It didn't take his dad long to figure out he messed up his hand pretty bad. About as long as it took for him to try to take off the hoodie the officer had given him. He tried to hide the wince, but his dad was on it.
Danny's dad did let him eat the Chinese that arrived ten minutes after they did, but mostly because he said the pain medication they'd give him at the hospital would make him sick if he had an empty stomach. He was starving, and still so thirsty, so he was grateful for the food. They were leaving as his mother came home from yoga, with just enough time for her to freak out and join them. They picked up food for her on the road, pretty much ruining the point of his mother's workout, but she didn't mind.
The urgent care they went to was packed, and it took them over five hours to declare he'd sprained his left wrist and hairline fractured his pointer and index fingers. The attending nurse did praise him on punching correctly with his thumb in the right place between her chastising him for punching the locker. Twice.
His mother fretted the whole time, trying to get the story out of him, but his dad helped steer her away from the topic every time it came up. He wasn't ready to talk about it, and honestly, by the time they were splinting his fingers he was so tired he thought he'd collapse right there. The medicine they gave him for pain made him feel loopy, and he was half-asleep when he dragged himself to his room. He still itched, and he wanted a shower, but before he could figure out how to fully get himself undressed with his splints, he fell asleep in the bathroom.
He remembered snippits the next morning, his dad helping him to bed, helping him to change out of his sweat-crusted clothes and pulling him into bed. His mother checking on him in the morning, barely four hours after he'd been dumped into bed. He didn't wake up for real until eleven in the morning, his parents both gone for work. His mother left him a note with directions for food and his medications, which he followed, his hand throbbing awfully.
The medicine dose on the first day was high, both the pain pills and antibiotics for the cuts he hadn't even noticed he'd gotten, and it made him sleepy, so he slept again, music on softly to make the house feel less empty. It was weird being the only one at home, because even when his parents weren't here, Tyler usually was.
Tyler. His heart hurt, his head hurt, his hand hurt, basically, everything hurt. He sighed, then rolled over, falling back into a lucid sleep. He heard his mom get home and forced himself to get up, his head foggy and thick. A few minutes later, it was minutes, right? A few minutes later he heard the bassy boom of... it sounded like Caress Me Down by Sublime.
He swallowed hard, hoping it would continue down the street, but he knew it wouldn't. The song cut off, the silence strangely shattering the second. He rushed, as much as his thick head would let him, to the window, just to confirm his suspicions.
Tyler's car was parked in the street in front of his house Tyler stepped out into the street. He looked up at Danny's window. Danny jumped back to a distance he hoped was out of sight from outside, unsure if Tyler had seen him or not.
Tyler rang the doorbell. His mother answered it, and he heard their mumbled voices, unintelligible. Please, mom, don't let him come in, don't let him come in, don't let him come in, he repeated in his head like a mantra. He wasn't ready to see Tyler yet. He didn't know if he ever would be, but right now, still groggy from meds, he was definitely not. He swallowed hard, trying to calm the beating of his heart as time stretched like taffy.
In what seemed like hours and only seconds, Tyler's car started, then the bassline of Caress Me Down filled the neighborhood again. He sighed out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding, relieved.
Wait, wait, wait. Didn't Tyler come to see him? Why'd he leave so easily? Was he here to do... what? Explain himself? Friend break-up? Why had he come? Why hadn't he come upstairs? Never before had he come over and rang the doorbell, not in years. Hell, he had a key to the house, he could've come after school and let himself in. He frowned, pissed at himself, pissed at Tyler.
He needed a shower. He itched, and he was miserable, and the only thing he could fix was the shower, so he took one, wrapping his left hand in a plastic shopping bag to keep it dry. He wasn't sure how to take care of his splints, he'd been too tired last night to pay attention. He made due, at least until his hand throbbed enough to send him looking for pain meds.
His mother was reading something on her phone when he came down. She looked up when he stepped up to the kitchen island. "Hey," she said, smiling softly, obviously worried about him.
"Hey," he replied, feeling awkward.
"How ya feeling? I wasn't sure if you were up yet." She sipped coffee from her mug, the one that read 'Sit with me and suggest changes while I work, said no designer ever'. It had been a gift from his dad, and it was now her favorite mug.
"Fuzzy still. Hungry, and it still hurts," he complained. He grabbed a stool with his other hand and awkwardly hefted himself on it. "How was your day?"
She shrugged. "Meh. The usual." She looked at his hand, particularly how he held it against his chest. "When'd you take meds last?"
"Lunch. Around noon."
She shook her head. "Too soon to take more, it's only five. You've gotta wait another hour. Sorry, Danny. My day was exhausting. I mean, I was already tired, and then the normal male dominated workplace bullshit for women in a male-dominated industry. So, you know, another great day, all in all."
"Sorry," he apologized, feeling bad.
She snorted. "For what? Hurting yourself? Or the hospital taking a million years? Either way, I'm not upset, it happens. You haven't broken any bones before this, that gave me a scare. Dad said you're fighting with Tyler? Did you punch him?"
He sighed, then got up and fumbled with a banana, unable to pull one off the bunch with only one hand. His mother gently took the bunch and broke one off, then peeled it for him. He flushed with embarrassment, his helplessness making him feel even more vulnerable. Hunger demanded he eat the whole banana before he answered, so he did. "Not that kinda fight, ma."
There was a brief silence between them. "He stopped by about half an hour ago," she mentioned, watching him closely over her cup.
"I heard."
"You were awake?"
He shrugged, looking anywhere but at his mother. "Sorta, I just woke up. I was feeling weird, so I stayed in bed for a bit, then took a shower cause I was grody. What'd he..." He almost didn't want to ask. "What'd he say?"
His mom gave him a look he didn't understand, then took a phone out of her pocket. His phone. "He said you dropped this yesterday at school, he wanted to return it. Also, he asked me to have you call him when you were up."
He reached for his phone hesitantly, relieved that he hadn't lost it, but afraid to take it from his mother, afraid to call Tyler, afraid if he took it that he'd have to. Somehow it had survived his escape without even a crack in the glass. "Oh. Well, that's good. I worried I lost it on my run. Dad'll be happy."
"He was a little upset you'd lost it, but I think, all things considered, it wasn't the main topic on his mind last night," his mother said. "Wanna talk about it?"
He shook his head. "Not really."
