When The Time Comes

chapter 27; Ben

Michael is pale, matching the white bed spread he is on. The nurse lets me know where to find him. On my way up to him, I make awkward eye contact with a dozen people. Some of them are sick. Some of them I can't really tell. One of them shared the same tint as the room lights. Propped up on bed, legs crossed and yellow skin. When I see Michael, I realize he looks more like the others than myself.

Michael is short for his age but it never made him look weak. As a boy, he was slightly tubby. The opposite of what I was at that age. I was always a little scraggly. I bet I was born looking that way too. I don't have many pictures of myself from back then. But Michael doesn't even have one. We never got around to it. I guess it's part of being the second child or rather any child that wasn't the first. 

I rely on my memory to remember how he was as a kid. The Douglas's don't know how he used to look as a baby either. In some strange way, this makes me feel better. Like harboring a secret that nobody will ever get to take from me. Something that makes me important in Michael's life. A part he won't ever replace.

I finally make it inside the room and Michael's awake, though his eyes are slightly glassy from exhaustion. He cracks a small smile and for a moment it's like he's five years old again. Baby fat under his chin and that crooked tooth next to his upper canine. He probably doesn't see it in himself but that's all I see. He's still goofy looking with pneumonia running the show.

"Hey, you're here," he says with cracked dried lips.

He leans over for the glass of water sitting on the side table.

"How are you feeling?" I sit down on the chair next to his bed.

"I'm okay," he replies. I believe him. He sounds okay even though he doesn't look like it. He looks small, like he's aging backwards. It doesn't help that he's still in his growing phase. The one where boys bones grow longer than the rest of the body can keep up so they just end up looking like mops with appendages and a helmet full of hair. It's like his body shakes when he moves, unable to keep up with the bones that drive it.

He sips the water audibly and returns the empty cup. 

"How long you been here for?" I ask him not only because I'm genuinely curious but I'm still aggravated by the Douglas's keeping it from me.

"Uh- three days I think," he replies.

His eyes wide with the surplus sleep he's probably gotten. It settles my anxiety a bit to see him okay enough to still talk and sit up, move around. 

"How'd you get pneumonia anyway?" I cross my leg over my knee.

"Dunno," he says easily. "I was sick a while, had a fever but I only missed school the day before I came in here."

"You were going to school sick?" 

"Yeah but it didn't feel too bad."

"Why'd they let you go to school if you had a fever?" this piece of information does not sit well with me.

"I didn't tell anyone," he says innocently enough. Trust Michael to try and dust the blame off of others but I don't buy it.

The Douglas's don't have any other kids or responsibilities other than Michael. How distracted do you have to be to not notice Michael wasn't doing well. This is probably why he got so sick in the first place. 

"I'm doing better now though," he cuts through the silence that settles around us. "They gave me antibiotics."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," he says with that crooked tooth poking through his lips again. It makes it tough to be serious around him. I don't want him worrying about anything. Just because I freaking hate the Douglas's, doesn't mean he has to. I have to remind myself that after I'm gone, it's just them two he's got left in the world.