Jonan has been moved into a separate room. Jonan's family comes and visits him every day. Asks him how he's feeling. He always answers the same way. Asks him if he wants anything, he always shakes his head. Amelia--less so, partly because of school, partly because one less thing to worry about is one thing saved.

Lately, it was his mother who came the most often. She and Jonan's father come intermittently, trying to split their vacation days as to never leave him completely alone.

His mother was sitting beside the bed, just...looking at him, as she often did recently.

Jonan could never tell what she was thinking. It was a look of unfocused sadness, afar. Eventually, she would snap awake, as if frightened from a dream, usually by another nurse entering the room or the sudden, but not ominous, shriek of a child outside the window. Lights would return to her eyes, and she would give a kind but tired smile for Jonan.

About what happened? Well, they don't talk about it. It's been tucked away in a drawer of their consciousness, labeled and locked, the key thrown away. It is their common assumption; both assume each other to be over it, then what's the point of bringing back up? But it slowly rots and corrupts the wood. Even if Jonan does not realize it, the feeling incubated into a deranged weight that sits snugly in the pit of his stomach, in his extremities, twisting his sense of balance.

Perhaps one part of it is pride. Why does he have to be the one apologizing? Wasn't he the one hurting, bleeding, wasn't he the victim of all of this?

Perhaps one part of it is shame. If he's made a grave mistake, does he deserve the chance to reconcile? Maybe he only deserves to mellow in this kind of sadness. If it was only him in pain, then maybe it doesn't matter.

"Jonan?"

He hears his mother call him, and he raises his eyes.

"Do you want some apples? I can go cut one for you," she rises to go retrieve it from the fruit basket in the corner, from their class's visit to the hospital.

"I'll cut it," he says, eager to finally do something, anything, without help. "Hand me the knife."

His mother spins around. "What are you talking about? You're not cutting anything."

On a better day, he would have responded differently. But he can only think about the hours he's stared out the window, longing at the passengers, hoping, wishing, praying that he never went on that trip, praying that he would be able to run again, and hating those who did not prevent him from going.

His body trembles from rage. "What do you mean, I'm 'not cutting anything?' I've not paralyzed mom, I can still do things," his mouth tastes as bitter as his words.

Mrs. Shun stands wide-eyed. "You know that's not what I mean--"

"Who the hell knows what you mean? All I know is that I lost my legs, not my hands."

"Jonan listen to me, you don't know what you're saying--"

"I want you to leave," he says finally. "Now." He points to the door.

"Jonan..." the struggle in her voice sends fright through him, but he doesn't stop.

"GO."

His mother looks from side to side, helpless. Nevertheless, she takes her bag from the counter and goes to the exit.

At the door, she pauses and turns around. "You can't keep doing this, Jonan," she says and leaves.

Only when the door finally shuts does the guilt crash onto his back like a waterfall. He's done it...but then there's a moment of stillness. A kind of intuition that nothing can become worse than this, thus nothing to grieve about. Tears do not come. He sits there, motionless in the bed for a long time. When he almost dozes off, the hospital phone rings. After a second of registration, he knows it must be Gabriel, whom he has been avoiding all this time--he didn't want another confrontation. But after today...that fear was not here to stop him.

He picks up and hears the nurse from the other side.

"Oh, Jonan you're awake?" She is surprised. "It's Gabriel again. Do you want to talk to him?"

"Yes," he replies, and after some shuffling, Gabriel's voice surfaces.

"H-hello."

"What do you want?"

"I-I, I want to tell you everything."