Brr-Bmm. Crr-Crr!

Lightning and thunder mixed with the symphony of the rain, drizzling into my fuzzy head and making it plop! onto the top of my desk.

BMM-BRR!

Just like that, my head shot up from the wood with a sucked in gasp. My heart hammered in my chest while I reached up to my forehead and pressed into the red lines the wood had imprinted on there. Sighing, I stared out the window closest to me. Drooping eyes watched the dark gray and midnight blue landscape of the parking lot, the rain desaturating any bright colors to match the drowned scenery. Even the trees looked defeated, their plump leaves and thick bark smothered with a slate gray.

A glance at the clock told me it was five in the afternoon, my nap only thirty minutes long, but the storm outside choked the sun and blackened the sky. The white streaks of raindrops as they hurtled toward the ground, reflecting the light posts’ rays, looked like falling stars. A closer look and I could make out the darker shadows from particularly vexed clouds. It was sleepy weather, despite the apprehension squeezing my lungs. I had to walk through that once the clock struck eight, whether I was ready or not.

I need to leave my book here, I thought, holding my cheek with one hand, still studying the raindrops crash down to the earth in blanket after blanket of water. There was no guarantee my bag could keep the precious book safe from the assault of the earth outside, and I did not want to risk the destruction of yet another of my few possessions.

The nice ladies who ran the library knew the drill, fortunately, so I at least had the comfort that while I was at risk of getting hyperthermia, the ladies, or teenage boy who helped organize the books, would pick it up and lock it in one of the front desk drawers.

I blinked, and the clock read seven instead of five now. Unless exhaustion was the key to time travel, I must’ve passed out when I blinked, and somehow nothing stirred loud enough to wake me back up from such a fragile sleep. Gaping, I shut the book with a solid smack and started putting up my other little things. My yellow notes, worn down pen with a broken clip, and my bag made from old T-shirts sewn together. I double-checked that my name was on the book’s front cover, nodding in satisfaction when big, black, blocky letters could easily be seen against the cover art. Couldn’t have them thinking it was one of the library’s and go looking for it on every shelf. You only made that mistake once.

Hopping off the chair, I walked with my head held down and back hunched over. The lightning and thunder outside yelled at me that the storm was far from over, and any hopes that it would stop before Time forced me out were futile. Zeus was pitching a fit, and he was far from tiring himself out. Better get it over with now, while there was still a slim sliver of light and the air was above freezing.

“Goodnight, sweetheart. Be safe,” the oldest of them told me with a grim face. “We’ll see you in the morning, yes?”

“Yes ma’am.” I muttered automatically, the phrase so well-practiced that it required no energy on my part anymore.

“Kid, you sure you don’t want me to drop you off?” the teenage boy asked softly while stuffing books onto the rusted book cart, concern etched onto his face like the rest of the library’s flock. He casually put his back to me, but his tense shoulders gave away his worry.

I shrank and shook my head no. No, I did not want to get into a teenage boy’s car. It wasn’t fair to him. He was quite nice to me and always helped me whenever he could, but the response was as automatic as ‘Yes ma’am,’ and I could only hope he did not take it to heart. He was good. I knew that. In my heart, I knew that.

Before I did another stupid thing, I turned around and ran out the cold, glass doors, waving at their shouts and cautions from behind. I caught a snippet that stuttered my walk for half a second, breath caught in my throat. Pretending to not hear it, I continued into the freezing wet air of a thunderstorm. Yet the chill did nothing to freeze the loop of what the boy had muttered while unfolding a dog-eared page.

“I want to find and kill whoever made her react like that.”

Words could not emphasize enough how shivering the night rain was, and my being small and skinny did not help matters. The wind howled a constant reminder that I was walking home in the middle of the night, in a furious storm, with only my speed and size to protect me—and the wind and rain hampered even that advantage. So, of course, that was the night someone tried their luck.

The thunder never stopped, just screeched a never-ending barrage of bangs! and booms! which stammered my heart and froze the muscles in my legs like a rabbit caught in a fox’s sight.

The awareness of my surroundings had never been so dim. The only source of information was what the light posts revealed after fighting valiantly to cut through the darkness. I heard nothing over the storm. In-between the solace of the light posts, I could only make out the outline of my hand.

The crisp night air, mixed with rainwater, tickled my nose, and I sneezed so hard my feet left the ground. I was blind in almost all senses except touch, and that became questionable with how cold my hands were. The very tips of my fingertips tingled like tiny needles of ice crystals burrowed in.

I missed the sounds of a car. The thunder covered the tires crunching rocks and broken bottles as it rolled near. I wrote off the bright beams reflecting off the puddles as lightning and lamplight, as the rain drizzled into my ears, entered my skull, and froze to frost across my brain. I did not notice the car until I looked to my right and startled at my face.

“Shit!” I shouted, a fitting word for a foul situation. The click of an opening car door reached me and I did what every child does in that situation, trained by parents and taught by instinct—I ran like hell.

My vision flashed white in terror when I almost slipped and fell on the ground, the slip up costing me a precious three seconds as I scampered away from the stalking footsteps. One heavy footfall followed every two of mine, then one of every three as I sprinted towards the closest tree. The frantic chase gave me no spare air to scream, though the sheets of water would have drowned my screams regardless.

Leaves and mud squelched underneath my feet and the shaggy leaves of bushes snagged my shirt, and bag, and skin as I ran towards safety. The trunk was long and the bark would be slick from the rain and moss, but it was my only chance.

The storm cloaked the forest, and I stumbled and slid on roots, branches, and rotten leaves hidden by the night. The lightning had a change of heart, though, and streaked the sky in white, geometric fire, giving me brief pictures of my surroundings. Brief was all I needed, and I ran faster than I ever did in my life through the drenched terrain. The oak was close now. The branches waved me forward, reaching out and shaking.

I was so quick on my feet that when I tried to stop, only a few meters from the tree, I slipped and skidded the rest of the way and slammed face-first into the trunk. “Oof!” was all I gave myself time to react with before I scaled across the wet bark, slippery like I predicted, and climbed up. The moss tried to loosen my grip, but I dug my nails into the tree’s callused skin.

The wood tore at my skin and ripped my fingernails off my nail beds, yet I didn’t even notice the pain. The next lightning strike flashed, and I saw the rusty gloss of my blood pouring down my thin fingers. I kept climbing, higher and higher.

I probably weighed fifty pounds soaking wet, so the tree had no issue carrying my weight. At least until I made the rushed mistake of grabbing onto a new twig, thin with a speckling of bark. It ripped off its parent with the sound of tearing cloth. I shrieked. My hand reached up towards something, anything. I latched onto a senior branch, sobbing in relief.

“Sorry,” I croaked at the bark in front of me. The tree shivered, and another branch pushed me forward, up, away from the beast below.

I screeched when the man made his presence known, knocking into the tree with a roar. He slammed his hands into the hardened and aged bark, grunting and hissing.

“Get down here, you little bitch!” the man snarled up at me, punching the tree when I only climbed higher, like he could cut it down through will alone.

I panted and rested my cheek against a branch when I made it to the top of the tree, where no one, especially the brute, could reach. The ancient plant tightened its limbs around me and I heard the predator below scream in pain when a branch swatted him in the face.

My hands shook, and a sob lodged in my throat. Tears welled in my eyes, but the haven gave me courage. “Go to hell!” I yelled down at him. I almost wanted him to try and reach me, so I could laugh at the man as he fell back down. Fear left me drip by drip. Frozen blood melted back to liquid, then boiled as I looked down at the predator, who was still fighting the enraged tree.

I hurled abuse at him, the vilest a small child could come up with, as the rain poured down and thunder added its own voice. How dare he insult me after he tried to attack me? He chased me up a tree and only instincts from ancestors’ past saved me from whatever disgusting fantasies he wanted to act out.

He did eventually try to scale the tree, and he did fall on his ass before he could grab a third branch, and I did absolutely laugh. He deserved it, the humiliation, the predator’s continuous reminder that he could not even kidnap properly. Easily thwarted by a tree because he was a hulking, clunky moron.

He screamed at the sky when thunder and lightning danced and harmonized, and I cackled above him, tinkling bells dwarfed by the chaos of the storm. “I’m gonna get you!” he attempted to thunder, but it was so pathetic in contrast to the real deal bellowing around us.

“Oh, really?” I chuckled, loud enough for him to hear. “Looks like it.” I saw his shadowed figure reach down and pick something up, and I failed to register the danger until I saw how big it was. A huge, uneven circle attached to the line of his arm.

I tried to jump to the next branch, and it bent sideways to catch my form as he hurled the rock. I slid on the branch, grip slipping as I ripped off leaves and tiny branches. The rock slammed against the side of my head. I was still conscious enough to feel my blood freeze again as my fingers loosened. Hear the tree branches curve and contort as it tried to grab me.

My body fell to the ground. I did not feel it when I hit the earth. Only saw through my blackened vision rotten brown leaves and broken twigs. Then nothing.

My last thought was, ‘If only his aim was as bad as his climbing skills.’

I woke up in the backseat of a car. Balls of light raced from the passenger window to the back window, and the sudden bright flashes made my head pound. The back windows were partially down, letting the fresh air in, which whipped against my chilled face. I was curled up on my side and soaked through, so cold that I knew my lips must have turned blue. I drew my knees up tighter and wrapped my arms around my middle. A hiccup escaped.

The stress of being hunted by a grown man, the pain in my fingers, and the agony in my head overwhelmed my mind. It couldn’t take it anymore, and blissfully warped reality. Teleported me to the most peaceful times of my short life. In a blink, I was sleeping in the back of the car with my mother as she drove down dark roads.

Something played on the radio; rock and roll, heavy metal, country, it didn’t matter. I was so adapted to living in a car that I could sleep through anything. Mom glanced at her rearview mirror, saw my lolling head being cradled by a seatbelt, and turned the radio down. Not all the way down, so the music could keep her awake, but enough that any sudden rises in volume from solos and advertisements would not stir me.

She lowered the window, knowing how I loved the cool night air and, boom, I was deep in sleep, where the Bum-bum. Bum-bum. of the car, the gentle swishing of the wind, and barely there lyrics of various songs influenced my peaceful dreams. I might get lucky tonight and she will drive to a random gas station and buy me a small slushie, gently opening my door, careful not to disturb me or my seatbelt hammock, and reach over to put it in the cupholder. The only gift she could afford most of the time. I will wake up when we go over a particularly large bump and a sleepy grin will plaster itself on my face at the sight of the rare treat.

I did not even realize I was crying until I felt the wind cool the hot tears on my face. Reality hit like a throat punch and the whimper which nested itself into my throat crawled up and escaped. My lips quivered and my eyes burned as tears flowed down and pooled under my head. How predictable, I lectured myself. Finally got cocky and now we’re in the backseat of some stranger’s car. And I almost wished I was naïve enough to not know what would happen next, but Mom never let me be naïve to the horrors of the real world, and the news broadcasts on the radio filled in any gaps.

The pain, the agony, the humiliation and dehumanization. All of it just for me, because luck ran away as soon as I was born. I only hoped that I would blackout in the middle of it, and that the man would dump me somewhere the police could come get me, and not kill me outright after he was done. I was already a statistic without becoming a headline.

I cried what any child would cry, all faux confidence beaten out of me. “I want my mommy.” I snarled in my torment, hate and horror squeezing my heart and controlling my body, my vocal chords. “Mama. Mama!”

I squeaked when the car rolled to a jerky stop, going off the road and onto the gravel. I hated that sound.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

The driver’s door opened. He parked right under a blinding streetlight, and I squinted my eyes against the glare. The car lights blinked on, and the calm orange contrasted comically with the morbid situation. I heard a grunt as he grabbed onto the sides of the door and dragged himself out of the car. When I saw his shadow engulf mine, I squeaked again and buried myself in my arms, choking on whimpers and sobs. The passenger door opened.

“Hey-hey-hey! Easy, easy.” I screamed when a warm hand patted my head. Teeth clenched so hard together, I worried they would crack like pebbles thrown violently against pavement.

“It’s me. Hey, it’s okay. It’s just me.” Arms picked me up with ease and wrapped around my middle. I hid in my arms, even as he shushed and rocked me in the rain.

There wasn’t any pain. No agony or humiliation. I peaked up from my hiding place to see… the sweet boy from the library.

Wailing, not noticing his flinch at the piercing sound, I launched myself further into his arms. I cried harder than before, my throat tight and eyes bloodshot, my arms so tense around his neck I worried I was choking him. I couldn’t let go, though. If I let him go, I’d be in the back of that man’s car, or bleeding out on the forest floor, or in my father’s house.

He adjusted me so that my face rested against his neck and stroked my hair, all the while muttering reassurances over the rain. “You’re okay. He’s gone. I’m so sorry. I am so fucking sorry.” The boy held me tighter against him, leaning over me, acting as a shield against the rain. “I should have tried harder. A little girl out in the middle of a storm, God! What were we thinking, not taking you home?” He choked and shook his head.

“W-What happened?” I asked, wincing as a wave of agony rolled through my head and settled into the front of my skull. I pushed two fingers where the pain lingered and whimpered when I felt a hearty bump, caked with what I assumed was dried blood. The boy jerked his head from side to side like he was trying to fling the experience from his mind.

“I-I had such a bad feeling,” he said. “I knew I couldn’t just leave you out in the cold like that. I stayed to help the ladies out and… I shouldn’t have even done that. I should have gotten right in the car and followed you. Begged you to just trust me this once,” he said. “And when I finally did, I saw him… I saw that fucker drag you into his car and I… I rammed into it. I rammed into his car.” The teenage boy adjusted me again, favoring his left hand. Craning my neck, I looked at his right wrist and, despite the darkness, could make out the deep mosaic of purples and blues which painted his wrist.

“I couldn’t give him the chance to take you. It was so stupid. It’s a miracle I didn’t hurt you more. Hell, I might have and I just can’t see it!” He carded a hand through my tangled hair, a small tug signaling me to show him my face. I lifted my head, and he cradled my cheek, moving my head from side to side. Squinting, he studied my eyes, trying to find something there. When what he saw satisfied him, the older boy shook his head and bawled, the tension in his shoulders loosening.

The rain softened to tear drops as he said, “He got out. He screamed and said he was gonna kill me. I-I lost it. He…” He took a shuddering breath. “You don’t have to worry about him.” I pulled him towards me and hid in his neck again, almost choking him, though he didn’t protest.

We said nothing for a while, only cried and held each other in the rain, wondering how we ended up in such a hysterical scenario. It was so quiet in the library.

After ten minutes, both of us looked like drowned rats. I giggled and reached for his hair, and he leaned down. I tugged on his soaked locks, tangled and sopping wet from the rain, and laughed, scratchy and choked. He laughed too and shook his head over mine, splashing me with sweaty hair water, and I squealed in disgust.

The boy chuckled while he adjusted me and himself to lean against the car, angling his face to the sky. I did the same and sighed. The droplets had warmed, and it felt like getting hugged in a pool during the summer, minus the chlorine.

He nudged me after another few minutes. “We need to get you to a hospital. That’s where I was taking you because you’re—” he reached up to the top of my head and I hissed when he touched the bump. When he pulled his hand back, I saw flecks of dried blood wash off his fingers. “You’re hurt pretty bad. What happened?”

“Jerk threw a rock at my head when I climbed a tree,” I said, crinkling my face when I noticed how my words slurred at the end. He noticed.

The boy growled. “Damn coward. Yeah, we need to get you to a hospital.”

I snorted. “Oh joy, my dad’s gonna love that bill.” With a sigh, I extracted myself from the boy’s arms and attempted to stand, only to sway on my feet. The car suddenly had a twin. My stomach did a whole gymnast routine, and bright splashes of color swirled in my vision. He caught me before I could fall face-first into a puddle. I stuttered out, “Welp. Th-That’s not gonna work.”

“You got hit on the head with a rock,” he said like that explained everything. He put an arm under my legs and picked me up, bridal style.

“And fell off a tree.” He balked at me. “I climbed up a tree, and he threw a rock at my head. I fell.” An eye twitched.

“And fell off a tree. Yeah, you need to go to the hospital. You’ve been out for at least half an hour.” He turned around slow, placing my abused frame back inside the car with the same gentleness I saw him handle baby birds with. The passenger door clicked closed, and the boy gently sat down in the driver’s seat, careful not to shake the car. Turning around, he gave me a lopsided grin. “This is going to sound stupid, but do you want me to put on your seatbelt?”

I chuckled, coughed, then shook my head, laying down on my right side and wrapping my arms around myself. “No. Just don-don’t go too fast? Please?” The boy nodded and turned back around. He eyed me through the rearview mirror, and the droplets collected on his eyelashes refracted the glow of the car light. A sigh left him. Twisting the key, he woke up the cranky engine, and the car shook off the water which pooled in its crevices.

“Hey,” he said, turning the car back towards the road. I cringed at the sound of gravel under tires. “I know your brain’s all scrambled right now, but can you try not to sleep? You’re not supposed to when you have a concussion.”

“Is that what this is? A… con-cooshion?” He frowned.

“Yeah, and you’re not supposed to sleep for at least twenty-four hours. It should be only ten more minutes before we get to the hospital, though, so maybe there’s something they can do so you can rest. Pills or whatever.”

He grinned at the rearview window. “I got one when I was your age when a baseball hit me square on the forehead. Had a black eye for a good two weeks!” He laughed at himself. “If you want, after we get you all fixed up, I can show you the picture of it. Dad made sure to take photos of my new accessories. It was as big as the baseball that gave me it, swear to God.” He made a circle with his thumb and pointer finger, pressing it against his face before pulling it away from him with a silly grin. “Whaahp! Thing was huge!” His eyes crinkled when I giggled.

He asked if I wanted to keep the windows down, and I said yes, hoping the wind would settle my stomach and chill out the furious headache. Then we were off.

Telling stories about his childhood, he gave me a vivid description of how stupid he was when he was younger, with an assortment of injuries as momentos. A dislocated shoulder from a parachute attempt with a sheet. A broken toe from kicking a pebble, only for it to be a buried rock he swore was as big as a tire. He got his arm snapped like a twig when he was ten because he challenged a thirteen-year-old to a fight and got thrown across the room—turns out the stick of a kid was not lying when he said he was a wrestler. The ten-minute trip morphed into thirty, the closest hospital farther than he thought, but he kept me awake the entire time with tales of his misadventures.

By the time we got there, the sky had vanished. Gone were the ashy clouds which choked the moon and her stars. When I looked up, it was a sea of blackness, like a clumsy god spilled ink all over their canvas. Too dark for shadows. Too dark to exist until the sun rose and vaporized the remnants of the storm, conquered in nature’s own fight between light and dark.

That rock really scrambled my brains because, as he picked me up again and carried me into the sterile lights of the hospital, I wondered where humans got the concept of good and evil. More simply, light vs. dark.

Did we get it from our bloody battles, with how our spilled blood looked against a blade of grass? Or did we see how the sun fought the moon, and how the moon fought the stars, and how the stars fought off the tendrils of parasitic shadows, and wrote thousands of stories based on conflicts which existed millions of years before humanity’s ancestors existed? Wars which we had no context for, so arrogantly assumed their meanings?

As we entered the reception room, the harsh overhead hospital lights stabbed into my pupils. I cried out and snuggled into the boy’s chest.

He tried to carry me delicately, not wanting to jostle my head more than necessary, but worry had him jogging when he saw the nurse at the reception desk. “She’s hurt,” he said in a rush. “Someone threw a rock at her head and knocked her out of a tree. She’s slurring her words. I think she’s seeing double. Are you seeing double? Hey, are you seeing double?” He patted my back and rocked back and forth, coaxing a nod from me. I opened my eyes and the light above me split into two.

I shut my eyes again, keeping them so, and he did me the favor of making sure no one touched me unnecessarily. He told the nurse, “She doesn’t like being touched by strangers” when the older woman reached out to comfort me. He answered a lot of questions.

“No, I’m not her brother.”

“No, I’m not her guardian. I just work at the library she hangs out at.”

“She told me some jackass chased her up a tree and threw a rock at her. She fell down. I got there before he drove off.”

“Uh, sorry ma’am. I’ll watch my language.”

“No, I don’t know where he is now. Yes ma’am, we’ll wait.”

Then the police came.

“No, I don’t know where the guy is now. I told the nurse that. Yes sirs, I know you’re just being thorough.”

“No, I wasn’t there when he went after her, but I saw him try to put her into his car.”

“I’m pretty sure that wasn’t her father. Was that dic—er, that man your dad? No, it wasn’t him.”

“No… I-I don’t know where he is now. I screamed at him and he tried to swing at me… I swung back. He… He got into his car and drove away.”

“Yes, I followed her. She’s a ten-year-old girl walking in the middle of a thunderstorm. What was I supposed to do?”

“What the hell? No! I didn’t do that to her! Look at her! Would anyone cuddle up to the person who tried to smash their brains out and do God knows what else?”

“Yes sir, I know you’re just covering all your bases. Sorry, sir. I just… She’s like a little sister to me. She’s walked to the library all by herself since she was little—well, littler. I practically saw her grow up. She used to call me ‘Boo Choo.’ I don’t know what she was trying to say, but it was adorable.”

“Book.” I jumped into the conversation, interrupting his nervous rambling, now snuggled into his side while the nurse tried to examine my head wound on the hard bed. “I was trying to call you ‘Book,’ because you always helped me find my books.” The boy shuddered and sniffled, the questioning affecting him more than I thought it would. I followed his arm, wrapped around my shoulders, and put my hand over his larger one. It helped when Mom did that for me when I was upset.

He snorted through his tears, which made an interesting sound. “That’s freaking adorable.” The police officers and attending nurse gave their own short chuckles at the nickname before the questioning resumed.

“I didn’t get a good look at him. Way too old to be dragging a little girl into his car. Bigger, around my height—I’m 5’9”—white, either black or brown hair, same with the eyes. He didn’t look dirty.. Dark clothes, either black or dark blue. He wore a baggy jacket and what looked like grey sweatpants.”

“I work at the local library, sir. That’s how I knew to follow her. She came that morning and left while it was still storming. I should have insisted, but she… she hasn’t really acted the same around me since she was around six. I didn’t want her to be anymore afraid of me than she already was. Why was she nervous around me? Uh…” He coughed into his hand, and it wasn’t a fake, uncomfortable cough. We were both probably going to have quite the colds after this was said and done with.

“My dad’s a jerk.” I answered, short with the cops. I was cold, tired, and in a lot of pain. To say I was not in the mood to be poked and prodded at in any way was putting it lightly. “And he slapped me last time I was nice to a boy. Kid was crying, and I gave him a flower and, well, my father saw.”

The boy cursed and spat poison under his breath. “You’re ten-years-old. What the hell is he worried about? Should be proud to have raised such a great kid, but no.” He continued his tirade as the police scribbled my words down onto their notepads. They tried to question me further, but I stayed silent. They took the hint and turned back to the boy.

“She’s ten-years-old. Her birthday is February 1st.”

“She comes in and stays from open to close. Eight AM to eight PM, sir. Ten AM to Six PM on weekends.”

“She’s been going to the library almost every day since she was four.”

“She walked there by herself, rain or shine. We did report it. The police didn’t do anything because they said she was ‘clearly safe.’”

“We did everything we could. We have rules, but she was the exception to almost every one. We have these mini private rooms, where you can have loud study groups, and meetings, and whatnot. We have a rule saying you can’t sleep in them, because they are almost always in use. We let her sleep in them whenever she wants. We rarely allow food or drink, but we encourage her to bring snacks. We give her ours a lot of the time. She’s so skinny. We don’t allow people to check out books without a library card, but she would need a guardian to sign the papers and so she just has to promise us that she’ll bring them back. She always does.”

“Yes sir. Yes sir, we’ll tell you if there’s anything else. Yes sir.”

The nurse lady finished giving me the last stitch and said I was good to go, rubbing a thumb over my cheek as she complimented how good I was while she shoved a needle and thread through my skin. I just needed to stay until tomorrow morning to keep an eye on me. The boy had to leave.

“I’m sorry, young man,” the nurse said, careful not to raise her voice and aggravate my headache. “But I’m afraid only family can stay.”

He jolted and held me closer. “I’m not leaving her alone. You’ll have to get the cops back in here.” The nurse, to her credit, just laughed and insisted he needed to leave. Family only.

“Didn’t you hear?” I mumbled against his side. “He’s my brother. He stays.”

She tsked and clicked her tongue, and I heard her tapping her shoe against the tile. With a sigh, she gave in. “Fine, but you will not cause any problems. Do you understand, young man? I’ll bring you both some water and a pudding cup, but you may not roam the halls willy-nilly. Bathroom breaks only, got it?”

“Yes ma’am.” He laid down on the bed and put my head on his chest.

“Ah-ah.” she scolded. “You on the chair. She needs that bed to herself.” She stood there for a minute before clicking her tongue again. “And I’ll give you both some clean clothes. Wait here.” A squeak and reverberating clack of her shoes told me she exited the room in a hurry, likely having other patients who needed attention.

I whined, but since I did not want to cause a disturbance that would end up with me being alone when (if) my father came, I let him get up and off the hospital bed. As a compromise, he scooted the chair as close as possible and laid his head down on the side of the bed.

“Did the nurse say to stay awake?” I whispered.

“I don’t think so,” he whispered back, stretching his hand and flattening my stringy hair. “I think you shouldn’t risk it, though. I’ll ask her when she comes back. Promise.”

Moaning, I curled into a ball, an increasingly familiar position, and tried to stay awake. It was difficult, my brain telling me that a nice snooze would cure me of my pulsing headache, but not wanting to find out the consequences if I caved in and released myself from reality.

I thankfully did not have to wait for long. The nurse, paranoid and wanting to get us into something warm, checked on us only after five minutes with two pairs of pants and shirts. After the nurse helped me put on the white clothes, him pacing outside the door with squishy shoes, the nurse gave us the all clear that I could, of course, sleep and that I needed the rest.

She did not need to tell me twice. Before he even sat back down, looking like an altar boy in all white except for his muddy sneakers, I was out like a light. The last thing I heard was the boy gently humming, the thunder and rain howling in tune.