Dark Ride by Lou Berney

Author:Lou Berney [Berney, Lou]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollinsPublishers
Published: 2023-08-11T17:00:00+00:00

27

In the car, Eleanor plays her slogging, mournful, emo music. After a couple of verses, she glances into the backseat at me and changes to a song with synthesizers and a bouncy beat, lyrics sung in German. She slows for a red light.

“You’re fine,” she says.

I want to say something sarcastic because obviously I’m not fine. I can’t think of anything, though. It hurts just to breathe. Each breath I take is like getting kicked again in the ribs by a steel-toed boot.

“You’re going to be fine,” Eleanor clarifies. “I’m taking you to the ER.”

“No.” Talking, I find out, hurts even worse than breathing. So does trying and failing to sit up. “No ER.”

She snorts.

“I’m,” I say. “Serious.”

“We’re going to the ER, you moron. Don’t worry about the insurance. They have to treat you. It’s the law.”

It’s not my lack of insurance I’m worried about, though that too. If I go to the ER, the doctor will observe that I’ve had the shit beaten out of me. I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure what a doctor is required to do if you show up in the ER with the shit beaten out of you.

“No cops,” I say. “I’m serious. Eleanor. No police.”

“Why? What are you talking about?”

Nathan might have been bluffing about his connections. But there’s a very good chance he wasn’t. Do I want to take that risk? Do I want to think about what would have happened to me tonight if Eleanor hadn’t shown up? I definitely don’t.

“Trust me. Eleanor. No police. No ER. Just take. Me home. I’m fine.” I want to add something like You said so yourself, that I’m fine, but the talking doesn’t hurt any less the more of it I do.

She glances back at me again. “Whatever.”

I lie as still as I can in the backseat, braced for the bumps and sharp turns. I feel oddly relaxed—my mind doesn’t know what to do with so much pain, arriving from so many different locations in such a rainbow of varieties. Throbbing, thudding, stabbing, searing. Ribs, tailbone, ankle, nose, and hip. It’s like a rhyme for children, a chant for skipping rope. Ribs, tailbone, ankle, nose, and hip. Throbbing, thudding, stabbing, searing. I just want to be home. I’m going to crawl into bed and never crawl out.

But what right do I have to complain? This isn’t real pain. Pearl and Jack know about real pain. I deserve to feel a lot more pain than this.

The car slows, then stops. I don’t know how much time has gone by. I’m already home? I lift my head and see that we’re outside an ER entrance.

“Eleanor. Fuck.”

“I’m not sharing my grandma’s drugs. You’re getting your own drugs.”

“I can’t talk to the police. I’m serious.”

“They won’t call the police just because you were in some dumb fight outside a bar or whatever. Unless you die, I suppose. So probably don’t do that.”

She helps me limp inside. After she parks her car, she sits in the plastic chair next to me and fills out my paperwork.

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