Paige blinks. Where did that come from?
He shakes his head. That was unimportant right now. “I’m going to get Ms. Tiseu, okay?”
“Y-yeah…” Kevin breathes heavily. “Please.”
Paige rushes to the nurse’s office as fast as he can. Bursting through the door and startling Ms. Tiseu, he shouts, “Ms. Tiseu! There’s an emergency!”
"E-emergency?" she repeats, hand to her chest and trying to catch her breath. “Oh dear. What happened?”
“Someone broke Kevin’s leg!”
“WHAT!?” the nurse yelps, standing immediately. “Show me to him! Hurry!”
Paige quickly makes his way back to where he left Kevin. He’s still on the floor, but his tears seem to have dried up a bit. Even so, he’s obviously still in immense pain, breathing heavily.
“Oh my good lord,” Ms. Tiseu gasps. “Kevin, how did this happen?” she asks, bending over him in much the same way Paige did a moment ago.
“Some kid stomped on my leg…” he recounts again. “Ms. Tiseu, it really, really hurts.”
“I can imagine, dear. Just let me do one thing, okay?”
“Okay…”
The nurse very, very carefully pokes at Kevin’s undamaged leg. Nothing happens. Then, she does the same to his injured one.
He screams.
“OW, OW, OWW!” he cries. “It hurts! It hurts!”
“Okay, okay,” Ms. Tiseu soothes. “We have to get you to the hospital, dear.”
“Hospital…?” Paige breathes.
“Yes, the hospital. It looks like this is a pretty bad fracture. I can’t do anything about it here.” The nurse pulls out her cellphone and dials a number. “Yes, hello? We need an ambulance at Ingenious High ASAP. I’m the nurse and I have a student here with a broken leg.”
Paige stares down at Kevin’s leg, disbelieving. He was fine not only a week ago! How… how could someone do this!?
“Yes, thank you.” Ms. Tiseu says, hanging up. “They’ll be here soon. Paige?”
“...”
“Paige.”
“......”
“Paige!”
“Huh?” he blinks. “Y-yes, Ms. Tiseu?”
“Go on to class, sweetie. I’ll make sure Kevin here is alright.”
“No!” Paige cries. “I—I want to go with him!”
“Honey…” the nurse murmurs sympathetically. “I’m afraid I can’t release you even under these circumstances.”
Paige is going to cry. “Then I want to go home!” he shouts, stomping his foot. “You can’t expect me to see one of my best friends like this and then go to class like nothing happened! It’s not fair!!”
Ms. Tiseu looks down at the child with a tight face. “...You’re right,” she says eventually. “I’ll call your aunt.”
+++
Carmen looks in his rear view mirror directly at Paige. Paige is trying not to let his aunt catch his gaze, but he fails.
“Paige, mijo, what happened today?” he asks, worry clear in his voice.
“I don’t wanna talk about it,” Paige says flatly.
“...Alright, sweetie.”
+++
Paige doesn’t sleep well that night.
+++
“Hey!” Brandon greets the next morning. “What happened to you yesterday, man? You weren’t in class in the last two periods.”
“I left,” is all that Paige says.
“You left?”
“I left.”
“Why?” Brandon prods further.
Paige frowns. “Kevin broke his leg.”
“What?” Brandon blinks. Then, he says again, “WHAT?”
“I really don’t wanna talk about it,” Paige sighs.
“Okay, but are you alright?” Brandon frets.
“Fine,” Paige replies.
“Are you sure?” Brandon pouts. “You seem… I don’t know. You’re acting a little different.”
“I just saw one of my oldest friends sobbing with a broken leg,” Paige deadpans. “I think you’d be acting different too.”
“Oh,” is all that Brandon can muster.
“Yeah,” Paige says back.
+++
“Are you gonna give a note today?” Brandon asks as the two of them unload out of Quinn’s SUV.
“Shoot,” Paige says, sucking his teeth. “I forgot.”
“Yeah, that’s fair,” Brandon nods. “You want I should tell him you can’t make it today?”
“No,” Paige says, pulling off his bag. “Hold on.”
Ripping out a piece of paper from a random book he had, Paige writes:
“Sorry. Something serious came up. I’ll try to reply properly on Monday, okay?”
He hands the note off to Brandon. “Thanks,” is all he says before walking off into the school, leaving Brandon in his wake.
+++
Paying attention normally for Paige was difficult. Now? It was impossible.
Flashes of Kevin’s broken leg pop up in Paige’s vision again and again. Everytime he tries to write something. Everytime he tries to read something. Everytime he looks at the board. Everytime a teacher calls on him. It’s all he can see.
But when Brandon has a note for him at Lunch, he’s surprised. It reads:
“I understand a close friend of yours was hurt. Take all the time you need to recover.”
It’s just that. Two sentences.
It takes all of Paige’s willpower not to scream. Not to cry. Not to do anything.
The middleground is Paige’s best friend for the rest of the day.
+++
kev: hey man
kev: thought id update u
kev: i can get visitors now so if u wanna drop by im good
When Paige receives these texts on Saturday afternoon, he jolts up out of bed. He’d been just sitting there all day, scribbling in his sketchbook. But now there was something much more important at hand.
“MOM!” Paige shouts as he leaves his room. “MOM, WHERE ARE YOU?”
“Kitchen!” she calls back.
Paige rushes down the stairs, almost tripping but barely catching himself on the couch. He then dashes into the kitchen, panting heavily. “Mom, Kevin can get visitors now!”
“Visitors?” Quinn questions, putting butter on a piece of toast. “What do you mean, honey?”
“Didn’t I tell you?” Paige asks, incredulous. “Someone broke Kevin’s leg and now he’s in the hospital and he can get visitors now so now we have to go visit okay? We have to!”
“Woah, woah, woah,” Quinn calms. “What do you mean someone broke Kevin’s leg?”
“On Thursday! Some kid broke his leg and now he’s in the hospital!”
“You very much did not tell me this, Paige,” Quinn says, frowning. “Is that why you’ve been so distant since then?”
“Mom, can we just go?” Paige pleads. “I don’t wanna talk about it.”
Quinn stares at her son for a moment before sighing. “Yes, alright. Go get ready.”
+++
Paige anxiously walks into Kevin’s room. “Kevin…?” he breathes.
“Hey-hey,” Kevin waves weakly. His leg is in a cast, which Paige is thankful for. He thinks if he saw it again it would haunt him until he died. “What’s up, man?”
“Nothing,” Paige says, moving over to the side of Kevin’s bed. “How are you, though? Did they fix your leg?”
Kevin chuckles a bit. “Well, I mean… as much as they could, I guess.” He lifts up a bit. “I’m gonna be out of the game for a long time, though,” he says, stretching and then wincing. “Ow…”
“Kevin?” Paige asks, eyes wide with worry.
“I’m good, I’m good,” he assures. “Just gotta get used to not jostling this thing so much.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, man.” Kevin smiles a small smile. “Don’t worry so much.”
“You broke your leg!” Paige yelps, surprising himself. He continues, though. “It was at an angle I’d never seen a human’s leg at before! It was really scary!!”
“Oh geez,” Kevin breathes. “I guess I didn’t think about it from your point of view.” He frowns apologetically. “I’m sorry you had to see that, man.”
Paige seethes. To think that Kevin was apologizing for having his leg broken? It was unbelievable. Paige wanted to hug Kevin and tell him it was alright. He wanted to help Kevin magically become better.
He wanted to return the favor to whoever did this to him.
Suddenly, something in Paige snaps, and he can feel himself become calm in the matter of just a second.
“It’s alright,” he says in a plain voice. “I’ll be sure to get the bastard who did this.”
Kevin blinks. “Paige?” he asks. “Did you just say the word ‘bastard’?”
Paige chuckles. “I did.” He stands up. “Sorry for the short visit, but I gotta go get ready.”
“Ready?” Kevin asks. “For what?”
“To knock someone’s teeth in, obviously.”
+++
When Paige wakes up on Sunday, he feels… off. Weird. Just… there’s something happening to him that he can’t quite explain.
He catches himself doing things without really remembering how he got there. Like he’s eating crackers at some point, but he doesn’t remember going to get them. And then later, he’s washing his hands, but he doesn’t remember going to the bathroom. Even later still, he’s smack dab in the middle of brushing his teeth when he blinks to attention.
What in the world was going on with him?
+++
Monday again. Paige is barely able to stumble his way to Lunch today. Brandon gives him a worried look as he passes a new note over to him, to his surprise. It reads:
“With things piling up, I thought it’d be best to give you a breather from these notes. I don’t believe getting love letters whilst everything is happening is really the best for you when you must be processing things. Once the upcoming tests have been completed, my daily notes will return.
I wish you the best, Paige.”
Paige looks down at the note, growling a bit.
This was all because of that kid who hurt Kevin, wasn’t it? Paige shakes with rage, crumbling the note a bit.
That was it. He had to find them. What would he do once he did? He wasn’t sure. But something had to be done.
Justice had to be served.
“I have to go,” the white haired boy says, standing up. “See you later.”
“What?” Brandon asks as the other walks away. “Wait, Paige, where are you going?”
He doesn’t respond.