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Truthfully, Garrett was already in a bad mood when he got the call.
He was working on a “partner project” for his econ class, which really just meant he was doing all of the work while his partner opened their shared document every twenty minutes, letting their cursor hover for about thirty seconds before logging off again. He was also actively trying to avoid the NHL 26 tournament that was going on downstairs, half the team seemed to be crammed into their living room and were making what Garrett assumed was the same amount of noise that herds of elephants made.
In fact, his roommates and teammates were so engrossed in said tournament that when Garrett had braved going down the stairs to grab a snack, the only people who had bothered to acknowledge him were Logan, who threw him a middle finger from the couch for skipping the game, and Jules and Grace, Logan’s girlfriend, who were hanging out in kitchen. Jules had nodded their head at him, while Grace had waved, before they went back to gossiping about their friends at the radio station.
All and all, Garrett was having a bit of a rough night, not to mention it had been nearly six hours since he had seen his girlfriend, which was probably the worst part of all of it.
So, when his phone buzzed next to his elbow when he was in the middle of deleting and rewriting the same sentence for what felt like the millionth time, he didn’t even bother to check the number before answering with a gruff, “Hello.”
“Is this Garrett Graham speaking?” The voice on the line was female and completely unfamiliar to him, a fact which made his body still, free hand hovering over the trackpad of his laptop.
“Yes?” His voice sounded strained to his own ears, sounding more like a question than an answer.
“This is Jenna calling from the student health center…” Garrett’s blood ran cold. He could hear the woman, Jenna, still speaking on the other line, but his ears were roaring so fiercely he couldn’t concentrate on her actual words. Garrett would only be an emergency contact call from the health center for a handful of people, and most of them were currently sitting in his living room, which could only mean one thing.
Hannah.
“I’ll be right there.” Garrett was down the stairs and out the door, likely while Jenna was still trying to figure out if he had hung up on her.
Garrett flew into the student health center about seven minutes and thirty eight seconds later, it would have been less, but he had gotten stuck at the single stop light between his house and the main part of campus. And in those seven minutes and thirty eight seconds, he had spun through nearly every single worst case scenario as to what could have possibly happened to Hannah, each one more gruesome and anxiety inducing than the last.
Hannah bleeding.
Hannah unconscious.
Hannah de–
Garrett shook his head, no, that was a crazy conclusion to jump to, even he knew that. Logically, he knew that if something was truly wrong, Hannah would be in the hospital, not the student health center. The student health center was mostly used for the annual flu shot clinics and providing pain medication and ice packs, not serious life threatening injuries and illnesses. But, he also knew that his panic wouldn’t subside until he saw her okay with his own eyes.
Luckily, it didn’t take long after he burst through the doors to get the confirmation he needed. He was looking wildly around the lobby, searching for anyone, but the front desk was currently unoccupied. He was about to start causing some kind of commotion, maybe knock over a chair or two, when he heard his name.
“Garrett.”
He knew that voice like the back of his hand, he heard that voice in every dream, he would fall to the ground and worship the sound of that voice. And when he spun around to locate the source of said voice, he nearly collapsed with relief when he saw her.
Hannah was sitting in the corner of the waiting room, looking almost exactly the same as she had that afternoon when Garrett had last seen her. He could have cried at the sight. He quickly scanned her, checking for any obvious injuries or signs of sickness, but nothing stood out to him. Her hair looked as it always did (perfect, if you asked him), her cheeks were pink and the small amount of make up he had watched her apply that morning didn’t look at all out of place. Her clothes weren’t dirty or ripped, well unless you counted the tiny ink stain on the hem of her white shirt, which he knew was from the last time she had worn it and her favorite pen had exploded.
Then he saw her feet. Her left foot looked to be expected, cuffed jeans, brown boot covering up her pink socks with cherries on them, but her right shoe was sitting on the ground next to her and he saw the tell tale sign of a bandage sticking out from her pant leg.
Garrett almost laughed.
“Baby, what happened?”
Hannah huffed, crossing her arms over her chest. He wasn’t surprised, she was just about the most stubborn person he had ever met in his life, and she absolutely hated admitting that she needed any kind of help. It was likely that coming here hadn’t even been her idea, and that whoever had witnessed this fall from grace of hers had probably forced her hand. Garrett let out a silent thank you to whoever that might be.
“It’s nothing, I’m fine.” She said through gritted teeth.
“The ace bandage on your ankle says otherwise.” Closing the distance between them, Garrett knelt down in front of her, his hands finding the curve of her bare foot and pulling her to the edge of her chair, just a little bit closer to him. “I’ve had enough ankle and wrist injuries to recognize one, Wellsy.”
She sighs then, deep and exasperated and Garrett chuckles. He knows that whatever she did to herself is something she doesn’t want to confess, that her dignity is probably more hurt than her ankle. But he’ll get the story out of her, he always does.
“You’re probably gonna need to ice this thing all night, probably shouldn’t go anywhere tomorrow either. This looks like it’s calling for the good old R.I.C.E. method, in fact it’ll probably be all weekend before you can go anywhere.” He’s partly teasing her, but he’s also being completely genuine. He’s sprained his ankle more than once, and while Phil Graham never allowed for quite enough time for them to heal properly, his high school coach was very strict about treating any kind of ankle injury.
Hannah groans, wincing ever so slightly when Garrett’s fingers squeeze her ankle softly. It’s the smallest chink in her armor, but it’s enough for Garrett to freeze, concern sweeping through his body. He knows she’s going to be okay, but knowing she’s in any kind of pain is like taking a knife to his heart. He suddenly has an immense amount of sympathy for how she must feel when she watches him get slammed into the boards during games.
“Wellsy…”
He hears the concern in his own voice and he watches the fight leave her body, shoulders loosening and a soft smile twitching at the corners of her lips. “I’m fine, it’s just a little sore.” Garrett rubs the skin of her leg gently, luckily whoever wrapped her ankle had done it with immense care, so he did his best to avoid the bandage. “I lost a fight with my bike.” She finally admits, a shy look crossing her face.
A million different images run through Garrett’s head and for the first time, he spots her trusty pink bike helmet sitting on the seat next to her. It’s unscathed, so whatever happened couldn’t have been that serious. He gazes at her, eyebrows raised, waiting for her to elaborate.
“I was caught up in a conversation with Daveed, he has ideas about my next showcase piece, I was distracted.” Hannah blushes, clearly embarrassed, and Garrett grins. “My foot went right through the spokes, I was on the ground before I could even figure out what was happening.”
He can see it as clear as day as she describes it. Hannah always got lost in her music, whether it be playing or talking about it or even just thinking about it, so it doesn’t surprise him that a conversation about her showcase piece could distract her that much. Also, knowing it was Daveed who was with her suddenly makes the student health center visit make sense. Hannah would have never come here of her own violation, but her advisor– who had spent the last four years being one of Hannah’s biggest cheerleaders (third biggest if you asked Garrett, he was obviously first and Allie was number two)– he would have never let her walk away without getting checked out.
Before Garrett can respond, they’re interrupted by one of the nurses, who comes over to them, clipboard in hand and a small smile on her face.
“Well, looks like you’re all clear to go, Hannah.” She says and the soft look in her eyes for some reason reminds Garrett of Hannah’s mom. “You seem to be in very good hands.”
Hannah slowly gets up from her chair, Garrett immediately coming next to her so she can grab onto him. She’s a little shaky on her feet and he sees the way she tries to put a little too much weight on her bad foot, but he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t want to bicker with her in front of the nurse.
“Yeah, I am.”
Fifteen minutes later, Hannah was laid up in her bed, ankle elevated and wrapped her in her favorite blanket. There had been a very brief argument after he had loaded her and her bike into his car about where they were going, but ultimately Hannah won. She wanted somewhere quiet, which the hockey house decidedly was not, plus her dorm building had an elevator.
Little wins.
Once she was settled, Garrett puttered around her dorm, grabbing everything he thought she might need. She watched him from her bed with a look on her face that Garrett couldn’t quite decipher and after a few minutes, he perched on the bed next to her, setting down her laptop, composition book and headphones.
“Baby,” The term of endearment nearly got lodged in his throat, the emotions of the day catching up with him as he looked at her. “What’s wrong?”
Garrett’s heart nearly broke when he noticed the unshed tears in her eyes. Hannah was a lot of things, a talented singer, an amazing listener, the damn best kisser that Garrett had ever known, but she was not a crier. “I’m sorry.”
Her voice was scratchy, like she had been holding the tears back for a while now and Garrett wondered how long she had been holding in the guilt she was feeling. “Hey, you have nothing to be sorry about.”
His hand found hers and he squeezed it, resisting the urge to pull her into his chest. But he knew her, knew her better than he knew anyone else in the world, and knew she needed to talk through what she was feeling, they both did.
“I scared you. I saw the look on your face when you showed up in the health center.” She was speaking softly, so softly that if Garrett wasn’t sitting right next to her, he wouldn’t have heard her. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Of course I was scared.” Garrett whispered, thumb caressing the skin of her hand. “All I knew was that something had happened to you and I didn’t know what, I was scared shitless.” He leaned forward, cupping her chin with his free hand. “But that is not something you have to apologize for.”
“But–”
“Wellsy, listen to me. I will always be scared and worried when something happens to you, whether that be a sprained ankle or a paper cut.” He pressed a soft kiss to her forehead. “You are very important to me and everything that happens to you, matters to me.”
Hannah doesn’t say any words in response, she doesn’t need to, because she leans forward, kissing him with such unabandoned reverence that it nearly knocks him over. Sometimes Hannah struggled to tell him exactly how she felt, he would watch her stumble through the words in her head, but she was never shy about showing him.
“You know,” She says when they finally pull apart, Garrett doesn’t want to, he could kiss her every second of every day for the rest of his life and it would never be enough, but he smiles at her nevertheless, “for all times I’ve had to deal with all your hockey injuries, I never thought the roles would be reversed.”
Garrett snorts, giving her one last kiss before pushing himself to his feet. She needs a new bag of ice, the one from the health center nearly melted, and she could use another round of pain meds and maybe some tea. She always feels better when she has tea.
“Well, that’s what we do Wellsy, we take care of each other, don’t we?”
He walks around the bed, giving her a smile when he reaches the door. Her eyes are shining, cheeks flushed and smile wide, and Garrett doesn’t think she’s ever looked more beautiful and he’s never been so in love with her.
“Yeah, that is what we do.”
And it is what they do. Garrett replaces her ice three more times and gets one more round of tylenol in her, reheating her tea twice in the microwave when it goes cold on her bedside table before she falls asleep against his chest while ‘Dirty Dancing’ plays on her laptop. Not for the first time, Garrett imagines doing this for the rest of his life, taking care of her, letting her take care of him.
In her sleep, Hannah grips the fabric of his t-shirt, her cheek rubbing against the cotton. “Love you.” Garrett’s not sure if she’s still semi coherent and speaking to him, or if she’s dreaming, hell maybe she’s saying it to Harry Styles, but he still smiles, hearing her say those words will always make him smile.
“Love you too, Wellsy.” He swears he sees her grin and he presses a kiss to her forehead and then rests his cheek against the top of her head. And then, in the soft glow of Hannah’s dorm room, her body warm and safe and real against his chest, he too drifts off to sleep.