Jamie Myers
What the fuck have I done, was all I could think to myself when I found myself seated in the waiting room of the local hospital with my hands tangled in my long hair and my eyes glued to the tiled floor beneath me. I had probably been stuck in this position for a good hour or so, just getting lost in my troubling thoughts. I made the trip to the hospital with Amy after struggling to tell her that I had accidently pushed her brother into a wall. She’d given me a look of despair like I had just killed her brother, which didn’t help at all, and insisted that we go to the hospital without notifying their mother. She wouldn’t explain why, but she said it would be best.
I dug into my pocket, anxiously searching for a blunt and lighter, and I stuck the joint into my mouth with just seconds away from lighting it when Amy spoke from beside me, “you can’t do that in here.”
I scoffed. “Fuck if I care,” I said, short.
“They can fine you,” she said again, like it would’ve made a difference.
I shrugged. “Let them.”
Growing irritated, Amy snatched the blunt from my mouth and stuck it in her purse. “You know why we’re here? Because you hurt my brother! The least you could do is have some respect and not smoke in the goddamn hospital before you hurt someone else!”
I was being harsh, I’d admit it, but it wasn’t like I could control the way I was feeling right now. I felt horrible. I felt responsible. I felt like a bad friend.
It was strange that I had decided to use that word to describe our relationship. Surely, Scar didn’t think of us as friends and I was sure we would’ve never talked to each other if it wasn’t for me blackmailing him, but I had grown to like his company. I liked making him uncomfortable and I liked teasing him and his unconditional love when it came to Francesca. It was nice to have that kind of connection with someone. It was the first connection that I truly had to someone other than my sister.
“It’s a stress thing,” I felt the need to say.
“Why are you stressing? He’s gonna be fine.”
I wanted to roll my eyes, but I tried not to. It was cute of her to have such hope, but she was wrong. Believing that someone was going to be okay didn’t automatically make them okay. Hell, I thought my parents would be okay when I left them alone in that car, but they weren't. They died.
I felt my phone buzzing in my pocket for what felt like the millionth time that day, and I should’ve known that a sigh would’ve fallen from my lips once I tugged it free and glanced at the name on the screen. I stared blankly at the phone for a few seconds, watching it vibrate in my hands, and then I pushed it back into my pocket.
Amy nudged my shoulder. “Who’s Jillian?”
“My sister.”
“Is there a reason why you keep ignoring her calls?” There was a something childish about the way she posed the question, and it made me smile.
“Let’s just say…” I brought my attention to her, “…Scar and I have something in common: we’re both bad brothers.”
Amy’s gaze lingered over the set of magazines stacked upon the coffee table in front of us before she finally said, “Scar isn’t a bad brother–at least, he wasn’t. It’s just, you know, any given circumstance can change a person. We’re all a product of our experiences and in my brother’s case … I guess, it just changed him too much.”
“What changed him?” I pried.
“Our dad’s death.”
I couldn’t stop my lips from parting in awe. “Oh, I–I, uh, I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “It’s cool. I try to be patient with Scar because I know he’s hurting inside, so no, I don’t think he’s a bad brother. And neither are you.”
I forced a laugh. “You don’t even know me.”
“I know that you care a lot for my brother,” she said, “and if you care that much for someone you just met, then I’m sure you care about your sister.”
I slumped forward and stared straight ahead, transfixed. It warmed my heart to know that Amy thought so highly of me, but I knew she couldn’t be farther away from the truth. I had abandoned my own flesh and blood in favor of a straight boy who obviously would’ve wanted nothing to do with me if I hadn’t manipulated him into thinking he needed my help. That didn’t make me a good brother, and it certainly didn’t make me a good person.
About twenty minutes later, a tall, severely tanned man in his seemingly late forties dressed in a long white coat approached us, bringing our full attention to him. His facial expression was so blank that I automatically assumed the worst. “You two are Mr. Patterson’s family?”
“I’m his sister,” Amy inserted.
“Is your mother around?” the doctor asked to which Amy just folded her hands in her lap and chewed thoughtfully on her bottom lip. “You know, I’m going to have to notify her of the accident.”
Amy jumped in her seat. “No!” she exclaimed, causing the doctor to raise an inquisitive eyebrow. “I mean, um, I really don’t want her to worry. She has a lot on her plate right now, and I don’t want to do anything that’s gonna make her drink more. She’s already here enough.”
The doctor tapped his clipboard and flicked his gaze between Amy and me, seemingly in deep thought. After a full moment, he sighed. “Mr. Patterson hit his head pretty hard, but fortunately, it did not cause much internal damage. He probably won’t remember the events leading up to the accident, but he will not otherwise suffer any type of anterograde or retrograde amnesia. He has a pretty bad concussion and will need to take it easy for the next few days,” he said. “How about you two go and see him while me and my team figure out what to do about your mother.”
A smile stretched across Amy’s face as she nearly jumped out of her seat to follow behind the doctor who led the way to Scar’s room. I followed suit with my hands dug deep into my pockets to avoid imposing more than I already had.
The lights in the hospital room were dimmed significantly. Scar was laid perfectly still in the hospital bed with his eyes shut. Nothing much could be heard in the room other than the slight whir of the air conditioning system and Scar’s soft snores. Amy rushed over to her brother’s side, pulling up a chair in the process. I stayed behind, leaning against the door frame and watching as she took her hand in his.
“You’re a real jerk, Scar,” she said with a lighthearted laugh.
Moments passed with Amy burying her head into the crook of her brother’s arm and with me just staring at the boy that I had sent to the hospital. It wasn’t my intention to get so heated over Scar’s jabs at my sexuality since it was something that I had grown accustomed to, but something about Scar being the person behind those hateful comments had put me into a dangerous state of mind. Of course, I couldn’t have expected a self-absorbed football jock like Scar Patterson to care about me enough to not want to disrespect me, especially after everything I had done for him. I was a better friend than his so-called best friend, Trey, but here I was–being blamed for caring.
This was why I swore never to care about anyone.
Scar stirred in his sleep, emitting quite a few disgruntled noises before finally opening his eyes to let them settle on his sister. “Amy,” he groaned.
“Scar!” she gasped.
“Please … don’t …” He tore his hand away from hers, “… touch me.”
Amy’s face fell flat. “Keep it up, and I’ll knock you unconscious again,” she spat, though it didn’t do much but make Scar smile.
He turned to look in my direction, brows furrowing at the sight of me. I took a deep breath, preparing myself for the blow that was sure to come, but it never did. “Stop standing there like a creep, dude.”
I stifled a laugh and waltzed further into the room to take a seat on one of the chairs.
“What happened?” he questioned.
I opened my mouth to respond, but Amy rushed to answer instead. “You were an idiot and fell down the stairs.”
“Down the stairs?” he continued to pry, disbelief lacing his words. “How the hell did I manage to do that?”
“Who knows why idiots do what they do.”
His brows continued to pull together in confusion but it seemed as though doing so had caused too much pain, because he relaxed his face muscles and threw his head back to stare at the ceiling. “Gah, my head hurts like shit.”
“Do you, uh–” I realized I had started to sound a bit too eager, so I paused to clear my throat and cool my tone. “Do you remember anything?”
Scar started to fiddle with the wires hooked up to his arm. “I certainly don’t remember falling down the stairs,” he stated with a slight scoff. He stopped touching the wires when his gaze fell onto the bedside table where his phone was vibrating harshly. He glanced at the caller ID, and frowned. “That fucking bastard.”
“Trey?” I questioned, wondering how Scar conveniently remembered punching his best friend, but not kissing me.
“Yeah, some best friend he is. Remind me to finish what I started with him when we’re back at–ah, shit, is today Wednesday? I’m supposed to be at the carnival helping out with the booth.” He began to kick himself out of his blankets, but Amy protested.
“It’s okay,” she said. “The team knows what happened, so you get the day off.”
Scar stopped fidgeting and fell silent. For a while, this silence embodied the air between us three, and it wasn’t until the doctor re-entered the room did it creep away. “Um, Amy, is it okay if I we have a little chat? I’m going to you to convince the chief about not getting your mother involved in this accident.”
“Um…” Amy glanced back at her brother, who had already started to drift into sleep, before reluctantly lifting herself from her seat, “…uh, yeah sure.” She sent me a look of reassurance just as she crept past me to follow the doctor’s lead.
“Remind me why we’re not telling your mom you’re in the hospital?” I pried, grabbing the brown-haired boy’s attention before he could fully lose himself in another sleep session.
“My mom’s a drunk,” he said, “she’ll lose her fucking mind if she finds out.”
“Well, I mean, you are her son. She has a right to know if you–”
“She doesn’t need to know everything,” he spat, rather harshly. “I’m alive, that’s all that matters.”
I nodded as though I understood so that I could let the topic go, but I didn’t understand. For the past few years, Eugene had been making me and my sister’s lives a living hell with his ‘parenting’ tactics. Even though I didn’t doubt that Scar’s mother was a mess because of her alcoholism, I knew that she loved him. I would kill to still have loving parents.
“Since I have a day off, we should do something,” Scar spoke once more, pulling me out of my thoughts.
“You? Want to do something? With me?”
“Who else would I do something with? My best friend’s outta commission for sleeping with my ex.”
“We don’t know if he was sleeping with her…”
“He’s definitely sleeping with her. Francesca sleeps with everyone, except me.”
I cocked my head to the side, somewhat intrigued by the way Scar’s chin fell after he finished speaking. I didn’t see the appeal in Francesca. She was pretty, yeah, but the way Scar talked about her made it seem like she was so much more.
“Well,” I cleared my throat in an attempt to change the subject. “I like ice cream.”
Scar smiled a little, and crazy enough, it made my heart jump a little. “Ice cream it is.”
▪▪▪
It was almost six when we arrived at the local ice cream place, right across the street from a Summer Hill’s most popular coffee spot, The Busy Bean. It was quite packed as most people were on their way home from work and school, so we must’ve stood in line for over twenty minutes. I could tell Scar was getting annoyed based on the way he seemed to always poke the inside of his cheek with his tongue whenever a child screamed. I wanted to make small talk, to say anything to relieve myself of the guilt I was feeling, but I didn’t know how to.
It was hard not to talk about the obvious elephant in the room–Scar had kissed me while drunk–but talking about it was out of the question because he didn’t even remember it.
“What’s your favorite ice cream?” was what I settled on.
Scar folded his arms against his chest and shrugged. “Not a fan.”
“Then why’d we come here?”
“You said you like ice cream.”
“Well, yeah, but you’re the one with the concussion.”
He gazed into my eyes with his turquoise ones. “Look, I owe you for not letting me completely blow my top at the party last night.”
“You’re welcome, Patterson.” I flashed him a toothy grin just before stepping up to the cashier. “Can I have two cones of birthday cake, three scoops each?”
Scar scoffed from beside me. “You’re going to eat two cones of ice cream?”
Just as the cashier handed me my order, I glanced at him. “No,” I corrected while handing him one of the cones. “You’ve been eyeing it ever since we got in here. So much for not being a fan.”
His brows knitted together as he glanced down at the colorful ice cream, complete with crushed brownies, fudge, and sprinkles. Something strange flicked in his eyes, but it was hard to decipher. “Shit, dude, thanks … I guess.”
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