I barely heard his “no.” I didn’t believe him.
“Did you have diarrhea?”
His head jerked, but he didn’t say anything.
“Everybody gets diarrhea.”
Okay, what stranger—especially a teenage boy—wanted to talk about diarrhea with someone they had literally met less than a month ago?
Maybe just me.
“You know, I got food poisoning from a sandwich I bought at a gas station in Utah a month ago, and I had to spend an extra night in Moab because I couldn’t stop using the bathroom. I swear I lost ten pounds that night alone—”
The kid made a choking sound that I couldn’t tell whether it was a laugh or a groan of pain, but he sounded a little quieter as he muttered, “I don’t.” He made the savage, painful sound again.
Apprehension gripped the back of my neck as the kid hunched over even more a moment before he started panting through his mouth.
All right.
I crouched down in front of him. “Where does it hurt?”
He gestured toward his stomach somehow… with his chin?
“Have you farted?”
That choking sound rattled from his throat again.
“Does it hurt on the left, right, or the middle?”
His words were gritted. “Kinda right.”
I pulled out my phone and cursed at the fact that I only got one bar of cell phone service in this spot. Not enough to use the internet but hopefully enough for a call. There was Wi-Fi, but… I wasn’t going to ask what the password was when he could barely speak.
I hit the contact for Yuki, thinking she was the only person I knew who constantly had her phone on her, and fortunately she answered on the second ring.
“Ora-Ora-Bo-Bora! What are you doing? I was just thinking about you,” one of my very best friends answered, sounding pretty damn chipper. But of course she should. Her album had hit the number one spot three weeks ago and was still hanging in there strong.
“Yuki,” I said, “I need your help. What side is your appendix on?”
She must have heard the distress in my voice because the humor disappeared from hers. “Let me find out. Hold on.” She whispered something to what had to be her manager or assistant before putting the phone back to her face after a few moments and saying, “It says mid-abdomen, right lower abdomen, why? Are you okay? DO YOU HAVE APPENDICITIS?” she started to shout.
“Fuck,” I muttered to myself.
“ORA, ARE YOU OKAY?”
“I’m fine, but my neighbor is sweating big-time and looks like he’s going to puke, and he’s clutching his stomach.” I paused. “He doesn’t have diarrhea.”
The boy made another choking sound I wasn’t totally sure was appendix-related and more than likely just me talking about diarrhea again. I had enough nephews to know that as savage as they could be, they got shy about bodily functions sometimes. And the way he’d been talking to his dad a couple weeks ago, how he’d talked to me too, I had a feeling that maybe he was just shy in general.
“Oh thank God. I thought it was you.” She whistled in relief. “Take him to the emergency room if he looks that bad. Is he bloated?”
I pulled the phone away from my face just a little. “Do you feel bloated?”
Amos nodded before he let out another whimper and pressed his face closer to his knees.
Of course this would happen to me. I was going to get kicked out for talking to this kid, and I wouldn’t even be able to regret it.
“Yes. Say, Yuki, let me call you back. Thank you!”
“Call me back. Miss you. Good luck. Bye!” she said, hanging up immediately.
Slipping my phone back into my pocket with one hand, my free one went to the boy’s knee and I gave it a single pat. “Look, I don’t know for sure, but it sounds like it might be your appendix. I don’t know though, but honestly, you don’t look well, and I think you’re in too much pain for it to be, I don’t know, something else.” Diarrhea. But I think he was fed up with me saying the d-word in front of him.
I was fairly positive he tried to nod, but he groaned in this way that had my armpits starting to sweat.
“Is your dad on his way?”
“He’s not answering.” He let out another grunt. “He’s at Lake Navajo today.”
I knew the lake wasn’t far from Pagosa, but service was sketchy all over Colorado, I was starting to learn. Is that why he thought his dad was on his way? “Okay. Is there someone else we can call? Your mom? Another parent? Family member? A neighbor? The ambulance?”
“My uncle—Oh fuck.” He let out a cry that somehow went straight into my heart and brain.
I couldn’t hesitate anymore. This wasn’t good. My gut said so. The only thing I knew about appendix issues was that, if one ruptured, it could be deadly. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was something. But I wasn’t willing to screw around with his well-being.
Especially not when his dad wasn’t answering and couldn’t make an executive decision.
I stood up and then bent back over to slide my arm under his shoulder blades. “Okay, okay. I’m taking you to the hospital. You’re scaring me big-time. We can’t risk waiting around.”
“I don’t need to—oh fuck.”
“I’d rather take you and there’s nothing wrong than having your appendix rupture, okay?” I would rather his dad kick me out for communicating with him than this kid die or something else terrible.
Oh my God. He could die.
Okay. Time to go.
“Do you have a wallet? ID? An insurance card?”
“I’m okay. It’ll pa—fuck! Holy fuck,” he groaned long and deep, the length of his body tensing with a cry that took another bite out of me.
“I know. You’re fine, but come on anyway, okay? I don’t want your dad to see me trying to put you in my car while you fight me and think I’m trying to kidnap you. He’s not answering, so we can’t ask him what to do. I can try and call your uncle on the way, is that okay? You said something about calling your uncle, right?” I asked, tapping his shoulder. “You can’t die on me, Amos. I swear I won’t be able to live with myself if you do. You’re too young. You have too much left to live for. I’m not as young as you, but I’ve still got at least another forty years left in me. Please don’t let your dad kill me either.”
He tipped his head and looked at me with big, panicked eyes. “I’m going to die?” he whimpered.
“I don’t know! I don’t want you to! Let’s go to the hospital and make sure you don’t, okay?” I suggested, knowing I sounded hysterical and was probably scaring the shit out of him, but he was scaring the shit out of me, and I wasn’t as much of an adult as my birth certificate said I should be.
He didn’t move for so long I thought for sure he was going to keep arguing and I was going to have to call 911, but in the span of a couple of breaths I sucked in through my nose, he must have come to a decision because he slowly tried to climb to his feet.
Thank God, thank God, thank God.
There were tearstains down his cheeks.
He moaned.
He groaned.
Grunted.
And I knew I saw a couple fresh tears stream down his sweaty face. He had the beginnings of his father’s sharp features, but leaner, younger, without the rugged maturity. One day he would though. He couldn’t fucking have his appendix rupture on me. No way.