Zoey 101: All Or Nothing ☑

Chapter 29

Chase POV

Oddly enough, starting off a new year with knee surgery wasn’t as bad an omen as I’d originally thought. I did get to miss the first week back at school, so no complaints from me on that one.

Sure, I was a huge pain after my injury because I was in so much pain. I went through my five stages of grief: I was mad, then upset, followed by angry, which blossomed into frustration, which eventually turned into depression.

But then Zoey came along, as she so often had, and wouldn’t put up with any of it. If I complained, she wouldn’t let up until I either got over myself or laughed. She carted me back and forth to school. Helped me with my books, cooked for me, did everything I needed, and she didn’t complain once. Unless, of course, I complained. Which was often.

There was something about her help that calmed me. I didn’t like having my mom fret over me. I didn’t want Dad to think I was soft, even though he understood the severity of my injury more than anybody. And I hated thinking that the guys felt they had to take care of me.

Oh, yeah, and Alexa. I liked having her around, but things with Zoey were different.

For a second, on New Year’s Eve, I thought she was going to tell me that what she wanted was me. That she wanted to kiss me. She only paused for a couple seconds, but in that short amount of time, I managed to get my hopes up to a ridiculous height.

She was one of the last people I saw before I was put under for my surgery, and one of the first people I saw when I woke up. She took the day off school to be with my parents and me. She brought me my homework all week and did these hilarious reenactments of stories involving my friends.

She even took me to physical therapy. Which I was grateful for, because physical therapy sucked. It hurt. It was the most frustrating thing ever. I had to relearn how to use my knee. Something as simple as bending was painful and difficult. If Mom had been there, she would’ve been worried by the pain I was going through.

But Zoey stood there and helped me when I needed her. She did her homework while my therapist was working on me. And she gave me the strength to not give up, throw a fit, or cry. Which I wanted to do on a daily basis.

After a particularly painful session, Zoey sat next to me during my ice and stim.

“How you feeling?” she asked.

“Better,” I lied.

Kim, my therapist, set up my stim machine. “He had a good day today. I have total faith that he’ll only be in his brace at the dance in a couple weeks.”

“That’s great!” Zoey gave me a big smile.

Kim patted her on the shoulder. “You may need him to lean on you more when you dance, but you know how boyfriends can be.”

Zoey gave Kim a puzzled look. “Um, yeah, but Chase and I aren’t …”

“Oh!” Kim looked at both of us. “I thought, um, I didn’t mean …”

How often had this happened to us? Too often to count. It made sense that Kim would think Zoey was my girlfriend. I’d told her that I had a girlfriend, I’d talked about Zoey a lot, Zoey was always here with me. But I racked my brain trying to think if I had brought up Alexa by name. Surely, I couldn’t have neglected to mention her name.

“Sorry,” I apologized to Zoey. Like it was my fault that people always assumed we were together. But maybe it was.

She shrugged it off. “It’s okay. Maybe if you’d let Alexa come with you …”