Chapter Twenty Nine:
The Truth Hurts More:
“Garrett will be helping you around today,” Dad informed me.
“Why? I’m fine on my own,” I said. I had no clue what Garrett would be like today, last night he was a little bit of everything. One moment he was mad at me, the next he looked extremely guilty. I just didn’t understand. If he was going to be as moody today, I didn’t want to be stuck with him.
“Bridget, I don’t want you getting trampled or anything in the hallways. It’ll just be for a few days until you are completely comfortable on the crutches,” Dad said. Today was Friday, so hopefully I would be good enough with crutches by Monday that they won't make Garrett help me then.
“Fine,” I said, even though I didn’t have a choice in the matter.
“Good, he’ll be here in a couple of minutes, he’s walking to school with you too.” Of course he would be.
“Bridget, I can give you a ride to school,” Mom offered as she came into the kitchen.
I thought about it for a second. If I accepted the ride, I wouldn’t have to walk and I would only be with Garrett a few minutes. But I wouldn’t get the practice using my crutches and I wanted practice if I didn’t want Garrett following me around come Monday.
“No, I think I’ll walk,” I said finally.
“Are you sure? It’s not a big deal to drive you,” Mom assured me.
“I know but I…want to practice using these before school,” I said nodding down to my crutches. I was leaning over them as I talked to my parents.
“Okay,” Mom said. She was studying me carefully over the rim of her coffee mug.
A knock sounded from the door and Dad put down his own mug to go and answer it.
“Morning Rob,” I heard Garrett say. He sounded sleepy and slightly scared. Scared of my dad maybe?
“Why Garrett?” I hissed to Mom.
Mom shrugged. “Who else was I supposed to ask Bridget? Garrett will actually help you.”
“Why are you so sure about that? I’m pretty sure he hates me.”
“He can’t,” Mom promised. “He’s been chasing you too long for that little kiss to matter so much.”
“But I-”
“Uh, ready to go?” Garrett asked sheepishly from the doorway.
“Sure,” I said quickly and innocently. I leaned one crutch against the table so I could pick up my school bag from one of the chairs. I positioned it so that it crossed my body. It wasn’t how I usually wore it, but it would be easier with the crutches. I picked up the other crutch again and then walked –hopped, shuffled, skipped?- over to Garrett.
“I could- never mind,” he said shaking his head. I stared at him blankly.
“Aren’t we leaving?” I probed.
“Oh yeah, right,” Garrett said sheepishly.
“Bye Mom,” I said as I passed her on my way out of the kitchen.
Once in the front hall, I slipped a boot (because it had no laces so I wouldn’t need to be asking people to help me tie my shoes for me) onto my right foot.
“Bye,” I said to Dad. He said bye back and then glared at Garrett. I guess Dad wasn’t too happy with this arrangement either despite what he wanted me to believe.
“You don’t have to do this,” I said to Garrett once we were on the street.
“Yes I do,” Garrett said without looking at me.
“No. I’ll just tell our parents you did. You don’t need to be stuck with me for the day.”
“I’m not leaving, Bridget,” Garrett said. I was surprised by the seriousness of his tone.
“Oh, um, okay,” I said.
Our conversation stopped then. Garrett continued to stare blankly down the road, and I focused on using my crutches.
My fingers slowly went numb from the cold air. I hadn’t thought to bring gloves since I usually have my hands in my pockets when I walk to school. My bag kept spinning around my body and getting in my way. I had to keep stopping to reposition it. I vowed to myself that I would look for a backpack to use from now on.
If Garrett noticed my struggles he didn’t say anything. I didn’t know if he noticed because I refused to look at him. Besides, I needed to look at the ground because now that I was on crutches I wasn’t too sure where exactly the ground was.
“You can go now,” I said quietly to Garrett once the spot I usually met Quinn came into view. She was already next to the stop sign, bouncing away to keep warm.
Garrett sighed. “I told you Bridget, I’m not leaving,” he said. If I wasn’t mad at him being so confusing lately, I would have totally ‘aww-ed’ at that.
“Whoa!” Quinn exclaimed when she saw me. “Were you hit by a truck or something?” I was about to explain what happened, but she continued talking.
“Because I can't think of any other reason why you would be walking with him again,” Quinn continued.
“Wait, what?” I asked her.
“You must have been hit by a truck if you didn’t even understand that!” Quinn shook her head. “So are you guys back together now? How’d it happen? Did he show up with flowers or something and declare that he’s an idiot?” Quinn asked with a sneer.
“What? No!” I said. “Nothing like that happened!”
“So then what was it?” she probed.
“We’re not back together,” I stated.
“Then why are you guys walking together?” Quinn asked. She was walking in between Garrett and I, and she didn’t even seem to notice that I was using crutches.
“Please don’t tell me you guys are friends again!” Quinn said, her voice getting high as she spoke.
“We aren’t,” I said. Garrett still stayed silent.
“Then what’s happening here?” Quinn asked a small smile played at her lips like she knew something we didn’t.
“Well, yesterday I-”
“Oh yeah!” Quinn said, interrupting me. “Where were you? I was calling you and texting you all day but you never answered. I waited for you, you know. But you never came and you made me late for school.”
I flinched. I was a bad best friend. I had turned off my phone on the way to the hospital because I had wanted to left alone, but I hadn’t even thought to call her and tell her I wasn’t meeting her. I hadn’t even called her afterwards to tell her what had happened.
“Sorry about that,” I said. “But yesterday I fe-”
“Don’t you dare say fell,” Garrett growled. I winced at his sharpness and Quinn jumped in surprise.
“But I did,” I said. I was clumsy.
Garrett stepped in front of me, stopping both Quinn and I from moving; he was now blocking our path. But he didn’t care about Quinn at all. His hard glare was only for me.
“You. Didn’t. Fall. Got it?” Garrett said. “This isn’t going to work if you don’t stop saying that.”
“What’s ‘this’?” Quinn asked. We both ignored her.
“Why should I? It’s true.”
“We both know it’s not, you’re just too nice.”
“So what if I am? That’s what I’m going to keep telling people, Garrett.” If he insisted on calling me by my full name, I was using his too.
Garrett’s glare hardened even more if it was possible.
“You know what? I will walk on that side-”
“I knew you would,” I couldn’t help but say.
Garrett’s jaw shifted as he ground his teeth together. But then he turned and quickly crossed to the other side of the street without another glance at me.
“Uh…what just happened?” Quinn asked.
“That’s been happening lately,” I admitted. I started walking –crutching?- again.
“Whoa! Why are you on crutches!” Quinn asked. She finally just noticed?
“That’s why I wasn’t at school yesterday. I broke my leg.”
“How?”
“I fell.”
“Garrett just said you didn’t.”
“Does it matter?” I snapped. “Sorry,” I said softly a moment later.
“Are you going to tell me what really happened?” Quinn asked.
I shook my head. No one needed to know the truth.
The truth is nice, but lies hurt less.
I wasn’t mad at Garrett for pushing me, only for how he had been acting lately, but that didn’t mean Quinn wouldn’t be hurt. He was still the guy she had liked for years. She wouldn’t like knowing the truth behind my cast.
I came out of my drama class, my class before my lunch block, to find Garrett waiting for me in the hallway.
“How did you get here so fast?” I asked him.
“Anyone can move faster than you can right now,” he said with no emotion.
I looked down at the ground and started making my way towards my locker.
“Why are you even in that class?” Garrett asked. He was keeping pace with me even though it was easy for his longs legs just to carry him away.
“Drama? My mom wanted me to take it.”
“Why?”
I shrugged. “I think she thought it would help me be less shy.”
“It didn’t work.”
“I know.”
We continued on our way to my locker. Once we reached it I opened it and put the science text book I would need in my bag before closing my locker.
“You can go hang out with your friends,” I told Garrett.
“No.”
“There’s no point for you to follow me around right now. I’m so slow that there’s no one in the halls anymore.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Garrett muttered clearly not impressed I had thrown his same logic back at him.
“Seriously you can go, I don’t mind,” I assured him.
“No,” Garrett said again, but more forcefully.
I sighed and leaned back against my locker.
“Garrett, I don’t get it,” I said. I wasn’t looking at him. I was focusing on the ceiling tiles above his head instead.
“What’s with you right now? You always seem mad and you keep glaring at me…” I sighed. “Is this still because of the Dustin thing?”
Garrett stayed silent so I took that as a yes. I didn’t want to see his face so I had nothing else to go off of.
“That was an accident, like yesterday. It’s never going to happen again. I never meant for it to happen, so please don’t hold it against me. I’m really sorry about it. So can you either just forgive me or scream at me? Scream at me so I actually know what you’re talking about because half of the time I don’t anymore.”
“I don’t mean to scream at you,” Garrett said.
I finally looked down from the ceiling to look at him. But now his gaze was dropped to the ground.
“Do you do it because you’re mad at me?” Garrett shook his head.
“Just tell me why then, I want to know.” I touched Garrett’s wrist and he flinched away from me.
“I’m… I’m going to go find my friends,” Garrett concluded. He walked away from me like our conversation hadn’t happened.
“Gare wait,” I said. He paused and half turned back around to face me.
“I’m sorry for yesterday,” I said.
“What did you do yesterday?” he asked softly.
“I shouldn’t have tried to talk about Alice and Maddy with you. I just wanted someone to talk to. I didn’t- I didn’t realize that you would take it as I didn’t care about us.”
Something shadowed Garrett’s face but it was gone too quickly for me to decipher what it had been.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered again. But I don’t know if he heard me.
“Okay,” was all Garrett said before he walked away completely.
I sighed and started to move down the hallway to the stairwell. I practiced putting on a smile so that when I met Quinn downstairs in a second, she wouldn’t think anything was wrong.
When I finally reached the level below where Quinn and I ate lunch, I saw that Dustin was at the table as well. Quinn looked happy to be talking to him, but he just looked annoyed.
“What happened to you?” Dustin asked as he saw me stumbling over to them.
“Yesterday morning I-”
“I know that part,” Dustin said rolling eyes. I fell into the chair they had left for me.
“Then why are you asking?”
“You looked like a ghost just slapped you.”
“What?” Quinn and I asked together.
Dustin rolled his eyes. “What happened? You looked shocked,” he clarified.
“Oh. Well Garrett-”
“Ah, I see,” Dustin said.
I raised my eyebrow at him. “I didn’t even say anything yet.”
“Yeah, but Garrett’s clearly an idiot so I don’t really need to know what he did now.”
“You might not, but I do,” Quinn said. She leaned forwards on the table and looked at me expectantly. “Spill Bridge.”
“Well last night he was yelling at me, I don’t really know what it was about. Then today he’s been mad at me, but he hasn’t really screamed at me. And then I apologized to him and all he said was ‘okay’.”
“Ugh, chick stuff,” Dustin complained. He slipped his ear buds into his ears and then ignored us.
“How do you not know what you were arguing about?” Quinn asked me.
“Well he kept demanding to know how I broke my leg, and I kept telling him I fell. Then he just started screaming and I don’t know what it was about.”
“But he said this morning you didn’t fall?”
“He doesn’t know how I broke my leg. He didn’t find out about it until last night,” I half lied.
“What were you apologizing for?”
I blushed. “Just something I said yesterday. I think it was the reason he was mad at me.”
“So are things okay between you two?” Quinn asked.
“I don’t know,” I replied honestly. I really didn’t.
***
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