• Word Count: 1,465
I feel myself slowly coming to; my heavy eyelids keeping my vision obscured. The first thing that strikes my body is the wind; a cool breeze whispers by, leaving a trail of goosebumps on my skin. A quick shiver passes through my body.
Where am I? And why is it so dark?
Blindly, I feel the area around me; I'm on a grassy ground. What am I doing on a grassy ground? And then it all comes crashing back to me; the meeting at the warehouse, the bomb, Armin taking a beating-
Armin!
I push myself into a sitting position, but it's still dark.
"Armin?!"
No answer.
I go to rub my eyes, only to have my hands touching a peace of fabric. My fingers trace the material around my head. It's a blindfold.
Upon removing it, the glaring light of the day strikes my eyes in merciless jabs, forcing me to squeeze my eyes shut again.
"Armin!"
He still doesn't answer and the unrelenting sunlight won't allow me a peak, let alone search for Armin.
I give my eyes a few more minutes to adjust to the bright light and then I find myself staring across a field at a children's swing. My instinct is to turn my head right and left, searching for a sign of familiarity and then it clicks. It's a park. The family park close to Armin's home.
The sound of groaning nearby has my ears perked and my heart shoved in my mouth. I freeze.
Another round of groaning makes me realize that someone might be in pain-
I find myself crawling towards the sound, "Armin!"
A pair of gym shoes stick out from just behind the roundabout, "Armin is that you?!"
He groans in response. When I stand over his body I notice 3 things; he's blindfolded too, his face is gruesomely puffy with colors ranging from red to purple, and judging by his inability to roll over from being face deep into them mud, he's still sore from the beating.
I attempt to gently roll him over, ignoring the increasing frequency of his groans, "You should've thought about this before taunting that man,"
The groaning continues, but this time it's accompanied my coughing and with every cough, his face contorts into a grimace as if the pain is magnified with every cough.
When I remove his blindfold, he immediately shields his eyes, "Turn the lights,"
I attempt to lift him up but he shoves me away, saying that it's too painful for him to move a muscle.
My hands rest on my hip in exasperation. It occurs to me in this moment that Aurick has dumped a few miles away from their home, which makes no sense. When my eyes fall on the discarded blindfolds -another oddity- I'm forced to think that it may not actually be Aurick.
I'm daunted to even begin wondering who it might be.
Another groan from Armin has him rolling to his side in attempts to stand up.
He does it slowly, cautious about his wounds. He's on his stomach first, then on his knees, and when I help him to a standing position, he shakes his head, "Can't do it,"
"Why not-"
He steadies himself near the roundabout and sits on it gently, "I feel like puking,"
For the first time since I've regained consciousness, I notice that Armin needs medical attention. There's no way we're taking him back home like this.
A shiver of horror runs through my body at the thought of having to explain this to his parents.
My mind is made up, "We need to take you to a hospital-"
"-No,"
"We're going to the hospital," before he argues, I add, "right now,"
•••
What I was not prepared for, actually happened. We're currently at the hospital, a police officer is talking to Armin in his room and another one is holding a notepad, standing right in front of me.
"So, just to reiterate," he takes a glance at his notepad, "The two of you were coming back home from school and you took the longer road to race..." he trails off.
"Yes, we wanted to see who would make it to the park first,"
The other officer comes back from interviewing Armin, closing the door to the room behind him.
"And then a bunch of strangers came up and ignited a feud with Armin, who knows none of them and recalls none of their faces, and things escalated quickly."
"That's exactly what happened,"
The other officer looks at his own notepad and frowns, "So, you weren't harassed by a group of junkies on your way back from school,"
He looks me straight in the eye, genuinely perplexed and slightly skeptical at the apparent dissociation in back stories. I swallow, almost choking.
The hallway at the hospital suddenly feels cramped and the atmosphere feels more smothering by the second.
I blurt the first that comes to mind, "Yes. B-but I don't wish to talk about specifics,"
The officers exchange a look before nodding and disappearing. I heave out a sigh despite the uneasiness the exchange left me with.
A few minutes after I join Armin in the room, a doctor along with two nurses comes into the room. We were in the middle of an argument about our testaments when the doctor clears his throat.
"We need urine samples," the nurses hand each of us a urine cup, "before we discharge you,"
I blink at them. Armin's head slowly turns and he locks eyes with me. As if being friends this long has enabled us to easily sift through each other's minds, and we burst out laughing. Armin groans slightly, cradling his ribs but continues to laugh nonetheless.
What Armin and I do is definitely more dangerous than drugs.
•••
Once we're discharged, I guide a hobbling Armin through the gates, where a cab waits for us by the curb. Who called the cab or when, I'm not sure.
We both agreed on a backstory this time; Armin got into a fight with a few bandits, who out numbered him. It won't be easy on his mother but it's our only option. I'm sure Aurick would agree on that too.
Although, it still puzzles me why he would drop us in the middle of the road like that, blindfolded, denying his brother medical attention. Possibilities swim around in my head but none of them seem plausible.
My thoughts begin to wander as I stare out the window, my heart weighing heavier every second that passes by. I swallow past the growing lump, which forms in courtesy of the man who so easily abandoned me.
As hard as I attempt to push the question away, I can't help but wonder where Elias could be.
I huff, staring at the ceiling of the car, "See? Misfortune can still find me, even when you're not around," I whisper to no one in particular. Armin shuffles slightly, adjusting himself, as he continues to doze off on my shoulder. A lone tear slides down my cheek, but I catch it in time, wiping it away, furious that it made it out in the first place.
All the gestures, the gallantry and the sweet talking, were just a fallacy, a proof of my gullibility. What initially felt like hurt, is now quickly turning into anger, as my blurred eyes watch the fragmentary scenery the speeding has created. My remorseless mind continues to push images of our trips together, making me clench my teeth so hard to contain the sobs.
Is this what heartbreak feels like? Do breakups always play out like this?
When we finally arrive, the potency of the medication in Armin's system comes into full view, as he struggles to stand.
"Come on, I got you," I tell him, groaning slightly as I pull him out of the cab.
His slightly curved posture and contorted features don't go unnoticed by his mother, who gasps and frantically runs towards the gate, to embrace her son.
She immediately begins to sob, mumbling in German.
Armin pulls away and smiles at her, "Mother, I'm alright, I promise,"
She sniffles and smacks his shoulder, scolding him all the way towards the house. We explain to them what happened, or at least, what we have fabricated.
Throughout the length of the afternoon, Frau Marlene continues to scold Armin on an equal footing with her motherly concern for him. She bi-hourly checks his fever, closely inspects his bruises, asks if he's comfortable. My chest folds into itself as I'm reminded of a mother's love.
Aurick walks into the living room with a phone held between his shoulder and his ear, a frown of concentration wedged between his brows. Armin and I both sit up staright, ready to face him.
But as his attention finally falls on us, his frown deepens, "What happened to you?"
My back stiffens, and I feel Armin tense next to me.
Aurick's genuine confusion, apparent through his seizing up and down of his injured brother only proves one thing.
I gulp, as Armin and I look at each other, wide-eyed.
•••
I'm dedicating this chapter, which was updated almost a year after the last one, to those who stood by this book and hung on to my poor updating schedule.
Thank you,
Asia.