Straight Boys - Chapter 8: Chapter 8

Do you ever feel lost? Not like you're wandering around unfamiliar territory trying to find your way back home, but just lost. You're home, or you're somewhere you've been many times, done different things there, or with the people who guide you through tough times, yet you can't seem to find your way? Their directions aren't helping, nor are the constant feelings of hopelessness you get when you can't get a grip of the situation to help yourself get back to where ever it is you're going. That kind of lost, where you're there, but not there at the same time, where you don't know what the Hell you're doing or why you're even doing it anymore.
That's the kind of lost I felt as I sat in a hospital chair in the ICU where my mother and sister sat in their comatose states.
It had been a few days since the party, since the occurrence with Zachary Rogers in my kitchen, a Thursday. A week since everything started spiraling down hill, jumbling together, becoming a confusing mess. A week of Zachary Rogers giving me fleeting glances in the halls and my time spent in and out of hospitals, where I was skipping football practice to be with my loved ones; the people I cared about more than myself.
My dad was at the hospital's cafeteria getting dinner for us, so I was alone, free to just sit there like a vegetable. My tired eyes stared down at the person who took most of the beating, my mother, with my larger hand engulfing her frail and pale one. It was cold, her skin, so I was doing everything in my power to give her my body heat, to somehow will my life, my power into her through skin-on-skin contact. It wasn't working, obviously. Her skin never really heated up; she just stayed a constant chill, her whole body, that was covered head to toe in bandages and bonds and casts and an IV in her arm and a feeding tube was always feeling chilled. How could she not? She sustained a number of hits from the impact of the car.
The doctor had said she took the brute of the force, that she had encased Lola, shielding her daughter from the man that got to get up and walk away without a single scratch. He had said that their fractures had aligned, yet my mom had it worse, and more thrusted upon her body.
How could she not? She may have saved Lola, but at her own cost, at their own cost. They both had broken pelvis', a few broken ribs, yet she had hit her head against the street, keeping Lola tight to her chest so my little sister wouldn't injure her developing little brain. They both were beat up, but my mother was broken inside, literally.
And I blamed myself for it because they had called me. My dad had called me to get Lola from her friend's house a few blocks away from us as I drove back home, but I didn't pick up. He had called again to tell me they found my mom and Lola curled up just outside of Mrs. Rayburn's house, an old, beat up truck all dented and like it had been in a crash. He had called me again to tell me that it was a drunk driver and he was alive and well and really sorry. And he called again, to tell me that they had rushed to the hospital because my mother was suffering a fatal hemorrhage in her brain and my sister was falling in and out of consciousness with profuse blood loss and no feeling in her right arm. I blamed myself for that.
I should have blamed Coach Matthews, fuck, I should have blamed Zachary Rogers for all that happened. It was his fault for everything, but... I couldn't bring myself to even put an ounce of blame on him. I couldn't and I didn't know why. No, wait. Yes I did.
Because I didn't call them back.
Because I was supposed to pick Lola up as soon as I got off practice.
Because if I had done that, then nobody would have gotten hurt; only the bastard that decided it was alright to drink and drive.
Maybe that's the real reason why you never ate his stupid breakfast a few days ago?
"Hey..." It was my dad, his face pale and hollow as he took in my hunched over state, his none too brighter by the way his blonde hair limply laid atop his head and eyes dully looked at me from behind the lens of his glasses. He was dealing with this situation much worse than I was, unable to bring himself to eat or sleep. I think he blamed himself for it, too, but I reminded him every day that it wasn't his fault and that they were going to be okay when I, myself, didn't believe the lies spewing from my mouth when I had told him that.
He walked into the hospital room with a tray of food for us to eat. On the tray, I could see two cups of coffee and a cup of ice water, and two plates of what looked like enchiladas. He trudged to the table on the other side of Lola's bed to set the food down, all the while not uttering another word until, "It's almost time for football practice. Are you going?" Like I said in the beginning, I was skipping. I already missed everything last Thursday, I wasn't doing it again.
I shook my head and stood to grab the plate of food I would most likely just poke and prod at without much hunger. This time, after grabbing a coffee and a plate, I sat in the chair next to Lola's bed instead. My father stayed standing over Lola, his frame frozen like he was a picture. His brown eyes pierced the scratches on Lola's face, and all the wrapping circling her body.
I did the same, my burning eyes going over her blonde hair cut short to access her head better, her pale cheeks scarred and the oxygen tube stuck into her nose uncaringly. She didn't look peaceful, not one bit in that coma of hers. She looked stiff and broken, just like our mom.
"Okay. That's okay. You can stay here, but I think you should go," I snapped my eyes over to my dad, taking in his unmoved state. He didn't return my stare, only crossed his arms with a sort of calm trepidation and clenched his jaw in thought, the muscles ticking. "What?"
"You should go. Don't waste away in here with the depression I know is clawing at you and go be a teenager. Leave it all here with me. I can handle it." No you can't. He could barely handle his sorrow himself.
I firmly stated, "No," my untouched dinner going to sit on the side table holding one of Lola's gifts she had gotten from Mrs. Rayburn. He only glanced at me, his nostrils flaring with an intake of breath. That was the end of the discussion. I wasn't leaving him, or my sister and mother. I needed to be there just in case something happened.
What if my mother pulled the dying card again?
What if Lola woke up? I mean, the doctor had said that she would wake up first with how little she actually took compared to my mom.
What if something happened to my dad? It was possible, given his weight loss and constant silence.
I couldn't stand it for a split second if anything, anything happened while I wasn't here. I had already missed one opportunity, and I wasn't missing another. Even if it was an outrageous, a terrible, horrible, cruel act that physically killed me. I wouldn't miss it. I needed to be there.
When I thought my father had finally dropped the subject, he started it up again. "I just want you to keep on living normally. You have friends, I'm sure, you'd like to talk to, what was his name? Rodriguez? Him, he seems to be your friend. I want you to be normal. It's been a week and I've seen you do nothing but go to school and then come straight here." He had a point, but then I remembered: what friends? I didn't really have any friends, just a family I had to stand, my teammates I had to devote my presence to for the sake of keeping up a title I had built for myself.
"I'd rather be here than where I can't see Lola waking up or mom... mom waking up, too." I meant it. I didn't have to practice football, I mean, being that I wasn't going to college for it, more like psychology or some shit like it. Football was just a hobby I happened to used to love.
"I know. I know, Andrew, but you gotto go. You can't let something like this throw your teenage life away." I contorted my features and threw my arms up in exasperation. "I'm not letting something like this throw away my life, dad! Don't you think I should be here for Lola, for mom?!" This kind of trauma was changing him. He was becoming a shell of what I once knew, a man I knew would want his son to be with his family every step of the way when something like this happened, the man that defended my own actions, not tell me how to do those actions. He was so different, that he wanted me to leave my family in a time like this! I was heated, now, and I would have left. I was about to.
But I didn't because that would mean he'd won the battle, and I couldn't let him.
Abruptly standing, I was on the verge of blowing a fuse. "If I can't 'waste away' in here, then neither can you! That's so unfair! So unfair!" It was! He told me that I needed to live my life and not worry about my sister or mom because they were going to be fine. I only half believed that and that's why I never wanted to leave, because I was worried. Surely he knew that because he was worried, too! He was worried about them and me, when he should have only been worrying about them! Or even himself! If he'd gotten a good look in the mirror lately, I think he might have, but his own well being was of no concern to him. Just his wife and two ruined children.
"No it is not, Andrew James. It's not unfair because unlike you, I've already lived my teenage years, spent them with your mother and I am determined to spend these coming months with her, to be there for her and our daughter!" He wasn't getting it!
"I know, Dad, I know! And don't you think I want to, too?! She may be your wife, and she may be your daughter, but she's my mother, she's my sister!" I pointed to both girls on either side of me, trying my hardest to get my point through my old man's thick skull.
"Exactly! They wouldn't want you living in a hospital with them, when you could be living out there," he pointed an aging finger towards the window, "They can handle themselves with the doctors' help!" His face said otherwise. His whole posture was screaming at me not to leave, yet his words were a different thing, his mouth having a mind of its own. Everything about him was contradicting itself because he wanted what was best for me, but what did he know? What did he know what was best for me? It was my life and I knew what was best for me. Me. I choose how I live, nobody else.
"I don't care! I don't care if the doctors cure them right now! I want to be there when they do! You of all people should -" I stopped mid fight when the heart monitor to Lola's left started flashing, shrieking bloody murder. Her heart rate was spiking, and I didn't know why.
My father and I thrusted forward, our hands going to squeeze Lola's hands. "Lola, Lollipop? Baby," he kept whimpering softly in a panic next to me. My dad was shattering even more and I couldn't stop it. I couldn't stop it because I was breaking, too. I couldn't stop it because I didn't know what was happening. I was on the verge of tears as nurses clad in different colored scrubs came rushing in, about seven of them, then followed by Doctor Rosin.
A burly nurse dressed in green scrubs suddenly grabbed a hold of me, his large arms wrapping around my torso as he pulled me away from Lola's bed. "No! That's my sister! What's wrong with my sister?!" I screamed, struggling against his strong arms. I kicked and pushed against him, desperate to get a glimpse of what they were doing to my sister. I couldn't see anything except my father yelling at a small Asian nurse kindly yet urgently directing him out of the room. He was more compliant than I was, yet I could see his face turning beat red with anger.
"Is my daughter going to be alright?" He demanded as he came through the closing doors of my mom and sister's hospital room.
"I can't say right now, sir, but they are doing everything in their power to help your daughter. I promise."
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So since I won't be updating for a while, I'm posting this chapter early. It is quite different from the last one, but I wanted to give Andrew a life outside of football. I wanted to show you a slightly darker side to the story, a sadder part. Not much of Zachary in this one because I wanted to show you that they still aren't really together as friends yet.
But please LIKE AND COMMENT because it would mean bunches. I tell you this everytime, but I mean it. It makes me feel good and motivated.
And this chapter, I would like to recognise suddnlyMe for keepin on keepin with my book. (You're still reading wooop!)
Thank youuuuuu.