Chapter 13
The door to exam room 1 was closed but not locked. I sat on the edge of the table in the open jacket, the burn on my chest dressed and cool under the gauze. White Coat was on the rolling stool at the little wall desk, typing with two hands, then stopping. The deputy stood by the counter with his notepad flipped open, his hat off. I had a paper cup of water in both hands.
White Coat turned the stool toward me. She didn't touch the jacket.
"I'm going to read your chart back to you," she said. "You tell me if I got anything wrong. Okay?"
I nodded. My throat was still dry.
She read from the screen, steady, not fast. "Two-forty p.m. Hallway, clinic. Patient in dark gray hooded zip-up jacket, hood up, jacket clutched shut. Declined exam. Consent attempted three times. No force used."
She paused and looked at me.
"That right so far?" she asked.
"Yes," I said. My voice was small.
She kept reading. "At approximately two-fifty-five, patient gave verbal consent for jacket to be opened in exam room 1 with support person present. Burn noted center chest, roughly two inches, partial thickness. Consistent with contact burn. Cooled, cleaned, dressed. No meds given yet pending guardian approval."
She turned the screen a little so I could see it, even though I couldn't read the medical words.
"Did I miss a step?" she asked.
I thought about it. The hallway, the hands at the zipper, the way I'd pulled away. The way she had waited.
"You asked before you touched," I said. "You said you wouldn't open it until I said."
She nodded and typed that in. "Consent requested, not assumed," she said quietly, and added a line. "Thank you. Anything else?"
"No," I said.
The deputy stepped a half-step forward. He held his notepad low, not like he was hiding it.
"My turn," he said. "This is your statement. Not mine. I write what you said, you fix it. I don't guess."
He read in the same even way White Coat had, his voice flatter. "I was in the parking lot after school. A man in light gray coveralls let me look at a muffler from his truck. It was hot. I didn't know. I put it against me under my jacket."
He glanced up to check I was still listening. I was holding the cup tighter.
"Then you walked to the clinic because your chest hurt," he went on. "Child states he pulled jacket closed and held zipper. Adult in white coat asked to check. Child said no at first. Later said yes in exam room. Timeline about twenty minutes parking lot to clinic."
He stopped. "That match?"
I swallowed. White Coat didn't jump in. The room was quiet except for the wall heater humming.
"Yes," I said, "but—"
The deputy lifted his pen. "Go ahead."
"You said I held the zipper with one hand," I said. "I didn't."
White Coat looked at the deputy, then at me, and waited.
"I had both fists on it," I said. "Both hands. The whole time in the hallway. I didn't let go with one hand."
The deputy nodded once. He scratched out a line on his pad and wrote again right above it. He turned the pad so I could see.
He had written: held zipper with one hand.
He drew a line through one hand and wrote both fists / both hands next to it and initialed it in the margin.
"Like that?" he asked.
"Yes," I said.
"Good catch," he said. "Both fists is important. Shows you meant it."
White Coat finished typing. She read her last line out loud. "Patient corrected: jacket clutched with both fists, not one hand. Correction noted per patient."
She looked at the deputy.
"Aligned?" she asked him.
He compared his pad to her screen, not copying, just checking.
"Time, place, jacket, burn, consent steps match," he said. "My statement matches chart on description, parking lot, timeline. No leading."
He tore off nothing. He closed the pad.
White Coat printed two sheets and set them on the counter. She didn't hand me a pen.
"You don't have to sign until your mom reads it with you," she said to me. "Your words stay your words. We don't change them after without you."
The radio on the deputy's shoulder crackled low. A voice said, "ETA four minutes, County Road, mother en route, no lights."
The deputy tapped the volume down.
May you like
"Four minutes," he said to me. "She's close. We'll stay in here until she gets here."
I nodded. The water in the cup had stopped shaking. My jacket was still open over my shoulders, the gauze white against my skin, and for the first time that afternoon I wasn't holding the zipper at all.
