Handle With Clare

Chapter 38: Can We Be Friends?

"Who are you?" she asked me.

I suddenly felt dizzy and grabbed a hold of my IV pole for support. "Can I sit here?" I asked, as I pointed to the seat next to her bed. She nodded and I took a seat as I took deep breaths to get my head on straight. I pinched the bridge of my nose to make the dizziness stop. And sure enough, after a few minutes, it did. I looked up at this small little girl and forced a smile. "My name is Clare. I've known your mom for a long time now."

"So, you and my mom are friends?"

More like she is the one that cares for me the most. Nurse Gracie Jensen had to be my favorite nurse that worked here, but I never really thought of her as a friend. She had my back through thick or thin though. I just shrugged and went with it. "Yeah, we're friends."

She smiled a slightly toothless smile at me. "You're so young to be friends with my mom."

I raised my eyebrows at her and smiled. She had a thing or two to learn about friendship. "Friendship has no age requirement. Who says I can't be friends with older people."

She shrugged. "No one, I guess."

"Exactly," I smiled, feeling more comfortable while talking to her. "So now you know my name. What's yours?"

"Wendy," she said, and smiled another toothless grin at me.

"And how old are you Wendy?" I said as I leaned back in my chair.

"I'm 5 and a half. And I just lost my first two teeth on Saturday," she said proudly at me.

I forgot how honest little kids were. I admired that, I almost felt it a shame that we as people often lost the most admirable attitudes that children had as we aged. If we spent more time with them, we would be better, I was sure of that. "That's very cool. Were you scared of losing your teeth?"

She shook her head at me. "No, not at all. My mom knocked them out with a cup."

"That's awfully brave of you to let your mom do that."

"I asked her to," she said, as her smile grew even wider.

I chuckled, suddenly impressed that she was so brave to do that. It amazed me that at such young ages, children were filled with such bravery for the unknown. She didn't know if it would hurt or not, she just went for it.

"Clare?"

"Yes, Wendy?"

"Can we be friends?"

My smile grew larger as I nodded. "Of course we can be friends."

"Good. Because I don't like my friends at school. They're mean to me," she said with a frown, as if thinking about something they did to her.

I frowned at her. "Did they do this to you?" I asked as I gestured to her leg.

She nodded at me and that broke my heart. Why did people have to be so mean to one another? We shouldn't be that way, but sometimes we were for different reasons. Maybe it was because they were afraid or moved by hatred. Sometimes we did it on purpose, but sometimes we didn't mean it. I thought about the times I actually hurt people, Peter, my parents, Farrah, Doctor Patel. The list went on forever. But all of them continued to forgive me, as if knowing that I would never hurt them again however they knew I would. I always would because I was difficult, mood, hard to deal with, but their desire to forgive me made me want to be better.

She gave a small smile at me and I returned it. "Do you want to play a game with me?"

"Of course, I'll play with you," I said as Nurse Jensen came running in with a worried look. I thought it was because of concern for her daughter but she turned to me and it made my stomach churn. "Clare, you need to join your parents in the ER."