The Bet (Just The Way You Are)

The Bet *Fortuitous Event

A reader suggested the song Glad by Tyler Hilton :) I like this song so much! Thank you for suggesting it. Banner by peanutFACE. Crazymusicfan12 made a poem about The Bet. It was great and I loved it :> Click the external link to read it.

Chapter 36 *Fortuitous Event*

~Drake

“What did you do to my baby?” Xyrielle shrieks, lunging towards me.

I take a step back automatically and raise my hand in a surrender mode. What is happening here? “What are you talking about?” I ask.

Pie tries to calm Xyrielle but she cries hysterically.

“What happened?” I ask Pie quietly.

Pie shakes her head, stopping me from walking towards them. Xyrielle’s cries turn into sobs. She glares at me while wiping her cheeks from her shaking hands.

“What happened to Rain?” I repeat more gently.

“He’s in the hospital,” she murmurs, “he’s confined there because of you. You fed him that food! He is allergic to it! He almost died!”

I can feel the world crashing and falling to my shoulders. Many words run through my mind in that instant. Rain is in the hospital because of me. He’s just a baby! He doesn’t deserve to be there because it’s my fault! I can’t believe I was reckless! Pie told me not to feed Rain with my food but I didn’t listen, so now he’s suffering. He might even be dying! And it’s really hard to accept that.

“What are we going to do?” I barely recognize my voice. It’s so different from mine.

“We have to wait for the findings of the doctors,” Pie says, glancing at Xyrielle nervously.

Swallowing the lump in my throat, I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. I walk to where Xyrielle is sitting and say, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that to happen. I will never—“

“Draky.”

Someone’s calling my name and I know I have to open my eyes. But I don’t know how to. I can feel my breathing speeding up. I am cold inside and out.

“Draky.” I can feel someone shaking my arms. “You have to wake up now.”

My mind’s in a fuzzy haze. I’m like a lost spirit, lingering outside my body.

“Wake up!”

Suddenly, I feel something splashed to my face. My hair’s dripping with wet water. I open my eyes in surprise and sit upright.

“Why am I wet?” I ask incredulously, wiping my face with the edge of my shirt. My heart is thumping loudly in my chest. I remind myself that it was just a dream. But hey, it felt real! I thought it was real! I’ve never been so glad to be awake.

Pie goes to my line of vision. She’s biting her lower lip and on her hand is a glass of water, half full.

“You splashed water to my face.” My voice is sort of accusing.

“You won’t get up,” she says sheepishly, “so I decided to splash water to your face. I heard it was effective.”

“What do you think?” I ask dryly.

“I think it’s effective,” she says amusedly, the corner of her mouth twitching upward.

“Why did you even wake me in the first place?”