The Day of the Fall
Third-Person Limited – Kendra, then Dominic, then Kendra
By the time Friday rolled around, Kendra had almost convinced herself things were… fine.
Not perfect. Not great. But survivable.
A whole week with no slime, no new posts calling her a whale, no cafeteria showdowns. Teachers had started treating her less like a walking incident report and more like an actual student. Her friends were doing okay. She knew where all her classes were without checking the map.
Even Dominic had been… different.
Not nice. Let's not get crazy.
Just… quieter. Less sharp around the edges. Fewer comments. More watching.
Which was still annoying, but at least watching didn't leave bruises.
Now school is almost over for the day. The last class was done, and the courtyard between buildings buzzed with that Friday-afternoon energy—kids laughing, shouting, planning weekend trips and parties.
Kendra walked with her friends toward the main steps that led down to the lower courtyard and then the parking lot.
"So, Sofia said she might take us to that big supermarket this weekend," Erica said. "The one with the aisle for Caribbean stuff."
"Mi ready," Kendra said. "If I see one bag of the curry I like, I might cry."
"I want Cheese Tings," Alrreah said. "The real ones. Not these bland, fake things they sell here."
"You guys and your snacks," Jennie said fondly.
Kendra smiled, just a little.
The steps ahead were clogged with people—some sitting on the wide stone edges, some standing in clusters, some moving slowly down. The late sun warmed her face. A breeze tugged at her hair.
For a moment, it almost felt like a normal school.
"Let's cut down the left side," Jeah said, pointing. "It's less crowded."
They shifted in that direction.
Kendra dug in her bag with one hand, fishing for her phone. She wanted to text Sofia and ask what time she'd be at the gate.
"Hey. Kendra!"
She heard his voice before she saw him.
Her shoulders tensed. She didn't turn.
"Keep walking," she muttered under her breath.
"Kendra, wait a second!" Dominic called again, closer now.
"Nope," she said, mostly to herself.
She stepped down onto the first wide stone step, still rummaging in her bag without really looking.
Her friends glanced back.
"Just ignore him," Erica said. "We're almost out."
"Kendra," he said again, right behind her now. "We need to talk."
"We don't need to do anything," she snapped, finally glancing over her shoulder. "We've already talked enough."
Her eyes met his for a second.
He looked… serious. Not smirking. Not mocking. Just intense. It made something in her chest fidget.
"Can it wait till never?" she added.
She turned away again, stepping down to the next level, weaving around a group of kids sitting on the edge.
He followed.
"Kendra, will you just stop for a second?" he said, frustration creeping into his voice.
The crowd shifted at the same time—a couple pushing past on her right, someone backing up on her left. The space felt narrower, louder, more crowded.
Her fingers finally brushed her phone. She curled them around it.
"I'm done talking to you," she threw over her shoulder. "You don't get to play 'concerned citizen' after everything you said—"
"Kendra, I'm trying to—"
She picked up her pace, trying to get off the stairs and onto flat ground. The noise around them swelled: laughter, calls, a shouted "Pass the ball!" from somewhere lower down.
Behind her, his patience snapped.
"Will you just—"
His hand closed around her right hand, fingers wrapping over hers where they'd just snagged her phone.
He wasn't trying to hurt her.
He was just trying to stop her.
But momentum had other plans.
She yanked instinctively, half-turning toward him. The motion spun her more than she expected. Her foot landed on the edge of the step instead of the center—half on stone, half on air.
The world tipped.
Her stomach dropped.
For a heartbeat, she hung there—off-balance, arms flailing, eyes wide.
Then gravity grabbed her.
She dropped.
Her body twisted as she fell, instincts kicking in faster than thought. She threw both hands out in front of her, palms down, to catch herself on the stone.
Bad idea.
The impact was brutal.
There was a sharp, sickening crack—maybe two, maybe four. Pain exploded up both arms, white and blinding, ripping a sound from her throat she didn't recognize.
For a second, there was no courtyard.
No stairs.
No noise.
Just pain.
Searing, crushing, burning up her forearms and into her shoulders. Her wrists screamed, bent under her in angles that felt wrong, wrong, wrong.
Her phone skittered across the stone. Her knees hit hard a moment later, but she barely felt it.
Someone gasped.
Someone else shouted, "Holy shit, did you see that?!"
Everything blurred around the edges.
She tried to push herself up.
Her hands didn't move.
Neither did her wrists.
The attempt sent another spike of agony through her that stole her breath.
Tears stung her eyes, unbidden.
No, no, no, nononono—
"Kendra!"
His voice again, right next to her now.
Hands hovered—close to her shoulders, her back—then pulled back like he was afraid to touch her.
She sucked in a ragged breath, blinking hard.
The stone in front of her eyes sharpened again. Her fingers lay twisted on it, useless. Her wrists…
She couldn't even look.
"Don't move," Dominic said, voice tight, shaken. "Just—don't move."
She forced her head up enough to glare at him.
"You—" Her throat scratched over the word. "You idiot. Let go of me means… let. Go!"
Her voice broke on the last word.
He flinched like she'd hit him.
People were crowding around now, forming a loose circle. Some stared. Some backed away. A few looked pale.
"Someone get a teacher!" a girl shouted. "Go get the nurse!"
"I think her arms—"
"Oh my God, is that bone—"
Kendra squeezed her eyes shut.
The pain crashed over her in waves, making her feel sick and weightless at the same time. Her fingers tingled, then went numb, then throbbed so hard she thought she might throw up.
She felt more than she saw someone kneel on her other side.
She recognized Sofia's voice, thin with panic. "Move, move—give her space, please!"
Kendra tried to laugh. It came out as a choked hiss.
"I'm… fine," she gasped automatically.
No one believed her.
Not even herself.
Dominic
Dom felt the moment everything went wrong.
One second, her hand was in his. Warm, solid, familiar in a way that hadn't stopped bothering him since the first time it happened.
The next second, she was spinning.
Her foot missed the step. Her weight dropped forward. His grip, meant to stop her, only threw her more off balance.
"No—"
The word barely had time to form before she went down.
The sound her body made when it hit the stone would haunt him.
It wasn't just the impact. It was the crack that followed. Sharp. Splitting. Wrong.
His wolf roared inside him.
MATE.
Pain—hers—slammed through him like someone had punched a hole through his chest. It wasn't physical, not really, but his wrists screamed in phantom agony, his stomach twisting with it.
He lunged after her, dropping to his knees, hands hovering inches over her back, her shoulders.
He didn't know where to touch that wouldn't make it worse.
"Kendra!" he choked out.
She was on her knees, hands out in front of her, every line of her body rigid with pain. Her fingers lay at strange angles. Her wrists—
He swallowed hard against the bile rising in his throat.
I did that.
The realization hit with the force of a truck.
I did that. I grabbed her. I spun her. I wasn't careful. I did this to my mate.
"I'm sorry," he blurted, uselessly. "I'm so sorry. Don't move. Just… please don't move."
She turned her head enough to glare at him through the pain, eyes glassy.
"You…" She dragged breath into her lungs like it hurt. "…idiot."
Each word stabbed.
"Let go of me means… let. Go!"
He flinched.
He wanted to reach out and steady her. He wanted to scoop her up and run. He wanted to rip time backward and undo the last thirty seconds.
Instead, he forced himself to lift his hands away from her entirely.
"Somebody get the nurse!" he shouted, voice breaking. "Now!"
"I'm going!" someone yelled.
Kids were everywhere, crowding the steps, craning their necks. A few of them lifted their phones, then seemed to think better of it when they caught his expression.
Sofia appeared on the other side of Kendra, dropping down with a thud.
"Oh my God," she breathed. "Kendra—baby, don't move, okay? Just breathe. Breathe."
Kendra let out a strangled sound that might've been a laugh.
"I'm… trying," she ground out.
Dominic's dad's voice cut through the chaos a moment later.
"What's going on here?"
Theatus Garrison pushed through the circle of students. His gaze took in the scene in one sweep—Kendra's position, the angle of her wrists, Dominic's pale face.
His jaw tightened.
"Nurse is on the way, sir," someone said. "We called her. She's bringing a kit."
"Good," Theatus said. His voice was controlled, but Dominic knew him well enough to hear the fury underneath.
The nurse arrived with a small emergency bag; everything blurred together for a bit—questions, gentle hands stabilizing Kendra's arms, a makeshift sling, instructions not to move her too much.
Dominic hovered, useless, every breath feeling like it scraped his lungs.
He felt everything twice: once as himself, once through the bond—her pain echoing back and forth between them like a feedback loop.
When they helped Kendra to her feet, she swayed.
"I got her," Sofia said quickly, slipping an arm around her shoulders.
"Careful," the nurse said. "Slowly. Straight to my office."
Kendra's face was chalk-pale under her brown skin, lips pressed tight, eyes shining with unshed tears she refused to let fall.
She didn't look at Dominic once as they led her away.
His wolf paced in frantic circles.
He just knelt there on the stone steps for a second, breathing hard, the crowd slowly dispersing around him. Someone touched his shoulder; he shrugged them off without looking.
His father's shadow fell over him.
"Up," Theatus said quietly.
Dominic pushed to his feet.
"Dad, I didn't—" he started.
Theatus' eyes stopped him cold. "Not here," his father said. "We'll talk after we know the full extent of her injuries."
His gaze flicked to Dominic's hands, still curled uselessly at his sides.
"You will be there," he added. "To hear every word."
Dominic swallowed.
"Yes, sir," he managed.
Hospital. Diagnosis.
Kendra hated hospitals.
They smelled like antiseptic and fear. Bright lights, white walls, people moving too fast and too slow at the same time.
She sat on a narrow bed in a small exam room, both forearms resting on pillows, wrapped in temporary splints and bandages. The nurse had given her something for the pain; it dulled the edges but didn't erase anything.
Every small movement sent little lightning bolts up her arms.
Sofia sat in a chair near her feet, chewing her lip, one hand wrapped tight around her own wrist. One of the teachers hovered in the doorway, talking quietly with the doctor.
"We'll need X-rays," the doctor had said. "Both wrists. Possible fractures on both sides."
Possible, Kendra thought bitterly. It didn't feel possible. It felt certain.
No one had let her look too closely at her hands before they'd wrapped them. She was grateful for that small mercy.
She stared up at the ceiling tiles, counting the little brown dots in them so she wouldn't think about anything else.
How was she supposed to write? To dress? To cook? To do her hair? To… anything?
"You doing okay?" Sofia asked softly.
"Can't feel my fingers," Kendra said. "Ten outta ten, would not recommend."
Sofia huffed a weak laugh. "We're gonna take care of you, okay? Me, the girls… you're not alone here."
"I know." The words came out small.
She hated that.
She didn't want to be fragile. She didn't want to be the girl everyone had to "take care of." She wanted her hands back. Her independence back. Her ability to slam a door in someone's face back.
Especially his.
The X-rays were a blur of cold rooms and awkward angles. The tech was kind, talking to her about random things while he positioned her arms.
"So," he said lightly at one point, "what were you doing? Skateboarding? Sports?"
"Existing," she muttered. "Bad habit."
When they finally wheeled her back into the exam room, the doctor came in with a tablet and a sympathetic smile.
"Miss Atchinson," he said. "We've got your results."
Sofia straightened in her chair.
Kendra braced herself.
"You've managed to fracture both distal radiuses in your wrists," he said gently, tapping the tablet to show her fuzzy images of bones. "Here and here. On both sides. Two breaks in each wrist."
Kendra stared at the screen.
Four breaks.
In two wrists.
Her stomach rolled.
"The good news," he continued, "is that they're clean fractures. No surgery needed right now. We're going to put you in full casts from just below the elbow to the hand. You'll still be able to move your fingers, but you're going to have very limited use of your hands for the next six to eight weeks."
He let that sink in.
"Six to eight…" Her voice trailed off.
"Unfortunately, yes," he said. "We'll schedule follow-up appointments. In the meantime, you're going to need help. With writing. Dressing. Eating. Even simple things like opening doors or carrying books."
He looked at Sofia. "She shouldn't be left on her own too much, at least for the first week. The pain will be worse then. Ice, elevation. We'll give you instructions."
Sofia nodded quickly, eyes bright. "We'll manage," she said. "Right, Kendra?"
Kendra swallowed.
"Yeah," she said. "Sure."
The doctor left to prepare the casts.
Kendra stared at her bandaged arms.
"I can't even flip him off properly," she said dully.
Sofia snorted despite herself. "We'll invent a new insult gesture," she said. "Don't worry."
Principal's Office
Later, back at school, Kendra sat in a chair in front of Principal Garrison's desk, both arms now encased in solid white casts. They felt heavy, foreign, like someone had strapped weights to her.
Sofia sat to her left. One of the teachers stood near the door. The office smelled like cedar and something faintly wild.
Dominic stood off to the side, close to the window.
He hadn't tried to talk to her since the fall. He hadn't come into her hospital room. He hadn't ridden back with them.
But he was here now, posture stiff, hands clenched at his sides. He looked like he hadn't taken a full breath since she'd gone down.
Mr. Garrison's eyes moved from Kendra's casts to his son.
"This should never have happened," he said quietly.
Kendra lifted her chin. "I'm fine," she started, the lie automatic.
Mr. Garrison gave her a look that said he'd been principal long enough to recognize bravado when he heard it.
"My son's carelessness put you in danger," he continued. "And has left you injured, far from home, without full use of your hands. For that, Miss Atchinson, this school—and my family—owe you more than a simple apology."
Dominic's jaw clenched.
Kendra's instinct was to say she didn't want anything from them.
She swallowed the words.
Because right now, if someone wanted to hand her a magic fix, she'd take it.
"What exactly happened?" Mr. Garrison asked, even though she suspected he already knew.
Kendra dragged in a breath.
"He tried to talk to me," she said. "I said no. I walked away. He didn't like that answer, so he grabbed my hand. I turned. I slipped. I fell. My wrists lost the fight with the stairs."
She kept her voice flat, factual. No drama. Just the bones of it—literally.
Mr. Garrison's gaze sharpened as it turned to Dominic.
"Is that accurate?" he asked.
Dominic's throat worked. "Yes," he said hoarsely. "I was trying to stop her. I didn't think she'd—"
He cut himself off.
The excuse sounded pathetic even to his own ears.
"You didn't think," his father finished for him. "Again."
Dominic lowered his eyes.
The office was quiet for a moment.
Out in the hallway, muffled voices drifted past. A phone rang faintly in another room. Kendra's casts itched under the skin.
"Miss Atchinson," Mr. Garrison said at last, "you are part of an exchange program that this school fought hard to be included in. You are also, as my son pointed out in less kind words, a guest in this country. I take very seriously the idea that any student—especially an invited one—feels unsafe here."
Kendra blinked.
She hadn't expected that word: unsafe.
She hadn't let herself think it, even though it fit.
"I cannot undo what happened to your wrists," he went on. "But I can ensure that the rest of your time here is not made worse by this incident."
He folded his hands on the desk.
"So here is what will happen."
Both she and Dominic tensed.
"Until your casts are removed," Mr. Garrison said, "Dominic will be personally responsible for assisting you around school."
Kendra stared at him.
"I'm sorry, what?" she said.
Dominic's head jerked up. "Dad—"
Mr. Garrison held up a hand.
"You cannot carry your bag," he continued, ignoring the interruption. "You will struggle to open doors, to handle books, to go through the lunch line. You will need help. Considering whose actions led to your current condition, I consider it only fair that the person providing that help be my son."
Kendra's cheeks burned.
"I don't need—" she started.
"Yes, you do," he said, not unkindly. "Needing help does not make you weak, Miss Atchinson. It makes you human. And my son will learn that his strength means nothing if he uses it carelessly."
He turned to Dominic fully.
"You will walk her to and from every class," he said. "You will carry her books and bag. You will help her get lunch. You will ensure she gets safely to her transportation at the end of each day."
He paused.
"And if she allows it, you may offer help before and after school as well."
Kendra's ears rang.
Her whole body felt too hot and too cold at once.
She wanted to shout. To tell them both to go to hell. To say she'd rather drag herself across the floor with her teeth than rely on Dominic Garrison for anything.
But then she thought about trying to carry her backpack with two broken wrists. Trying to push open a heavy classroom door. Trying to balance a lunch tray.
Her pride fought her reality.
Reality won. Barely.
"How long?" she managed, voice tight. "The doctor said six to eight weeks."
Mr. Garrison nodded. "Then consider it six to eight weeks of service," he said. "From Dominic to you."
He looked at his son. "Is that understood?"
Dominic swallowed.
"Yes, sir," he said quietly.
"Is that acceptable to you, Miss Atchinson?" Mr. Garrison asked, turning back to her. "If you would prefer we assign someone else, we can discuss that. But my recommendation stands."
She glanced at Dominic.
His face was pale. His eyes were darker than she'd ever seen them, full of something she didn't want to name. Guilt. Fear. Something else.
She thought of his hand around her wrist in the cafeteria. The weird, humming feeling that had shot through her. The way he'd looked at her afterward.
She thought of the crack of her bones on the stairs.
"Fine," she said at last, the word tasting like broken glass. "If he broke it, he can carry it."
For the first time, the corner of Mr. Garrison's mouth twitched.
"Very well," he said. "We'll inform your teachers. Dominic, you'll start tomorrow."
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow, she'd show up to school and Dominic Garrison would be there, waiting to carry her bag, walk her to class, watch her struggle with every simple thing she used to do without thinking.
The idea made her want to scream.
It also made a strange, unwanted thread of relief curl in her chest.
Because as much as she hated it—hated him—she hated feeling helpless more.
The meeting ended.
Sofia guided her up out of the chair gently. Kendra pushed herself up with her elbows, clumsy and stiff. She could feel Dominic's gaze on her as she straightened.
She didn't look at him.
Not until she reached the door.
Then, without thinking, she turned her head just enough to meet his eyes.
For a moment, everything in the room narrowed to that single line between them.
He looked wrecked.
Good, she thought.
Out loud, she said nothing.
She walked out, casts heavy, chin up.
If he thought carrying her books and opening her doors for a few weeks would magically fix what he'd broken?
He had no idea how hard it was going to be to earn back what really mattered.
Her trust.