Somebody to Hold Tonight (Larry Stylinson)

8

Once when I was fourteen, the police picked me up for being out past curfew. They made me ride in the back of their squad car, and they took me home. They talked to my parents and tried to scare me into never being out after curfew again. It did scare me. Riding in the back of that squad car had been a sobering moment. I swore to myself I'd never be picked up by the police ever again.

It's strange the things that cross your mind at some of the oddest of times. I hadn't thought about that in years, but as I rode in the back of the police squad car with Phoebe seated between me in Fizzy, I remembered it clearly. Lottie was riding in the back of the ambulance we were following. They wouldn't let me ride with her. They wanted to take me in a separate ambulance to check my head because they thought I might have a concussion, but I was too worried about my sisters. Phoebe had finally stopped crying and passed out in her car seat.

Just after Fizzy knocked out our dad with the frying pan, the police arrived. I suppose it wasn't a moment too soon because another moment in that room with my unconscious father and I would have killed him with my bare hands. The police called an ambulance to the house and they loaded Lottie up in the back. We were headed for the hospital, and I tried to make sense of what had just happened.

If I thought Galadriel' death felt surreal, this was a whole other level of absurdness. Had my father really just raped my little sister? I'd seen it with my own eyes, but I still couldn't believe any of this was real. Not long ago I was leaving work and thinking about how it had been a reasonably good day, all things considered. How had things gone so terribly wrong in such a short amount of time?

When we arrived at the hospital, Lottie was rushed into the emergency room, and Fizzy, Phoebe, and I were led into another section of the emergency room. They took Fizzy into one room to look at his hands while one of the police officers held Phoebe as I was led into another room. First they took pictures of all of my injuries. I only caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror, but my face was tearstained and I was sporting a black eye and I was sure I'd seen some handprints around my neck.

I had to undress and let the nurse take pictures of my back. It felt like it was bruised as well. After she finished with the pictures, they checked to see if I had a concussion. I did. I wasn't surprised. As hard as my head hit the dresser, I was surprised it wasn't something more serious. Although, I suppose narrowly surviving a near death by asphyxiation made me a pretty lucky person. I was certain I was going to die. If it hadn't been for Fizzy, I was sure I would have.

They said it was only a mild concussion, and since I didn't seem to be experiencing any memory loss, dizziness or nausea, they decided not to keep my overnight. Instead, they told me I had to rest over the next few days and they gave me some Tylenol to take care of the horrible headache I had.

They cleaned my hands, and it stung so bad it brought tears to my eyes. They bandaged them up and gave me clean sweats to change into. After I was changed, they took my dirty clothes and placed them in a bag for evidence before sending the policeman who was holding Phoebe into the room to take my statement. He asked me to walk through what had happened from the moment I arrived home to the moment they arrived. I tried so hard to hold it together as I recounted what happened, but when I got to the part about getting into the room and seeing Lottie on the bed, I lost it all over again.

I couldn't imagine what she was going through. I knew they were going to ask her to tell them what happened, and I wanted to run down the hallway and take her in my arms and protect her. I didn't want her to have to remember any of this. I just wanted to take all of her pain away. I felt so guilty. I was supposed to protect her. If I'd just left work when Harry told me I could, maybe I could have stopped this from happening. I wondered if Lottie would ever be able to forgive me for letting this happen to her.