Page 184 of The Pucking Coach's Daughter

fifty-six

sydney

The time between finding Oliver on the floor and now are blurry. I rushed to his side, dropping so hard the impact seemed to rattle up my spine. He was curled in the fetal position to protect himself, but there was already so much blood.

A wound on his head, across his eyebrow. Another on his jaw.

The paramedics showed up with the police, and after the apartment was cleared, they came up with a stretcher. He didn’t wake up when they put a neck brace on and slid him onto the stretcher, and he still didn’t after we got downstairs and was loaded into the ambulance.

The police take my statement before we leave. One breaks off to talk to Elle, my downstairs neighbor. The officer says a detective is going to meet us at the hospital to interview Oliver, too. But then I’m shuffled into the back of the ambulance and the doors close, effectively ending the conversation.

Now, I sit in the waiting room while a doctor examines Oliver. I have his phone and wallet, and that’s it. My hands won’t stop shaking. I double over and try to keep breathing, but my chin keeps wobbling. I sway between needing to throw up and wanting to pass out.

It would be easier if I could lose consciousness for a while.

I use his phone to call Penn. Then my dad. Both go to voicemail, which isn’t terribly surprising. Dad was off on a mission to do with my mother, while Penn was busy trying to either save Carter or get fucked up in a brawl.

They’re busy, which means it’ll just be me…

I should call his parents.

With shaky hands, I find his mom’s contact info. I hover over her name, debating… then do it. He seems close to his family. Maybe. I don’t actually know—all I know is that his grandmother calls him Gabriel, and she seemed to love him fiercely. Even if, in her words, he didn’t visit home enough.

“Hi, baby,” his mom’s warm voice greet me. “What are you up to?”

I clear my throat. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Ruiz. My name is Sydney. Um, Oliver is in the hospital?—”

“What? Is he okay?”

“Yeah.” I pause. “Well, I think so. He… he’s being looked at right now.” A lump forms in my throat. “He was unconscious when paramedics brought him in.”

“Which hospital?”

I tell her. She says she’ll be there soon, and we hang up. I don’t have any more information for her—I don’t know that they’d give it to me anyway. We’re not related. I’m not his family.

I slowly fold over again, that feeling of not doing or being enough intensifying.

“Sydney Windsor?”

I shoot upright, and white spots pop in front of my vision. “Yes?”

A nurse stops in front of me. “Oliver is awake, honey. He’s asking for you.”

“He’s asking for me?”

“Yes. You can follow me.” Her expression is entirely sympathetic. She leads me into the emergency department and down a hallway, to a curtained-off bed with a chair at its side.

Oliver lies shirtless, the blankets pooling around his waist. There are already deep black and blue bruises across his torso. His face is swollen, his cheekbone cut. He’s got stitches closing a cut on his jaw and another on his eyebrow.

Tears flood my eyes, and I slap my hand over my mouth to cover an upcoming sob.

Don’t lose it, I tell myself.

His eyes crack open. “Hey, mi nena.”

The nurse closes me in. One blink and the tears spill over.

He lifts his hand. There’s an IV attached to it, inserted into a vein on top of his hand and taped down. His normally warm, bronze skin tone seems too pale.