Burned Ones

Chapter 19

Cameron.
16 years old.

Two days of hanging out with Hannah at the hospital. Eight days out of my fourteen day sentence by my dad passed.

I was away from my dad and talking to someone I liked. I couldn't complain.

I hadn’t heard from Annabeth, Finn, or even Jay since I saw them the other day but I tried not to let it worry me too much. Annabeth had said it was going to be difficult to get out of the house in the first place. And while I really, really wanted to be able to use this opportunity to get out of the town and run away, I wasn’t going to push it. If it wasn’t safe for them to leave, I trusted Annabeth’s decision to stay at the house.

Every day, I visited the hospital just in case Annabeth showed up. I would visit it in the morning and then again in the afternoon when Hannah showed up. She told me usually she hung out in the hospital instead of on the bench, but every time I was there, she was outside with me. We went on a lot of walks and I tried to not pay attention to how far away from the hospital I was or how long Annabeth would stay if she arrived and I wasn’t there.

Hannah cleared her throat loudly, bringing me back to the present.

It was late in the night, maybe six or seven o’clock. Most of the Caseys were home around this time, eating dinner, showering from a long day, or sleeping before an even longer night. The chances of Annabeth being able to sneak out with Alex right now were practically impossible.

“Your turn,” Hannah added.

If Annabeth was able to escape, she’d wait for me to show. I knew she would.

With that reassurance, I looked down at the green turf I was standing on. I swung the flimsy golf club and hit the pink ball over the hilly ground toward the hole. I missed, but that was okay. Hannah’s ball sat a few feet away from me by the hole so we walked that way.

“Are you sure you don’t want to switch balls?” she asked.

We were miniature golfing, which she had suggested on a whim a few hours ago. I had every intention to run away but tried to ground my feet to the floor as I told her it sounded fun. I had never been miniature golfing before. Also, I had to hold my tongue when we first arrived and I was struck with the sudden realization of how not helpful this club would be in a fight. I didn’t tell her that because I wasn’t supposed to know how heavy an object needed to be to break someone’s arm if you swung hard enough. I did wonder, though, if she’d know how to put the arm back together.

I nodded.

The guy behind the counter, who barely looked up at us, had given us a blue ball and a pink one. Both of which seemed heavy enough that they could actually be useful in a fight if thrown. I gave her the blue because I liked her with that color.

She sighed like she didn’t believe me as she hit her ball into the hole. She was in a dress again and it billowed around her as she kneeled to grab her ball back. I was in clothes I had washed in a gym’s public shower and there was a stain on my knee that I couldn’t get out.

“You’re quiet,” she said right as I was about to swing. When I went to do it again, she said, “Is it because you’re losing?”

I hadn’t known Hannah for long. We’d only started hanging out a few days ago. But I quickly learned she was competitive and I kind of liked it. When we went on the first walk, she made sure to walk fast enough so she was always in front. I wasn’t sure if she noticed she was doing it or not but it was the type of thing I grew up learning to pick up on.

She also offered to pay me two dollars on a walk to eat some of the berries we found on a bush. On a separate occasion, she offered two dollars when we found a particularly large looking puddle for me to see how deep it actually was. I didn’t take the bait on the berries. But I was currently homeless and my clothes had already been dirty and in need of a wash at the time, so I took off my shoe and stepped into the puddle without a second thought. The water went to my mid calf and Hannah nearly fell over herself laughing and yelling that she couldn’t believe I did that.