Chapter Twelve – Detective B
"Freeze!" Alex shouted, aiming her pointed finger at Bobby.
It had been a month now since Bobby's father had left, and he had come to the conclusion that his life really wasn't much different without his father than it was with him. This bitter thought had been shoved out of Bobby's mind angrily. Of course his life was different without his father. He was still angry with his mother for pushing William Goren away. But still he took care of her. After all, he was the responsible one. It all fell on him with his father now gone. In any case, the amount of guilt he felt at admitting his most buried emotion – rage toward the mother who couldn't care for him – was overwhelming. He knew it wasn't her fault, but in the deepest, darkest, most secret place in his mind, he blamed her.
Bobby held his hands up, breathing heavily from the chase. He still met Alex here in the park as often as he could. He hadn't brought up that night again, and was grateful that she never mentioned it either. Things between them had returned to normal.
"You should have known that I would catch you eventually," Alex huffed, still short of breath herself.
Bobby turned around to face her. "Detective Alex," he said. "You should know that a criminal mastermind always has a trick up his sleeve." He shook his arm, and pulled out an imaginary weapon. "BANG!" he yelled.
She threw herself to the ground, rolling out of harm's way. Re-aiming her own hand, she also fired her imaginary weapon. "Bang!" she yelled, shoving herself off of the ground. "I got you in the leg, Bobby!" she added.
"Aghhhh," Bobby moaned, clutching his leg in mock pain.
Alex sprinted over and pulled his arms behind his back "You're under arrest – for murder."
"You haven't seen the last of me," Bobby warned.
"I sure hope not," Alex agreed, releasing his arms and sprinting towards the slide.
"Hey, wait for me!" Bobby called, racing after her.
It was a regular occurrence for them to be playing their own version of the 'cops and robbers' game that many children played. Except they made it detectives and criminals – and for each round they first invented a whole scenario involving the crimes and history of the criminal and the detective's history. Sometimes they were rookie cops hunting down a thief who robbed grocery stores with a water gun. Sometimes they were seasoned detectives searching for a criminal mastermind. Bobby detailed all the cases in one of his notebooks, adding to them as they acted out the hunt for the criminal.
"Can't catch me!" Alex teased, flinging herself down the slide. Bobby followed suit, his longer legs letting him catch her after a race around the play structure.
"Detective Bobby has managed to catch a criminal on foot again!" Bobby announced.
"Hey, wasn't I just the detective?" Alex demanded.
"Then why were you running?" Bobby countered.
"Okay," Alex agreed, laughing. "I guess I turned over to the dark side," she added, dropping her voice to an attempted horror-filled stage whisper.
"Pfft," Bobby snorted. "I could never see you as a criminal, Alex. Not really. I could definitely see as a detective someday though."
"No thank you," Alex replied, shaking her head in disdain. "I would much rather drive race cars. I can't wait to get my licence so I can at least drive regular cars! I'm never being a passenger again once I can take control of the wheel."
Bobby shook his head in amusement.
Alex just grinned and turned towards the swing set, springing into the air and twirling in circles on the way. Bobby followed, flopping down on the swing next to hers.
"I'll bet I can swing higher than you!" Alex challenged, pushing off the ground.
"Why is everything always a competition with you?" Bobby asked in mock irritation.
"Because I'm competitive," Alex replied.
"Gee, why didn't I think of that," Bobby muttered sarcastically, pumping his legs to get his own swing in motion.
Alex laughed. "My Mom says it's because I have a brother and a sister – sibling rivalry."
"I have a brother, and I don't feel the need to compete in everything," Bobby countered.
Alex shrugged. "Maybe that's because you're losing!" she joked, comparing the height of their respective swings.
It had been meant as a joke, but Bobby frowned, thoughtful. That was a fair point. Pitting himself against Frank was a competition he was always going to lose.
Alex let out a whoop of exhilaration as the chains of her swing went slack at the height of the arc. "I'm swinging so high!" she called. "I'm beating you Bobby!"
"Oh yeah?" Bobby replied. "But can you do this?" He tipped over backwards, hooking his ankles around the chains of the swing, watching the ground blur as he swung upside-down.
He sat back up to see Alex's swing whip past him again, going forward and up so high that the swing was past the point of being parallel to the bar. Just as she went to lean back, the chains slackened again, tipping the seat and sending its occupant back too fast. Bobby watched in horror as her feet missed the chains. She back flipped right off of the swing and plunged towards the ground.
The ground rushed towards her. Alex didn't even have time to scream before the grass rose up to meet her. One hand tried to break the fall before she collided with the earth, landing flat on her front.
As Bobby's swing moved forward again he slid off of it and did a sort of awkward run to try and recover his balance, nearly tripping over his feet. He turned and ran back to where his friend had fallen, relieved to see her sitting up.
"Are you okay?" Bobby demanded.
She drew in air to answer him, only to have a horrible wheezing sound that she had not intended escape her. She would have laughed at the sight of Bobby's eyes nearly protruding from their sockets at the dreadful sound, but all she could manage was a short burst of air before the next rasping inhalation. She continued to struggle for air, but her lungs seemed to be malfunctioning. She couldn't breathe.
Tears escaped her eyes as she started to panic, but she couldn't really even cry because she couldn't breathe. She clutched at her chest, thinking she might have been flattened like a pancake because that's certainly what it felt like. Her lungs were on fire.
"Alex?" Bobby asked fearfully. He turned to scan the park, but it was one of the rare occasions when they were the only ones there. "I'll go get help!" Bobby assured her.
He was about to get up and run for help when she grabbed his arm. Don't leave me! She wanted to shout, but the only sound was another wheeze.
He gripped her hand for a panic-stricken minute, wondering what to do. Should he try to pick her up and carry her home? Should he call for help? Should he shrug off her hand and run to the nearest person anyway?
After the most terrifying moment Alex had ever experienced, which seemed to last much longer than it really did, her chest was finally able to rise enough to pull in enough air. The only unfortunate part about that was now she was really starting to cry. Part of the reason she now sobbed while tears streamed down her face was due to the fact that she was now able to respond to the panic she had felt from not being able to breathe. The other reason was that now she that the more worrisome issue of struggling for air was taken care of, she knew she was hurt – a lot.
Bobby noticed that Alex's lip was starting to swell, along with parts of the left side of her face. Now that she had released his arm, she was also clutching her left wrist.
"Your arm's hurt," Bobby stated worriedly. "Can you move it?"
She held out the arm gingerly and bent her hand forward just a tiny bit before letting out a wail and bursting into renewed sobs.
"Come on, you've got to get home," Bobby said, feeling his panic start to rise again. "Can you walk?"
"No!" she shouted. "I mean yes-" here she stopped to take a shuddering breath, "- but no! Mom and Dad will be so mad at me!"
"I don't think they'll be mad – you're hurt," Bobby reasoned.
"They always tell me to careful; I'm gonna be in so much trouble!" she exclaimed. "I'm not hurt," she said decisively, taking deep breaths to stop crying. Never mind the ache spreading through her entire body from her fall; never mind the sharp pain in her wrist; never mind the fact that each word she spoke stung her swollen lower lip. If she refused to acknowledge it, it would have to just go away.
"You are hurt," Bobby argued. "I think your wrist is broken. Look." He seized her right arm and pulled it next to her left. The latter had already swollen to a significantly larger size than the former.
Just seeing the size difference made it undeniable, and reminded her of how much the throbbing in her wrist hurt. The barley contained tears started to fall again, despite the fact that she really hated to cry.
Though he hid it well, Bobby was absolutely terrified to see Alex crying. He didn't think he'd ever seen something as frightening as her slipping off of the swing, and he didn't think he'd ever seen her cry. He was absolutely frantic and desperate to do something.
"I'll carry you!" he exclaimed. "I'll carry you back to your house!"
"My arm is broken, not my legs," Alex said incredulously. She stood up clutching her injured wrist. "See?" she said. "I can walk fine."
"Okay," Bobby replied shakily. All the same, he wrapped his arm around her waist and walked close to her. She leaned into him, more to comfort herself than out of any pain from her tumble.
"I think you should go," she said when they reached the division between their houses. He watched from the sidewalk as she went into her house. He heard her calling for her mother as the door closed.
He turned and went back to his own house. As it turned out, if he had been looking for his own mother he wouldn't have needed to call her.
"Get in, quick, hurry!" she instructed, pulling him in and slamming the door shut. "Did they follow you here, boy?" she demanded.
"No, Ma," Bobby assured her. "I'm alone."
Bobby paced his room anxiously, glancing out his window towards Alex's at each turn. Her words repeated themselves through his mind over and over: "I think you should go…"
Of course she wanted him to go. It was all his fault that she had gotten hurt in the first place. If he hadn't dared her to try that stupid trick, she wouldn't have fallen off of the swing. Now she probably hated him.
Bobby threw himself on his bed, hot tears pressing at his eyes. He wished he could go back in time and fix what had happened. But it was too late.
He had watched from his window yesterday as Alex left with her mother and later returned with a cast on her left arm. "Stupid, stupid, stupid," Bobby muttered angrily. It should have been he who fell and got hurt. He had run a thousand scenarios through his mind where he could have made a different choice and avoided the whole situation. But of course, it was no good to dwell on what ifs, so he had instead ran another thousand scenarios through his mind where he went over to apologize. It never seemed to come out right, even in his own mind. Could she ever forgive him?
Bobby got up and started pacing again, but his room felt too small. He left it, walking past Frank's closed door, his mother talking to herself and paying him no mind anyway, and right out the front door. Without realizing it, his feet carried him towards the old park out of habit.
Bobby contemplated the swing set, the long chains leading up to the bar high above the ground. It was probably lucky that Alex wasn't hurt worse. Bobby turned angrily from the offending structure, as though it had purposefully offended him. Then he paused, his own thought circling back. It should have been me who was hurt. He turned back towards the swings.
Maybe he couldn't make it so Alex wasn't hurt… but he still could punish himself. It took a long time for Bobby to shimmy his way up one of the poles supporting the bar from which the swings hung. He finally managed to heave himself up, panting. The physical exertion had helped clear his mind for a time, but now his anger and sense of self-punishment had returned.
He looked towards the ground and reflexively tightened his grip. He was up really high. One wrong move, leaning forward just an inch too far, and he'd be plummeting to the ground. He was so intent on his thoughts that he didn't notice the figure approaching him until she spoke.
"What are you doing?"
Bobby was so surprised he nearly fell off of the bar by accident. "Alex!" he exclaimed.
"How'd you get up there?" she asked.
"Climbed," Bobby replied.
"Right," Alex said. "I suppose I could've guessed that." They were both quiet for a moment, the first awkward silence they could remember stretching between them.
"Are you coming down?" Alex asked finally. She normally would have tried to climb up after him, but she wasn't able to do that with only one good arm. She was a bit irritated that he wouldn't have thought of that.
Bobby looked towards the ground again, leaning forward slightly.
"Careful!" Alex called, holding her arms up as though to catch him. "Don't fall!"
"You did," Bobby said sadly.
"Yeah," Alex replied, "and believe me, it hurt! I really don't suggest trying it!"
"It was my fault," Bobby lamented. "I'm so sorry, Alex! I never meant for you to get hurt!"
Alex stared up at him, frowning. "It wasn't your fault," she replied, her eyebrows knitted together in confusion. "I fell all on my own. It's not like you pushed me or something."
"But it was because I told you to try swinging upside down that you fell," Bobby explained.
"It was an accident," Alex said firmly. "It could have been either of us who fell. Besides, you've warned me for a long time that I could break my wrist, and now it's happened!" She grinned, holding up her casted left arm.
Bobby couldn't believe she was smiling. "But aren't you mad at me?"
"No," Alex said. "It wasn't your fault, so I'm not mad. Now come down from there, I want you to sign my cast."
"But you wanted me to go away," Bobby remembered.
"Yes," Alex said impatiently, "but that was only because then my mom would have found out that I was hanging out with you, and that'd be weird because she doesn't even know we're friends, because we've always been secret friends."
"You're really not mad?" Bobby asked
"Don't be dumb," Alex snapped in response. "Now please come down from there – carefully!"
Bobby shimmied back towards the pole, and slid down it. "Is it just your wrist that's broken?" he asked.
"Yup," Alex replied. "And I bit my lip, so it hurts when I eat, but that's it." She contemplated him for a moment, before matter-of-factly stating "You can be really dumb sometimes, especially for a smart guy."
"Sorry."
"Stop apologizing," Alex snapped. "You always think everything is your fault. Accidents happen, random unlucky chance happens, and you can't punish yourself every time something goes wrong." Finished with any particularly deep thoughts, she huffed irritably and added, "Don't think I'm mad at you for dumb things."
"Sorry," Bobby said automatically, then caught himself. "I mean, I won't."
"It's dumb," Alex added.
"Right."
"But you're not dumb."
"Thanks."
"Sign my cast."
"Okay."
Alex handed him a marker, and he thought for a moment before signing, Detective B.
Alex read what he had written and looked up to meet his eye, grinning. He smiled back.
