A Sheltered Heart

Chapter 2: Wannabe Ryan Gosling

“Brock he’s bleeding!” In mere seconds Brock was back with gauze in one hand, and a bottle of vodka in the other.

“Seriously dude? This is no time to have drink! We have this guy in critical condition,” did he really like vodka? Brock always seemed like the type of guy to take a beer.

“No idiot! Mel said that she was going to restock the rubbing alcohol tomorrow morning so there was none tonight. I went to find Don’s vodka stash and found him cuddling with this bottle,” I could feel my eyebrows scrunch as Brock explained our current problem. Everyone in the building knew Don was trying to give up drinking but he was having huge troubles, they let him keep the bottles but people would check every day to make sure the contents were still present.

“Don’t worry, I switched it with a stuffed animal so he wouldn’t wake up. We’ve got an identical bottle but it’s filled with water from Carrie, we’ll swap it and he would never know a thing”

Hairs fell in front of my face as I shook my head laughing at Brock’s brilliant idea. Carrie moved out a couple months ago, she was an alcoholic too but to fix it they filled her bottles with half vodka and half water for her to drink. It reminded me of how my Dad poured half chocolate milk and half regular milk in my cup to stop my requests for chocolate goodness. In the end I stopped chocolate in total and Carrie stopped vodka the same way. Yeah, our shelter got some pretty unique tricks hidden up their sleeves.

I realize how long I’ve been thinking in my own little land, back to the action!

“I’ll hold him down in case he reacts, and you pour the vodka on the cuts,” reluctantly, my head nods as I pour the clear liquid on the gory, red limbs. My eyes squeeze shut as I hear a loud scream, quickly muffled by a clean cloth Brock holds to the kid’s mouth.

Over about 5 minutes, the muffled scream began to fade.

“Is he dead?” I ask, I’m no expert when it comes to this caregiving stuff.

Brock chuckles again and shakes his head, “he’s very much alive, just passed out,” understanding I look back at the boy, his breathing has become weak, but it’s still there.

“I’ll be on duty now, Mari. Who knows, his gang may come back for him,” although a little hesitant, Brock eventually leaves, before leaving though he asks me if I can handle myself to stay until the guy wakes up, in which case I give him an explanation of where he is, ask him some information about himself, and if he wants to live, to stay here. That shouldn’t be too hard.

At around 10:45 I’m getting bored of sketching and drawing random bottles of painkillers and medication I stare at the boy’s body. I’ve never actually drawn someone so close up before. I begin with outlining his body then I move on to fixing his hair the proper way and giving detail to his facial features. As my eyes glance up once more to try to sculpt his nose on my paper, I realize his long eyelashes are starting to flutter open.

Rising to my feet I find courage to walk by his bed. Slowly, his eyes adjust to the light and widen once seeing me beside him.

“Who the hell are you? The seducer? Do you plan on getting information out of by-”

“Whoa there, honey! I’m no ‘seducer’ did you expect me to be in some sexy nurse costume? Sorry, but as you can see I’m not the lady you think I am,” this guy was getting the wrong impression of me real fast.

“If you were trying to get something out of me, you would have dressed a little better I suppose. I just thought they were getting cheap and hiring crappy looking prosti-”

“I’m sorry to disappoint, if you expecting a lap dance or something, I wouldn’t think you’d like any sexual activity with me darling.” My cheeks were heating up with every word, pressing my sketchbook tighter against my chest.