✧
(a/n: the words italicized mean they're talking on the phone.)
Evelyn sat at her vanity opening her laptop up, awaiting a call from her boyfriend. Ever since the championship game and since the news of his heart condition, he had been away talking to a bunch of different doctors in the state. The couple hadn't really spoken much since the game either, the night in the locker room basically consisted of him yelling for her to get out because one, he didn't want to see her crying his eyes out which by then was a little too late for that and two, because he didn't want to take all of his anger out at her.
A small smile came across her face once the call connected and she saw him popping into the screen. "Hey, Ash."
He looked a little defeated, but he wanted to try his best to keep a small smile on his face as he talked to his girlfriend considering they hadn't talked in a while. "Hey, babe. How are you?"
"I'm fine," she answered, shrugging her shoulders. "I've seen Layla a few times...she looks about as good as you do. Um, Coop's still in the hospital. But, uh, how are you...Have the doctors said anything good?"
"I don't really want to talk about doctors, right now," Asher spat, narrowing his eyes through the screen of his phone. "Can we please talk about something that doesn't involve my heart or the doctors? What do you have planned for the day?"
She widened her eyes at the harshness in his voice. "Um, Ricky wanted to go to the football field. He said he wants to stay in shape for the All-American game and he asked me to tag along."
"Look, Evie, I gotta go," Asher said, slightly frowning once she mentioned football. "We'll talk later, I guess."
"Ash, I'm sorry," she sighed. "I shouldn't haven't mentioned football considering what's going on with you right now. But, you know you can talk to me, right? Tell me how you're feeling, please?"
"You wanna know how I'm feeling?" Asher sarcastically stated. "Like I don't want to talk about this, Evelyn!"
Before she could even utter a word, he had ended the FaceTime, making the screen go blank and all Evelyn could see was her shocked expression staring back at her. She and Asher didn't argue much, in fact, sometimes it kind of bothered her how normal their relationship was. But, him losing football could potentially be something life-altering. And not only for him. But, for their relationship as well because she had no idea how he was going to handle this.
☆☆☆
Enrique had been running through some old plays on the football field, his sister's job was to record so he could see the mistakes he was making and so that he could improve on them. He knew he screwed up when he took Asher up on the whole, let's do steroids thing. But, the All-American game was his idea of redemption and although he had been playing many games and even won a championship since then, he still felt the need to prove himself.
"Hey!" he called out towards Evelyn. "Dumbass!You're supposed to be recording me, not staring at the ground with those depressing puppy dog eyes!"
"I'm sorry!" she apologized, looking up at him with what he called depressing puppy dog eyes. "Do it again!"
He shook his head, mumbling cuss words about his sister before running through the play again while his sister actually made sure to record it this time. And then this went on once again because Evelyn had forgotten to press the record button.
"How's Ash?" Enrique asked, taking a sip of water. "He hasn't been answering my texts."
"He's not doing good," she answered, shrugging her shoulders a bit. "We talked earlier and he asked what I had planned for the day so I told him what we were doing and he kind of got pissed at me."
"He shouldn't be getting pissed at you for answering his question," Enrique defended, letting out a slight scoff. "But were you doing that thing, where you hover and ask a bunch of shitty questions?"
"Maybe," she admitted, sheepishly. "I...I just feel the need to be worried about him. He's my boyfriend, he just lost one of the most important things in his life, and he's not speaking about it. I should probably just leave him alone, huh?"
"Probably," he scoffed. "Nothing's worse than a hovering Evelyn Hernandez. Now, get back up. I need to go through this last play and then we can go get food or something."
Evelyn happily scrambled to her feet, following after her brother who came to a halt. Enrique stopped in his tracks, planted his hands on his knees, and started breathing heavily. His sister didn't think anything of it until he moved his hand to the left side of his chest and fell to the ground. Evelyn did the first thing she thought of and called 911, considering they were the only ones at the school.
☆☆☆
Evelyn was pushed into the waiting room as they wheeled her brother away, she contacted her parents once they got into the ambulance and rode to the hospital. The whole ride seemed like a blur and the only words she could coherently understand were heart and attack but she wasn't sure if she was hallucinating or not.
"Evie!" Joaquin shook the teen from her thoughts. He and his wife had rushed from the house once they received the panicked voicemail from their daughter who was in tears and made their way over to the hospital. "Where is he?"
"I don't know," she mumbled, pulling her sleeve over her fists and wiping her tears. "They made me wait here because technically he's an adult since he's 18."
"Well, that's bullshit!" Jennifer spat, marching over to the front desk.
Evelyn nodded in agreement, crossing her arms against her chest, and tilted her head. Watching in amusement as her mother practically scared the receptionist in giving her information about Enrique. Once Jennifer was satisfied with her answer she marched back over to her husband and daughter and ordered them to follow her. The father-daughter duo shared scared expressions but they shook it off and Evelyn was just relieved that she could see her brother.
"Hey," Enrique cheerily greeted. "How are you guys?"
"You scared me!" his sister hissed, pointing a finger at him. "I thought you were going to die!"
"Well, thanks for calling 911 but it was nothing," he shrugged, carelessly. "It was...tell them what it was, mom."
"They called it stupidity, Enrique!" Jennifer hissed. "What did we talk about after the whole steroids thing? You were having trouble breathing and we said you'd have to start carrying around your inhaler because you have asthma! Just because it went away when you were younger doesn't mean it went away forever!"
"Dad!" he whined.
Joaquin held his hands up, defensively. "Listen to her. We never took you out of football because you promised us you'd start carrying your inhaler just in case you had trouble breathing. And what happened today? You had an asthma attack! So, severe that your sister thought you had a heart attack and she called 911!"
"In my defense, his dumbass was laid out on the floor wheezing and clutching his chest!" Evelyn spoke up, throwing her hands up. "And I feel like someone should've told me about this deal you guys made about his asthma because now that I think about it he was definitely having an asthma attack and not a heart attack."
"Okay, can we stop calling me dumb!" Enrique groaned. "I get it! I overdid it on the field. I'm sorry and I didn't realize how bad my asthma actually was until today. Can we go home now? This clearly is an overreaction."
"Vas a ver, Enrique!" Jennifer narrowed her eyes at her son, handing him a stack of papers. "Here. Since you think you're an adult. You can fill these out. We'll be in the car."
Joaquin and Jennifer gave their twins threatening looks with their eyes before exiting the hospital room.
"I don't know why they're looking at me like that. I saved their son's life," Evelyn huffed, plopping down on the chair beside the bed. "You sure you're okay, Ricky?"
"I'm fine," he waved her off, looking through the stack of papers. "These are my discharge papers. I need help filling them out."
She snatched them from his hand, simultaneously glaring at him as she looked over them. "Are you dumb? Birthday? It's Halloween! Zip code? It's literally a tv show, 90210. Middle name? You don't have one!"
Enrique frowned. "I just had a severe asthma attack. Help a brother out."
"I'm only doing this one time," Evelyn threw him a warning look. "And you better start carrying your inhaler because if something worse were to happen, I could not handle it and we all know that I cannot survive without you."
"I will," Enrique promised. "Don't worry. Everything will be okay."
4x01
—omg this was lowkey a boring chapter but I wasn't the biggest fan of the first episode...🙂