James.
James is holding his hand in the exam room, and then James is talking with the doctor, and then James is taking him home and it is storming and he’s wearing James’ jacket over his bloodied clothing and sticky arms in the passenger’s seat of James’ clunky green Saturn and feels bad because this is James’ favorite jacket and there’s something on him there’s something still on his body, and then he’s in James’ house, and in James’ shower, and he thinks it must have been in James’ shower with James helping him wash the blood from his bare shoulders that it hits him because this is when he starts screaming. He stands in James’ arms in James’ house in James’ shower and screams, and he isn’t sure why he’s screaming, and James is there saying something in that soft way James says things and he wants to shake James and say James, something happened, James, James and he does, and James says something in that way that James does and he screams James, my dad, and he says something else and Draven says James, James, my dad, and his chest compresses inward because something happened to him that’s out of his mind’s ability to grasp, James, something happened to dad, and James has him sit down in the shower and James turns off the water and James, James, James, everything is James and the thing he can’t quite reach and my dad, my dad, James squeezes some water out of his hair and says I know, it’s okay, it’ll be okay. James says, I’m here. James says, it’s okay. James says, let's get you into some clean clothes, and he’s wearing James’ clothes and is in James’ bed, and he sits and falls uselessly into James because there is nowhere else to fall to.
He’ll take good care of you.
James rubs his back between the shoulder blades and mumbles words; the meanings are lost on him. He feels numb now, like all the energy has been taken from him in the past six hours since he found his father on the floor. The rain patters gently on the window panes, and just as the morning begins Draven drifts off into a numb and distant sleep.
