way to torment me…”

“It’s not out of our way, I promise.” He passed his fingers through his long mane and then folded his arms across his chest, smirking. I watched as his muscles flexed. Being this close to him on the bed was not helping matters at all.

“You being like this is…weird. And frankly it’s freaking me out a little bit.”

“Ah, you’re such a scaredy cat, Pearce. Listen.” He ran his fingers through his air again and leaned in towards me. “I know we don’t like each other that much and I have been a bit…assholic towards you for a while now, but just because I don’t like you, doesn’t mean I want you to die. I realized that when I saw you strangling yourself in your feeble attempt to get air back into your lungs. I thought to myself ‘If Pearce dies, who will I torment for the rest of senior year? I still have to mess him up for being friends with the asshole that posted that video of us kissing in the Clay Room.’” He said ‘kissing’ so casually that it made me go red. I never thought of it as a kiss per se, but if Blake thought it was…

“And then there’s Crystal to consider. How will I hook up with her then?” All whatever I felt for and towards Blake in that moment fizzled out as soon as he mentioned my sister’s name.

“Lindell…” He ignored the warning in my tone and continued talking.

“She wouldn’t want to hook up with the person responsible for the early demise of her brother, now, would she? I needed to secure my spot in her life. What better way than to valiantly save her dying brother? I’m sure she’ll completely forget what happened in the Clay Room this morning.”

Being reminded of losing a large chunk of my work put me in mood.

“I thought I told you to stay away from Crystal?”

“And I thought I told you you can’t tell me what to do, Pearce?” He had that goofy grin on his face again and I couldn’t just be mad at him even though I so badly wanted to be.

“How’s the arm holding up?” My sling was removed earlier when I came in for some reason, but my cast was still on. To be honest, it didn’t hurt as much as it did before. But I didn’t tell Blake this.

“You have succeeded in turning me into a leftie, Lindell.” He smiled smugly to himself.

“My best work yet,” he replied. We were staring at each other then, and it wasn’t in the way we had stared at each other since the ninth grade when we stopped being friends. It was different, friendlier and most definitely heartwarming.

“I’ll tell you what Pearce. I am feeling generous today, so I’ll cut you a deal. How long will it take for your arm to heal?”

I stared at the cast that I no longer needed. When he pulled me down on the bed earlier to cover us up with the duvet, I didn’t feel any pain whatsoever.

“Uh, two to three weeks, I guess.” I was proud of myself as the lie flowed smoothly out of my lips. I never could lie to Blake Lindell.

“Okay then. For the next three weeks, just until your arm heals, I will not treat you in anyway mean or degrading, and that includes beating you, breaking your shit, humiliating you, etcetera, etcetera.”

“Verbal rudeness is also included,” I chipped in. He opened his mouth in protest and when his words came out, he sounded just like a whiny baby.

“C’mon, Pearce, you have to leave me with something.”

“If you want to be nice, just be nice all the way.”

He gave me this smile he reserved for when he was flirting with girls. The kind of smile that made it almost impossible to not fall for him instantly.

“Now, you know that no one likes a nice guy, Pearce.”

I was dumbstruck for a moment. My heart rate increased a great deal and I noticed there was a little spike in the EKG machine. My eyes involuntarily moved to his lips and I gulped. My palms got sweaty.

“Alright, Pearce. Your big brother is going to sign your discharge papers now so we can go home and eat junk food. I’ll be right back.”

As I watched him leave, I couldn’t help but think to myself how I so did not see him as a brother in that moment. And that’s when it occurred to me that I was in big trouble.

Shit!