I told my manager that I had to leave early since my sister was in the hospital.

"Really?" he asked, standing up from his desk. "I'll drive you there."

I shake my head. "Oh, no, I can't. You need to manage this place."

"I don't think Casey will ruin this place. It's fine."

"My dad will drive me," I quickly say. "He's already on his way."

He nods and sits back down in his chair. Loosing a worker during their shift is very hard for this small café since there's not a lot of workers who want to work overtime.

I wait anxiously outside under the awning of the café, and I see my dad's car driving down the street. He pulls up to the curb and I quickly get inside, driving off afterwards. The drive to the hospital is silent, and it's kind of awkward but normal at the same time. Our dad doesn't usually talk to us if he's driving, but after the terrible incident that just happened, I feel like at least one of us should say something.

We make it to the room where Rain is in, and she's laying there on the hospital bed with a bruised face. She's not awake, though. My mom stand up from a chair and hugs both of us.

"Is Rain... okay?" I ask her.

"I don't know," my mom replies. "She may have brain damage. She was in a C.T. scan already, and the doctors are looking at it now. There's really nothing we can do until then."

I sat there for hours, not really doing anything. My mom talked quietly to my dad, clearly not wanting me to hear what they had to say. Some of the words were loud enough for me to hear, but I couldn't put them together to find out what they were saying. "Earnest should leave," my dad says out loud. "He still has to do homework and has school tomorrow."

My mom looks up from the floor. "Okay, yeah. I'll stay here overnight."

"Overnight? You want me to stay too?" My dad asks as I stand up and walk to the door.

"Tom, just go home. Stay with Earnie."

My dad sighs. "Okay, see you tomorrow, then." He moves to my mom and hugs her kissing her on the forehead. "Bye."

"See you tomorrow." The first thing I've said in hours. It feels weird.

My mom hugs me and I walk out the door, my dad following behind me.

"Wait, one more thing Tom!" My mom calls. I stay outside in the hallway while my dad walks back inside the room. My mom whispers something in his ear and he looks at me then nods.

My dad and I walk out of the hospital and into the car, quiet as before. We don't try to start a conversation at all, and when we get home I go up into my room.

Why does everything have to be like this? It just happens that Todd reads the private note between Sarah and me where I say I just want to kill my sister. Then Todd puts it on social media, making it even worse. And when I thought that everything was over, Rain falls down the staircase, hitting her head. As these thoughts run through my head, the less I want to go to school tomorrow. I sit in my swivel chair and groan, starting my homework since it's the only reason why I came home early.

About two hours later, I hear a knock on my door, which can only be from my dad. "Come in," I mumble.

My dad opens the door and walks inside. "Has anything been on your mind? I'm so sorry I didn't talk to you at the hospital. Your mom has been so worried. I told her your sister will be fine, but..."

"She fell down the stairs. How can she be fine?" I ask, putting down my dad's words.

He sits on my bed, letting out a long sigh. "I was... trying to make her feel better, of course."

I think my dad is also trying to convince himself that Rain'll be fine. I'm scared too, but there's noting we can do. My dad stands up and walks to the door and the guilt of what I had just done to him sinks in. He was just trying to help me out.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to put you down like that," I say, walking to him.

"It's okay, Earnest, I know you didn't mean it. It's just... hard right now."

"I don't want Rain to die." I hug him, which I haven't done since I graduated middle school. I can kind of tell my dad is taken aback by this since he doesn't hug me back right away.

"I don't either," he replies, patting my back. "Just try to get some sleep." He points to the clock on my desk. "It's getting late."

I change out of my work clothes—which I'm still in because I hadn't come home since I left for work—and into my pajamas (which is essentially just a t-shirt and shorts). Afterwards I go to the bathroom and brush my teeth quickly. When I get back to my room, I take off my glasses and put them on my nightstand, turning off the lamp.

My dad comes in my room a few minutes after I tuck myself into bed. The light from the hallway streams into my room onto the wall that I'm facing. "You're asleep already," he says to himself. "Goodnight, Earnest."

I don't say anything but just hold the edge of my blanket tighter in my hands. He closes the door and turns off the light in the hallway so it doesn't show through the edges of the door. I curl up into a ball on my bed as I think about everything that'll happen tomorrow at school.

But I guess I did see Alexander today at the café after four years, and that was the only positive part of my day. I actually held up a conversation with him, and he called me 'the smart one' in my class. I hope I wasn't acting like I was very nervous. I want him to at least think I'm a good person, not a weird, awkward person.

"Alexander," I whisper to myself. I'm the shy kid who sits in the back of the classroom. He's the jock of the school. The popular kid with traits any girl could ask for. Two polar opposites, but there is that one saying: opposites attract.