Parallel

tell Caitlin. “It’s on the way.” This outing has already taken a weird turn. No need to cap it off by spending hours in an ER waiting room. Plus, it really is on the way—we’ll literally pass his house. Still, I expect Josh to protest, to insist on coming with me, but he doesn’t.
    “So should we assume Tyler’s sleeping at Ilana’s tonight?” I ask, munching on a pretzel. I really mean “with,” not “at,” but for some reason the euphemism feels necessary.
    Caitlin and I are sitting on a bed at Emory University Hospital, waiting for the doctor to return with my discharge papers. My nurse gave me a shot of “the good stuff” (her words, not mine) before cleaning the wound—thank God, because I swear they were using steel wool—so the pain has subsided to a subtle ache and my mood has radically improved. My parents left to track down the doctor, who said he’d be back in ten minutes an hour ago. Caitlin and I are sharing a bag of vending machine Chex Mix while she paints my toenails Fire-Engine Red (another gift from Nurse Nina).
    “Who knows,” Caitlin says, her tone dismissive. She focuses on my big toe.
    “Do you have feelings for him?” The question just pops out, catching even me by surprise. Apparently, my thought filter switched off when the painkillers kicked in.
    “What? No. Why would you think that?” She’s believably adamant, but her voice sounds edgy. Like she’s nervous. Her face is angled down, her hair covering her eyes, so I can’t tell if she’s doing that rapid blinking thing she does when she’s lying.
    “Just had a feeling you might,” I say. “If you don’t, you don’t.”
    “I don’t,” she says.
    “But if you did—”
    She looks up at me. “I don’t.” The look on her face tells me she means it.
    “Right. Of course you don’t.” I say this convincingly, but I am not convinced. My gut feeling is too powerful, too strong. There’s something between them, even if neither of them will admit it. “But can I just say I think you’d be a really good couple?”
    “Abby. Drop it.”
    Just then, the door opens and my parents reappear with the doctor, a perky little Argentinean man with giant hands.
    “I guess I’ll take off,” Caitlin says, screwing the cap back onto the bottle of nail polish.
    “Thanks for being here.” I squeeze her hand. Caitlin’s calm kept me calm. It always does.
    As soon as she’s gone, the doctor starts in on his spiel. I’m only half listening. My eyelids are beginning to droop. I could probably fall asleep right here, while he’s talking. I will him to finish his speech.
    “. . . immobilized for at least four weeks. No running or strenuous activity for at least eight—”
    “ Eight weeks? ” I interrupt the man midsentence. “I can’t run for eight weeks? But I only have eight stitches. And it doesn’t even hurt anymore.”
    The doctor chuckles like I’ve just made a joke. I give him a death stare. His brow furrows.
    “Honey, it doesn’t hurt because they gave you a morphine shot,” my mom says gently. Ugh. Sometimes I loathe the soothing voice. My dagger eye shuts her up.
    “Four nails went through your foot,” the doctor says, his voice almost as patronizing as the look he’s giving me. Yes, thank you, jackass, I’m aware of that. “You chipped two bones. You’re lucky they didn’t shatter.”
    “What about cross-country?” I direct the question at my dad, the only person in the room who’s not irritating me right now. “Eight weeks is the whole season.” My voice sounds strained. Panicky.
    “Ab—,” he begins. I don’t let him finish.
    “I’m the captain of the team! There’s no way Coach P will let me keep the title if I’m not competing.”
    “It sucks,” Dad says simply. “I get that. We all do. But it is what it is.” And with that bit of banality, he takes the air right out of my rage balloon.
    “So,” the doctor says, smiling like we’re at the circus. “Pink gauze or white?”
    I’m quiet on the drive home. Annoyed at myself, annoyed at Josh for not making me put my shoes on, annoyed at the construction worker who left nails on that step. Most annoyed at the universe for allowing a momentary lapse in judgment to have such a massive effect. Not running with the team this season means I now have only one extracurricular for my college applications: EIC of the Oracle . Without cross-country as a counterweight, I’ll seem tunnel-visioned and one-dimensional, which