offsetting minors | s. crosby

I'll save that for tonight

Dr. Roberts had gently kicked me out of the hospital a few hours after Justin had been brought in, saying that there was nothing more we could do until we had his test results back. He was right- Justin had been fast asleep since he'd come in, and aside from keeping his unconscious form company, I couldn't be of much help.

Now, however, was time to find answers. I'd come into the hospital especially early this morning to begin my rounds, and Dr. Roberts and I were keeping busy waiting for the test results to come back from pathology and either confirm a difficult prognosis or send us back to the drawing board. But Dr. Brighton had been right last night- Justin's seizure likely meant that the tumor was growing and leaving us with less time to fix him.

But when I make my way into Justin's room to check up on him after the terrifying night he'd had, I see- for the first time- a devastated expression marring his normally happy face. 

"Justin?" I question, shutting the door and drawing the curtains to give him some privacy. "What's wrong, buddy? Are you hurt?"

I see tears in his eyes when he glances up. "I'm sorry."

"What are you sorry for? You're okay, Justin. The fall didn't hurt you."

I don't know what to do when he bursts into sobs. "I didn't listen to you. You told me to stop but I didn't listen and I hurt myself and made you worry. I'm sorry, Dr. Elliot."

"Justin, hey, listen to me. What happened last night was not your fault and we're all just happy that you're okay. You gave us all a scare but we're working very hard to make you better, okay?" I pat his hand in what I hope is a comforting gesture but it only seems to make things worse.

"No one is ever happy that I'm okay," he whispers in a broken voice and I can practically hear my heart shatter inside my chest at how miserable he sounds. "My mommy and daddy didn't want me. That's what all of the other kids tell me. At the house, Paula ignores all of us. When I told her I was having a headache, she just sent me back to my room and told me that I was giving her one, too."

A streak of white hot anger floods through me and I find myself hating this Paula woman who I assume is the caretaker at the foster home he's living in- though it sounds like she isn't doing a lot of caring at all. How anyone could look at this child and think of him as a burden is beyond me, but I know exactly what he's going through. 

The skin on my wrist burned in a small circle where daddy had put out his cigarette. Momma had tried to stop him before his hand made contact with the side of my face but Daddy had pushed her and now her head was bleeding and she was lying on the ground in the corner by the bookshelf. There was nobody to protect me from him. 

"Derek," Momma gasped, but her voice was quiet and weak, like she was being strangled. "Don't do this. She's your little girl."

"She's going to turn out to be a whore just like her mother. Look at her, she's nothing."

I was crying, tears were muddling my vision, but I couldn't speak. He wouldn't let me.

"Momma?" Her body had gone limp, and there was a pool of blood around her head. "Momma, wake up!"

"Shut up!" Daddy yelled, and I cowered in the corner away from him as he raised his hand to deliver another blow.

The memory causes me to to mindlessly rub the spot on my wrist where the small scar from that cigarette still exists. It's just a small bump of raised skin, but the reminder will be there forever. My mom had died on an operating room table that day from a brain bleed that the doctors hadn't been able to fix in time, and I hadn't heard from my dad since he got out of prison five years ago after serving fifteen for what the court ruled as second-degree murder. Truth be told, I didn't know whether or not he was even still alive and I didn't care to find out.