Two Way Street

I withdrew my hand, trying my hardest not to look too hurt. It wasn’t my fault I didn’t realize she was really hurt when she fell. I figured she just tripped and that she would have been up again in a second.

But the way she was shooting daggers at me with her eyes, the way she winced as she got to her feet with Niall’s help, I knew she was pissed and hurt for real.

I swallowed and ran a hand through my curls. “Should we go to the hospital?” I questioned, praying to God that my voice wouldn’t crack with guilt.

“Duh, moron,” Zayn sighed, rolling his eyes. “What if it’s broken?”

“It better not be broken,” Mara grumbled, her tone irritated more than pained. “I can’t afford to have a broken shoulder.”

“Okay, everybody, let’s just try to stay optimistic,” Louis expressed before taking a deep breath. “Mara might be fine. Don’t start throwing around worst-case-scenarios. It’s just going to make all of us freak out.”

“Well, I can’t move it, so that’s not really a good sign,” Mara muttered, cringing again with pain as she started to move forward. “Let’s just get the hospital shit over with.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but Harry caught my eye right before I could make a sound and shook his head emphatically.

Knowing he had a point, I let out a sharp breath and followed behind the rest of the group.



“Oh my God, I’m going to go mad,” Louis groaned as he ran his hands through his already messed-up hair. “How long do they expect us to wait before they’ll see Mara?”

“It’s only been three hours,” Niall replied sarcastically.

“How’re you feeling?” I asked Mara, leaning around Zayn so I could see her.

She gave me a dirty look before turning away to talk to Harry on her other side, her voice a little too eager to be natural.

He gave me an apologetic look before reciprocating his end of the conversation.

Sitting back in my chair and crossing my arms over my chest, I started listening to Niall and Louis complaining about the wait some more. I would have talked to Zayn, but he was completely enthralled by whatever was on his phone.

“This is just ridiculous,” Louis grumbled. “Mara’s sitting over there in pain, and the people here don’t even care.”

“At least we’re not that guy over there,” Niall whispered, gesturing subtly to a guy sitting across the waiting room. His eye was swollen shut and his face was all cut up, a massive gash on his forehead that continued to leak blood slowly, even after all the time we’d been sitting there. “He looked like he had been here a while when we showed up.”

“Wouldn’t he have bled out by now?” Louis questioned seriously, cocking his head to the side and narrowing his eyes to stare at the guy, as if that would solve the conundrum.

“It’s not bleeding much anymore,” Niall noticed as the guy pulled the piece of gauze away from his head to examine it. “So I think he’ll be okay. They should probably get him some orange juice or something, just to keep him from passing out.”

“Orange juice…” Louis trailed off, confused. “Why the hell would they use orange juice?”

“Because it has a lot of sugar,” I interjected. “The sugar will raise his blood sugar, and he won’t feel dizzy. Assuming, of course, that he does feel dizzy.”

Niall nodded in agreement with me. “Yeah. What Liam said.”

Louis let out a breath before smashing his head against the wall behind him, sending a thumping sound through the quiet room. “Ugh. I just wish that they’d take Mara already.”

Fifteen minutes passed, and the poor guy that had been sitting there and bleeding for hours was seen by one of the doctors.

“I still can’t move my arm,” I heard Mara mutter to Harry.

He gave her an apologetic look. “It is swollen?”

“I don’t know,” she responded. “I’m kind of afraid to look. We’ll let the doctor take care of it.”

Niall gave a little snore next to me, his body jerking a little bit, as if he’d just fallen in his dream. A middle-aged woman on her cell phone gave him a scared and annoyed look.

Ignoring her, I jammed my elbow into his side, making him startle awake. “Wha?” he questioned, his eyes unfocused with disorientation.

“You gave that bird a fright,” I told him matter-of-factly, nodding at the blonde woman that was no longer looking in our direction.

“What’d I do?”

“Had a spaz attack,” I informed him.

“Whoops,” he laughed, running his hand down his face to wake himself up a bit more. “Whatever. Sucks to suck.”

“What?” I burst out laughing, my eyebrows pulling together in confusion. “Where did you hear that?”

“The internet,” he replied simply. “And I thought it was funny. So I’m gonna try to make it catch on.”

“Good luck with that one,” I responded with an eye-roll.

“Mara Beckett?” a nurse called from the doorway, a bored expression on her face and a clipboard in her hands.

“FINALLY,” she exclaimed dramatically as she got out of her seat. “See you, guys.”

“Good luck!” Harry called back with a cheeky smile.

Zayn slapped him off the shoulder and gave him a warning look. “C’mon, Harry. Don’t freak her out.”

“She wasn’t freaked out,” Harry defended. “Did you see freaked out on her face?”

“Yes,” Louis responded seamlessly, keeping a perfectly straight face, even though he was joking.

“I wonder what’s wrong,” I mused, my worry for her overtaking all of their nonsense. “What if it is broken?”

Right as the words left my mouth, I felt someone slap me off the back of my head. I turned, shocked and on the brink of hysterical laughter, to see Louis glaring at me.

“What did I say about optimism, Liam? I don’t appreciate your negativity. It’s bringing down my aura.”

“I think you mean vibe in that case,” I corrected him. “But anyway, I can’t help but worry. I mean, her not being able to move it is a bad sign, right?”

“We’ll see,” Niall answered, and that was the only response I got.

I bit my lip and watched the doorway, waiting anxiously for Mara to show her face again.