Hometown Hero

Chapter Twenty-five: A'capella Daft Punk and Peter Parker

My thoughts circled around Indie. Stuck in the lobby of the Albany hospital, I held my iPod between my hands, knowing that the answers were in there somewhere.

AJ left to take Lexy home so she could sleep just enough to avoid throwing off her schedule. It was always strange to me how parents try to teach their children when to sleep and when to wake up, when as we get older we hit that point where we're up all night resting all day. Either way, we all needed sleep at this point.

I scrolled, and thought about what Indie would do right now. He always found a way to make me smile, even when I couldn't do it myself. We'd start dancing, or he'd talk about his comic books that he read to Lexy before she went to bed.

Click, click, click, click.

Found it. An a'capella mash-up of Daft Punk by Pentatonix. I smiled, thinking of one night I spent driving with Indie. I told him I didn't know any DP, that they were the stuff that my dads listened to when they were younger, traveling around Europe the first time. We listened to Homework and Human After All for days, while he explained how ground-breaking their mixing was to the House scene in France in that era where music was just getting into it's techno-awakening.

I stood up, placing my earbuds in and listening. Louder, louder, louder. Walking out the hospital doors, I stood outside in the seemingly vancant parking lot. There wasn't much going on tonight; Indie had been the biggest emergency they'd had tonight. As you can imagine, that was a lot less comforting than it sounds. I phased it out, focusing on the slow build of voices that vibrated through me.

My feet started first, tapping and moving slowly through the build-up. I took a breath, and started spinning. I tried to see if I could burrow into my inner child who didn't care if I looked like an idiot.

Strangely, the more I moved, the less I felt. The less I felt everything; I wasn't worried about Indie, or the fact that he was hooked up to all those machines. I was in the diner, dancing with him in the light of the rising sun. We were together, and nothing hurt.

Last night, I had this dream about you.

Oh, I don't know what to do about this dream and you.

I felt my feet drag me, and I fell against the pavement. Off in the distance, I heard Benji call out from down the hall.

“Dawson!” He yelled, and I heard sneakers scraping as they ran. At my side, the boys huddled around me, reaching out to comfort me.

Devon stared, wide-eyed, “Are you okay?”

I wanted to give him an answer, I really did. But when I opened my mouth, only laughter came out. Laying on the hospital floor, staring at the giant crimson letters that spelt 'ER', I just started laughing at the irony of it all. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that if Indie saw me right now, and could feel how I felt, he'd be laughing, too.

“Dawson, are you hurt?” Devon asked, and I saw AJ walk over, seeing me on the ground from her car. When she came closer, I reached out my hand.

“AJ!” I giggled “You should help me up so we can dance together!”

She stared, and I waved my phone at her, my temptation sub-par at best. She looked at me, and I wondered if she thought I lost my mind. I think the sleep deprivation had finally gotten to me, but she didn't say anything as she walked over and pulled me up, with the boys behind to nudge me forward.

Her hands reached for my phone, turning the music up louder. She listened, and I watched a smile slowly spread across her face. Grabbing my hand, we spazzed in the light of the hospital; spinning, laughing and losing control of our entire bodies.