Meet You There | Calum Hood

33

"Cal?"

"Lexi?" His breathing was ragged and the words came out as a broken sob, his lip quivering already from just the way she had said his name answering the phone. He had locked himself in the back lounge on the bus after racing out there to make his call.

She sounded panicked. She sounded scared.

A silence dragged and he fought the urge to scream through the line at her to say something. The silence was eery and he wasn't brave enough to ask her what he so desperately needed to know.

"When I talked to you the other night and asked about what she'd eaten.."

"Yeah, what about it? She ate. I mean she only ever ate like half of what was on her plate, but she ate."

"Not enough."

"Well, not enough for an elite athlete." Lexi said after a brief pause

"What happened? Where is she? Is she okay?"

"She blacked out in practice. Fell off the balance beam and hit her head. They brought her to the emergency room, she's getting pumped full of fluids and they had to test for a concussion but that came back negative."

"Oh thank God, is that all?" Calum asked, still concerned, but thankful that she wasn't near death.

"Cal, we're the only ones that know what's really going on." She told him her voice shaking. "She doesn't even know that I helped you put it together. Everyone else is clueless. The doctor might have his suspicions but he can't say anything to her coach about her medical condition and her parents aren't in town right now, they're in Europe for their anniversary and won't be back until the week of Thanksgiving. Coach just thinks she lost her balance or had a spell or something, I don't know."

"How has no one noticed?" He said, his words coming out harsh and angry.

"Well, to be fair, you didn't either." She said carefully and he felt his resolve break. She was right. He hadn't noticed because he hadn't know what to look for, which was probably the same for the others.

"Fair enough. So...what do we do?" He asked, hoping there was something he was capable of from his current proximity.

"I-I really don't know. I just know I can't lose her too. My sister died from Anorexia. It can't take my best friend too."

"I'll see what I can come up with. Hey Lexi?"

"Yeah?"

"Will you promise to have her call me when she's awake?"

"Sure. They said she might be groggy but we could take her home soon. If she wakes up I'll have her call tonight if not it'll be in the morning."

"Okay. I'll have my ringer on high. And hey, Lexi?"

"Mmhmm?"

"When she bruised her wrist a while back, was that because of this too?"

"Yeah, it was." She said sadly.

•

Cal groaned as his phone rang, it was nine AM on an off day and he'd been in the midst of a deep sleep but he still blindly fumbled for his phone and slid it open, pressing it to his ear without glancing to the screen.

"Holls?"

"Hey." She replied, her voice soothing away the worries he'd brought to bed with him and he sat up rubbing at his eyes.

"Fuck, you can't do shit like this to me Holland." He said seriously. "You have no idea how worried I was about you. I'm a thousand miles away and you were in hospital and there was nothing I could do."