Hush.

19::Scorch

Ezra's birthday was in three days.

I wasn't sure why I had the sudden desire to ask Lily about it, but I called her, and she told me. Three days. He would be nineteen.

Did he have anybody to share that special day with?

As I had sat in Polly's kitchen that morning, tapping my chin in thought, I made a pact right then and there that I would make sure he wasn't alone on his birthday. Because I knew what that was like, and nobody deserved the feeling of such emptiness and neglect.

But before I could think any more on that, there was a task I was sanctioned to fulfill; a task Lily couldn't bring herself to carry out.

Lunch. To her grandfather.

She insisted it was reciprocation for her revealing Ezra's birthday, but I was smart enough to deduct the underlying reasons. Death frightened her, especially the fact that it was her grandfather on the cusp. No matter how much of a strong front she struggled to construct, it was shoddy work at best.

Lilia Matthews was beginning to enter the stages of grief. Her body was suspended in time, waiting for the news that the only person besides Alec-in her words-to give a fuck about her was gone, waiting for reality to crash into her and leave her breathless and lost.

You see, that was a pro to having my life. My parents weren't dead, but they might as well have been. They had unknowingly immunized me to that sort of thing.

That was why, at two in the afternoon, I was striding into the hospital with a brown paper bag in my hands, holding a burger and fries. If he could have it, I didn't know. Lilia insisted he could, but her judgment had been askew as if late.

After signing in at the front desk and being admitted to take the elevator up, I rapped lightly on his hospital door before pushing it open. Mr. Matthews was where I had seen him last weeks ago, if not a bit frailer. He was sitting up and flashed a smile when I entered, one so dazzlingly bright it nearly outshone the sickness ravaging his body.

Nearly.

"Hello, Annie," he greeted, as the door clicked shut behind me.

"You remember me," I commented, taking a seat in the stiff chair by his cot. The older man laughed.

"Well, of course I do. I may be hospitalized, but my memory is sharp as ever."

I didn't doubt that for a moment. I held the paper bag out to him, and he took it with trembling fingers. "Lily asked me to retrieve this for you. Lunch, she said. I hope you like burger and fries."

His eyes sparkled. "I love burger and fries." Silence ensued, punctuated by rustling as he removed his food. "Where is that meddlesome granddaughter of mine, anyway?"

I pressed my lips together, shrugging. "Busy."

"Hm." He could probably see right through that lie. "I see."

I sighed. "She's scared."

Mr. Matthews bit into the burger. "Who?"

"Your granddaughter."

"Of what?"

I pinned him with a flat look. He chuckled.

"Only joking," he dismissed with a wave of his hand. "I know my granddaughter is uncomfortable visiting me here. Her fiancé has checked into his fair share of hospitals-for different reasons, of course-and they don't sit well with her. I cannot be angry, nor can I muster any ill will. She'll climb over that hill when she has to."

I shook my head, amazed. "How can you be so sure of everything all the time?" I questioned, because I would love to know. I wished I could walk around with such a concrete certainty that everything I did was for a greater purpose; that everything I did would amount to this great thing at the end of the road.