The Homecoming football game is tonight and there are two minutes left of class. I can’t wait. An announcement comes on over the loudspeaker, “Students, a tree has fallen on Oak Street and the street is blocked. So, please avoid leaving the campus via the Oak exit. Thank you.” The speaker clicks and the announcement ends. My heart pounds in my chest as I realize, My mom’s car is parked on Oak Street.
The bell rings and I rush out of class and off the campus. I round the corner and turn onto Oak, searching for the fallen tree. My heart skips a beat as I see it all. The tree. It fell on my mom’s car. There’s a squad car and an ambulance. They’re loading a gurney into the ambulance, but there’s no rush in their movements. My stomach drops out from under me. It’s too late. I don’t think I want to go to the game anymore, I’m not excited for it now.
I turn to walk home and see Dalton standing behind me with sad eyes, “Hey.”
I open my mouth to reply, but find myself tearing up instead.
He runs to me, “Hey, hey, it’s okay, Carsen.”
I wrap my arms around him and cry into his chest as he holds me. “M-my m-mom, w-was all I h-had,” I sob. My dad passed away when I was little, and ever since then, it’s just been me and my mom. I don’t know where I’ll go from here.
“Are you sure this is okay?” I ask.
Dalton looks at me and smiles, “Of course.”
Dalton didn’t want me to be home alone at a time like this, so I’m staying at his house tonight. “But what about your parents?” Um, they’re not home.
He shrugs, “It’s alright, they trust us, I already asked.”
“Oh, okay,” I feel both relieved and uneasy, but everything is still overshadowed by the fact that I’ve just lost the rest of my family.
“Come on,” he puts his arm around me, “let’s watch something.”
And so we do. For hours and hours. All my other thoughts slip away and my mind is instead filled with Dalton. I can feel myself slowly falling in love with him all over again, and I can’t even explain it. He drapes his arm around me, squeezing my shoulder. I lean against him and feel my eyelids begin to grow heavy. He whispers something, that makes me smile, but I forget. I fall into a serene and dreamless sleep.
Thank you, Dalton. Thank you for being there for me when I had no one, because they were all taken from me. And I think I may begin to love you all over again.
