Who Knows

Chapter 1 (The Coma)

I bounced up and down and up and down. The leafs blowing through my long, golden, hair. I reached up trying to touch the clouds with every fly to the sky, but I could never reach it. I couldn't believe how high I was going. He is good at bouncing people so they fly to the sky. He stopped jumping and fell over panting with the biggest goofy grin on his face. I lay on my back and looked at him, the bright autumn sun shimmered off of his orange hair and his green eyes gleamed as he caught his breath. He had begun to stand up when I grabbed onto his leg, I giggled and looked up at him. "I love you, you're beautiful, and the best big brother ever,". He smiled down at me making me smile more. I let go of his leg and he bounced me again. I looked down as he bounced me, I hit my head on the branch I have been trying to reach forever! He had stopped jumping and immediately to see if I was alright. I gave him one of the looks little sisters give their older siblings, "Just keep jumping." I clapped twice and acted as if he was my servant. 

If I had been older I bet he would have slapped me, but since I was only eight and he was twelve he just rolled his eyes and did what I said. Now that I look back, I realize that he is the nicest guy in the world, I just wish that other people saw it in him too. After our mom left us he practically raised me and Alex (our little sister). But at the time he was just the cool older brother, the cool kid, and the worst child in the family. 

We were outside jumping on that trampoline for hours. As the sun was going down we went inside. He was at the door and I was half way across the lawn when I felt a deep pain in my chest, my eyes started to water and I couldn't breathe, I collapsed, struggling and trying to scream. My brother's head whipped around and he ran towards me I felt like the light and sound were slower than he was. He grabbed me and rushed inside the house, he pushed past everything as my vision started to blur. 

I could hear Alex (who was only six at the time) crying and my parents (before my mom had left) screaming at my brother demanding to know what was going on. He pulled a needle out of a box and injected it into my arm. Seconds after he did that I could breathe again, but I was still scared. I figured that my parents  would praise my brother for saving my life, but they didn't. They scolded him, they told him that was for emergencies and that he could have killed me and it would be all his fault. I didn't, more like couldn't understand why they still couldn't find it in they hearts to praise my brother. I could see the tears in his eyes, and I knew he was just not crying because I was there. So I sat up and hugged him tight, I glared at our parents. "How can you still not love him?! When he looks up to you, I worry because he is looking for love and help to the meaniest people I have ever met," Then we were both grounded. But my brother snuck into my room every night to tell me how proud of me he is. Although I feel like I should have been the one doing that for him.

But about a month after that happened they sent him away to a reform summer camp. He would be gone all summer, and I told myself that I would NOT talk to my parents the entire time that he was gone, even if it killed me. He smiled at me as he got on the bus to leave, but it killed me that tears were filling his eyes, he waved out the back window as the bus slowly pulled out. And a tear started to fall down his face but he quickly wiped it away. I cried that night, and every night for over half of the summer.

                                                                 .One Week Before His Return.

I had been having those small episodes, but they weren't as bad as that one time and didn't last that long, but each time they got a little but worse. It scared me because I didn't feel like I had anyone to protect me. They happened whenever I used a lot of my energy at once, but I didn't care very much. Until the night they came to take him home... because they had lots of cupcakes,cookies, and sodas, out ready so that we could celebrate his return. But they had left me home alone with Alex to go get him. Our father had told Alex and I to not eat the snacks until our brother got back, but we didn't listen. We ate tons of sugar and went on the biggest sugar high i've ever seen. But as I was bolting around the house at high speed I felt a deep pain start in my chest, tears streamed down my face but I couldn't make the sounds of crying because I couldn't breathe. 

I collapsed and heard the door start to open, I felt like my throat had closed up and I was going to die, my eyes closed and all sound became just sound, it was there but I couldn't make any of it out. But I was able to open my eyes for a split second to see someone with orange hair and glimmering green eyes holding me in their arms in the car, he had injected me with the needle again, but it wasn't working as well as it did last time. And I was scared, that I was going to die, and that my brother would be blamed. I tried to stay awake, but everything went black again. I couldn't see, and I could't hear very well, but I could feel. And what I felt were his tears falling down my face once again. The second time I woke up I was in a bed with two different masks on my face. One had the word food on it, the other had O-X-Y-G-E-N on it, but I didn't know what that word meant. I didn't have time or energy to ask anyone where I was or what was going on, but I heard a singsongy voice telling me to just rest. 

But while I was resting memories started to leave me, dreams I was in the middle of would just change, and by the third time I woke up the only thing I could see or remember was the orange hair boy. He looked down at me, crying so hard I wondered if his eyes would fall out. I couldn't think why but when he cried it made me want to cry. He took my hand in his and looked as if he was choking his words out, I must have given him a confused look because he seemed startled. "Look Ellie," As he spoke to me his words rattled, "No matter what happens, no matter what you forget or remember, just remember my face, and that I love you," Tears were streaming down his face, and the face of the strange little girl and the two old people. I looked back at the boy, it took a lot of my strength to say it, but I looked at him and said "Be careful orange boy, if you cry anymore your eyes will fall out," I smiled and he smiled. Then I got tired again, but it was a different tired then when you went to sleep, and different from when you jump around like a crazy person and need to sit down for a minute. I can't exactly explain, but it was like I was being sent somewhere and the only way to get there is to close my eyes. I looked back at the boy and he rubbed my head, I closed my eyes and smiled.