The Boy in the Gray Hoodie

7...

7…

Two days. That’s how long it had been since I had seen Marley’s face for the first time. Since then, it seemed like everything James did was to punish me for it. But he couldn’t have known. If he did know about it, he would have said something to me. He would have yelled at me, or taken away my afternoon food tray. But for the last two days, all James had done was inject me with medicine.

            “Clench your fist,” James said. “I’m having a hard time finding a good vein. Most of them have collapsed already.”

            I did as I was told, but the movement made me grimace with pain. Most of the needles had gone deep into the muscle tissue of my arm so any kind of movement hurt, especially making a fist.

            “There. How does that feel?” James asked as the needle slid out of my arm.

            “It hurts,” I mumbled. I had told him that before, but he didn’t like it.

            “One to ten?”

            “…four…” I said. The medicine really didn’t hurt that bad this time. That injection James had given me last night hurt much worse than this. I had been in so much pain that I hadn’t slept. Circles so dark they looked like bruises rested under my eyes. My skin was paler than usual and my body shook from the medication. I felt sick, really sick.

            Yanking my arm from the cylinder, I stumbled over to the toilet in the corner of my room and purged. James turned off the speaker system. He didn’t want to hear.

            I continued to dry-heave, nothing left to throw up after having already vomited three times that morning. When my body finally finished lurching, my hands slipped from the toilet and I toppled onto the floor in a shaking heap.

            After only a moment of quiet, the speaker system turned back on. “When your nausea subsides, we’ll start again.” James said.

            I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. I just rested my cheek against the cold floor and tried to stop shaking. I wanted Marley. She would have known what to say to make me feel better. She would have talked to me. She would have been kind, and not cold and silent like James. I felt him watching me and I wished he would just go away. I didn’t want him to see me like this.

            “That’s enough. Come back over here. I’m on a tight schedule. Let’s get this done.” James said. His voice was a crackling bark.

            “No more,” I whispered. I didn’t want to move. “I don’t want this anymore.”

            “Neither do I. So let’s get done and then we both can rest,” James replied.

            “Where…where is Marley?” I risked the question.

            There was a long pause. “Come now. I have another syringe ready.”

            I slowly sat up, staring at my reflection. The boy was covered in perspiration; his dark t-shirt and cotton pants were damp and clung to his body showing his muscles and bones through the fabric. I stared at the deep dark circles beneath his hollow blue eyes. His mop of dark hair was stringy and clung in wet chunks to his sunken cheekbones. He looked exhausted and small. I closed my eyes. “I want Marley,” I said in a quivering voice. “Please, where is she?”

            “I am not going to answer that question until you come here and take this injection.” James responded in a slow, even tone. The steadiness of it scared me more than if he had just shouted at me. I was resisting him, and now he would punish me for it.