Skye paced up and down. He kept telling me about this amazing date he had with Natasha tonight and it felt like I was going to go insane. I am not blind and I can clearly see that he really enjoyed it so I was desperately trying to keep my opinions to myself. I swear I could feel my eye twitching.
I spent the whole week avoiding school. I would sneak in and out of the house during the day to go surfing. I had to borrow Tyler's surfboard since mine is nothing but a pile of ashes in the junkyard somewhere.
It felt so amazing to be able to be in the water again. It was the only thing that I was looking forward to recently. It was like I never left and the ocean welcomed me back with open arms.
I cannot show my face at school again. All the bravado I had in the Red Flag about not caring about what anyone thought and about being brave is now a distant memory. The reality of the situation has begun to sink in. I had to get a new cell phone number just to stop the phone calls and texts. I deleted all of my social media accounts; Twitter, Instagram, SnapChat and Facebook because people kept leaving degrading messages and pictures on my profiles. They started to harass me online constantly. I just needed a break. How can people be so cruel? Did they not all attend the same cyberbullying seminar we had in the beginning of this year?
I spent most of the week rereading some of my favorite books while I sat on the beach or in the Red Flag; The perks of being a wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, Hate List by Jennifer Brown and 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher.
I kept getting this feeling like something big was about to happen in the next few weeks. Something life changing, or maybe I was just silently praying that we could have a new start somehow.
Skye told me about how Natasha and he, they went to this old public park and they spent hours drinking take-away coffee and talking. It sounded innocent enough, but there was something that he was not telling me. I could see it in the way he appeared more relaxed; the way he was talking way more than usual, and the fact that when he got home he went straight to the kitchen to get something to eat. I knew the signs. I have lived with my mother long enough to know what they mean. My brother was using. After seeing how completely messed up my mother is; how could he do that to himself willingly?
"Okay. What did you take?"
"What? Nothing. Why would you ask that?" His fingers twitched involuntarily. I sat on the matrass below the staircase in his room that was in the garage. I spent most of my time hiding here if for some reason I was home during the day. I tried to stay out until Skye got out of school. That way I did not have to risk to be alone with Goliath.
"You are talking to me Skye. So just tell me...I am going to find out in anyway."
He gave a loud sigh and bit his lower lip as he looked at me.
"Just do not freak out, okay?"
"Tell me" I lifted up my one eyebrow.
"Fine...I may have...Sort of...Been smoking weed the last few days, but that is it. I am not going to take anything stronger. I promise." He sounded like our mother. That was how she started.
I choked on my own spit and sat up straight.
"You did what!"
"Come on. You said you would not freak out!"
"No I did not!"
"Yes you did!"
"No I did not and weed, seriously? You know this is only the start."
"It was only a few times. It is no big deal."
"So you are telling me that you have not done anything else other than weed? You did not drink alcohol with it? Or maybe take a few pills?"
"Seriously Mac...I...." He bit his lip again and looked away. That was a definite yes.
"If it is no big deal, then stop."
He looked at me and flicked his tongue. It was something that he learnt from my mother, she always did it when she was upset.
"Mac leave it. Okay. I am not a pot-head or a junkie. It is...just that...It has helped me to relax. I have not felt this good in a long time."
"That last sentence is the reason you have to stop."
"Why? Just stop freaking out will you? You have no idea what has been going on. You have no idea what Goliath has been..."
"What are you talking about? What did Goliath do?"
He looked annoyed. Before I could ask him again we heard a loud noise coming from upstairs in the kitchen as someone knocked something down.
Goliath was home.
"Boy! Where are you! Get here now!"
Skye suddenly looked petrified. He swallowed and ran up the stairs towards the kitchen. Goliath started frantically throwing things around. He began to moan and groan.
"You! Boy! Where is it" He pointed at Skye.
"Where is what?" Skye pushed me behind him.
"The money that was in the fridge! I know you took it!"
"What money?" Goliath grabbed Skye by the shirt and pulled him up.
"It was my money!"
"Which you got where? I wish I could get paid to sit around and do nothing." Goliath punched Skye in the face. His head went backwards.
"Where is it?" He started shaking Skye and he punched him again.
"Stop! I do not know what you are talking about! Maybe mom took it to buy some food!" Goliath lifted his fist to punch Skye again but I jumped onto his back in protest.
"Leave him alone!" I tried to break the hold he had on Skye.
He threw me off and I fell onto the tiled floor. I slammed the side of my head against the tiles, but I instantly jumped up again. This time I was not going to just stand by and let Goliath beat up on him. He threw Skye against the kitchen sink. He was getting ready to kick him. I kicked him in the shin and he temporarily lost his balance. He composed himself by holding onto the table.
He growled as he rushed towards me and shoved me towards the ground. I fell and started to back up as he walked towards me.
"You little..."
"What is going on here?"
For once in my life I was happy to see my mother. Skye was leaning against the sink holding an old piece of cloth to his nose which was bleeding. His lip was busted and he had a gash on his forehead where he had hit it against the sink. His shirt was completely crumpled and blood stained. I was on the floor with a blue bruise against the side of my head. It must have looked like quite the scene.
"That b%^&$ son of yours stole the money in the fridge!"
"I did nothing! I told you!"
"I will..." Skye backed away instantly.
"Stop it! I took the money last night to buy you more beer, remember?"
All three of us stood frozen in one place. Did my mother just stand up to Goliath in our favor? Goliath stormed out of the room. My mother looked at both of us and left the room. What was that?
I stood up and ran towards Skye.
"Oh crap. It looks bad. It might be broken and you are definitely going to need stitches in your head. I think we might have to go to the Hospital." Skye groaned. We both hated Hospitals. We have been there way too many times.
"You know we can't...Mom would have to take us and the chances of that happening are next to nothing."
"Well. She actually stood up to Goliath. Maybe...I will go talk to her." I bit my lip while I ran towards my mother's room.
♦
At the Hospital we waited almost an hour before one of the Doctors could help us. Skye looked pale and he was shaking from the blood loss. By then the blood had already stopped flowing from his nose. We did not have a Medical Aid. We were lucky that we got helped in an hour. It could have been longer.
My mom filled in the forms while the Doctors took him to one of the rooms. The Doctor looked at Skye and said that fortunately for us his nose was only fractured and not broken. The Doctor had to put stitches in his head. First he injected the wound with a needle and then he began to weave the wound together. He had to get a total of four stitches. Which was nothing really. The Doctor wanted to keep Skye in the Hospital for at least an hour just to make sure that the bleeding did not start back up again.
The Doctor was worried because he had really low blood pressure and he seemed anemic. My mother explained her version of what happened but the Doctor wanted to talk to Skye alone. I wondered if they would call Child Protective Services. Usually we would pay cash and give fake names. It was procedure to call CPS after certain unusual injuries showed up.
My mother went on a smoke break and the Doctor cornered us.
"How did the injuries take place young man?"
"I got into a fight with some of the kids in the neighborhood."
I walked out of the room as the Doctor asked Skye some more questions. The Doctor said that he would give Skye some medication for the pain.
Without thinking of where I was going I ended up walking towards the reception desk. There was a short blonde girl who was probably only a few years older than I was. She looked at me from the bottom to the top. She was judging me.
"Can I help you?"
"Um...Yes...Could you tell me in which room Harper Brown is?" The girl looked me up and down again in a rude manner. What was her problem?
"And who are you? Hoe ken jy hom?"
"I know him from school."
"I am not allowed to give out the personal information of a patient." She looked down and ignored me.
"Are you being serious? I just want to know his room number not his blood type."
"It is not necessary to be rude, okay?" The blonde chick looked at the computer screen and typed extremely slowly on the keyboard. "He is in the private area room number 24 C, but visiting hours..."
I disappeared before she could finish her sentence. I did not even know why I wanted to see Harper. For some reason or other it felt like I was drawn towards him. I have not seen him since he jumped off the pier. I was sort of curious. What if he was awake this whole time? What if he was faking it?
I snuck into the private area, which was not easy. I stood out like a sore thumb. Why do people say that? It does not make any sense. I stand out because people are not used to seeing people like me in this division of the Hospital. I was a young girl with a bright colored skirt over black leggings and a black shirt with a picture of Nightmare Before Christmas on it. My hair was a mess, as usual and I had dark make-up on.
It was kind of quiet in the hallways.
I walked down the one hallway and there was literally no one. It reminded me of this one game I played years ago at a friend's house; Resident Evil. It looked abandoned.
I looked at the numbers on top of the doors.
24 (A) Clarkson, C
24 (B) Davids, A
24 (C) Brown, H
I took a deep breath and pushed the door open. I did not know what to expect.
Harper was lying on the Hospital bed. His hair was cut unusually short for him and there was a thin pink scar which ran from the left side of his head to the area in the back where the hair was growing back in patches. They must have shaved off his hair when he first got here. They must have performed brain surgery on him. There was a bunch of cables everywhere. He had what looked like a pipe down his throat. The machine sounded like an airplane. It must be breathing for him.
The two IV's connected to his wrist were attached to two different colored bags. The bed cover almost completely shielded him except for his lifeless arms lying on top. He looked so thin and frail, nothing like the egotistical and rude Harper who I knew. No one deserved this, not even him.
I started to shake nervously as I walked closer. Why did he jump? Was it really a prank that backfired? Or is there some dark secret reason that no one knew? I walked closer and went to go and sit next to the bed. There was no "get well soon" cards, gifts or flowers in the room. It was nothing but white.
"You messed everything up. You know that? Why did you have to tell everyone that I pushed you? Why did you have to jump in the first place?" I shook him lightly but he kept laying there lifeless.
All of a sudden I found myself extremely jealous of Harper. Why was he able to escape and lay here sort of happy, while I had to carry the burden and the consequences of his actions?
I jumped up and made fists with my hands.
"I hate you! I wish you could just wake up and tell everyone the truth! The f*&^% police was at my house to do an investigation. Did you not once stop to think that I already had enough people hating me in my life? Arghhh! You are probably aware of everything and you are enjoying every second of this hell." I stopped talking and expected him to open up his eyes and laugh at me.
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence and I sat back down next to him.
"So...Here we both are...In a Hospital. I hate Hospitals. A bunch of Doctors who think that they know more than anyone else...Darn it...I am sorry for saying that I hated you. I don't...Well I do...or I did..." I stutter. "I do not understand you Harper. Why do you hate us so much? My brother is in the Hospital because my mother's boyfriend Goliath hit him. He is such a jerk. He is getting worse and worse...If that is even possible. I have no idea why I am telling you this. You can probably not hear me and even if you could, you would probably not care. The Doctor had to give him stitches and morphine for the pain. My mother is busy making sure that no one finds out what really happened. Do you remember when we played spin the bottle and it landed on you? ...I remember how mad you were...I am busy mumbling...I am really sorry that I was such a jerk towards you, even though you were mean first. I am sorry for laughing at you when you slipped and all of the eggs fell on you in the kitchen. The thing I am the most sorry for, is that I could not stop you from jumping. That I was probably one of the reasons...That I...I think I know why..." I froze when I heard a man's voice behind me. Mister Brown's cold voice.
"What do you think you are doing in my son's room?"
Mister Brown stood behind me. He pulled me to my feet by grabbing my arm. He pulled really hard and it started to hurt.
"Leave me alone! I did nothing! He jumped!" He just kept shaking me.
"My son is not a coward! He would not have jumped!"
"How would you know? You weren't there!"
"I did not have to be there to know that my son would not have jumped. You pushed him and now you have come to finish the job!"
"No! I didn't. Leave me alone. You are hurting me!" His grip tightened.
"This is nothing compared to how much pain my son went through. Leave. Get out! I don't want to see you again! Do you hear me?" He pulled me closer to him.
"Yes Sir..." Mister Brown let go of me and I ran out of the room. I rubbed my arm. It was definitely going to leave a bruise.
There was something off about him. He scared me. There was something in his eyes like thunder that would hit anything that stood in its way. He was dangerous. Something inside of me told me that he was the reason that Harper wanted to commit suicide.
I ran back to where Skye was. He was laying in the same bed. He was as high as a kite by the time I got back. The second I walked in he gave me a huge smile.
"Mackey!!!!!!!! Everyone this is my sister! Hi Mackey! Big Mac! The Mac! The Doctor injected me with something. I think it was morphine...I like morphine...My hair is fluffy..." He yelled and touched his hair. I started laughing.
"Somewhere over the rainbow......blue birds fly...I want to get to the other side of the rainbow sis. Can we go looking for blue birds?" I laughed even louder.
"Yes Skye we can go look for blue birds..."
"And a pot of gold!" Skye gave a corny smile.
"Yes and we are going to go look for gold." I shook my head. Apparently the weed and whatever else he took did not go well together with the morphine. I should have insisted that they not give him anything. I wonder if they tested his blood. My mother would freak if she found out.
"Mac! I want a muffin...A chocolate chip muffin with those tiny little sprinkles on it... Do you know the muffin man...?"
"The muffin man?"
"Yes! The muffin man!" He looked at me with this serious expression. "You can't trust the muffin man. He ate all of the muffins. He steals muffins. He is a serial muffin killer." He started laughing again.
"Miss Prince...Your mother is busy talking to one of the nurses outside..."
"Mac? Why do they call a bed a bed? What if a bed was actually called a table then it would be perfectly normal to sleep on a table and to eat on a bed."
I awkwardly looked at the Doctor. I could see that he wanted to discuss something serious with us.
"I checked your file...This is the..." He looked at the clipboard. "Fifth visit to the Hospital in the last eighteen months. It is very suspicious. I would like to know..."
"Just don't okay. What do you expect to get out of this conversation? Do you want to tell me that you are worried about us? About my brother? That this is a safe place where we can tell you anything? That we can trust you? Why would you care if you honestly know nothing about us? Or maybe you are one of those Doctors that watched a random movie a while back that had similar circumstances to this and the lead character saved the poor defenseless children? Is this the part where you give us your card and you tell us to call you whenever anything bad happens? Then what? You feel as if though you did your good deed for the day and you go home feeling perfectly content with your life and completely forgetting that we exist. Well. Doctor whatever your name is, I really do not care about what will make you feel better about yourself. If you do not mind I am going to take my brother home, my mother is waiting for us and you can go on saving people's lives. We do not need you to save us. Everything is fine."
I helped Skye off of the bed and he fell forwards.
"Ouch! Have you ever noticed how hard the floor is? Do you hear that sound? It sounds like a phone ringing. Is it coming from the floor? Hello? It's me. Can you hear me?" Skye held his ear against the floor.
"Your brother needs to stay for at least another half hour for observation. I am going to give your mother pills that your brother needs to take every four hours. Let me help you..." He bent down and helped Skye onto the bed.
"Well aren't you helpful..." I said sarcastically. If my mother even suspected that we told the truth we would be in a lot of trouble.
"Oh my word! Mac! I Love you!!!!" Skye gave me a hug and I hugged him back.
"I love you too Skye"
"If everything is fine can we go now?" I hear my mother's voice and I let go of Skye.
"As I was just telling your daughter and son, he must remain in the hospital for at least another half hour. Could I please talk to you outside about something we found in your son's blood tests...?"
The Doctor and my mother left the room.
"Be my log when the fire is low, when the fire is low, when the fire..." I look down at Skye who had started to sing again. I softly laughed and waited for my mother to come back. I really hoped that they did not call social services on my mother. I have heard horror stories of what happens to kids who are in orphanages or foster homes.