The Lifeguard Hates You (Completed)

June Chapter 27

I barely manage to recover once Jay shoves me, okay, let's be honest, it's me, I've gone flying. I land on my ass while Jay lands in the pool, with a very heavy mostly metal and hard plastic guard chair on top of him.

There's all of two seconds of silence and then I hear Candy screaming and I think a little bit of Bryce laughing. Suddenly I'm screaming too, and I'm running, which is odd because I wasn't even aware I got up.

Then I'm in the water screaming: "LIFT IT UP! LIFT IT UP!" on the top of my lungs. By the time I'm diving under to get Jay out from under the warped guard stand and above the water so he can breathe I know Candy and Shawn running to help me. It's a vague sense of calm even though all of us are freaking out, like I know things are going to be okay because they're there.

When I resurface with Jay I hear Candy and Shawn barking orders, I hear the frantic sound of the PEGs all trying to figure out if Bryce is okay and what's happening and a lot of OMGs, I hear the sounds of concerned patrons who have all rushed outside to get a better look of what's going on, but best of all I hear the sound of Jay coughing.

Candy and Shaw use the two-person chicken wing technique, with the added boost of both Bryce and I hoisting Jay's legs up, to get him out of the water. Then they're assessing his state and his injuries while I clamour out of the pool after him.

"I'm fine!" he keeps repeating but his head is bleeding and I can tell he's dizzy.

"Call Lacey, we're going to have to close the pools," I tell Candy, who runs off to do that. I turn to Shawn next. "We need to get him to the hospital, can you get the car?"

Shawn nods and runs off while Jay tries to sit up, loses his equilibrium and falls back down. "I don't... I don't... what happened?"

I move quickly so that his rapidly descending head hits my knees instead of the concrete. "It's okay, you're okay, I got you out," I tell him. I'm looking right into his eyes so I can see that his pupils are uneven. Milo offers me his towel, I take it and press it to the contusion about Jay's eyebrow. I hear Milo's gasp of horror and realize the towel had been meant for me to use to dry off, and that, at no point, was I to use it to mop up the blood leaking from Jay's forehead. Oh well too late now. I can feel the throbbing, it's bleeding way too much too. It soaks through the towel in seconds.

"I'm fine," Jay whispers. "My head... my head... I... am I... where am I?"

"You're at the outdoor pool. You've had a bit of an accident," I tell him. There's a crowd around us that the PEGs are all trying to dissipate. They've made a bit of a protective circle around Jay and me, Bryce has gotten out of the pool and is kneeling down on Jay's other side checking him for other injuries.

"No, no..." he says quickly before losing his thought and trailing off.

"What day is it Jay?" I ask him. It's standard procedure to see how hard he's hit his head, he should know the date.

Jay seems confused for a moment before saying: "Is it your birthday? Did I forget your birthday again?"

I'm trying very hard not to get too angry with him because it's not my birthday and he never remembers when it is. The worry takes the place of my anger, Jay has no idea what day it is. He's hit his head harder than I thought.

"No, it's not my birthday," I tell him.

"Then stop yelling!" he snaps at me, shoving my hands away.

I stay where I am, his attempts at shoving are feeble and uncoordinated. "I'm not yelling," I growl through grit teeth, though I'm close to yelling at him. I hate that he's injured and practically catatonic and yet he's still arguing with me.

"Gloves?" he suddenly asks. I open my mouth to tell him I haven't had a chance to put them on yet but he doesn't listen. "Not good, bad lifeguard. You're supposed to give me ice."

If he wasn't injured, I would have slapped him. How dare he call me a bad lifeguard after everything I've done for him so far? Shawn shows up just as Jay rolls over and vomits all over Bryce who is still beside him though now, he probably regrets being there. Shawn has paused in trying going to lift Jay up and is now trying very hard not to smile or laugh. It takes him a while to calm himself.

"Come on, muscles, help me get him up," Shawn says to Bryce. And I have to give it Bryce. He's covered in vomit but he still gets up and helps Shawn pull Jay to his feet. It takes both of them to keep Jay up and then they're dragging Jay's slumping body towards the back of seat of his pick-up truck.

"Rory are you coming?" he asks me.

I want to say no, because it's clear that Jay doesn't want me there. But I'm interrupted by a cry, a cry of distress not coming from Jay or any of the onlookers we've tried to move along. It's Lacey, running across the grass in bare feet, which means she's lost her heels and consequently 6 inches in height. I glance further back to where Candy is stooping over and picking up the heels that had sunk into the grass right outside the pavilion doors. Candy's being nice... she must have been more freaked out then I thought

"Is he okay?" she cries as she leans in towards him. She cups a cheek in her well-manicured hand—can you believe she does them herself—to make him look up at her seeing as he can't seem to keep his head up.

"Don't leave me," he murmurs to her and I fall back. Here we go.

She drops his head so fast it practically bounces. She takes a step back. "I can't, I have so much paperwork, people to call, things to cancel..."

Shawn opens his mouth to argue but Jay retches again, this time all over Lacey's bare feet. As she screams and throws herself back Jay pulls his head back up. His eyes are foggy but they've locked with mine he groans out: "Rory... make it stop... my head... make it stop again..." he tries to reach back to the back of his head, and I'm confused as to how he's managed to hurt the back of his head if he only hit his front.

Realization dawns on me as I step forward and put my always-cold hands to the back of his head causing him to groan in relief. "I think he's hit the back of his head," I tell Shawn, just as my fingers find the lump that has just started to form.

"But how?" he cries as he readjusts Jay's sagging shoulders. He's obviously too heavy for Shawn to keep up, even Bryce seems to be struggling.

"The guard stand must have hit the back of his head and the force of the fall plus the weight of the stand probably forced him to smack the front of his head on the bottom," I explain. Shawn looks confused but I shake my head before he can ask me any other questions. "Just get him in the back."

I jump in the back before Shawn or Bryce can say anything and Jay starts groaning. They throw him in afterwards, and I make sure his head is in my lap. I've lost Milo's towel so I'm using my bare hands to keep Jay's head from bleeding too heavily, I'm grimacing because it's disgusting but I know that my cold hands and the pressure are helping him because he's stopped making faces.

"Stay awake," I tell him. "Look, I'm not using gauze or gloves, tell me how wrong that is!"

Jay doesn't open his eyes he just grumbles at me. Shawn has gotten in the driver's seat and Candy has got into the passenger side. She throws me several packs of gauze and a pair of gloves. I'm literally covered in his blood and flecks of vomit at this point, there's literally no point so I just busy myself with opening the gauze to put to his head.

Bryce shuts the door saying something like: "Call me when you're back," but I'm not really listening.

I look up to Shawn and say: "If there was ever a time to speed, now is that time." Shawn nods and the engine turns over. Shawn presses on the gas and I hold onto Jay to keep him from rolling off of my lap. And with that we're heading towards the hospital for the 21st time this year.