When I come to, it feels like there’s a mountain on my chest. I’m having trouble breathing, and coherent thought is gone because my head is clearly being split in two by some maniac with an axe. All I can think is, ow, ow, ow. 

Then, like a miracle, the mountain is gone. I open my eyes and take in a big, gasping breath. The ceiling over my head is spinning. Somewhere in there, I think I see Jamie’s face. 

Am I dead? Is this hell? 

“You’re not dead,” he says, and I realize I may have spoken that thought out loud. Is it my imagination, or does he sound relieved?

“Sorry to disappoint.” The words come out as a wheeze. Why is it so painfully bright in here? My eyes squeeze shut.

“Hey, don’t do that.” Jamie taps my cheek a little more firmly than the situation calls for. “Stay awake.”

“‘m not sleeping,” I mumble. “Can you stop shining that in my face?”

“Lissa, that’s the sun. I may look like a Greek god, but I can’t actually control the forces of nature.”

This last comment is so ridiculous I have to open my eyes to glare at him. His mouth is quirked at the edge, the way it does when he thinks I’m funny but doesn’t want to laugh because he’s mad at me.

“Better. Now listen, I’ve got to get you in my truck so I can take you to the hospital, but I’m going to carry you in case you have a concussion.”

“I bet you use that line on all the girls.” 

“Just the ones stupid enough to try and hang a hundred pound punching bag by themselves.” His arms slide under me, one by my knees and the other by my shoulders. “Hold on to my neck. If you close your eyes I’m going to let your head bang into the doorframe.”

“What a charmer.” I'd hit him but I don’t have the strength. I barely manage to lock my hands behind his neck like he said. When he lifts me, I’m overcome with a wave of nausea. My head drops against him, so my nose is pressed right to the hollow of his throat, and I’m too occupied with trying not to throw up to do anything about it.

Jamie starts walking like he’s carrying a scrawny five year old instead of my well developed self. I may be short, but I have a lot of jiggly parts, and I have to squeeze to fit into size 8 jeans. Yet Jamie doesn’t even sound a little labored when he says, “I’m glad you’re not dead, because now I can kill you myself.”

“Stop flirting with me. You’re embarrassing yourself.” I’m pretty sure the head banging thing was an empty threat, but I keep my eyes open and focused on a paint stain on his t-shirt just in case. 

“Are you actually insane?” he fumes. “You can’t do stuff like this on your own. What if I hadn’t been downstairs? You could’ve suffocated under there!”

“Do you have to be so loud?”

“What possessed you to even want a punching bag in your room? You don’t box.”

We’re going down the stairs now. Every step makes my headache worse. “You don’t know me. I’m getting into it.”

“Lissa. You don’t box.”

“It’s for fitness.”

“Lissa—”

“I’m trying to tone my figure.”

“Lissa!"

“Shay Mitchell does it!”

Jamie’s busy trying to open the door without dropping me, and he misses his retort. It's even more horribly bright outside. He starts in again but I can't focus on what he's saying over the high pitched whining in my ears.

Something pinches my leg. Hard.

“Ow!” I yelp. “What was that for?”

“You closed your eyes.”

“For a second,” I growl.

He sets me down in his truck and slams my door shut. I'm given a magical moment of silence, and then his door opens and his voice pours back in.

“Let’s forget for a second that you taking up boxing is the most unlikely thing to happen since Kanye West ran for president.” He jams his keys into the ignition. “Pretend I believe you.”

“Please shut up,” I groan. 

“You live next door to a licensed carpenter. I could’ve hung that bag in under five minutes, without pulling half the ceiling down on myself.”

So I did do some damage. I turn my head so he can’t see my smile.

“Amanda obviously has experience with hanging punching bags and she’s your friend. She could’ve done it. I mean, hand Enzo a couple tools and even he could’ve figured it out for crying out loud!”

“Your voice is a pinball inside my skull right now.”

“Good!”

He yells at me the entire ten minute drive to the hospital. If he wasn’t always such a pain, I’d think he was doing it to keep me from trying to sleep. But Jamie has never needed an excuse to tell me what an idiot I am. 

There are wheelchairs in the entrance area to the ER, so thankfully, he doesn’t have to carry me in in front of everyone like some episode of Grey’s Anatomy. After transferring me from the truck to the chair, still lecturing, he wheels me through the doors and deposits me in the waiting room while he checks in with the nurse. The other people in the waiting room—a man with a frozen bag of peas pressed to his cheek and two parents with a little girl who has her finger caught in the plastic top of a cheese shaker—give me only a passing glance before going back to moaning and arguing, respectively. 

Now that the immediate shock of the whole thing is wearing off, I’m starting to feel more than a little ridiculous. I watch Jamie talk to the ER check in lady, flashing her a smile much more genuine than anything he directs towards me, and examine the life choices that led to this moment. Stuck with my ex-boyfriend, in the emergency room, with the worst headache of my life and a stabbing pain in my side every time I inhale. And it’s all my fault. Why did I think this was a good idea? Am I actually stupid?

“I’m going to miss half a day of work because of this,” Jamie mutters as he sits next to me.

Well there’s that, at least.

“Do I have to fill out any forms?” I ask.

“Already did it.”

I squint at him. “Jamie, you can’t just make the answers up, this is actual paperwork.”

“The questions aren’t rocket science, Lissa.” He leans back in his chair and pulls his baseball cap over his eyes. “Address, same as mine. Marital status, non-existent. Major surgeries in the last year? Aside from the lobotomy, nada.”

“I could’ve had surgery.” I’m offended that he thinks he’s so caught up on my life. We don’t know each other anymore. This last month is the most time we’ve spent together in years and it’s been 90% fighting. 

Jamie makes some sort of noise that tells me he doesn’t think my argument is worth a response. Then a silence settles between us. 

I thought his steady stream of scolding was making my headache worse, but without it, there’s nothing to distract me from the pain. The TV in the corner is set to a news channel and droning on about nothing remotely interesting. The little girl starts crying again because she wants to watch something on her mom’s phone but they can’t get a connection. One of the fluorescent lights is not the same shade of white as the others and it’s starting to really bug me. 

“Jamie.” I poke his leg. “Let’s play a game.”

He doesn’t move. “Let’s not.”

“My head hurts,” I whine. “I need you to distract me.”

“That’s what your phone’s for.”

“Let’s play Corrupt-a-Wish.”

He tips his cap up enough to give me a funny look from beneath it. Immediately I feel myself blushing. 

Corrupt-a-Wish was our favorite game, first when we were just friends, and then when we were dating. I used to like it because I could learn things about him, what he wished for and what he hated. Even if it was something silly like wanting to be another inch taller or hating the texture of radishes. Every little hard-won scrap of information felt like a victory. I wanted to find out everything there was to know about him.

Obviously that’s not the case anymore. But it seems like the kind of game that would be just as fun to play with someone you hate as someone you… well... you know.

When Jamie doesn’t say anything, I poke him again. “Come on. Make a wish.”

“No.”

“Make a wish or I’ll start singing.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

I hum the opening lines to “Learn to Do It” from Anastasia. 

“Fine. I wish that I could get this house finished and sold without any more disasters.” 

Ignoring the pointed look he gives me, I take a second to think about it. “Okay. You finish the house and sell it, but the people who buy it turn it into one of those Jimmy Buffett themed restaurants, and they put up a plaque in your honor, with a giant picture of you.”

This makes Jamie sit up. He knocks his hat back so he can look at me, eyes narrowed. I’ve managed to combine three things he hates: themed restaurants, plaques, and strangers knowing what he looks like. 

“Okay. Not bad.” Slowly, he leans forward, letting his elbows rest on his knees.

“Not bad? Try brilliant.”

He shakes his head. “I can top it. Make a wish.”