Page 17 of All This Time

He takes the postcard from my hand and begins reading. “My dearest Jane, the world is a mess, but what I know is that our love can stand the test of it. I will return to you, my love, as soon as I can. Pleasewait for me. I look forward to our future together.” He hands the card back to me. “Wow. People actually felt that way?”

My brows draw together in confusion. “Um, yes. Believe it or not, there is such a thing as true love.”

He shrugs as he moves to my bookshelf. “I wouldn’t know.”

I frown. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, when your parents are divorced, it makes you skeptical about the idea of love.”

I knew his parents weren’t together, but I didn’t know much more than that because Fletcher doesn’t talk about his mom, and I’ve been too nervous to ask. “I’m sorry.”

He glances at me over his shoulder. “Me too.”

“Whereisyour mom?”

“No clue. She took off and never looked back, leaving me with my dad.” He scoffs. “Lucky me.”

As Fletcher walks closer to me, I notice something in the dim light that I didn’t before. “Oh my God. Fletcher…” I reach up to touch his face, but he turns away from me.

“It’s nothing.”

“That doesn’t look like nothing.”

“It’s from the game,” he says, reaching up to touch the side of his face that is swollen and red, on the brink of turning purple.

“But it wasn’t there during dinner…”

“Some hits take longer to show.” The reply is automatic, as if rehearsed.

Swallowing down the lump in my throat, I make a decision in that moment. “I’ll be right back.”

“Laney!” he whisper-shouts, but I don’t stop as I quietly exit my room and make my way toward the kitchen. My parents are in bed,and Rhonan is probably passed out, but there’s no way I’m not going to do something about the lump on the side of Fletcher’s head.

I fill a plastic bag with ice, grab a clean dish towel to wrap it in, and head back to my room, finding Fletcher back at my dresser reading the other postcards. When he hears the door click shut, his eyes follow me as I make my way over to him. “Come sit.” I direct him to my bed, taking a seat as I wait for him to follow.

With a roll of his eyes, he reluctantly obeys and takes a seat right next to me, playing into many fantasies I’ve had about this boy in my room, but none of them involved him being hurt.

“I appreciate this, but—”

“Stop talking.” I cut him off, pressing the ice to his face, watching him wince. “It’s swollen.”

“No shit.” We sit there for a few moments, studying each other before he lets out a yawn. “Do you mind if I lie down if you insist on me keeping this ice on?”

I glance back at my pillows. “Uh, sure.”

Fletcher crawls up my bed and lays his head on my pillow, sighing. He takes the ice and presses it back to his face. “You didn’t have to do this, Laney.”

“Well, you’re the one who crawled into my room with a knot on the side of your head.”

He closes his eyes. “I thought this was Rhonan’s room.”

Suddenly, my dull excitement about this turn of events evaporates. “Oh.”

His eyes pop open and he stares at me. I’m sitting next to him, my feet still dangling off the edge of the bed. Unexpectedly, he reaches out and touches my glucose monitor attached to the back of my arm. “Is this new?”

I dip my eyes down to the white object attached to the back of my arm. “This one is, yeah.”

He’s never mentioned it before, and suddenly, I feel even more self-conscious about it. I’m not naïve about the looks I get at school when people see my glucose monitor, but the harsh reality is, without this monstrosity on my arm, I’d die. At least this one is a lot smaller than the other one I had.