The sound that woke Ralph up was startling, for lack of a stronger word. He laid on Jack's bedroom floor, a twinge of sun shining through the closed blinds, making it just light enough for him to make out the shadows of the objects in the room. He was sitting up before he even realized he was conscious; on guard, alert. It had been six and a half months since the rescue, and he still failed to sleep through any sound he could consider potentially threatening.
Ralph looked around him and realized Jack was gone. The noise that had woke him was coming from someplace else in the house; and sounded like something heavy had been dropped. The next sound Ralph heard was shouting (it was hard to tell who's from three stories up), followed by the slam of what must've been the front door. Ralph decided against investigating or even leaving the room. Instead, he crawled up onto Jack's un-slept-in bed and grabbed the throw blanket from the edge of the bed, wrapping it around himself. He sat in wait as he prepared for the possible escalation of whatever he'd heard, but it stayed silent.
A few minutes later, Jack came up and opened the door thoughtlessly, abruptly, loudly. Ralph flinched before seeing who it was, and when he did he finally let his breath go.
"Shit, sorry" Jack's head shot up as he found Ralph sitting on the bed. Ralph started at Jack, who used his elbow to turn on the light. Unadjusted to it, Ralph covered his eyes.
"That's real bright" Ralph pointed out as he covered his unprepared eyes.
"Sorry" Jack said quickly, propping himself up against his dresser.
Ralph uncovered his eyes and let them wander to Jack; specifically the bloody wound on his wrist he was holding a blood-soaked gauze of paper towel to, then up to Jack's face, where Ralph noticed a dark red bruise swelling on half his cheek.
"What happened to you?" Ralph asked with dire concern, hopping off the bed and hurrying over to the injured boy.
"Ah, nothing" Jack waved a dismissive hand at the worried brunette.
"It's not nothing" Ralph insisted in a sappy little voice, gently tracing Jack's bruised face with his fingers. The blond flinched at the sudden pain. Ralph let go and crossed his arms over his chest. "It's not nothing" he repeated more firmly this time. "What happened to your arm?"
"I'm not playing your little game of twenty questions" Jack responded hotly.
"Jack" Ralph said sadly, staring down at the incision on his wrist. The gauze was completely soaked through, and blood was starting to drip onto the carpet. "At least let me help you."
"I know first aid" Jack insisted.
"Clearly" Ralph motioned sarcastically to the blood dripping from the wound down his arm.
"I fixed your broken arm up real good, did I not? After barely surviving a plane crash, in the middle of the ocean, on a lousy lifeboat nonetheless" Jack smartly reminded him.
"Well I think you cared a lot more about me than you do about yourself" Ralph harshly suggested. Jack couldn't find the words to argue.
"Come 'ere" Ralph insisted, and Jack surrendered, stepping forward to bridge the gap between them. They stood a mere half foot apart as Ralph gently removed the gauze, the excessive mess of blood making it hard to see where it was all coming from.
"Jesus Christ" Ralph's eyes went wide. "Come" he added as he gently held Jack's wrist up and used it to guide him to the bathroom next door.
He started to unravel more than half the toilet paper on the roll hanging beside the toilet and layered it up into a much thicker piece of gauze than the one Jack had come upstairs with. "Does it hurt?" Ralph asked before he was about to apply the toilet paper gauze.
"Just a little" Jack shrugged. Ralph was pretty sure he was trying to be tougher than he felt.
"Alright well it's about to hurt a lot more" Ralph prepared him as he grasped the back to Jack's wrist and held it firmly as he pressed the makeshift gauze tightly to Jack's wrist, atop the blood-soaked paper towel. He felt Jack shudder as he pressed down hard, but the blond's face suggested he was trying not to show it.
"I think this is beyond first aid, Jack" Ralph considered worriedly as the hefty makeshift gauze quickly soaked through with more blood.
"What do you mean by that?" Jack questioned defensively.
"I mean a hospital" Ralph clarified. "You probably need stitches."
"Nuh-uh, no way" Jack pulled back a little but Ralph tightened his grip around the boy's bleeding wrist.
"Don't be stupid, you know we have to go" Ralph remarked as he maintained his grip.
"I'm not going" Jack fought, making another failed attempt to put space between him and Ralph. Pulling his throbbing wrist beneath Ralph's tight grip made the pain worse, but he didn't care.
"Yes you are" a third voice came from the bathroom doorway. Both boys turned to see Paige standing there, her arms folded over her chest.
"No chance" Jack spat back at them both.
"Go get in the fucking car, Jack" Paige demanded forcefully.
"No! What the hell do you expect me to tell them? They won't treat me without a guardian anyway, remember that whole medical examination shit in Virginia? There's no point!" Jack's panicked voice became more resistant with each word.
"In an emergency, they'll treat anyone regardless of consent or ability to pay" Paige corrected him. "I'm in nursing school, I know what I'm talking about."
"This isn't an emergency" Jack scoffed.
"I beg to differ, Jack, there's blood all over the fucking floor! All over your clothes, all over Ralph, all over the goddamn toilet seat, in the hallway! Jesus, how fucking stubborn are you? Get in the damn car before you bleed out" Paige's voice became harsher and more insistent.
"She's right" Ralph chimed in much gentler.
Jack found Ralph's eyes and felt some of the tension and fear leave his body as he settled into Ralph's gaze. He realized how fast his heart was beating, and how he was becoming a little lightheaded.
"Please" Ralph whispered desperately. "I won't leave your side, I promise."
"He's gonna be mad if we go" Jack's formerly angred voice settled into the worry he was really feeling.
"He's gonna have a much bigger problem if you bleed the fuck out on the bathroom floor. And I'll make sure he knows it, okay? Can we just go while you're still conscious?" Paige's voice also softened as she decreased her volume.
Ralph held the toilet paper gauze tightly to Jack's wrist still, placing his other hand comfortingly on Jack's back. Jack finally nodded in agreement. Ralph grabbed the little hand towel hanging on the rack and wrapped it on top of the toilet paper gauze.
"Paige, do you have any duct tape or anything I can use to tighten this and keep it tight?" Ralph asked in a hurry.
Paige nodded, and told the boys to go get in her lamborghini as she rushed to grab the tape out of the toolbox.
As Paige sped down each street, Ralph tried not to panic as he realized the color in Jack's face was starting to fade a little. He thought about how he was supposed to be going home within the next hour, doubting that was going to happen now.
Paige managed to turn the standard twenty minute drive to the hospital into a twelve minute one. Paige insisted Ralph take Jack in while she paid for parking. Ralph wrapped his free arm under Jack's armpit to help guide him. He seemed to be acting normally with the exception of a little tiredness. Ralph held his other hand tightly against the duct taped makeshift toilet/paper towel gauze around the blond boy's wrist.
There were a couple people in line at the reception ahead of them when they got into the doors of the emergency room. Ralph noticed that Jack looked ready to pass out at any given moment, so he thoughtlessly pushed to the front of the line, ignoring the offended remarks from the other patients in line.
"Help me, please! He's bleeding real bad" Ralph begged the receptionist, and she immediately agreed as the other staff around her in the office came to their aid.
"Come on back here, honey" an older lady in scrubs insisted as she took Ralph's spot holding Jack up, another lady came around to inspect the home made gauze padding Ralph had secured around him.
"How old is he?" the older lady asked Ralph.
"Fourteen" Ralph's voice shook as he watched.
Jack was only half conscious now and didn't seem very aware of his surroundings anymore. In only a few split seconds, a male doctor came out and helped the other two ladies take Jack down a hallway before they disappeared from Ralph's view.
"Are you family?" another man asked from the reception desk, taking the place of the lady who'd been there when they arrived.
"Uh, no" Ralph felt his body shaking profusely as he approached the desk again. "His sister is just paying for parking, she'll be in in a second."
"Is she over 18?" he asked as he typed on the desktop behind the glass that separated them.
"Yes" Ralph forced the word out as he felt his own strength beginning to fail him.
"Is she the legal guardian?"
"No, their dad is at work I think" Ralph answered just as Paige came up behind him.
"Where's Jack?" she asked in a panicked voice, breathing so heavily Ralph was certain she ran all the way here from the parking lot.
"He's with a doctor now, don't worry" the receptionist attempted to calm them both. "I'll just need some information from you, assuming you're the sister."
Paige nodded through heavy pants as she turned her attention to Ralph. "Go sit down, okay? I'll be there in just a minute."
Ralph was beginning to feel like he was only half alive; half in his own body; half present. He nodded despite his desire to stay there with her, but he couldn't find the words to say it. So he convinced his legs to take him to the waiting room chairs. He plopped down on the closest, unoccupied seat and stared up at the mindless advertisement that was playing on the nearest TV.
He remembered the last time he'd been in a hospital waiting room; the day of the rescue. This room was clearly different, but somehow it still looked the same to him anyway. He remembered all the families of his fellow cadets around him, all his squad members sitting around, coming and going, all in the matching search and rescue clothes; making it impossible for anyone to think any of them were there for a normal reason.
Paige sat down beside him a few minutes into Ralph's memory recollection, sighing heavily.
"Is Jack gonna be okay?" Ralph asked, his voice groggy.
"Of course he is" Paige insisted, reaching over and squeezing Ralph's hand. "Aren't I supposed to drive you home this morning?"
"That doesn't matter right now" Ralph suppressed the irrelevant thought.
"You should at least call your parents" she insisted as she pulled out her motorola cellphone from her purse. The phone seemed to be larger than the purse itself somehow. He wondered what else she even fit in that silly little thing.
"I don't know what to tell them" Ralph admitted. "About Jack.... What did happen to him?" he realized he never actually asked.
"Jack was supposed to clean out the utensil drawer last night. Well, he didn't, and when my dad found out, he ripped everything out of it and pulled the whole drawer out of its place. He threw it at Jack. Obviously it was heavy and the corner must've got his wrist" Paige told the story in a tone that suggested to Ralph she was embarrassed by it.
"And the bruise on his face?"
"Same thing. The drawer must've got him pretty good there too, I guess. It wasn't small."
Ralph sighed as he took the story in.
"Can I ask you something?" Ralph turned to look Paige in the eye as he spoke.
"Of course, what is it?" Paige agreed warmly.
"Promise you won't get mad I asked" Ralph dragged it out.
"Um, okay... I promise. What is it?" she hesitated.
"Why don't you ever do anything about it? Y'know, like to stop your dad? I don't mean physically get involved, I understand you don't want to get hurt too. But you should tell somebody. You're his sister. Why don't you do something to protect him before it gets to this point?" Ralph bravely wondered aloud.
"I'm not mad at you for asking, but you don't understand what you're talking about. I'm not being rude, I'm just being honest. There's a lot someone like you just can't comprehend when it comes to families like ours. It isn't simple, Ralph. I love Jack, and if there was anything I could do to help him without making things worse for one or both of us, I would do it in a heartbeat."
"You could tell someone. Anyone. Someone at Jack's school, or even yours. Isn't there anyone you trust?" Ralph hoped curiously.
"Trust isn't really the issue here" Paige tried to explain. "It's more complicated than that. You're too young to understand."
"And Jack isn't?" Ralph persisted.
"This is his life, Ralph. I can't explain it to you. I really think you should talk to Jack, or even your parents about it. I'm young too and I'd hate for it to come out wrong, okay?" Paige sighed, feeling beyond her years as she worked out of a tool belt she didn't have.
"My parents? What makes you think they understand? Wouldn't they just report it?" Ralph thought as he considered it.
"No" Paige countered calmly. "Remember when I brought Jack to your house in the night a few months ago? They didn't report it, did they?"
She was right, Ralph realized. But why? Why wouldn't his parents report it if they'd realized how bad it really was? It didn't make sense. And maybe that's exactly what Paige was trying to say.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to accuse you of being a bystander or anything like that. I know you love Jack, and I'm glad you were there today to bring him here. He's lucky to have you as a sister" Ralph decided as his mind began to run away from him with thoughts of Jack's pale body going limp in the arms of the hospital staff several minutes ago now.
"I get it. I know that not understanding is hard for you. I wish I could make it make sense. It isn't easy to be here when someone you love is back there. And I know you love Jack too."
"I—um, I mean I guess so. As any friend would" Ralph stumbled awkwardly as his heart rate picked up inside his chest.
Paige smiled to herself and then at Ralph. She realized that Jack must not have told him that she'd busted them last night. There wasn't much she could do for Jack, Ralph was right about that, but she could keep his secret about him and Ralph. And that, she would.