Chapter Four
Kevin, Howie, AJ, Brian and Nick shared a concerned look. Kevin reached into his pocket to pull out his handkerchief. He silently passed it to Nick, who passed it on to Brian, who gave it to Randi.
"What do we do?" AJ mouthed to Brian.
"Just wait" Brian mouthed back. You see, Brian had a girlfriend. Her name was Stephanie. Though he hadn't seen her for two months, he'd had to listen to his fair share of breakdowns. He'd learned that all you could do was wait for them to stop crying. That, or you tried to distract them Brian waited until her sobs had started to slow down before trying to distract her. "Want me to bandage your ankle now?" he asked.
Randi nodded, not knowing what else to do. She blew her nose and wiped her tears away. She watched as Brian took off her tennis shoe and sock, and then wrapped her ankle tightly in the bandage. Randi took deep breaths as she watched him, so that she could calm herself down. One, two, three, four, she kept counting over and over.
Brian finished wrapping Randi's ankle and sat back. "Put it on the bench. You need to elevate it" he told her. Randi turned sideways on the bench and brought her right leg onto the bench.
Randi looked from Howie to AJ to Kevin to Nick to Brian. They were all looking at her expectantly. Strange thing was, Randi felt like she'd known them forever. She thought of them as friends. Randi's eyes were drawn back to Kevin. She could easily tell that he was the oldest out of this group of guys. And he had these thick eyebrows. Randi liked that. And she liked his eyes. They were this great color green. Randi liked green eyes. Always had. Randi's gaze drifted back towards AJ. The weird one, she thought. Too many tattoos and funky hair. It was this two-toned color. Kind of an orange/blond.
"Well?" AJ asked impatiently.
"Well what?" Randi asked, startled.
"Do I pass?" AJ grinned.
"Yeah, I guess you do" Randi smiled. "You all do." Randi's smile started to fade as she whispered "Thank you for being so kind to me. You didn't have to help out a complete stranger."
"Of course we did!" Howie protested.
Randi shook her head slightly and tried to joke. "Southerners" she said. They smiled. But when they realized that she wasn't really in a good mood, they looked at each other.
"You still want to know what's bothering me?" Randi quietly asked, looking from face to face. They all had wary looks on their faces as they nodded.
"About two hours ago, I guess, I got a phone call" Randi started out hesitantly. She stared blankly beyond Kevin. Without emotion, she told them how a friend of her parents had called her to inform her that her parents had died in a car accident driving from Cincinnati, OH to Pittsburgh. They had been coming to visit their only child who lived near her maternal grandmother while she attended college during the school year and worked during the summer. A car had pulled back onto the interstate in front of her parent's car. Her father had tried to pull the car off to the right, but had lost control. The car fell down a steep embankment, flipping several times, killing both parents. And this had all happened a few hours ago.
Brian, Kevin, Howie, AJ, and Nick stared at each other in unconcealed horror while Randi finally burst into tears again