CHAPTER 7
Claire:
Claire had never felt so normal before. She thought it to herself as she swung on the swing of the playground lazily. Macy was next to her and they were watching the pick-up basketball game that Bennett and Caleb were playing with some Quileute kids at the park. They kept calling bogus fouls on each other and Claire could see Bennett's good-natured laugh at Caleb's obvious flop after being charged by one of the Quileute boys he was defending. He looked up to catch her staring at him and smiled at her.
She loved it when he did that. Somehow it made her feel like she was flying and yet grounded completely into him. She smiled back at him when he winked at her and sent butterflies fluttering in her stomach. They had been together for months now and she still hadn't gotten over the affect he had on her. She hoped that she never would.
Macy had been less than thrilled when they had started dating after Homecoming, but Claire thought that Macy must have secretly known that Bennett had never been interested in her, so she had never really had a chance, and eventually accepted it with good graces. The fact that she had started dating one of Bennett's friends (Caleb) who was also on the football team (and a senior) only a month later greatly helped the situation.
Claire felt like the last few months had been a complete whirlwind. She had loved every minute she had spent with Bennett. For some ridiculous reason, kids at their high school acted like they were some sort of Chief Paloma High royalty. They both saw the insanity of it all, but Bennett treated it like a joke and kept her laughing when he would do a formal wave and sometimes a bow to kids who would literally stop walking and move to the side to let them pass undisturbed down the hall together. He was just so down to earth all of the time.
Claire hadn't seen Quil in almost four months. She had texted him on Thanksgiving and Christmas and sent her love. He had briefly responded with a Merry Christmas and hadn't even replied at Thanksgiving. She had missed this year's annual Quileute tribe bonfire for all the wolfs, their families, and tribal leaders. She hadn't missed one since her very first when she was two. But there was nothing she could do. She was with Bennett now.
She thought about Quil often, but she never spoke about him. She honestly didn't want to think about him. Any time she was with Bennett she felt completely happy. Like who she was, right then, was perfectly enough for him and she loved that. He seemed to completely accept her, not just that, he seemed to practically worship her, like he just couldn't believe he had been so lucky to have her.
But every once in a while, she would wake up in the middle of the night, crying and reaching for Quil and finding nothing but sobs to take his place. She had used the time apart to find who she really was. She felt as if he had always been there, completely surrounding her, and holding her tightly. Now he was gone and there was all of this empty space around her for her to fill. It was terrifying sometimes, but also elating to suddenly be exposed to so much air and light.
She was never lonely for long, after all she still had Jamie, who needed her, and her and Rachel were closer than they had ever been. Claire had actually read the manga that Rachel had leant her and really enjoyed it. They both read the series and would frequently discuss it. Rachel and Travis had even gone on a double date to the Christmas dance with her and Bennett and they had had a great time all together.
And of course, she had Bennett, they spent all of their free time together and he was just so cute and goofy he seemed to have Claire laughing constantly. Claire really appreciated that he had almost as little dating experience as she did. (He had had one girlfriend for two months in ninth grade and that was the extent of his experience) they seemed to be experiencing everything together for the first time. They were there, together, the same and on even footing. For Christmas he had taken her to a concert in Seattle and they had had an amazing time, but Claire's favorite part had been the two hours in the car each way just talking and laughing and being together.
She loved the way he kissed her. He wasn't one for causal kissing in passing. No hello or goodbye kisses but at least once a day he seemed to find a moment where they were undisturbed and then he would kiss her in a way that swept her off her feet and left her wanting more.
She knew that Quil wasn't permanently out of her life, she didn't even know if that was physically possible. But she wasn't sure she was ready yet to have him back in her life with his all-consuming need for her. She also couldn't see how she could have him in her life at the same time she was dating Bennett. It just didn't seem possible and she wasn't ready to say goodbye to Bennett, so she just tried her best to not think about Quil or the pain he might be in without her.
She could see the game winding down and got up off her swing to go meet Bennett on the court. Macy followed and immediately clobbered Caleb with a kiss that didn't seem appropriate for a public setting with children.
"Oh yikes!" Bennett said to Claire referencing the exchange happening about four feet from them. "You ready to go get ready?" he asked her.
Claire had a cheer competition that he was taking her to, so she wouldn't have to ride the bus. He had come to every one of her competitions since they had officially met in September. She actually seemed to do better knowing that he was in the crowd cheering for her. It was one of the last comps. of the season, and they stood a good chance for regionals, but Claire was getting exhausted of it and was fairly certain she wouldn't mind if they stopped with the regular season.
She loved cheer, but it had become grueling and even her body seemed to be tired. Her joints ached constantly, and she had gotten sick more than once already this season.
"Yup!" She answered with a smile as he slipped his hands in hers.
"You doing alright?" He asked sensing her preoccupation.
"Yeah…..I'm just…..tired." She said, describing her feelings as best she could.
He evaluated her for a minute before saying.
"I get it. You have end of season burn out. I get it by the end of basketball season every year."
She smiled, glad he understood what she was going through.
"Well let's just get you through your competition tonight and then we'll go out after!" He said kindly.
She did really like the idea, but was conflicted, she had been planning on spending time with Jamie after her competition.
"What if we take Jamie out for ice cream?" He continued.
She smiled at him. How did he know she was thinking about Jamie?
"That sounds great! Thanks Bennett!" she said before she leaned in quickly and kissed his cheek.
He seemed pleased with her show of affection as he said, "Let's get this show on the road! Your chauffer awaits and is not a patient man!" he was always goofy like that.
They said their goodbyes to Macy and Caleb and then headed to Claire's house, so that she could change and get her stuff. Claire had just finished changing her clothes in her room and was packing her bag, when Bennett snuck in and quickly said,
"Ooh thank goodness, I barely made it out of there alive."
"What are you talking about?" she asked already laughing at whatever was coming.
"Your mom! Her flirting is outrageous! Really, she can't keep her hands off me, Claire!" he said as she started laughing outrageously at the idea of her mom flirting with him.
"I'm serious!" he said in fake outrage. "I think she's in love with me, and I just don't want to come between you two like that! I made my escape before she could ask me anymore questions about how 'algebra 2 is going for me'. I mean really could she be any more obvious? She clearly wants me."
Claire didn't know where he got this stuff from, but he was definitely entertaining. She shook her head as she chuckled and finished packing her gym bag. He surprised her by coming up behind her and wrapping his arms around her waist.
"Hey." She greeted him, as she placed her arms over his and snuggled into him. "You doing okay?" she asked as he suddenly seemed tense behind her.
"I'm great, that's the problem." He said in an unusually (for him) serious voice.
She turned in his arms to face him, so she could look up at him and ask, "What do you mean?"
"I…I love you, Claire." He said in the same serious voice as he looked down at her.
She hadn't expected him to say it, it wasn't exactly the picturesque moment for it (not that that mattered to her) but now that he had she was frozen as she evaluated how she felt about it. He wasn't the man whose arms she had thought she would be in while he confessed his love for her, but did that make his love any less valuable? Her heart warmed, and she felt incredibly secure as she looked up at him. She knew he meant it. That he wouldn't have said it unless he really did love her, and suddenly she was incredibly glad that he did love her.
"I love you too, Bennett." She smiled as she said it in a quiet voice.
His face broke into a new smile. One she had never seen before. It wasn't his biggest, goofiest smile, but instead it was a twisted, dimpled smile, one that she felt she had a sense of ownership over. This smile was just for her, and she loved it, almost as much as she loved him.
She was exhausted, and her body ached all over. She had barely landed her round-off-back-handspring, and her right arm had almost failed when she and Monique were catching Claudia after her double front twist. It had caused Claudia to twitch to the side a bit before her next lift into hold.
She didn't know what was wrong with her, and she was definitely worried that the squad would think she had hurt their chances of going on to regionals. Could end-of-season burn out really be the cause? She wasn't sure, but she was grateful that the squad had been supportive and encouraging towards her. They kept telling her to brush it off and that she would be better next time, but for some reason that only made her feel more nervous about it.
She just wanted to quit thinking about it. They had still scored well, and she just wanted to be out of her cheer mode for as long as she could before she had to put her game face back on and compete again next week.
Bennett came up to her, finding her in the hall outside of the locker rooms.
"Hey, Claire-bear, you ready to get out of here?"
That was all he said. He didn't mention the competition, or their placement, or her performance at all. And she was incredibly grateful. He seemed to know (maybe from experience) that the last thing she wanted to do right now, was relive it.
"Yes!" she said relieved and then quickly reached up to him and kissed him while she wrapped her arms around his neck, in the middle of the crowded hall.
He seemed surprised but definitely pleased by the public display of affection.
"Um, thanks." He said with a small smirk.
"Thank you!" she answered.
"For what?" he asked as he took her gym bag for her.
"For just being you." She said happily, accepting his hand that he was reaching towards her.
He raised his brows at her a few times and then said, "I am pretty awesome."
She laughed at his faux cockiness before he asked, "Should we go find Jamie? Your mom already put his extra-seat in my car so we're good to go."
"Let's do it!" she replied and then laughed when he raised their hands together in the air like they had just won some sort of grand price together.
They made their way back into the gym and quickly found her mom and Jamie.
"Hey, Jamie, you ready to go get some ice-cream?" she asked him.
Jamie just looked at the two of them together and then simply said, "No."
Uh-oh, Claire thought, this was not typical Jamie behavior. He LOVED ice cream.
"Um, Bennett would you mind filling up my water bottle at the fountain real quick?" she asked.
"Sure, I'll be over by the water fountain when you're ready." He replied with understanding.
He gave her hand a squeeze and then quickly walked away with Claire's gym bag. Claire got down to Jamie's level so that they were face to face, and then asked him,
"Jamie, why don't you want ice-cream?
"I just don't want any." he replied without looking at her.
Claire looked up at her mom for a clue as to what was going on, but her mom just shrugged, clearly as confused by this as Claire.
"Come on, it'll be fun, we'll get some rocky-road!" She said enticingly.
"Will Quil be there?" he asked suddenly excited knowing that rocky-road was also Quil's favorite.
He hadn't asked about Quil in months. He was so young that the few months that Quil had been out of the picture had been enough for it to become his new normal, and his bringing Quil up now was a complete surprise to Claire. Jamie had seemed to have gotten over his initial hang up with Bennett and had bonded with him since they had started dating. Bennett had even come with Claire to almost every one of his little league games.
She tried to stay upbeat as she answered, "No. It'll just be you and me and Bennett. Won't that be fun?"
She hadn't ever explained to her parents what had happened that caused Quil to seemingly suddenly disappear from her life. And she didn't want to now.
"Why can't Quil come?" he was starting to whine.
Claire had already been feeling crappy about the competition up until Bennett had cheered her up, but this brought it all back plus the added weight of worry and guilt associated with Quil.
"He just can't, Jamie!" she said more sharply than she had meant to.
She stood up to see her mom looking at her alarmed by her reaction. Suddenly she just wanted nothing to do with the situation.
"Never mind." Claire said quickly before either of them could respond, "I'll see you guys at home."
And then walked away without giving them a chance to respond.
She knew that that had not been her most gracious moment, and she felt bad, but she just couldn't deal with it right now. She was doing her best to shake it off and not think about it before she got back to Bennett.
"Everything alright?" he asked as she made it to him, waiting by the door of the gym.
"Yeah, he just doesn't want to come, so…. how about date night instead? You want to go see the new Sandra Bullock movie?" she asked as cheerfully as she could.
"I was actually thinking we should see the one with Channing Tatum." He said seriously, immediately teasing her.
She laughed as he grabbed her hand and led her out to his car together. She was googling the nearest theater there in Treeport, and showtimes on her phone as he pulled out.
"What's the one with all of the guns and explosions and maybe Samuel L. Jackson?" she asked him as he stopped at the exit of the parking lot waiting for a bus to pass.
He laughed before he said, "I actually think you'll have to be more specific than-" SMACK!
The car was thrown forward after being smashed in from the back. It was a microsecond of pure silent motion and then…. CRASH! as one of the buses that they had been waiting to pass in front of them, plowed into the passenger side of the car.
Claire's ears were ringing, and she couldn't see Bennett next to her with the way her head seemed to be pin. The airbag was deployed in front of her and was the only thing she seemed to be aware of. Her vision was going dark and she was losing consciousness and her last thought before she was pulled into the darkness was simply,
What if I die before I ever see Quil again?
The next few hours were a complete blur to Claire. She had moments of consciousness in the ambulance. A Paramedic was shining a penlight in her eyes, she had asked "Where….is Bennett?" knowing she had been with him last and now was surrounded by strangers, but he had just talked over her, stating her heart rate, approximate age, and seeming to list off her injuries using some of the medical jargon she associated with her mom at work.
She had come to a full awareness when they had been pushing her gurney into the ER. She was completely strapped down to a board with her right arm strapped tightly to her body. There was a lot of commotion as at least three EMT's were pushing her into a chaotic Emergency Room and all talking to someone who seemed to be pulling her from the front of her head out of her eyeline.
She had an oxygen mask on her face, but she had tried to ask, "Where is Bennett?" with a weak voice.
Only one EMT, a young blonde woman with a kind face, had even bothered to look down at her, but she didn't seem to have understood.
"Where is Bennett?" she repeated a little stronger, as she tried to reach up her left arm and pull off the oxygen mask, but it was strapped down at the elbow and she couldn't reach her face.
"What?" the EMT had asked while reaching to move the mask aside.
"Where is MY BOYFRIEND!?" she yelled getting louder with each word. Why was no one taking her seriously?
"Was he the other kid in the car?" the EMT asked.
Claire tried to nod but her head was strapped to the board and she had suddenly realized that she was shaking uncontrollably.
"They took him in the other rig, but he seemed to be in good shape, he was conscious at the scene." She responded as they lifted her on the board from the gurney to an ER bed.
They all walked away then as a team of doctors and nurses came in to replace them and start poking and prodding her everywhere as they spoke overtop her to each other.
Bennett had been conscious. That was good. That was a good sign. He had been conscious. She just kept telling herself that as the shaking increased and her eyes started to fill with tears.
A kind nurse in teal scrubs leaned over her and said, "It's alright. You're okay. You're going to be fine. Try to calm down, alright?"
He was the only one talking to her, so she spoke directly to him,
"I need to find out what happened to my boyfriend. He was in the car with me. I need to know if he's okay."
He evaluated her for a moment and then said kindly, "Alright, I'll go find out what happened to your boyfriend, but only if you promise to try to calm down, alright?"
She gave a small tear-filled laugh and said, "Okay." Before a doctor immediately looked down at her and asked,
"Alright, Miss can you tell me your name?"
She was distracted by his penlight that he was shining in her eyes.
"Um Claire…. Claire Young." She answered after a moment.
"Good, good." He said confidently, "How old are you, Claire?"
"I'm…. I'm sixteen." She wasn't sure why it was taking quite so long for the answers to come to her.
"Okay," he said while feeling her temples and then the sides of her head with his hands. "Do you know where you are?"
"No….." she answered and then, "Well the hospital, but I don't know which one, are we at OMC? Is my mom here?"
Olympic Medical Center was the hospital in Port Angeles that her mom had privileges at. But that couldn't be right, her mom had been with Jamie at the competition.
"Good. I'm seeing good responses, and there are no noticeable spinal injuries so let's unstrap her while we do CT and a work up." He said to the other doctors and nurses before he spoke to her. "Claire, You're at Luke Presbyterian Hospital in Treeport. You were in a car accident. Your parents are on the way. They'll be here soon, but in the meantime were going to take you for a few scans and get you fixed up, alright?"
She didn't respond but she decided that she liked him. He seemed competent and she trusted him. Before he walked out of the room she asked,
"Wait. That nurse was going to find out what happened to my boyfriend."
"It looks like he is coming back now to let you know, I'm on my way to check on him right now, I'll take good care of him, I promise, Claire."
And then he left. A couple seconds later the nurse came back and started pushing Claire's bed back out into the ER from the exam room she had been placed in by the EMT's.
"Bennett Callahan? That's your boyfriend, right?" he asked in a rushed voice.
Claire's stomach dropped as she prepared to hear bad news, she just nodded now that they had unstrapped her from the board.
"The EMT's brought him here too, he is in that exam room back there that was right next yours." she felt a measure of relief knowing that he was actually there in the same ER so close to her. "He seems to have only minor injuries and has been insistently annoying the doctor's by saying he needs to be with you."
Claire actually laughed with relief. He was okay. Bennett was okay. He wanted to be there in the same room with her. He was okay.
"I'm Greg by the way. I'm the nurse assigned to your case and if the number of tests the doctors have ordered for you are any indicator we're going to be spending a lot of tonight together. What do you think, Claire, you want to be my date on this Saturday night?"
Claire was still so relieved that Bennett was okay she barely processed what he was saying but when she did she laughed in response before saying,
"Sounds like a plan, just as long as I leave in better shape than I showed up in!"
"Well we always like to send a girl home happy the next morning here at Luke Presbyterian." Was his cheeky response.
Claire just shook her head up at him from where she was lying on the bed he was wheeling her around on. She knew he was joking around to try to take her mind of her and Bennett's injuries and she still might have razed him for that comment but truthfully, she was grateful that he was willing to have a conversation with her that didn't center around injury or accident.
After that, it was scan after scan. Starting with a CT scan, and then an x-ray, then a CAT scan, and then an MRI just to be safe. Before her CAT scan, Claire's nurse Greg, came in to the small room off of the side of the room with the machine, and explained that he was there to help her out of her cheer uniform and into a hospital gown. She just looked up at him a little confused and asked,
"Isn't there a female nurse who can help me?"
He shrugged and said, "There is…. but we're at full capacity tonight and no one really has the time to help one of my patients when they're busy with their own."
He was around twenty-five and attractive not to mention he had jokingly made a comment about her being his date. She wasn't worried about him personally but that didn't mean that he wasn't pretty much the last person that Claire needed to see her naked right now.
"What about my mom? Isn't she here yet?" she asked.
"Sorry, it's patients only back here, plus she might unintentionally make an injury worse trying to get your clothes off." He responded before giving her a sympathetic look.
"But she's a doctor, so she'll know what not to do. She works at OMC in Port Angeles." Claire explained.
"Does she have privileges here?" he asked.
Claire just shook her head. He seemed on the fence for a moment before he said,
"Okay, but this has to be our little secret. I could actually get in trouble for this."
"I promise! It'll never leave this room." She told him quickly.
Ten minutes later he was back with her mom in tow.
"Claire!" her mom said relieved.
She hadn't been able to see any of her family yet. She had been stuck getting scanned relentlessly the entire time and they kept telling her that she could see her family and her boyfriend, once they were done treating her and she was safely resting in her room.
"Hey, Mom!" Claire tried to say in a tone that would let her know she was okay.
Her mom had way too much experience to actually touch her in the chance of doing more damage, but she smiled at her from right next to her bed that she was lying in with her arm still strapped to her chest. She had already overheard the radiologist say that it was broken in at least two places.
Claire heard Greg say, "I'm sure you already know how to do this Doctor Young, but…."
Then he continued on to give her detailed instructions for how to cut off what was left of Claire's bloody cheer uniform and carefully put the hospital gown on her before he left.
It was quiet for a few minutes as Claire's mom got to work cutting her clothes away in strategic places. When she had got through the first layer and was about to cut into Claire's neon green sports bra, Claire finally broke the silence by asking,
"Are you okay, mom?"
"Psh, of course. I'm a doctor. I see injuries all of the time…it's just different, when it's your own kid, is all." She was getting teary.
"I'm okay, Mom, really. I'm sorry for the scare though." Claire said trying to comfort her.
She smiled and nodded. Claire finally gathered her courage to ask the question that was plaguing her,
"Is Quil here?"
Her mom was just tying the back of the gown closed around Claire while she laid on her side on the bed.
"No..." she answered carefully.
"He's not?" Claire asked, shocked and hurt.
"I didn't tell him." Her mom explained.
"Why not?" Claire asked surprised. Sure, he hadn't been around the last few months but something as big as this he deserved to know.
"Because, I-" her mom started but then GregGre was gently knocking while opening the door. They were waiting to take Claire in to get her scan done.
"I'll see you later, Mom. But call Quil, he needs to know too." She said confidently as the nurse wheeled her out.
It took another forty-five minutes before they had finished the scan and finally put Claire in her room. They let her parent's come in at that point but said that Jamie couldn't, so it ended up being just her mom again while the same doctor who had questioned her when she had first gotten there came in and explained that he was a neurosurgeon and on her case. Finding out the she had a neurosurgeon on her case initially made her incredibly nervous until he explained that she only had a small concussion but no other damage to her brain, they were going to keep her over-night to monitor her, though.
Claire's mom had thanked him profusely, but he seemed to tune her out and look directly at Claire when she spoke sincerely to him,
"Thank you. For all of your help. I really appreciate it."
"No problem, Claire, get some rest and I'll be back in the morning to check on you." He had responded.
After that an ortho-surgeon came in to explain that her arm had been broken in two places. Claire had tiny stress fractures all over her body. Apparently through the cheer season she had been stressing her body so much that her bones were literally braking down. They weren't sure how much the accident had exasperated the fractures, but it was clear that it wasn't the sole cause of the damage.
Her arm, gratefully, didn't require surgery, but they were going to have to re-break it to set it correctly. The ortho-surgeon said that they would give Claire something for her pain, but it seemed like it wasn't going to be a pleasant experience. She then asked Claire's mom to leave the room before she began. Her mom began insisting that she was, herself, a doctor and that she needed to stay with "her Claire" until Claire quickly said,
"Mom! Just go! I don't want you here for this!" she was starting to get stressed herself about what was about to happen, and her mom wasn't helping.
Her mom was about to walk out the door to go wait in the hall, when Claire suddenly called out to her, "Wait! Can't Quil come in? I want him here."
Her mom responded quickly with,
"Oh honey, he's not here."
Claire immediately felt the hot tears pool in her eyes. How could he not be there? She needed him. Where was he? She just bit her lip to force herself to hold in her tears so that her mom wouldn't insist on staying and nodded at her without saying anything.
The moment when the doctor rebroke Claire's arm was the most painful experience of Claire's life. She screamed as hard as she could and then stuffed her left fist into her mouth when she realized that her mom would hear it, she couldn't stop the scream though.
The ortho-surgeon had given her a sympathetic smile, and a few minutes to rest before she began the plastering for the cast. When she was about halfway through, she said,
"Don't worry, someone will be in soon to stitch up your head."
Claire didn't even know that she had cut her head.
They had actually ended up sending in the resident-plastic surgeon to do her stitches. She had found that to be over the top, but she was flattered when the plastic-surgeon, a kind, attractive gentlemen in his upper-forties with slightly graying temples said,
"With a face as pretty as that, I don't trust anyone else to stitch you. It'll take a couple more stitches, but trust me, it'll be worth it, you won't have any scares."
She had two cuts on her forehead and one on her right cheek from where the glass from her window had sliced her. The surgeon was impressively smooth and quick with his stitches, and within ten minutes was placing sterri-strips over them.
Her mom had left with her dad and Jamie an hour before. She had promised to come back and spend the night there with Claire, but Claire had felt that was ridiculous and unnecessary and that she should just come back in the morning when she was released.
So, Claire was on her own at this point. She had asked her mom before she left if Bennett could finally come in. Her mom told her that Bennett had insisted on seeing Claire for hours, but that they wouldn't let him near her while they were treating her. He had been questioned by the police about the accident, and then released from being a patient with only minor scrapes and bruises since the vast majority of the impact had been on Claire's side of the car. At that point the visiting hours were over, and his mom had insisted on taking him home. He had been beside himself, insisting that he needed to see Claire before he could leave, but her parents had promised that he could be there at her house when they brought her home the next morning and at that point he didn't have much of a choice but to surrender and leave with his mom.
The plastic-surgeon told her how lucky she had been to not have suffered more damage in the accident. She just smiled at him graciously but didn't want to talk about the accident. Every time she thought about it she wanted to cry. He told her that he would send in a nurse to wash the blood out of her hair before he left. Claire was relieved by this. She hadn't known there was blood in her hair but didn't like the prospect of sleeping in it.
True to his word, a gruff nurse came in a few minutes later and did wash Claire's hair in a bowl right there on the side of her bed. She was very no-none-sense and made no attempts at small talk. She finished quickly and left immediately. It wasn't the best wash her hair had ever had, but at least there wasn't blood in it anymore.
That night was terrible. Claire's head throbbed, and her arm ached. Every time she seemed to come close to falling asleep a nurse would come in and ask her questions to check her mental status. She kept finding herself wishing that Quil was there to hold her and keep away the images of the accident that kept flashing in her mind. She just couldn't understand how he wouldn't be there after her mom had called him. She knew she would need to question her mom in detail about the conversation she'd had with him but then ultimately felt like hearing his response would just feel like another rejection since he hadn't been bothered to come. Every time the thought came to her she did her best to push it out of her mind by thinking of different after-school activities her and Bennett could do. After all she would have a lot more free time now that she was officially done with cheer until next school year. There was no way that she would heal in time to come back this season. She was going to be in a cast for at least eight weeks and then have physical therapy after that.
The next morning her mom got there at eight with a pair of clean sweats that were bright blue and said CPHS Cheerleading for Claire to wear home. She was groggy and feeling miserable while she got dressed and then her mom helped her braid her still damp hair. They wouldn't be able to be released before the neurosurgeon did his rounds and signed off on her and she was in a terrible mood, so she didn't mean it to slip out when she said grumpily,
"I can't believe Quil didn't come!"
Her mom seemed a little surprised and replied,
"I didn't call him, Claire."
"What!?" Claire asked shocked, "Why!?"
Her mom sighed and explained,
"After you snapped at Jamie last night when he asked about Quil, I was worried that something had happened between the two of you. I didn't think it was appropriate for him to be here after he had come on to you."
"Mom! Quil didn't come on to me! He would never do that!" Claire said immediately.
Her mom was standing behind the chair that Claire was sitting in while she braided her hair. She was silent as she finished and put a hair tie in to hold it in place. She then walked around until she was right in front of Claire and squatted all the way down until she was on Claire's level and asked,
"Are you sure, Claire? Are you sure he didn't try anything with you?"
"Yes, Mom." She said in a soft voice. "If he had, I would tell you."
"Then why has he been gone all of these months? He was never away from you before."
Claire sighed deeply and then said softly,
"Because I asked him too."
"Why!?" her mom asked concerned.
"I don't know, Mom. All the reasons I asked him to stay away don't seem to make sense to me anymore."
She was tearing up now and her mom, being satisfied that Quil hadn't crossed a line, seemed to sense that it was a touchy-subject and let it drop. Claire spent the rest of her time in the hospital thinking,
He didn't know? How could something like this happen to me, and he just not know?
