Unsung

Chapter Seventy-Six

Twenty minutes later, Garrick was sitting on a hospital gurney behind a drawn curtain, while I took up residence in a chair in the corner.

"I can't pay for any of this, Kida," Garrick said quietly, pressing a piece of gauze against his forehead carefully.

My blood-soaked shirt lay in a ball by his side. I'd told him he could toss it—no way were the stains coming out and I hadn't liked it much anyway—but there it was. Sitting there like a silent reminder of what we'd just been through.

Garrick looked around the tiny room nervously like he was trying to figure out how he could still escape. When a clanging noise rang out nearby, Garrick practically jumped. I reached out and touched his leg reassuringly.

"I told you not to worry about it," I said. "I know someone here."

As I said it, a woman burst through the curtains, her eyes searching around wildly until they finally rested on me.

"Kida! Are you okay? What happened?" my mom asked frantically as she gave me a quick once-over. "Connie called me and said you were down here. Where are you hurt?"

She crouched down and began to give me the once over, checking for injuries. I forced her to stop and look me in the eyes, and then smiled at her reassuringly.

"I'm fine, Mom," I said, taking her hand in mine. "I'm not hurt. But my friend—"

I gestured over to Garrick who'd leaned back into the stiff, paper-covered pillow uncomfortably, and saw the surprised look on his face. I hadn't told him that my mom worked at this hospital, let alone given him any warning he was about to meet a member of my family. The detail hadn't seemed important before, seeing as my main focus had simply been on getting him help.

But now, by the look on both of their faces, I wish I'd given each of them a heads up.

It was then that my mom seemed to notice that my "friend" was actually a teenage boy, and gave me a curious look before standing up and walking over to him.

"Let's see what we've got here," she said, transitioning into doctor mode as quickly as she'd entered the room.

I watched as she lifted the sterile pad Garrick was holding against his head and examined the wound, touching the skin around the cut softly.

"I thought he might need stitches?" I said, tentatively.

"Luckily, it's not that bad," my mom murmured. "I think we can probably get by with a little glue."

"Well I could've done that," Garrick said forcing a smile. "There's always a bottle of Elmer's in our kitchen drawer at home."

"Is he always this funny or should I be concerned about a concussion?" my mom said to me with a smile.

"A little of both?" I teased.

She turned and rifled through a cabinet, pulling out items as she found them. Bringing them back over to Garrick, she lay them out on top of the paper like it was her own little surgical spread. Snapping on a pair of latex gloves, she ripped open an alcohol swab and began to clean up the dried blood on his face.

"Why didn't you just go to the E.R.?" my mom asked while she worked.

"Um, I was sort of hoping you could just take care of it?" I said, slowly. When she threw a questioning look my way, I tried to think of an answer that didn't involve explaining Garrick's life story. When my pause began to drag on a little too long, I blurted out, "He's scared of hospitals."