Read Online Under the Dusty Moon by Suzanne Sutherland - Free Book Online Page B

sad.”
    â€œYou were so sad you biked into a car?” she said loudly enough so that everyone, including the cute medic who was filling out paperwork nearby, could hear.
    â€œShut up,” I hissed. My arm was still dully throbbing and I’d reached a boiling point. “I finally got up the nerve to text Shaun today, okay? So we went out. And it was horrible and embarrassing, and I left but he didn’t, and I was biking home and I rode through a red, which was stupid, which I know, but I was fine, and then this car …”
    And then Mom wrapped her arms around me. Tight. Which was actually kind of a dumb thing to do since I couldn’t really move my right arm because it hurt so badly; she was probably making my bones warp. So we sat there — technically I lay there, since I was still on the stretcher — with her arms wrapped around my middle, my left arm sticking out like a scarecrow and my right arm, in a sling, squeezed hard against my torso. Classic Mick and Vic.
    And in that moment I hated her, but there was no one else in the world I wanted to see.

    They took me in for X-rays and showed me what bones I’d broken: my wrist and my thumb.
    â€œHow long is it going to be like this for? How long will I have a cast?” I asked the emerg doctor with the cloud of ginger hair who seemed to be in charge of me. I couldn’t stop staring at his orangey halo and I’m pretty sure he could tell. He pretended he couldn’t, though. What a pro.
    â€œIt’ll be six to eight weeks, I’m afraid,” he told Mom and me grimly. “Hope you weren’t planning on writing a novel this summer.”
    I refused to dignify his terrible joke with a laugh, though Mom gave a small dad-joke chuckle for his benefit. I would’ve grouchily crossed my arms if I’d been physically able to manage it, but my injured arm stole the gravity of my favourite protest pose.
    Six to eight weeks without my right hand and thumb meant I wouldn’t be playing Lore of Ages V any time soon — or finishing my portrait of Stara. Lucy could probably play the game one-handed , but I was so slow to begin with, and so not a lefty, that I knew I wouldn’t be able to manage with my cast on. And drawing was most definitely out. If my skills had been weak before, I was straight back to kindergarten now — pass the crayons. The icing on the whole crap cake was that there was no way I’d be back on PYT any time soon. Even if she hadn’t been mangled in the accident, the idea of getting back in the saddle made me way too nervous.
    Great , I thought. Not only had I ruined my chances with Shaun forever and was never going to be in with Lucy’s hardcore LoA friends, but Mom was going to be off to Japan any minute, and I couldn’t even ride around town on my bike to stave off being bored to death without her. My eyes started leaking in a way that I swear on Stara Shah’s leather jacket was against my will.
    Doctor Ginger Cloud gave us directions to another room down the hall where I’d have my cast put on and then he left the two of us alone. Mom turned to me and then noticed my involuntary eye-slobber .
    â€œAw, sweets, don’t cry,” she said. “It’s okay, that’s not such a long time to have the cast on. It’ll be off before you know it. It’ll be off by the end of the summer — the fest! And in the meantime, I’m going to sign it, I LOVE MY DAUGHTER VERY, VERY MUCH AND SHE’S THE SMARTEST AND PRETTIEST GIRL IN THE WHOLE WORLD, EVEN IF HER CYCLING HABITS LEAVE JUST THE TEENSIEST BIT TO BE DESIRED .”
    â€œMom,” I said, weakly laughing through my dumb tears, “seriously, shut up.”
    â€œDo you think they’ll let you pick your cast colour? Like DayGlo green, or camou or something?” she said, getting up from her chair. “Come on, let’s go, I want one, too!”
    â€œStop it,” I said,