This is where my memory fades. I don't remember ever being rescued from the machine. I don't remember ever getting treatment for my injuries. They must have given me something to make me sleep, but I don't remember having any dreams either.

The next part that I can remember is waking up in a hospital bed. For the first few seconds, I didn't know where I was, and I didn't recall any of the events that led me there. My head felt like it was floating above me, detached from the rest of my body. My eyes took longer to focus than they usually should. I looked to my left to see my father collapsed into a blue and purple chair, legs stretched out before him and face tucked into his hand. I looked to my right; there was no one.

I relaxed back into the flattened pillow by my head. Taking a deep breath, it was effortless, and I didn't remember enough at the time to appreciate that.

There were still some tiny pains: those scattered across my back and a sharper one in my chest. Every part of my skin itched, and scratching it, although wholly satisfying in a way, only made it itch more, making me scratch deeper and more determinedly.

My father came to pull my hands away. "Stop," he said. "You'll hurt yourself."

He was wearing that suit – the navy blue with silver streaks. It reminded me of something. The last time I'd seen it – when was that?

The emergency room!

The memories came charging back. The beach, the fall, the sun, the dreams. Arriving at the hospital, Joy crying into my father's shoulder, being dragged away into the scary, bright hallways.

"Where's Joy?" I asked.

"Don't worry about that, Jaime," he spoke through a sigh.

"Where's Joy?" I asked, more forcefully this time.

He shook his head and sighed once more, turning around and pulling the chair towards my hospital bed. As he fell back into it, he assumed the same position he had before: legs extended in front of him with a hand cupping his forehead, thumb pressing into his temple. He rested an elbow on an arm of the chair and slowly dragged his hand down his face to sit his chin into his palm.

"Where's Joy?" I asked again.

He took a deep breath in and finally lifted his eyes to meet mine. "James, we're not talking about Joy. We need to talk about you." He was chilly in his delivery. A perfect balance of disappointment and lack of emotion. That's not Dad, I thought. Dads aren't supposed to be like this. Dads are supposed to call you buddy and laugh at your jokes and buy you ice cream when you ask. And Dads aren't supposed to be sad, ever. Dads are supposed to be happy and to remind you to be happy when you forget.

"Where – "

"Stop asking about Joy!" he screamed, slapping the arms of the chair. He looked to the door and buried his nose into a newly formed fist. I was instantly silenced, didn't dare make a sound, save perhaps the inadvertent whimpers that might have escaped my mouth at each inhale. When I blinked, the first of many tears began to fall.

His face became redder, his eyes shinier. He brought both his hands to his laps and clapped them together.

"What were you thinking, Jaime? Do you not think of anyone else? You wanted to have a fun day at the beach, didn't you?" I looked down to the blanket covering my legs and tried to search for a feeling of stillness. "Didn't you!" I jumped and nodded in response. "So what did we do? We made that happen. For you. And what did you do? You ruined it." He adjusted himself in his chair, leaning forward and tucking his feet underneath himself. "And why? Why? I'll tell you why. Because you were only thinking of yourself. You didn't think your mother or your sister wanted to have a nice day at the beach? What about everyone else that went there this morning? You didn't think of them?" He stood now, began pacing up and down the room, running his fingers through his hair, bringing his hands to his waist then crossing his arms around his torso then bringing his hands to his waist again. "You know, you're really lucky? Other a few broken ribs, a collapsed lung, a couple scars you'll have to live with, but you could have died. And where would you have left your mother and me then? What, you think you're a lion, that's it? Well, I have news for you bud. You're not. You're a human, with human responsibilities. You can't be so...so careless with yourself. You're too old to be playing games. I don't want you ever up on those rocks again, you hear me? No! We're never going to the beach again. Understood?" I stayed staring at my blanket. "Is that understood?" I gasped out loud then aggressively nodded in response.

He continued breathing heavily, making his same paces. I waited in silence for whatever he was to say next.

"Well? Do you have anything to say for yourself?"

I didn't know what I was supposed to say. "N-no?" It wasn't the right answer, and I knew that before I said it, but I couldn't bear the silence of him waiting any longer.

He laughed. Nervously? Sarcastically? Menacingly?

This laugh erupted into a roar, and my father, he screamed in anger as he ran towards and hit the wall of the hospital room with an open fist.

"I-I'm sorry."

He didn't respond. He continued to face the wall so that I couldn't see his expressions, but I watched his chest as it ascended and descended with his breath. I tried to match it to my own breath, but this aggravated too much the pain in my chest.

When his breathing finally slowed, he turned and looked at me with eyes as solemn as my own.

"Where's Joy?" I ask again.

"She's at home," he says, voice cracking slightly. "Your mother didn't want her to see you like this. It would upset her too much."

"I want to see her."

"Well, we can't always – " he had started to raise his voice again but stopped himself. "We can't always have what we want." These last words, he said calmly, and I think they hurt the worst.

***

I was released from the hospital only a few days later.

My father drove me home. As we pulled into the driveway, my mother was waiting for us by the door. It was the first time I was seeing her since getting out of the ambulance.

"Do you need any help with your seatbelt?" Jeff asked.

"No. I got it. It doesn't hurt that bad."

He got out the car and as he tried entering through the front door, my mother grabbed his arm and whispered something in his ear. He looked back at her with something like disgust and without a word, immediately shook his arm free before trudging inside.

I unbuckled my seatbelt slowly, being careful not to turn too harshly to the side. It still stung a little, but in some ways, I liked the pain. I opened the car door with equal care and peeled myself out one foot at a time. Once I was standing, I tried to close the car door, but I failed to use enough strength.

"Don't worry, sweetie! I'll get it!" my mother called from up doorway. I sighed, slightly disappointed to not have been able to do it on my own, but inclined to accept the favor, given my current state.

As I walked towards my mother, still one foot at a time and still being careful to maintain a steady posture, she opened her arms to me, and I willfully walked into them to accept her embrace. She hugged me too tight, tugging on the stitches of the cuts at my shoulder blades. I tried to hide the pain, but I accidentally winced anyways.

"Oh, baby, did that hurt you?" She had on her sweet voice.

I nodded and lifted a finger to my face to whip away a tear before it could fall.

"I'm sorry, sweetie," she said, pulling me into a new embrace and tugging on the same stitches as before.

"Can I go inside now?" I asked.

June came to kneel in front of me. She was shorter than me in this position, and I looked down on her as she constructed her signature June Atwood smile, ran her fingers through my hair and along the contour of my ear, pressed her palms into my chest then down the length of my arms. She cocked her head and gripped my hands into hers.

"Listen to me, James. You have to make a promise to me, alright?" She nodded her head, her way of telling me that I should be nodding as well. "Let's not tell anyone about this, okay? You have to promise me. Say 'I promise.'"

"I-I promise."

"Good. That's a good boy. Never ever, okay? This will be our little secret. We'll act like that day never happened."

At the time, I had no objections to her plan. I was already in the process of trying to forget it.

"And look, we don't have to let people know about those scars. Only long sleeves and pants when you're outside, okay?"

I nodded once more, and her smile grew even bigger. She grabbed the back of my head forcefully and my forehead into her lips. "Alright, you can go inside now."

I squeezed past her and hurried into the house, past my father who had made himself a drink on the living room couch, past the gate that had been installed at the bottom of the stairs, past all the rooms except my own.

I stayed in that room for three whole weeks after that, only coming out when necessary, to shower, use the toilet, have my mother change my dressings or give me medication. Someone would place a plate of dinner by the door every night, and most of the time, I would throw it directly in the trash.

Maybe, if I had had a window, this would have been the time I had discovered the Morstads. But instead, I spent my days staring at the ceiling, latching on to a stillness here that, I thought, could never be taken away from me.