All patients in the medical section stay in the open areas, even nobles. Gara pays a fortune to get my father a private room. It must be a fortune. We even get two chairs and a nice table.

I don't understand all the medics say, but Gara nods; she gets it. She demands proper help. And when it gets too rough and I have to sit down, she continues talking to them.

My father had a stroke. I imagine him showing up at yet another ELETE evaluation not seeing me and just dropping right there on the spot. That isn't true, however.

"The rot on his back," the female medic begins, hesitating as if it's too awful to say. "This is a common punishment given to Topsiders who fail in an attempt to run. I'd say he's got about six slashes that were left to rot openly over the years. So it seems that he made it down here on the seventh attempt."

"That's one tough bastard," another medic grumbles.

"I'll say. And to live with it...these are extremely painful."

Gara looks between them. "Is there any way to fix it?"

The medics trade a glance, and then look the room over.

"That sort of monetary credits..." the medic says.

"If it's possible to do it, then do it," Gara tells her.

I sit there, amazed.

After they wheel my father out in that bed face down, Gara takes me by the arm. She leads me out of that room and to an older wing of the medical section. The lights don't even work well here, leaving the passageway dim. No one comes or goes. She knows it well enough.

We share an inhaler between us, sitting with our backs against the wall.

Eyes closed, Gara says, "I bet you're scared. Maybe you feel guilty."

Ashamed, I watch the floor.

"But it's not your fault. So...buck up."

Maybe I nod, something, because she quiets.

Finally, she says, "Yeah. Blue worked the mines."

I pick my head up and watch her. Her face seems so radiant as if the memory puts a fire in her belly.

"Blue did everything for me. Hell, Blue's the reason I haven't eaten a gun yet."

My own smile falls. "What happened to him?"

Gara shrugs as she sheds a tear. "He never came back. Haven't seen him. No word, nothing. He could be dead, maybe in jail, I dunno. He just vanished."

"How long?"

She gets quiet and it's a struggle to answer but she sounds composed enough when she says, "Long...pretty long. The System can't locate him."

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Anything more than a year is a lifetime if the System can't find someone. Where I come from, we'd say he's dead for sure. Another thought occurs.

"He didn't get sent Topside, right?"

Gara's squints her brown eyes. She looks like she's never thought of that. "No. He's not Topside. I go down to the Lower-Levels to look for him when I can't stand it. But he can't be Topside. Hell, I'd dig my way up there with my bare hands to be with him if he was. So don't give me any ideas."

I lower my gaze, regretting having spoken my mind.

"I'm sorry if I pick on you," Gara mutter. "But you're tall like him and...I mean, you're skinnier but I'd rather you keep your distance, that's all."

I nod.

Deep down, I want to understand why Gara pines away for someone who's probably never coming back. But I can't.

"He didn't..." I hesitate.

Gara is the gentlest I'd ever seen her as she smiles. "You're sweet for worrying, but you don't know my Blue." Her voice cracks but she smiles through it. "If he saw what I've been doing to myself, what I've been allowing, he wouldn't even yell. He doesn't need to. He'd just give me that broken-hearted look of his and say stop, and I would. I honestly would. He was the only part of life that was ever good, and he was good to me. Can't say I always deserved it...." Her voice peters down into a mutter. "Can't say I don't deserve getting left, either."

I don't have a response to give. My pa has always had a way of looking on the bright side, to paint some sort of fake picture nobody else could see. I haven't inherited that talent. So I speak my mind instead.

"If someone's going to just take off and never look back, maybe you're better off. Right?"

Gara's eyes drifted to the floor and she nods. "You're absolutely right. If he'd walked outta that little room on his own it'd be one thing, but...he didn't." She pauses, her body stiff. "We didn't fight. We didn't quarrel and we didn't have any bad blood. He worked...you know, I had enough credits, but he just kept working and I told him the mines were too dangerous and he should stop. But he kept at it, saying he wanted to get me whatever I wanted. What an idiot."

Those last three words cut through me so strongly that I blink.

"What an idiot," Gara repeated. "I didn't need a damn thing but having him around. I didn't need anything else. And we...." She meets my gaze. "Right when we were in the middle of it, he...he just froze up and started to shake. And then he coughed up blood and I had to call the System. His brothers took him out of my house stark naked. He never came back. They never respond to my messages even my official requests. They block every damn message and I can't even see if he's...if he's dead or...or sick or...." Gara's voice peters down into a whisper. "Or if he'd just changed his mind about trying to make it work. He just vanished. And even now...I'm just waiting. And I have my lows but having his stuff made up for it. And that's why it wrecks me, because I don't think he'd leave. He'd never just...leave. So something happened to him."

In the silence that follows, I see her shake and I'm nearly trembling, too. I don't know how to respond, so I say nothing.

Letting out a held breath, Gara shakes her head. "I don't go around getting people to rob my house. I just want you to know that."

Again, I nod, though her eyes were closed.

"But he...that bastard recorded us...." She sits up, put her head between her knees and gives off a strange laugh. "I guess I want those records more than I want them erased at this point. It's all I've got now since he's burned it all. There's nothing left."

In this instance, I feel proud. Gara has it all, everything I could ever want, but she's done something I'll never forget. She hasn't scorned my father. Even I have. She put her face against those filthy clothes, used her own expensive sash to clean him.

So when I take off those boots, the very same I've resolved to keep, I'm proud.

I only have to put them down before her. She knows them.

Gara stares at them for some time. An inkling of worry comes over me. She pounces me and I nearly fall back.

"You beautiful bastard! You have them!"

And I do.

I lie back on the floor; it's easier than struggling to sit up with her weighing me down. Gara looks down at me with an appreciative smile as if I've spent a fortune on her instead.

And she kisses me.

I lose my virginity in that hallway, high outta my mind, and utterly useless in finding what goes where. But that doesn't matter. Gara handles all of it.

And when it ends and she collapses on top of me, I can't imagine anything better.