Carter Ortese is Trouble - completed (The Boys #1)

Chapter 39: Carter

"Symptoms? Like an illness?" Mrs. Williams asks, shaking her head rapidly back and forth. "No, she hasn't been sick. She's been in school. Everything has been fine."

I tighten my fingers around my mother's, and she squeezes me back. "Hold on, Carter." Her words barely pierce the strained quiet between us.

"Everything was not fine," I mutter.

I know we're not supposed to be listening in. I know this is intended to be a private conversation between Henry Williams and Dr. Kendall Whatever-his-last-name-is, but Emma chose me. She left her father and chose me. Her visit may have started under the wrong pretenses, but it's clear now that she needed to get away from him.

How many times did I think that Emma Williams had the picture perfect life? How many times did other people? How many times have all of our assumptions about each other been wrong?

"We're ruling out common ailments that can come on quickly, but nothing is testing positive yet. Any insight you have at all could prove helpful."

"She was fine, Kendall. Just figure it out." Henry Williams clenches his fists, and his knuckles bleach white. The vein pulsing in his neck bulges farther out from his skin with every beat of his heart.

"You said she hit the banister, Henry. Could that be it?" Mrs. Williams asks.

The doctor shakes his head. "If you told me she had fallen, that would make more sense. There's ... bleeding, Henry. It's serious."

Henry Williams narrows his eyes. His jaw works, and the expression on his face grows more disdainful the longer Kendall stands there. His eyes finally land on me. "Him," he says, pointing. "He might have done something to her. He was with her."

Kendall's gaze flickers to me. "The paramedics already told me everything he knew about the incident. I need preexisting conditions."

Henry stomps his foot like an petulant child, facing turning to the shade of a purple beet. "There are no preexisting conditions in my family. Not with my daughter."

"Headaches," I say, standing up.

Kendall looks at me, eyes widening. "What did you say?"

"Headaches." I cross the room, because at this point, they all know I was listening. Emma is more important than whatever is going on between her parents and me. "Emma complained about headaches, and she had ibuprofen on her almost all the time. She took a lot."

Kendall gives me a single nod and rushes from the room without another backward glance, leaving the Williams and I standing next to one another again. We watch the doors swing shut and distantly hear voices calling out from behind them. The hospital rhythm back in full swing.

"This doesn't involve you," Henry says at the exact same time that his wife says, "Thank you." They glance at each other, then back at me.

"Why was she having headaches?" Henry's words are laced with poison.

A part of me wants to laugh. He's so narcissistic that even headaches have to be someone else's problem. I didn't think it was possible for someone to be so egotistically bloated that they could shut reality out.

I give a small shrug. "The stress of attempting perfection when she knew it could never be achieved. The stress you put on her." Before Henry Williams gets the idea to hit me with his curled fists, I head back to my seat next to my mom. She wraps her fingers up with mine and gives me another hard squeeze.

"I knew there was something I was forgetting," I say.

"And you remembered." My mom smiles. "And we stayed so you could be here for her. Carter, no matter what happens tonight, any fighting chance Emma has is because of you. I know you think you took her farther away from a hospital, but the doctor was at a loss. You noticed what was happening to her."

From across the room, Henry William glares at me, but Mrs. Williams is considering me with a strange glint in her eyes. She gives me a solitary nod.

"Why does it still feel like I'm the problem?"

My mom lets out a breath. "Some people will never be pleased by your actions. You could save the world, and they wouldn't care. That's why you need to do what is right for you, and no one else. So long as you're not hurting anyone and doing the best by you, you're living a good life." She takes her hand back and drinks the rest of her coffee in two long gulps.

"Sage advice," I say.

"I'm full of it." She nestles into her chair. "You know, Carter, I haven't lived a super long time in comparison to some people—" She glances at the Williams. "—but I'd like to think that I make my time matter."

We settle into silence for a moment, and I ask, "When are you going to go out with the counter dude?"

"First, none of your business. Second, if we like each other, I'll let you know, then and only then. Third, none of your business." She nudges me with her shoulder. "And Carter, I want you to do me a huge favor, okay?"

I look at her, and her eyes are level with mine, serious.

"Please allow yourself to be a kid for once in your life."

I sputter on a laugh, and it comes out choked, feeling strange in the quiet air of the waiting area. "I think it's too late for that."

She closes her eyes. "Then do me a second favor and figure out what you want to do with your life so you can go to school first. My job gives me retirement benefits if I stay there for ten years, so I'm not leaving it just yet."

"Why am I just learning this now?"

She pops a single eye open. "You never asked. You always wanted to take care of me, but I'm your mom. You're going to school, I'm getting my retirement, and then I'll have my chance to do some courses. Okay?"

"Okay."

"You don't need to be the adult."

"I kind of do."

"No, you don't. Be Carter. Be you. Be seventeen."

I tap my foot against the floor, unsure of what to say to that. Most kids my age have gotten into trouble. Most kids my age have gotten yelled at and have done the wrong things and have made up for it and regretted it. So far, I haven't done any of that. I've lived a careful and calculated life so I could make it past seventeen.

But before I figure out what to do with my tomorrows, I settle in for a long wait for the now. Once Emma is okay, I can figure out the rest. Once she's okay, I can come up with a new plan—a plan to begin the real start of my life.

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