“Stay right there, Fiorellina. We’re coming.” Sheets rustled on the other end of the phone.
As if I had anywhere to go. I let the phone slip onto my pillow and stared at the ceiling. The pain in my left thigh wasn’t the ache I’d spent weeks pretending I could handle. It had changed into something sharper, something that made it difficult to think past the next breath. Bernard lay against my right side, his nose pressed to my elbow. Even he had stopped trying to get comfortable.
The bedroom door opened, and they came in together. Pops was a step ahead in a faded navy Henley and gray basketball shorts. Dad was right behind him, barefoot, his phone still in one hand and his glasses in the other. Pops crossed to the bed, and whatever he’d been about to ask disappeared when he saw me. “Talk to me.”
“It’s different,” I said, struggling to find a position that didn’t hurt. “It hurts when I’m not even moving. I can’t make it stop.”
Dad came around to the other side of the bed and took my hand. Pops sat on the edge of the mattress and touched the back of his hand to my forehead. His jaw tightened. “You’re burning up again.”
“I had the ice pack on,” I said. “I thought that would help.”
Pops reached for the thermometer Dad had left on my nightstand.
He waited for the beep and read the display, holding it closer to the bedside lamp.
“One hundred two point eight.” His eyes moved to the crutches beside my desk. “Can you move your leg at all?”
I tried shifting it across the sheet. Pain caught halfway through the movement, and my fingers closed around the comforter before I could stop them.
“Don’t try again.” Pops reached for his phone. “I’m calling an ambulance.”
“Pops, can’t you just drive me?”
He didn’t put the phone down. “You can barely move your leg. I’m not making you try the stairs.” His thumb was already on the keypad. “Dr. Kerr said not to wait if it got worse. It got worse.”
I looked toward the bedroom door. I couldn’t even sit up without it hurting, much less get down the stairs. I let him make the call.
While Pops gave the dispatcher our address, Dad brushed damp hair away from my forehead. “Stay still, Fiorellina. I’m right here.”
I gripped his hand harder.
Across the hall, Stetson’s door opened. He shuffled into view in black basketball shorts and an old Bighorns T-shirt, rubbing his eyes. “Why’s everybody up?”
He saw Pops on the phone, then looked at me. His hand fell away from his face. “Sloane?”
“Hey, Stet.”
He came around to the side of the bed Pops had left, his eyes moving from my face to the crutches beside the desk. “What’s happening?”
“My leg.” I tried to shift it and stopped. “It’s worse.”
Stetson glanced at Pops, who was still speaking to the dispatcher. “Is that an ambulance?”
I nodded, and he sat beside me and took my free hand. He didn’t ask anything else. When I squeezed his fingers, he squeezed back.
Dad went to collect Saturday’s urgent-care papers and his notebook while Pops finished with the dispatcher. The wait felt longer than it was. Bernard kept moving between the foot of my bed and the door, his nails clicking against the floor, until Stetson reached down to scratch his ears.
When the paramedics came upstairs, Bernard barked once and retreated behind Dad. Stetson held his collar while the crew came through the doorway.
The crew introduced themselves, checked my vital signs, and asked where the pain was worse. They explained what they needed to do before moving me. I answered their questions and tried not to look at the equipment waiting in the hallway.
They kept my left leg supported as they transferred me onto the stretcher and carefully brought me downstairs. Dad followed with the paperwork, answering questions about the past week. Stetson hurried ahead to pull on a hoodie and shoes, then waited at the bottom of the stairs, pale beneath the entryway light.
“I’m coming,” he announced as they maneuvered the stretcher toward the front door.
“You have school in a few hours.”
He stared at me. “And?”
“I’m just saying.”
“I’m coming.” He looked at Pops, who nodded, then followed the stretcher outside.
Dad rode in the ambulance with me. Pops drove the Silverado with Stetson, and the last thing I saw before the doors closed was Bernard standing behind the front window, watching us leave.
Dad sat where I could see him whenever I turned my head. He answered the paramedic’s questions calmly, but his hands were clasped so tightly his knuckles had gone pale. I watched them for a while before whispering, “Sorry.”
He leaned closer. “For what?”
“Waking everybody up.”
“Sloane.” He waited until I looked at him. “You did exactly what you were supposed to do. You asked for help.”
I turned toward the ceiling and wiped at my eyes with the edge of the blanket. Dad left his hand beside mine on the stretcher, and I held on to two of his fingers.
Sierra Vista Community’s emergency department was all bright lights and plastic chairs, with a television mounted too high on the waiting-room wall. I got about four seconds of it before the ambulance crew wheeled me through a second set of doors, which was what happened when you skipped the waiting room.
The crew handed me over to the receiving staff. Dad passed along the urgent-care papers and explained that my MRI was scheduled for that afternoon, but the pain and fever had gotten worse while we waited. He’d folded the pages small enough to fit in his pocket.
In a treatment room, a nurse named Marisol introduced herself. She wore purple glasses and pulled up a stool so she could talk to me at eye level. She checked my blood pressure, asked me to point to the worst part of my leg, and didn’t make me stand to demonstrate what I couldn’t do.
The thermometer beeped. Marisol looked at it, then at Dad. “One hundred three point four. The doctor will be in as soon as possible.”
I looked at Dad, who was watching Marisol. She helped arrange pillows to support my leg while Pops stood near the foot of the bed, arms folded, watching every person who came through the door. Dad sat beside me. Stetson claimed a chair against the wall, lasted about ten seconds, and got up again.
“Stet, sit down,” Pops said.
“I am.” He stopped beside his chair but didn’t sit until Pops looked at him again. He dragged it closer to the bed, and I moved my hand off the blanket so he’d have somewhere to rest his elbow.
The doctor arrived with a tablet tucked under his arm. He was tall and gray-haired, and his badge read Danielson. He introduced himself to all of us before pulling up my records.
“I’ve read Saturday’s urgent-care notes and Dr. Kerr’s notes from this week,” he said. “I want to go through what’s changed.”
He confirmed the timeline with us: Saturday’s urgent-care visit, Monday’s appointment with Dr. Kerr, Tuesday’s fever, and tonight’s worsening pain and higher temperature. Dad told him about the MRI scheduled for that afternoon.
Then Dr. Danielson turned to me. “When did the pain actually begin?”
I stared at my hands. “August. Before school started. It wasn’t this bad then.”
Beside me, Dad went very still.
“Any night sweats?” Dr. Danielson asked. “Weight loss you weren’t trying for?”
I could have said no. I’d been saying no for weeks. “Both,” I said. “I lost four pounds. And I keep waking up soaked.”
He nodded and typed it in, his face unchanged. He didn’t ask why I’d waited so long to tell anyone. He asked where the pain began, whether I’d fallen, and what had changed over the last few days. When he examined my thigh, he moved carefully and stopped when I flinched. He checked my foot, too, asking whether I could feel his touch and move my toes.
“We’ll give you something for the pain,” he told me when he finished. “I also want to repeat the blood tests and have radiology review your X-rays. We need to find out why this is getting worse.”
Marisol returned to explain the IV and draw blood for the tests. I stared very hard at Dad’s shirt while she worked. Dad talked about the absurd number of pens he’d lost at the office that week. Pops held my water bottle as though he’d been assigned an important job, even though I wasn’t drinking from it.
Once the medication began helping, I could finally relax my grip on the blanket.
They took additional X-ray views of my femur. The technician supported my leg and warned me before changing its position, but the table was hard and I couldn’t get comfortable. I fixed my eyes on a faint water stain in the ceiling tile and mentally ran through volleyball rotations. Front row, back row, serve receive. Things I understood, with rules that didn’t change overnight.
On the way back, the nurse wheeled me past the waiting area, and I spotted Chandler sitting beside Uncle Jake.
He was bent forward with his elbows on his knees, wearing his gray soccer hoodie and plaid pajama pants. He had on one slide and one running shoe with the laces hanging loose. Stetson must have texted him.
Uncle Jake noticed me first. He put a hand on Chandler’s shoulder, then gave me the little nod he always gave before my serves. “Hey, baby girl.”
“Hey, Uncle Jake.”
Chandler stood but stayed beside his chair. I hadn’t seen him since school Tuesday, and I still hadn’t apologized.
I lifted my hand a few inches off the blanket. He saw it, and his shoulders loosened just a little before the nurse continued toward my room.
Once we were settled back in the treatment room, Dad noticed me glancing toward the curtain.
“Would you like Chandler to come in?” he asked.
“Yeah.” The answer came out before I could overthink it.
Dad checked with Marisol, then stepped into the hallway. He returned a minute later with Chandler, who stopped just inside the curtain. Uncle Jake stayed in the waiting area while Stetson went to update him.
“You can come in,” I told Chandler.
His eyes moved to the IV tubing before settling on my face. “Hey.”
“Hey.” I shifted my hand on the blanket while he came closer.
He pulled a chair toward the bed, and I finally got a proper look at his feet. One slide. One running shoe.
“Did you get dressed with your eyes closed?”
Chandler glanced down, as though he’d forgotten what he’d put on. “Mostly.”
“That explains a lot.”
He sat, his gaze traveling from the pillows around my leg to the IV before returning to my face. “Stet said your fever got worse.”
“Yeah. It’s higher than Tuesday.”
His mouth moved like he wanted to smile, but he didn’t quite manage it. He rubbed his thumb over his palm, studying the blanket before speaking again.
“I keep thinking about Saturday,” he said. “You could barely stand, and we were still out there training.”
“I was the one who wanted to go outside. You tried to get me to stop.”
“I know.” He looked at the blanket covering my leg. “I still hate seeing you like this.”
“Me too.” I swallowed and looked at him instead of the blanket. “I’m sorry about what I said.”
Chandler stopped rubbing his palm and looked at me.
“At Happy Paws,” I added, though he didn’t need me to explain. “The leash thing. It wasn’t true.” My throat tightened. “I just wanted you to stop asking.”
He looked down at his hands, turning them over slowly before folding them together. “It did hurt.”
“I know.”
For a while, he didn’t say anything. When he finally looked up, his expression had softened a little. “Okay.”
I waited, but he didn’t say anything else. I wanted to ask whether we were all right. Instead, I let him sit there without making him reassure me.
Marisol came back to check the IV, and Dad shifted aside so she could reach the tubing. Chandler stayed in his chair, the laces of his running shoe still trailing on the floor. When she left, I turned toward him again.
“Can I ask you something?”
“You can ask.”
“Can you still talk to me normally?” I picked at the edge of the blanket. “I know this is bad. I just don’t want every conversation to be about my leg.”
Chandler glanced down at his feet. “You’ve already made fun of my shoes.”
“Only once.”
“You looked at them again.”
“Because you’re still wearing them.”
He shook his head, but this time he smiled. I let go of the bit of blanket I’d been twisting around my finger.
Stetson slipped back through the curtain a few minutes later. He looked from Chandler to me, then pulled his chair nearer without comment. He glanced at me once more, then settled back without asking how I felt.
Dad leaned forward in his chair. “Has it been waking you up since August, Fiorellina?”
I’d answered Dr. Danielson with Dad sitting right there, but I’d kept my eyes on the doctor. Now there was nowhere else to look. I smoothed a wrinkle in the blanket that didn’t need smoothing.
“Not every night. More lately. Sometimes I’d get up and move around. I thought it would loosen up.”
Dad’s expression tightened. Pops came around the bed and rested a hand on his shoulder.
“I thought it was from practice. I kept waiting for it to get better.” I looked at Dad. “I should’ve told you.”
“I wish you had,” Pops said. “But you’re telling us now.”
I kept my eyes on the blanket until Dad squeezed my hand.
Nobody rushed to fill the silence. Stetson twisted the drawstring of his hoodie around one finger. Dad kept his eyes on me, and for once I didn’t have to convince him I was fine.
Then the curtain opened, and Dr. Danielson returned with his tablet. He glanced at Chandler sitting beside the bed before addressing me.
“I have some results to discuss. Would you rather have this conversation with only your family?”
I looked at Chandler. He hadn’t moved, even though the doctor had given him an easy way out.
“I want him to stay.”
“That’s fine with us,” Dad said.
Dr. Danielson rolled a computer closer. Something about the careful way he positioned it made everyone in the room go quiet.
“I’ve spoken with radiology,” he said. “We reviewed the earlier X-rays and the additional views from tonight. There’s an abnormal area in the middle of Sloane’s left femur.”
He turned the screen toward us.
There was my thigh bone, gray and white and unmistakably mine. Partway along it, one patch looked different from the rest. I’d studied diagrams of bones in biology. I’d never expected to spend this much time looking at my own.
“Abnormal how?” Dad asked, leaning toward the screen.
“We call it a lesion,” Dr. Danielson explained. “That’s a description of what we’re seeing, not a diagnosis. An X-ray alone can’t tell us exactly what it is.”
I looked from the screen to the blanket over my leg. The pain had a place on a picture now. I wasn’t sure whether that made it more real or just harder to ignore.
Pops leaned forward. “Was it there on Saturday?”
“Saturday’s images didn’t give us a clear answer. Looking at them next to tonight’s, I’m concerned.”
Dr. Danielson turned back to us. “She needs an MRI and an evaluation by a team experienced with bone lesions. I’m arranging a transfer to Aurora Children’s Medical Center for later this morning, once the receiving team confirms a bed and transport. She’ll stay here under observation until then.”
Dad straightened. “What kind of team?”
“Orthopedic specialists, and likely pediatric oncology as part of the evaluation. It means we want the right people looking at this from the start.”
Oncology was a word I knew, of course. Everybody knew it. But hearing it in a room where I was the patient made it sound like something I’d never heard before. I looked at Dr. Danielson, waiting for him to explain what it meant for me, but he’d already told us he didn’t know.
Pops’ hand settled on Dad’s shoulder again. Stetson went still in his chair, the drawstring of his hoodie wrapped tightly around one finger. Chandler leaned forward, listening.
“When she comes home, we’ll need to sort out the stairs,” Pops said quietly to Dad.
“The guest room’s already made up,” Dad said.
“Can we not redecorate my entire life before we know what’s happening?” I asked.
Dad turned back to me. “We’ll talk about it later, Fiorellina.”
I looked at Dr. Danielson, who hadn’t moved away from the computer. “Are you saying it could be serious?”
He met my eyes. “I’m saying we need to find out what it is, and we shouldn’t wait.”
I waited for somebody to tell me it would be nothing. Dad had always been good at finding the right words, and Pops could usually make anything sound manageable. Even Stetson knew how to turn a disaster into a joke. But nobody promised me it would be fine, and I couldn’t bring myself to ask them to.
I reached across the narrow gap between the bed and Chandler’s chair. He took my hand, shifting his chair closer so neither of us had to stretch. While Dad asked Dr. Danielson about the transfer, I watched our hands and tried to listen.