#kellen

“What hurts?” Mallory and the man asked in tandem, their eyes briefly flickering up to each other before quickly focusing back onto Kellen. His breathing was noticeably labored as he tried to form a coherent thought. 

“Everything,” he croaked, “...head hurts.” 

“There’s a reason we oldheads tell you dumbasses to wear your damn helmets,” the older man said sternly but not unkindly, tapping his own. “Can you tell me your full name and where you are? Does your neck hurt?”

Kellen inhaled sharply in overwhelm, finally opening his eyes a sliver. “Kellen Clark…the skatepark. No.” He started to push himself up again, more determined this time. “Told you, ‘m good…let me up.” His thin arm trembled as he rose to a sitting position and brought his palm to his forehead. Mallory gasped; the side of his face that had been pressed into the ground bore a nasty friction burn--but more concerning was the blood trickling down his temple and cheek from somewhere in his hairline. His elbow and knuckles were also scraped up and bleeding. “Fuck…”

“Y-your head is bleeding,” she choked out. Kellen looked at her through half-lidded eyes, hazy and unfocused. His face was growing paler by the second, and he dragged his hand away from the center of his forehead and towards his temple, coming away wet with blood. He stared at his bloodied palm, blinking multiple times. Mallory didn’t notice the way his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he started to rapidly swallow, or the way his head swayed back and forth as he tried to maintain his sense of balance. But the older skater did. 

“Get out of the way, he’s going to puke,” He warned, scooting quickly to Kellen’s side. Mallory flinched in surprise and scrambled backwards from in front of him, unable to bring herself to help him as he doubled over his own lap with a half-formed gag and covered his mouth. The remarkably level-headed stranger gently guided him to the side, away from his own legs. “You’re good, kid,” he repeated softly, looking back over his shoulder to glare at everyone still watching.

A loud retch careened Kellen forward, forcing him to shift his hips and catch himself on his hand. Mallory inched further away, breath halting as her heart began to race faster. She couldn’t tear her eyes off of him as he jolted with a burp and a liquidy wave of pale vomit splattered onto the ground in front of him, splashing the top of his bare hand. He moaned, cutting his own rising complaint short with a gurgling noise as more puke rushed up his throat and cascaded to the concrete. The crowd of bystanders surrounding him quickly dispersed in a frenzy of shouts and screams as people frantically rushed to escape the sight and sound. She was completely frozen in place, seized by panic and at a loss for what to do. Mallory wasn’t the best with vomit on a good day; least of all when it was coming from the love of her life in a high stakes situation. 

“Did you drive here?” It took her a few seconds to realize the man currently filling the position she should be in was addressing her. She shook her head, pressing a hand to her chest as hyperventilation threatened to take over. “Well, call a friend who can take you guys to the ER. His head is bleeding a lot,” he gestured to the blood dripping from the tips of Kellen’s curls, bright red droplets joining the vomit covering the ground. “It might not be as bad as it looks, but it’s too hard to tell where it’s coming from.”

“W-who do I call?” She cried helplessly, cringing away as her sort-of-boyfriend heaved up another slurry of his stomach contents, breaking into a harsh coughing fit as he choked on the mouthful of liquid.

He threw up a hand in frustration. “I don’t know, lady. Figure it out!” 

Mallory finally snapped out of her paralysis at his exasperated tone and pulled her phone out of her pocket with a trembling hand. Her fingers were shaking so severely that it took several attempts to unlock it. When she finally managed it, she hovered over her contacts uselessly. She didn’t have the number of anyone he knew. She cursed under her breath and clicked on the only person she could think of--Sarah. Her roommate, who was unabashed in her disdain towards Mallory’s situationship and fiercely protective.

Sarah picked up the phone on the second ring. “Hey girl--”

“Sarah,” Mallory couldn’t get through her name before her voice dissolved into a sob, “Kellen--I need you to p-pick us up.” 

“What? Kellen? What happened, where are you?” Sarah barked, and Mallory heard the jingle of keys in the background. She sucked in a heaving breath, choked for a response. “Mallory!”

“The skatepark--” she inhaled again, “He hit his head--fuck, he needs to go to the hospital, please--” 

Sarah let out a string of curses over the phone. “Okay, okay, I’m coming.”

--

Kellen’s vomiting had abated by the time Mallory ended the phone call, his wet sniffles punctuated by an occasional aborted heave as he fought to regain control over himself. He exhaled a shaky groan and finally sat back, drawing his knees towards his chest and absent-mindedly wiping the back of his vomit covered hand against the side of his jeans. He instantly winced in disgust when he realized he’d done it. He seemed more alert now, the initial shock of his impact fading. “Mallory,” he panted, “I’m--mnnh--’m okay. Stop,” the word came out garbled as spit coated the inside of his mouth and he spat between his feet. “Stop crying.” With his eyes fully open now, she could see the pupils in his hazel eyes were blown wide, but luckily the same size. That was a good sign, right?

Mallory looked wide-eyed between him and the tattooed man, monitoring his expression. His cool-headed demeanor through all of this made his judgement feel trustworthy. When he made eye contact with her, he nodded slowly, an encouragement to calm down. It was still impossible to take Kellen at face value with the blood coating the side of his face and coagulating in his dark auburn hair. She wiped the tears from her cheeks and scooted clumsily back towards him, her clunky rollerblades impeding the movement. 

“But you threw up,” she whimpered, “and you’re bleeding.” Her voice was fragile, and Kellen’s knee was shaking when she reached him and laid her hand on it. The smell of vomit beside them and clinging to him made Mallory’s stomach turn, but she tried to force it to the back of her mind. “You could have a brain injury.”

Kellen reached the hand he hadn’t puked on towards his affected temple, but their helper quickly interjected before he could make contact.

“Don’t even think about it. She’s right,” he snapped.

Kellen mumbled something under his breath but ultimately obeyed, letting his hand fall back down. He stared at the ground for a few seconds, slowly tensing when his situation seemed to dawn on him. “I’m in the way,” he muttered to himself, preparing himself to try and get to his feet. “Where’s my board?”

“Easy,” the man said quickly, “take it slow. I’ll get your board in a second.” He reached out to grab Kellen’s arm and support him, but the younger man shrugged him off.

“I-I’ve got it,” he tripped over his words, embarrassment flooding through him now that he’d returned to himself for the time being. He shifted onto his hands and knees and pushed himself up with agonizing difficulty. His long, skinny legs shook like tall buildings trying to withstand the force of an earthquake when he finally righted himself. Mallory stood on equally unsteady feet, nearly falling right back down while she fought to balance on her inline skates. She made the quick decision to take them off so she could walk alongside him better, bare socks on concrete be damned. Kellen ducked his head down when he noticed the stares from every direction. “Fucking hell…” he grumbled, color returning to his face in the form of a red blush across his cheeks. Her heart twisted with pity, but seeing him stand on his own brought her immense relief. 

“Don’t worry about it, we’ll never see any of them again,” she snaked her arm around his waist when he stumbled off-balance from moving his head towards the ground. “Just keep walking.”

--

Kellen hadn’t spoken the entire drive, intently focused on staying awake per Mallory’s instruction. She’d barely taken her eyes off of him except to exchange non-verbal check-ins with Sarah in the rearview mirror. They were about halfway to the ER when Mallory noticed it. In her hypervigilance, she picked up on a sluggish swallow from him that seemed to catch halfway down his throat, and the stifled burp that followed from the subtle puff of his cheeks and jerk of his ribcage. 

“You okay?” She whispered, keeping her voice as low as possible. 

Kellen shut his eyes and exhaled through his nose, clenching the fabric of his jeans between his fingers. “My head’s…spinning,” he admitted under his breath, thick brows furrowing in concentration. The arm he was using to hold a rag to his bloodied head was shaking. Before Mallory could respond, a deep hiccup burst out of him, breaking the silence in the car. Sarah’s eyes darted to the rearview, wide with alarm over the unexpected noise.

“Do not throw up in my car,” she warned, “I don’t have bags and I swear to God, I will--” 

“Sarah, pull over,” Mallory cut her off, leaning away from Kellen as he dropped the rag from his head and let out an involuntary belch, “Kellen, please don’t. Please don’t!” 

He swayed back and forth and pressed his hand into the headrest in front of him, trying to stabilize himself amidst a wave of vertigo. “‘I…I don’t feel well,” he slurred weakly in response. There was a sudden thickness to his voice, his salivary glands starting to work overtime.

“Fuck!” Sarah swore, “I can’t believe I agreed to this, oh my God.” She hit the brakes hard as she pulled off onto an illegal shoulder and the tires screeched against asphalt. Throwing open the car door was as far as Kellen got before he curled over with an empty heave, straining against his seatbelt. It was the only thing preventing him from falling out of the car, but too restrictive to allow him to aim fully over the ground. When a spurt of bile came, most of it hit the outer door frame of the car. Mallory and Sarah both shrieked in horror and exited the car in a frenzy. Sarah started pacing back and forth, hands clasped tightly on the back of her neck. “What the fuck, Mallory,” she cursed when she saw Mallory standing in place, “go help him!” 

Mallory looked wildly between the car and her roommate. “I--I can’t, I can’t,” she gasped, bringing her hands to her ears to block out the sounds. It had been bad enough to watch him vomit in an open space. The thought of being in a trapped space with him while he was throwing up, or worse, trying to get him out of the car and risk getting puked on…nausea sprung to life inside her at the mental image.

Sarah’s eyes bulged, blazing with rage. “You owe me,” she growled, marching determinedly towards the other side of the sedan. 

-

It took everything Sarah had not to turn away from the sad sack in front of her. She was not a squeamish woman by nature; it was her burning dislike for this man that made it hard to see him in such a vulnerable state. Feeling empathy for Kellen was…novel to her. It wasn’t like he’d ever been unkind to her personally; but the endless back and forth games he was always playing with her friend made him impossible to like. Anger bubbled up like acid. She shouldn’t have been the one standing here. Under her frustration, though, was a nagging fear. What if he was in more danger than they thought? The massive scrape on his face and clotted blood in his hair was scary enough without this. Maybe they should have called an ambulance instead, but who could afford that?

He hadn’t brought up much other than the initial bile. Tears of exertion were streaming down his face from the force of his heaving. He was barely keeping himself up, the seatbelt doing most of the work. “Kellen, you’ve got to get out of the car,” she said firmly, taking a tentative step towards him when there was a lull in his efforts to expel whatever was still lingering in his gut. She was nothing if not a problem solver. “Unbuckle your seatbelt, grab the door to hold yourself up and get out. You can do it.”

To Kellen’s credit, he managed to do as she said and extricate himself from the vehicle. Standing was not in the cards though, as he quickly sat down on the pavement and ducked his head between his legs, spitting. Sarah winced. “Hey, you’re gonna vomit on yourself,” she warned, moving closer. “At least get on your hands and knees or something.”

“C-can’t,” Kellen gasped, “‘m so fuckin’ dizzy, my head--” he burped, a grating noise that started empty but cut off wetly. “Can’t move, ‘m sorr--urgh--y.”

Sarah, against every instinct screaming at her to leave him and go smack her roommate out of her trance instead, knelt down beside him and laid a hand between his bony shoulder blades. She was still human. “It’s…it’s not your fault,” she sighed, “get it over with, I guess. We’ll deal with it afterwards.” 

The first wave came laboriously. And as she had predicted, it didn’t land in an ideal location. The retch that brought it up was drawn out and slow, and she tilted her head up to look at the sky in despair when Kellen puked up a mouthful of thick vomit that didn’t quite have the trajectory to hit the pavement. Instead, it poured out over his chin and splattered his t-shirt. He choked on the viscous fluid and attempted to lean forwards to aim the next wave away from himself. Saliva streamed from his mouth, rendering him unable to properly breathe as he sat slack-jawed and waiting. 

“Fuck,” Sarah groaned under her breath when the smell hit her. And it was going to be permeating her car after he was finished. Every emotion under the sun was flitting through her. Anxiety that he could be severely injured. Annoyance that anytime he appeared in her life, it was to be a nuisance. Anger that she was the one forced to deal with it. Empathy to see another person suffering like this. She pushed him gently forwards while he struggled to keep his head up.

Kellen made a sound like he was going to speak, but was silenced by his own heave as he rocked forwards and let up the next pitiful stream of sickness. This time it landed squarely between the pavement and his groin, splashing the ground and one of his inner thighs with a disgusting brown color. “Shit,” he slurred, “s-sorry.” His voice was choked and high-pitched, like he was about to start crying. “Where’s Mal-hic!”

Sarah rolled her eyes. “Listen, I love that girl but she is not what you need right now. When you stop throwing up--” she cringed when he interrupted her with a retch from the bottom of his stomach, sounding painfully empty. “Dude…you gotta breathe before you pass out or something. It’s getting scary.”

Kellen coughed a few times in an attempt to clear his throat, clutching the unwounded side of his head as if every cough was a jackhammer to his skull. “Sorry,” he repeated quietly, eyes fluttering closed where he sat. “I’m so…tired.” 

She hissed in exasperation and grabbed his shoulder. “No no no, no you are not,” She snapped, “we really have to go. God, fuck, I-I’ll give you my jacket, okay? Puke on that in the car if you have to.” What the hell was she even saying? That was her favorite one. All of this for her roommate’s dumbass fling. “But you owe me a handle of Grey Goose for this. And two cases of Busch apple. And an eighth, minimum.”

She was pretty sure she heard him give a weak laugh at that. Despite her annoyance a relieved smile briefly tugged at her lips. “Come on, get up.”

“I’m not gonna puke on your jacket,” he croaked. His voice was wobbling, but he didn’t sound seconds from bursting into tears anymore, eased by the moment of levity. He lifted his head the best he could, but quickly dropped it back down.  “I…” he trailed off, sucking in a breath, “I can’t…”

Sarah moved to his front, turning her face away from the sight of the vomit splattered down his shirt and chin. “I know. I’ll help.” She extended a hand towards him, grimacing at how clammy his palm was when he accepted the gesture. At least it was clean. “Seriously though, get puke on my seats and I’ll end you. Not even my friends would get away with that.”

“Aww, we’re not friends?” He asked drowsily, sarcasm weaved through every word. 

“No, we are not,” she replied flatly, pulling him to his feet. Kellen had half a foot on her easily, but he was thin as a board and light as a feather; it didn’t take much effort to help him up. He stumbled sideways and caught himself on the car door, knees wavering as he started to lower himself into the seat. “Good,” she mumbled, wrinkling her nose when she caught herself praising him. Gross. Once he was sitting, she grabbed her coat from the back of the car and tossed it on his lap. He blinked down at it, throat bobbing uncomfortably. “...Keep it clean if you can,” she sighed woefully, hoping beyond hope that he would be able to uphold his promise not to soil it. 

Mallory finally appeared from the other side of the car and wordlessly started to climb into the front passenger seat. Sarah looked at her irritably. “Girl, no. You need to sit back there with him and make sure he doesn’t accidentally kill himself or fall asleep.” 

Her friend shot her a sulking glare. Her lower eyelids were swollen, irritated by tears. “But--”

“He’s your boyfriend, I can’t do all of this myself,” Sarah cut her off. She was losing patience. Kellen started to protest the label, but she shushed him. “Don’t start. We’re going.” 

--

Mallory begrudgingly made her way into the back again, visibly cringing away at the sight of Kellen’s vomit coated shirt and chin. She rolled down her window halfway as Sarah pulled back onto the road, pressing her forehead into the top of the glass. It should have been her there helping him. Jealousy sparked in her chest. He was going to remember this; that she had shied away while Sarah ran to his aid. Her roommate didn’t even like him, where did she get off on showing him her caring side? 

She shifted her head to glance at him. He was pale still, eyes only halfway open with his head tilted back against the headrest. “Are you doing okay?” She finally murmured uncertainly, sliding a bit closer and fighting the overwhelming desire to plug her nose. 

“Yeah,” he replied hoarsely, making a face at the sound of his own voice. “Jus’...dizzy. Tired.”

“Are you feeling sick? Nauseous?” She quizzed, heart rate kicking up a notch. 

“What do you think?” Kellen said brusquely, “you’re…” he breathed in deeply and bit back a soft burp that petered out in his throat, “not helping.” 

“Is there anything I can do?” Her voice cracked guiltily, “I’m really sorry, I’m trying to help, I should have been there--”

Kellen didn’t turn to look at her, but she could see the scowl deepening on his face as she blubbered the apology. “Mal, just..stop talking,” he groaned, “I don’t care.”

“Don’t care about what?”

“I don’t care that you weren’t there.”

She froze. That was even worse than if he was mad. He didn’t care at all? Maybe he was even glad that Sarah was the one there instead of her. She crossed her arms instead of reaching towards him. “Kay,” she muttered, lapsing into uneasy silence. Kellen replied with a long sigh in lieu of words. Sarah met her eyes in the mirror and furrowed her eyebrows, giving Mallory a confused look that screamed what are you doing? Mallory glared in return. She blinked away the burning feeling at the back of her eyes. No. He was hurt; this was no time to be assuming ulterior motives.

The rest of the drive was blissfully uneventful, marked only by occasional muffled groans from Kellen, his inner ear locked in a stalemate with the inertia from the car. Sarah parked the car and quickly got out, but Mallory was faster. She darted around the side of the car to open Kellen’s door, blocking Sarah’s way. “I’m closer to his height,” she explained quickly, “It’ll be easier for me to help him.”

Sarah shrugged. “Sure. Watch the puke, though. It’s all over him.”

Kellen locked eyes with Mallory as she hovered over him nervously, hesitant to touch him. His expression was unreadable, but he was just as tense. His pupils responded sluggishly to the changing light, the large dark pits nearly overtaking his hazel irises. It was slightly uncanny, and she recoiled at the sight. “I can walk by myself,” he finally grumbled when she didn’t reach out, unbuckling his seatbelt and fighting not to slump over the seat from that small motion alone.

“N-no, I can help!” She insisted when he attempted to push past her and stand. She grabbed his elbow, not letting go when he flinched. “Come on, we’ll take it nice and slow.” She made brief eye contact with her roommate, who looked immensely uncomfortable as she stood off to the side and watched the stilted interaction. 

“I, uh--I’m gonna get a head start to the front desk and let them know you’re coming,” Sarah said, taking off at a light jog without waiting for a reply. Mallory nodded in approval, eyes burning into Kellen as he stood swaying at her side, hazily tracing Sarah’s path as she left.

“What, are you gonna miss her?” She couldn’t stop herself from making the snide comment, incensed by the way his gaze was following the other woman. 

Kellen grunted in confusion, at war with his own two feet as they made their way towards the ER. “Huh--wha? Who?” When he finally processed what she was getting at, he clicked his tongue against his teeth and hissed in annoyance. “Jesus…’m not fuckin’ doing this with you right now,” he ground out, sounding markedly woozy. “My head…hurts.”

Mallory swallowed down the urge to snap back, and tried not to think about the vomit on his clothing that was inches from her as his lanky frame sank deeper into her side.