I Think I Just Legalized Love

Chapter 9

9

When I find myself in reality again, the door to the bathroom is still closed and locked. My stomach growls loudly. I hear a light tapping on the door every other second, and then my name. “Jason… Jason… Jason…” I sit up, and feel an aching pain in my leg and face and slightly my stomach. My head hurts too. I try standing, but have to support myself on the sink. I stretch a lot and finally stand without the help of the sink. I look in the mirror and see a messy fifteen-year-old with a black left eye, nose with dried blood under it, and busted lip. I clean my face and drink some water.

            “Miles, I don’t think he’s in there,” I hear a low male voice say.

            “He has to be…” I hear a tired male voice say back. “Where else could he be?”

            “Do you want to come get dinner with us? We’ll find him.”

            “I’m not leaving until he comes out.”

            “Fine. You can order yourself room service if you want.” I hear a door open, and a few pairs of feet walking, and then the door shuts. I hold the doorknob to open the bathroom door but hesitate.

            “I know you’re in there,” Miles says. “I know you hear me.”

            “I know,” I respond in a croaky voice.

            “Can you come out?” I open the door and Miles stands up in front of me. “You were in there a day and a half. Why?” Miles holds both my hands.

            “I lost my mind for a while, and I guess I kind of knocked myself out or fell asleep at some point.”

            “Oh…” Miles bites his lip for a couple seconds, and then hugs me. I hug him back. “You wanna just get room service and try to forget this?”

            “I agree on the food part.” Miles call in room service – ordering me a lot of food and him a regular amount – as I sit on the bed holding my knees. When he finishes ordering, Miles comes over to me.

            “Can I see where that guy hurt you?” I shrug my shoulders. “Seriously.”

            “Fine,” I mumble. I put out my right leg, and take off my shirt. “My face, stomach, and right leg.”

            Miles looks at my leg first and kind of just touches it. “I provoked him,” Miles says. “I called him a bitch for what his sign said, which was something about God…”

            “It’s his fault for hurting you.”

            “Yeah, I guess.”

            Eventually room service comes, and Miles brings the cart in the room, putting it between two of the beds so we each get one side of the cart. I have pasta and a meatball sandwich, which I finish easily due to my not eating for over twenty-four hours.  I drink a lot of Coke too. “Still hungry?” Miles asks, kind of laughing.

            “Not really…” I rub my good eye, and sigh. “What happened to the guy?”

            “The police came, but I was leaving then.” I just nod.

            “It’s interesting how the people who ‘love and respect their God’ hurt His children.”

            Miles stops eating his almost gone salad, and says, “Make that into a poster.”