“What do I do?” Naomi cried, crouching down on Shanti’s other side. “She’s never been hurt like this since the car crash. God, the first time she got a head cold, I stayed up for three nights straight to make sure she was okay. Then there was the first skinned knee where I had to call Heidi to see if she needed to go to Urgent Care. I’m not good with stuff like this,” she gestured down at the arm Shanti was refusing to move with the rest of her body, indicating it was what was wrong.
“I can’t see inside her to see if a bone’s broken. What if it’s just a bruise, and I take her in? They’ll think I’ve overreacted. What if it is broken, and they think I did it?”
Feeling eyes on me, I glanced down to see Shanti looking up at me with bug eyes at her aunt’s panic, but at least she wasn’t bawling like before. Shooting her a grin and a wink to keep her calm, I leaned in to inspect the arm more closely. Damn.
“It’s already swelling and has a faint bruise forming over the bone, Nome. I don’t think they’d judge you if you took her in to get it checked out.”
Naomi’s hand covered her mouth, but she lifted it enough to say, “There’s a bruise?” before replacing it immediately.
“Yup.” Brushing some of the long strands of hair that were stuck to her wet cheeks away, I grinned down at Shanti. “How about we get you to the doctor?”
“Please,” she whispered, big tears rolling down the sides of her face. “It doesn’t feel good.”
I was just about to reply when Naomi screeched, “Oh. My. God. I- Wha- Oh, God,” staring at her phone with horror.
“What? What’s happened?” Her hair was straight, so it couldn’t be her seeing it in the mirror again.
She didn’t reply straight away, so Shanti pressed, “Aunt Naomi, do you need a doctor, too?”
“I need Jesus,” she croaked, rubbing her face with the hand holding the phone. “I need a therapist and Jesus. Oh,” she cried, her face turning a worrying shade of red, “and a new job. Let’s not forget when Tabby finds out, I’m going to need a whole new identity.”
Feeling a small hand squeeze mine, I looked down at Shanti. “Can you help me up? I bruised my butt when I fell.” Then, something else occurred to her. “Can you break it?”
“I don’t know, kiddo, but do me a favor and use your good hand to hold your arm still while I pick you up. I’ll put you on the edge of the bed, so you don’t have to strain to get up when we’re ready to go.”
I had no idea how I was staying so calm when it felt like I’d drank twenty cans of Monster, but here I was, doing just that.
The outer illusion of calmness all but disappeared when I carefully lifted Shanti off the ground, and she whimpered then bit down on her lip. “It’s okay. I found my balls, so keep going.”
Regardless of her aunt’s freak out only three feet away from us and the fact the poor girl was injured, I still burst out laughing at what she’d said. I probably wasn’t the best influence on kids, but I’d be damned if I could stop laughing when I shouldn’t be.
“Where’d you hear that one?” I asked as I placed her gently on the edge of the bed, making sure her booty was on the mattress properly, so she didn’t slide down it and hurt the arm even more.
The tightness around her mouth and the shimmer of sweat on her forehead gave away she was in pain, but her usual sassy grin made its way back onto her face.
“Uncle Bond said it to Uncle Canon, Uncle Canon said it to Uncle Jared, Uncle Jared told Uncle Reid he didn’t have any balls, Mr. Jack also said that to Cole, Mr. Hurst agreed with it, you said it to Uncle Rei—”
Holding a hand up, I stopped her. “Okay, so you’ve heard it a lot.”
The beeping of a phone followed by Naomi screaming again got both of our attention back onto her. “I can’t. I can’t look.”
The cell went flying over our heads, landing on the bed.
“What’s wrong?” I asked again, bending down to pick up last night’s t-shirt and pulling it over my head. I only had my work uniform here and whatever toiletries I needed for one night, so I could either wear what I had on to the ER, or I could wear that.
It was a no brainer.
Picking up the bag with my shit in it, I waited for Naomi to answer the question.
“Aunt Naomi, what happened?”
Naomi’s panicked eyes met mine. “I firking well fudged up. I sent a text to Dave telling him what’d happened, but because I was distracted, I put six pink hearts after it.”