Dark Chocolate Cherry

INDULGENCE

I wake up in an ambulance with Nolan sitting next to me. I'm lying on one of those things, strapped inside, my head in this thing with an icepack somewhere around there. The ambulance smells like hospital and cleaner, and the gurney-thing is soft and squishy, like what you'd think a waterbed might be like. Nolan is holding a white pack underneath his glasses, over his right eye, and his face is covered in scratches and bruises.

"What happened to you?" I ask.

"Your stupid boyfriend beat the crap out of me." He pulls off his huge glasses and pulls the ice pack off. His eye is a mixture of black and blue with purple mixed in, clamped tightly shut.

I laugh, but it sort of hurts my head and I stop. "You look different without your glasses on."

"Everyone does."

"No, you look..." I search for the right word. "...blank. Like a huge part of your face is gone."

Nolan smiles and puts his glasses back on, then slides the white pack underneath it. "Thanks. I really appreciate that, you know."

"Are you sure you two aren't dating?" says a woman's voice. I turn my head just slightly to see a very pretty paramedic lady with dark skin and her black hair tied back into a ponytail.

"Definitely not!" I insist. "He's the biggest nerd in the whole school."

"And she's a punk," Nolan chimes in.

"What were you two doing in the same car, then?" asks the paramedic.

I'm about to say something when Nolan steps in. "I found her walking down the street and I know her so I let her hitchhike."

The paramedic nods with one of those he's totally lying looks on her face, then sits on the edge of my bed-sort-of-thing-that-I-can't-name and starts asking me questions, like what happened and if we knew who the sexy bicycle freak was and how hard I think I hit my head. She maintains one of the best poker faces I've ever encountered and smiles kindly at the end. She then turns to Nolan, but he reassures her that he's fine and that the bicycle freak he almost killed just beat him up after he approached him. The paramedic then raises her eyebrows at me.

"Some nerd," she chuckles before standing up and going to talk with the driver.

I turn back to Nolan, whose black eye makes me laugh for some reason. "That lady actually thought we were dating."

"It must be because we were in the same car. Teens make out in cars a lot. She must have assumed the worst."

"Have you ever made out with anyone in a car?" I ask.

He ponders for a minute. "I kissed a girl in the back of my Dad's car once, but she turned out to have cooties, so no one touched me for the rest of the school year."

"Who did you kiss?" I ask.

"I don't even remember her name. She was new and moved away later in the year."

Suddenly I remember something. "Did anyone call my father?"

Nolan reaches over next to my knees and holds my phone up for me to see. "He was in your Contacts List labeled under 'It's Him'."

There's a brief pause before he says, "He seemed pretty upset when I told him you were in the ambulance."

I turn red and take my phone from Nolan. "How did you get my password?"

"I guessed." He looks down at the ground. "I knew it had to be something no one else knew."

Something about the way he says that hits me like a bolt of lightning. I've only known this kid since Friday and he already knows all of my secrets and I already know all of his. Why is it that I'm so open to him but not anyone else? What is it about this geek sitting in front of me that makes him so easy for me to talk to?