hurt | luke hemmings

4

Four

Luke

"Your pupils are dilated," I took notice of her eyes as I observed them, seeing she was sensitive to the light. "Have you recently hit your head?"

"Yeah," Kenzie confirmed.

"How did that happen?" I asked as I brought out his stethoscope.

"I was playing soccer and got hit in the head," she answered, obviously lying.

"Did you hit your knee doing that?" I raised an eyebrow remembering seeing her limping into the room

"Yes," she said as I grabbed a chair and sat in front of her.

"Can you roll up your pants?" I asked and she nodded, rolling them up. The bruising and swelling was horrible, obviously not from soccer. "You bruised it pretty badly, try to stay off of it. No soccer, icing often, ibuprofen," I listed off and she nodded.

"Alright," Kenzie mumbled. I noticed more bruises on her legs as I was observing her knee. I felt my heartbreak as I thought of terrible possibilities, like abuse.

"How did you get the rest of the bruises?" I questioned.

"Soccer,"

Before I could say anything the door opened and their mother came back in, "Where is Alex?"

"Getting a lollipop and sticker," Kenzie answered.

"I have to give her a shot," I said, "she hurt her knee pretty badly, how did that happen?"

"She fell-" their mom started, but Kenzie intervened quickly.

"I fell while playing soccer," Kenzie glanced at her mom, "remember?"

"Oh, that's right," her mother nodded. As the conversation continued, Michael came back, which was perfect timing.

"She has a concussion too, she needs to be on complete bed rest," I explained.

"That won't be possible, we are having a family gathering Saturday,"

"They can stay with us," Michael quickly said. "We have a lot of guest rooms, plus kids at a gathering just sucks in general,"

"Alex can, we need Mackenzie there," their mother looked at Kenzie, "isn't that right?"

"I think I need rest," Kenzie mumbled, looking away. There was tension high in the room until Michael spoke up again.
"Great, you can drop them off tonight, I'll write down our address," Michael grabbed a piece of paper from me and wrote the address down. I finished the check up, then watched the three leave, looking at Michael with confusion.

"Alex said something bad is going to happen Saturday," Michael explained quietly.

"She has bruises covering her body, a concussion, and her knee is horribly bruised," I told him, making Michael sigh.

"We'll have to give her a lot of ice and ibuprofen," he said. "We have to figure out what is going on, cause it's not good," I nodded in agreement. I finished for the evening with his friends, then went back home. Already, Ashton was home making dinner, so Michael explained everything.

"The accusation is a big one, and you can't do anything until you are given a real confession from one of them," Ashton explained to us.

"Can't you? You're a psychiatrist," Calum said, making Ashton roll his eyes.

"I'm not a psychic,"

"Same thing,"

"It's really not," Ashton scoffed. "All any of us can do is provide a nurturing, comforting environment and let them trust us. You need them to trust you before we do anything, and seeing how you three are going into this we aren't going to get anywhere," Ashton looked at us. "You're going into this like a broken bone, find the problem and fix it, and that's not how you should. People who face abuse need time to open up, time to get trust and not just be asked flat out, doing that will do nothing, They have to open up on their own,"

"Well, we have the weekend," Michael looked at Ashton, making his face drop, "is that enough time,"

"We better pray every Goddamn night," Ashton mumbled.