Chapter 4
- Sour Patch Kids –
I had finally made it to heaven. I was walking through a vast, never ending field of wheat spotted with red flowers. Heaven. I had made to heaven. “Kaden,” I heard my grandmother, “It’s all going to be okay.” Her words began to sound more strained, weak and choked up. “I promise,” she was whimpering now. That’s when I realized it was my grandma who was speaking to me. It was my mother.
“Mom?” I wanted to scream but no matter how hard I tried, the sound could not escape my vocal cords. “Mom!” I tried again, still nothing. The field was silent. A great cluster of immense black clouds rolled over the land and the sky fell dark. Heaven didn’t feel so welcoming anymore. It felt more like Hell.
Trying to out run the clouds I began darting off towards the horizon. As I was running, I got closer to the edge of the wheat. It didn’t appear that it continued on but I kept running, I figured jumping off a cliff wouldn’t be so bad considering I was already dead.
The storm was close on my tail and it was a violent one at that. As I approached the edge my body began to tense up. I didn’t know what would be past that, maybe it was heaven. Maybe it was just a small three foot drop off and I would land safely with my grandma.
It was neither, a deep black pit. Filled with weathered souls, all of them trying to climb out of the pit. All of them screaming and moaning, begging for my help. A few of them reached for my ankles trying to pull me in with them. Madness, the entire thing was madness. I knew that I could either fall into Hell, or run back towards the storm. Hell is where a diseased soul like I deserved to be. But I wanted to feel the warmth again, the golden rays of Heaven.
So I turned towards the storm. I started running for the other end of the field. As I approached the other end I know expected this side to be Heaven. I was wrong again.
Peering down off the edge I saw a boy in a hospital room. Hooked up to machines and needles all poked inside of him. I didn’t care so much for the boy, as I did for the girl. She was weeping, sobbing, holding on to the boys hand for dear life. She was bawling hysterically staining the sheets with her sorrows. She pleaded with the boy, asking him to come back, begging with him to return to his body.
She was Echo. And the boy she was pleading with was me.
The monitor counting my heartbeats was weak. Almost a flat line, I had to decide now. Did I run away to the depths of Hell, or did I wait out the storm and go to Heaven. Or did I return to Echo. Everyone knew where I was now, so I would have to face the consequences of running away. But I would get to be with Echo.
I felt something behind me kick me, forcing me to fall head first into the hospital room. I hugged Echo tightly but she couldn’t feel me. Everything around me went a blinding white and the room began to vanish. I was screaming but still no one could hear me. I was left alone in this white nothing, and then everything faded to black.
I could hear a faint beeping, two, maybe three different patterns all going at once. Pain started to grow ever so slightly in my head. My bones became heavier and they adjusted to gravities anchors. Was I alive? Laying in that hospital bed? Was I with Echo again? I waited a moment before pulling air into my lungs. I took a deep breath through my nose as a reassurance I was really alive.
The ultimate test would be opening my eyes, I counted down for this one. At the count of five I blink my eyes open. Everything was blurring at first, someone sitting next to me stood up and got closer, I assumed this was Echo.
After a few clarifying blinks everything became clearer. Echo had tears still running down her face, I didn’t mean to cause her pain…I never wanted to hurt her.
“Echo,” I croaked. She placed her hand on my forehead and placed a kiss on my temple.
“Shhh,” she whispered softly. “Don’t speak, just rest.”
Her words were soft and I didn’t want to speak, I was weak and I felt terrible for involving Echo in this mess. “What’s going on?” I asked, I had to figure out how I got here and what was happening to me.
She paused for a moment sitting back down in the chair beside the bed. “I don’t really know what happened… I shouldn’t have left you for so long… I should have made you stay at my house so I could take care of you. I never should have let you leave.”
The tears flowed back down her cheeks as she buried her head in her hands. She was blaming herself for my suicide attempt.
Mustering up all I could I rested my hand on hers and whispered, “Echo it had nothing to do with you.”
“I should have been there for you Kaden, you almost died because of me.”
“Don’t say that,” still whispering I don’t think she could hear me. “It wasn’t your fault,”
Her gaze turned back up towards me as she stood again. Taking my hand in hers she brushed her lips to my knuckles. “You’re safe now, I promise I’ll never leave your side again.”
I knew that she was lying, maybe she wasn’t lying, but she would come to her senses before too long. She would leave me at some point. But maybe this time I could enjoy it while it lasted, but at the same time I didn’t want to grow too attached. “You need to rest,” her delicate fingers skimmed my hair line as she placed another kiss upon my cheek.
I was beginning to think that girl may like me a little bit.
It was long after this I fell back asleep. I felt safe knowing she was sitting next to the bed, my hand still in hers, I felt at ease.
I didn’t know how long I had slept, it could have been five minutes, it could have been five hours. But I felt Echo’s hand pull from mine and it sent me into a jolting shock. I sprung up from my sleep trying to stop her. “Wait…” I said as she smiled at me from the door.
“I’ll be back tomorrow morning, I promise.” She nodded before closing the door softly.
There was a nurse in the corner of the room now, she was checking over some clipboards or something. I began to feel anxious, my chest tightened, I couldn’t breathe right. "Kaden, please just lay back down, you need to rest," the nurse said pushing on my shoulders lightly. “Just lay down,” she cooed returning to her paperwork.
My head started to spin, I didn’t want Echo to leave. But I was too tired to fight in getting her back here. I crashed back down to my pillow, I couldn’t open my eyes all the way even in the dim lighting it was too much. “Can I get you anything? Something to eat, drink, another pillow?” the nurse asked standing over my bedside.
I merely shook my head before falling back asleep.
Sleeping was the only thing I was really good at, I could sleep for days and days. One time I fell asleep in the spare bedroom of one of my foster homes and I slept for an entire weekend. No one even noticed I was missing. I considered it one of my special skills, sleeping.
I was awoken from my slumber by Echo’s light knocking. When she peeked through the door I felt my heart skip two beats. I couldn’t help but smile, and smile, and smile some more. There was no way I was going to be able to relax my cheeks before she left.
She had that smile pinned up on her lips and a brown paper sack in hand. “I hope you’re hungry,” reaching into the bag she pulled two styrofoam take-out boxes. “The nurse said you hadn’t eaten since you got here.” Getting closer to me she whispered with a smirk; “I don’t blame you, the food here is nasty.” A laugh escaped her smile before reaching for the beds remote sitting me up. "I hope you like pancakes, and if you don’t then that’s okay because these aren’t ordinary pancakes. They are the best pancakes." she handed me one of the boxes with a heaping pancake inside and some plastic utensils.
"Thank you," I placed the box in my lap and began picking apart at my breakfast.
I continued to listen to Echo talk the rest of the time she was there. She told me about the café where Amber’s mom worked. Amber was Echo’s best friend since kindergarten. She told me how when her dad was a little boy they used to put little figurines on top of the pancakes, but then stopped after it when under new management a few years back. .
“I absolutely love that place, I would eat there every morning if I could.”
"I've never been," I admitted.
"Are you serious?” Her eyes widened as she slurped a bite off her fork. “We’re going there one day. So you can eat ‘not-day-old-pancakes’,"
I nodded and finished off as much as I could eat. When I was full I closed the box and set it on the bedside table. Echo and I sat in a comfortable silence for a while listening to whatever was on the TV.
“Why are you so quiet all of the time?” Echo asked breaking the silence.
I shrugged my shoulders and stared down at my hands in my lap. “I’ve always been quiet.”
"What’s going on Kaden? You can still talk to me, it's just us here. Just like in the warehouse, it’s okay.” she said with a reassuring smile. “I want to things to stay good between us, I-I,” she stumbled over her words before laughing nervously and looking at her feet.
“You what?” I retorted with a raised eyebrow.
“I don’t know, I like hanging out with you.”
I knew that wasn’t what she was going to say but I decided to just let it go. “Let’s play twenty questions, something, anything, I wanna get to know you better.”
At first I nodded, then it occurred to me what was really going to happen; she was gonna get to know me. I never liked talking about myself, what I liked, my childhood, my current situation, I didn’t want anyone to know anything about me. “I like to stay mysterious, it keeps people guessing about me.”
“Actually it just gets people to spread rumors about you and pick on you.” Echo corrected me with a great deal of seriousness.
I couldn’t argue with her on that one, I knew there was a great deal of rumors going around about me; especially after my latest escape. I knew I would have a lot of people mad at me, having a teen run away wouldn’t look good on behalf of the state. “I can only imagine what people say about me.” I nodded quietly. Recalling famous stabs from the voices in my head I began guessing at what real people whispered as I walked by.
“Just that you’re quiet. No one really knows much about you, just little things from when you were a little kid. It seems like after fifth grade you just quit talking to everyone. In elementary school you were different but you still had friends. I remember you, Trevor, and some of the other boys would always go sit by the fifth grade doors and trade cards or whatever.”
“Pokémon,” I laughed. I remembered those days in blurs, I had a few good friends in elementary school. Those boys and I were pretty into those card games. I was always jealous because Trevor had roughly two hundred Pokémon cards when I only had about fifty. My dad taught me that if I wanted toys or games I had to figure out how to steal it without getting caught.
My grandma would buy me and pack of cards whenever I saw her, but if my dad found out I got them as a gift he would throw them away. He was always telling her not to buy things for me, telling her I didn’t deserve to be handed things without earning them.
“Don’t you miss those days? When drama was over who was being unfair in tag, and nothing was graded? When we were pressured into chugging root-beer and not actual beer? When we played night games instead of going to parties and getting pregnant? I miss those days, I miss them a lot. Sometimes I wish I could go back, just cherish the coloring pages and thank God I only had to deal with times tables.”
She wasn’t finished with her speech but without even thinking I interrupted her. “I hated those days.”
“What?” she asked looking up from the floor.
My eyes widened as I realized what I had done. I just opened up a window for conversation of my past, something I didn’t want to think about let alone explain.
“Why not?” she worked at beginning to dig deeper into her question. Her curiosity brought her to lean in closer to me.
“What?” I asked looking for any way to change the subject or at least direct the conversation away from myself.
Echo raised an eyebrow at me as if I was crazy. “You just said you hated your childhood. What was so bad about it?” she asked again.
She must have noticed the way I tensed up because she quickly wiped the confused look off her face and stood up. “I’m really sorry I wasn’t trying to bring up any bad memories or anything like that; I was just curious as to why you were always so quiet and I thought maybe your past might have something to do with all of that.”
She was spot on, but I wasn’t about to admit that to her. I wouldn’t ever admit to what happened to me those thirteen years before the state took me from my parents. Those were days I wanted to forget rather than openly discuss.
“Sometimes it’s easier to get over things if you talk about them, get them off your chest.” She added with a tender smile. “Could I sit with you? On the bed?”
I gave her a subtle nod before moving over to give her some room. Her feeble frame rested against mine as she wrapped herself around my torso. I began to feel relaxed with her in my arms. “I could never judge you Kaden, anything you tell me wouldn’t make me feel any different about you.”
“She barely knows you, don’t let her fool you. Stop being so stupid.”
I knew better than to trust someone too quickly. If my past taught me anything it was never trust anyone, and keep to yourself if you want to stay out of trouble. And the last thing I wanted right now was more trouble.
I kept my answer short, to the point. Hoping she wouldn’t ask any more questions I tried to give her a widely ranged answer. "I don’t like to waste people’s time; I'm hard to figure out, so I keep to myself." I hoped that one day I could be completely open with her, that I could finally have someone to trust. But I didn’t see that happening any time soon. Maybe after we got married, if we got married.
She nodded while she drew circles on my arms with her thumb. “I can understand that,” she couldn't possibly understand though, I was such freak and she was so perfect and beautiful. No one had any problems with Echo, she was such a social butterfly.
You couldn’t please anyone here, everyone either hated you for being just like everyone, or they were disgusted by the fact that you were different. I never really fit in as a kid with my thrift store oversized clothes and my lack of the latest toys. But I still had some friends, now I just can’t seem to find a way into any group of kids
“At least no one hates you for no reason.” I exhaled keeping my gaze locked on the tiles of the ceiling above me.
“No one has any reason to hate you. All the jerks here just need to find a new hobby.”
“What about Brecken? You’re like in love with the kid, he used to hate me in elementary school, and now he’s jealous that you’re talking to me, I wouldn’t be surprised if he tackled me next time he saw me.
With that Echo sighed and gripped my hand a little. “He has really bad anger issues, ever since his dad passed away in third grade it’s like he forgot how to deal with stress.” There was a long pause before Echo continued to defend him. “He’s always had a really big crush on me, ever since we were little kids. Our moms introduced us before kindergarten. He would always ask me to be his valentine in grade school and we would play together as kids and he always liked me. But last year when I turned fifteen he tried to take things to next level, he wanted to be my boyfriend and ultimately take my virginity. But I turned him down, and I told him I didn’t have feelings for him, I never really did. Now he’s on this “if-I-can’t-have-you-no-one-can” war path.”
I just nodded, knowing I was stealing Brecken’s girl didn’t make me want to be around Echo more that’s for sure. “I shouldn’t probably stay away from you then.”
“No,” her voice was sharp and her eyes widened. “Don’t worry about him. Here, if he gives you any troubles you just let me know and I’ll set him straight.” She promised reaching for a marker that rested on the bedside table, leaving her number scribbled down on my arm like a lifesaving tattoo.
I wasn’t sure how excited I was to have a girl defending me even though I knew well enough I had no chance at defending myself. Especially against a brick wall like Brecken.
There was a long silence after this, I was deep in thought so I didn’t mind the quiet. I just let my mind wonder. I was about to doze off as Echo asked me another question waking me back up. "So what do you like to do?"
"Nothing,” I shook my head and I tried to think of a few things I was good at. “Really, just listen to music and sleep." This wasn’t a lie, these seemed to be the only activities I was really good at. There’s no way I could live without with my music, and sleeping seemed to be my only escape from the voices.
“That can’t be all,” she said sitting up. “You have to like something other than just sleeping.”
I knew she wanted to get to know me, but I didn’t know how to answer her without exposing myself. It was weird for me to have someone so interested in me, no one has ever cared enough to want to get to know me. "Yeah, I like to draw," I added smug like.
"Okay, that's a start! Come on there’s got to be more to you than just a sleepy artist." she said, she was really digging deep at this.
I smiled laughing at her remark I started to open up and tell her about some of my other interests. "I like horror movies and Sour Patch Kids,"
"Sour Patch Kids are my favorite candy of all time. I always have some with me,” she laughed getting up to get something out of her backpack. She pulled a giant five pound bag of Sour Patch Kids to the surface. “I carry this around with me and eat them during class.” The bag sat in between us the rest of the time she was there.
Echo had to leave at around 2:30, and I started to hear the voices coming back as soon as she closed the door. It was as if they had been lurking in the shadows the whole time just waiting for her to leave.