The Loner's Journey

Chapter 23

Danny's POV
Grayson and I pull up directions then we split up to our different cars. As archer and I get in my car, I notice he looks really pale. "Are you ok, Ace?" I ask worriedly. He looks at me and just nods. I look at him concerned, but start up the car and drive to the ice cream shop. Before we get out I decide to be a little forceful and make archer tell me what's up. I lock the doors as he goes to open his. He looks at me questioningly. "Ok. What's up? You're super pale and don't look good. Are you really ok?" I ask. He looks down and fiddles with his fingers. I sigh. "You know you can tell me whatever by now." I say. He looks up at me and seems to decide on something. "I'm just really worried about what Grayson is gonna think or say about all this. Not to mention this is gonna be the first time other than you that someone will find out my situation." He says quietly. I give him a sympathetic look and grab his shoulder. "You don't need to worry about any of that. If he can't accept what has happened to you then he's just an ass and doesn't deserve any of your time. Not to mention if he hurts you I'll kick is ass." I say. He giggles a little. I smile. "Thanks for that." He says. I give him a hug and tell him I would always be here for him. I unlock the doors and we walk into the ice cream shop. When we enter I notice Grayson is already at a table waiting for us. I lead us over and take a seat on the other side of the table from him. I see archer do the same out of the corner of my eye. We wait for a waitress to come take our order. Once someone does, we all order and then do a little small talk as we wait for our ice cream. When we get it, we thank the waitress and take a couple bites each before I decide we need to get the serious talk done. "Ok, so where did I leave off with the story?" I ask Grayson. He thinks for a second then tells me I left off where the paramedic just realized archer was still alive. "Right." I say. "So once they realized he was still alive they rushed both of them to the hospital. Once they arrived they found that archer was in critical condition but his father was just passed out from drinking. They put archer in the ICU and put his father on a gurney just to sleep off the alcohol. They got archer to the ICU and immediately started giving him fluids. He was passed out so they couldn't really ask him anything. They gave him a feeding tube as well to give him the nutrients he needed. Once that was done, they drew some blood from him to check if his blood work would come back normal, or if this was something medical. When the blood work came back, it was mostly normal, just that his white blood cells were low and he was missing a bunch of vitamins and nutrients from the lack of food in his body. Once they figured that out they decided they would just have to wait until he woke up to do much more than what they had. A few hours later archer woke up. He started to panic at first which caused his heart monitor to spike, and one of the nurses to rush in. Once she saw he was awake, she tried to calm him down. He eventually did, once he realized he wasn't in danger. He asked the nurse questions about why he was there and where his dad was. The nurse told him what happened and that his dad was sent home a couple hours earlier." I said and paused again. I looked over to archer to see if he was still ok. He seemed shaken up but he was over all doing ok. I focused back on Grayson and the story after that. "When archer found out his dad wasn't there he felt a little relieved. The nurse was able to check his vitals and everything and then told him that she'd send a doctor in to do a full check up and left. A little while later a doctor came in and did a check up, then sat next to archer to ask what had happened. Archer didn't really feel like talking but he did so anyway to help the doctor. The doctor asked him a bunch of normal stuff and then got to the serious questions. He asked archer why he was so malnourished. Archer, again being really young, just told the doctor that he hadn't been eating well. The doctor asked why, and archer told him it was because he wasn't allowed and didn't have much of an appetite anyway. The doctor thought that was weird but didn't push. And moved in to the next question." I paused again, and checked on archer from the corner of my eye.