Jed spent the next two weeks in the same hospital room. After the first week, he was allowed to walk around the hospital and get his own food instead of it being brought to him by a hospital helper. But he was never allowed out of the hospital unless he got permission from his doctor, who was Dr. Dimsly, because of a stupid rule this specific hospital had. Every time he asked, though, Dr. Dismly refused and said that he didn't trust Jed. It turned out that he had hit his head pretty hard when Ella had let go of him when he was falling. He had a concussion that would take at least two weeks to heal. At the end of the last week, the doctors wanted to keep him in the hospital to keep an eye on his vitals, but he insisted that he was fine. 

As he walked out the front door in normal clothes, he took a big breath of the fresh air that he was deeply deprived of. The clothes that he was wearing felt stiff and unfamiliar to him as he took step by step down the street. They had had to buy him new clothes, as the clothes that he had been wearing during his grounding had been torn up pretty badly when he hit the pavement. He didn't mind though; all of his clothes at home were old and many of them had holes in them. 

He came upon a convenience store called Shop-It and paused in front of it. He had lost his phone somewhere between jumping off the building and gaining consciousness, so he peered into the window to see if the store had a payphone that he could use. Sure enough, he spotted a row of about half a dozen old-looking phones on the back wall of the store. 

Jed pushed open the door and slowly walked inside the shop. A bell jingled happily above his head. The cashier behind her table turned her head and waved. “Welcome,” she said cheerfully. He smiled at her slightly and then turned his gaze away from her. He wasn’t used to much attention unless it was because he had done something wrong. 

He walked to the back and found a phone as far away from people as possible. The little store was not very crowded, but there were still about nine or ten people in there, not including himself and the cashier. A mother and her daughter were at the end of an aisle a couple of feet away from him. The little girl kept staring at him, despite the desperate attempts of her mother telling her not to because it was rude. He couldn’t blame her. He might have been excused from the hospital, but there were still bandages and bruises all over him. 

“But mommy, that was the guy that was on the tv!” the little girl exclaimed, to Jed’s surprise. Jed glanced at them out of the corner of his eye and grinned. With two pigtails sticking out of her head at different angles and mismatched socks, the little girl was one of the most adorable things that he had seen in his life. Granted, he hadn’t really grown up around “cute”. 

He wasn’t bothered by the fact that she thought that she thought he had been on the news. She was probably mistaking him for someone else. But then, her mother got a good look at him and her eyes widened. She quickly averted her gaze and ushered her daughter to the cashier. 

Had Jed really been on tv? The mother’s reaction certainly suggested the child was correct. It concerned him but he pushed it to the back of his mind. He had other things to deal with right now. 

Jed picked up the phone and stared at the buttons, raised slightly above the rest of the plastic. He stuffed a hand into the back pocket of his stiff jeans and pulled out the neatly folded piece of paper. As he unfolded it, he remembered the kindness that Ella had given him, a person she didn’t know. Was it real? Or was it all an act? He shook his head to dispel the thoughts from his mind. 

Jed slowly pushed the numbers that the page read: 674-231-4573. He took a deep breath and held the phone up to his ear. As he expected, it was ringing. And it kept ringing. And ringing. And ringing. Until, finally, the annoying buzzing stopped and it went to voicemail. 

Jed’s heart dropped. Why hadn’t she picked up? Was it because it was an unknown number? He rubbed his forehead in disappointment. He had fallen for the trick of false kindness. As always. Dyna was always telling him not to do that. 

He sighed and hung the phone back up on the stand. He was just turning to leave when the phone started ringing again. He spun on his heel, quickly picked the phone back up, and lifted it to his ear. At first, all there was, was silence. Then a voice on the other end said, “Hello? Is anyone there?” 

Jed took in a sharp breath. It was her. She had remembered.

“Hello?” the voice repeated. 

“I-it’s me. Jedidiah.” Silence, once again. 

“Oh, you mean Jed! I’m so glad you called. Have you made a decision? About if you want to join or not?” Ellandra - no, Ella - sounded the exact same as she had before. Spritely and actually glad that he was alive. 

Jed took a deep breath. This next word would change his world. It would decide how much he would be noticed in the future. Was he really going to go through with this? 

“Yes,” he said. “I have decided that I will join the S. H. A. and help the good of humanity to defeat the abnormals that want to destroy everything.”