Chapter 29 The Breaks That Bond

There's no point to ambulances in Manhattan. The traffic doesn't veer to let them pass, as all New York drivers believe every journey is a matter of life or death.

The clock ticked loudly as Leah waited for theirs to arrive. The last ten minutes were all jumbled in Leah's head. There was Maya asking if she was OK. A man who glided to her and told her not to move. And Asher, calling her name. The three of them helped Leah off the ice as pain pulsed through the limb attached to her shoulder. It wasn't her arm, it was more like a snake, purple and swollen after eating a mouse whole.

They called the ambulance and told Leah to wait. She cradled her broken arm with her other one, holding herself from screaming from the pain. She wanted to curl up and cry. She wanted her mom to hug her. She wanted someone to tell her it was going to be OK.

"You're going to be OK," Asher said, patting her good shoulder. "I'm coming with you."

"I'm going with her," Maya asserted. "You can go back to your intern party. "

"No, it's OK, I'm staying," Asher insisted. Leah saw Maya's eyes on her, asking all the questions she couldn't say out loud. Should I call Gabe? Do you want Asher to come?

Maya and Asher continued arguing until the ambulance arrived an eternity later. "That's a pretty good break," the paramedic said. "You have to be careful out there on the ice." Leah ignored his comment that couldn't have been less helpful.

The paramedic helped her in the back of the ambulance only grazing her broken arm twice, sending two bolts of pain that reached all the way to her fingertips from her neck. "Only one person with her," he said when Asher and Maya crowded the door. "Boyfriend?" Asher immediately jumped in before Maya could protest the door slammed.

There were three paramedics in the vehicle. The one who helped her in and then sat in the driver's seat and two others who sat next to her in the back. "Miss, can we ask you a few questions?" one asked and Leah nodded. "Name?"

"Leah Rosenberg." The second paramedic grabbed Leah's good arm and wrapped the cuff to check her blood pressure.

"Age?"

"22." The cuff squeezed her arm as the paramedic felt her wrist and started counting her pulse .

"Are you generally healthy? Any health conditions? Pregnant?"

She shook her head and continued doing so with every question. Allergies? Any medications you take? Have you broken a bone before?

When the paramedic uncuffed her and let go of her arm, she felt another hand grab hers. It wasn't the strong decisive hand of the paramedic. It was more familiar. Softer. More hesitant and more Asher's. He rubbed his thumb over the skin on the top of her hand. She tried to focus on the sensation, rather than on the throbbing on her other side.

The ambulance weaved slowly. Stopping. Honking, swerving, honking again. When it finally stopped and the driver popped out, the paramedics were already wheeling Leah out on the gurney she had been lying on in the back. Another team of paramedics met them, and after an exchange of a few short sentences, the new team wheeled Leah inside.

"Don't leave me," she whispered to Asher when she was forced to free her hand from his. She couldn't see him, but she knew that he was following her and that he would be there if she could turn around. They wheeled her through the emergency room waiting room and to a bed that they awkwardly helped her onto. A nurse came by and checked her blood pressure again while scribbling away on a notepad .

"Nasty fall," she commented as she clicked her pen.

A doctor came in and took a look at her arm. Gently, yet painfully, poking her arm, and watching as his fingerprints turned her skin from purple to yellow and back to purple again. "We'll need to get an X-ray and probably reset the bone."

All this time, there was a ringing in her ears. When the doctor left, she realized it was her cellphone. She tried to fish it from her purse but struggled with the zipper with one arm.

"Let me help you," Asher appeared and seamlessly unzipped her purse and retrieved her phone from the inside side pocket without even needing to look for where it was. "Shira," he said reading the name on the screen. "Want me to answer?"

"No!" she exclaimed louder than she had expected. She couldn't let Shira know she was with Asher now, right after everything with Gabe. She didn't want anyone making assumptions.

"Brought your shoes," Maya suddenly said in the doorway, holding up Leah's black boots. "You left them at the rink." Maya gave Asher a sideways look and then sat next to Leah on the bed. "What'd they say?"

"Ready for your X-ray?" The nurse popped back in as though in response to Maya. "We'll be back in a few," the nurse told Asher and Maya as she wheeled Leah away .

"Your boyfriend's really cute!" the nurse commented as they walked down the hall. "He looked so concerned. How long have you been together?"

"He's not my boyfriend," Leah responded, afraid of what would happen with Asher and Maya alone.

"Why not? He's obviously so in love with you! I thought he would faint when I was taking your blood pressure earlier. He was so pale!"

The nurse brought her to a room where an x-ray technician positioned her arm and raced out of the room to take the scan and then appeared seconds later to release her back to the nurse, who brought her back to the room to wait.

When the nurse wheeled her in, Asher's face lit up. It was a look that gave Leah relief and she knew she could count on him. She thought about all the times he was there for her, when she ran for regional Vice President of their BBYO region and she lost and how he held her while she cried for days on end. Looking back, it seemed so trivial, so silly that she would have been so heartbroken, but at the time, it had been the worst thing that had happened to her and Asher never made her feel like her tears were frivolous or the disappointment was negligible.

She then remembered when her father had knee surgery and Asher stayed with her family at the hospital. How he brought coffee and bagels to them and helped bring her father home when he couldn't walk.

Asher was a good man. She'd never thought of him as a man before. They'd always been kids together, high school sweethearts, but maybe he deserved a chance to prove himself as a man. Sure, maybe he didn't have everything figured out. Maybe he was still a little immature and still working as an unpaid intern instead of excelling in an ambitious career. But he was only 22 and maybe with the right chance, he could be the guy that Leah wanted. The one who put effort into romance and could challenge her mentally. Maybe he wasn't still the guy who left her to attend college on the other side of the country or returned home after graduation without a thought for his future other than he wanted it with Leah. Maybe he'd grown since then and if Leah gave him the chance, he could surprise her.

She already knew he'd be a perfectly decent husband and they could have a decent life together. He was safe, and he was Jewish. She hoped it wasn't the pain and the trauma of breaking her arm or the painkillers that made her feel that way. She succumbed to the feelings and let Asher hold her hand when the doctor came in with her x-ray images.

The doctor pointed out the multiple places where she broke her arm. Then, he gently wrapped her arm in a cast and set it in plaster. "See you in six weeks," he said and Leah was released with the recommendation to get a bottle of over-the-counter pain medication.

"Want me to accompany you home?" Asher asked when they left the hospital. She nodded and said goodbye to Maya while Asher hailed a cab.

"Do you know how expensive that cab ride will be?" she asked. "Let's take the Subway."

"No way! You just broke your arm, we're not getting on the Subway! Anyway, my treat," he said and he held the door of the car that stopped for them. Leah tried not to look at the cab meter as they rode all the way uptown, but she knew it was probably the most expensive cab ride of her life. She knew Asher wasn't paying for it, with his unpaid internship, he still got help from his parents, but she still appreciated his extravagant gesture.

He helped her into her apartment and then promised to be right back. Leah waited on her couch in front of the TV that still sat on the living room floor and thought about Asher. She thought about Gabe and if this was what was best for everyone. Her family would never accept Gabe in her life—was it fair to expose him to that? Was it selfish of her? Did she just love him for the novelty of his lack of Jewishness?

Before she could try to figure it out, Asher came back into the apartment with a few plastic bags. He held out a bottle of wine and placed it on the table.

"This is the best pain killer," he said with such authority that Leah thought maybe he was becoming a man. He then pulled out take-out boxes and Leah instantly recognized the smell of matzah ball soup. "A good soup can heal anything," he laughed and served them both bowls of the world's best Jewish comfort food. It wasn't her Bubbe's soup, but she was sure her Bubbe would approve.