Greaser

24. News

N I A L L

I glanced over at Tony who decided against sitting in the backseat like I always tell him to. His hands in resting in his lap as he started down at them, messing with his fingernails. “Come on Tony, cheer up.” I muttered sadly, we’ve only been driving for ten minutes and he’s already complained about it being too boring. I pressed buttons on the car radio, stopping on the news station. I’ve always made it a habit to listen to the news before music, because ever since I’ve taken up watching over tony, I had to know the weather, and all that was going on the world if I wanted to keep my baby brother safe and warm.

“Early this morning the escape convict from West Salem, was found and taken under custody in the small city of Rockland two hours away. He had been found, when the neighbors just next door heard a woman screaming for help.”

I furrowed my eyebrows, that can’t be Mary can it? Then again, how many escape convicts are hiding out in Rockland?

“Hold on Tony.” I brought the car to an abrupt stop, making a swift U-turn before heading in the other direction. All sense of my anger towards Mary seemed to disappear at the sound of the news report.

“Johnny has been going by a different name the past nine years in order to keep the police off his tracks, and he even changed his hair color to avoid being recognized. Nine years ago this man had killed the mother of two children, and nearly killed his own daughter.”

My hands tightened around the steering wheel at the sound of him nearly killing someone else who means everything to me. All the words I had shouted at her just didn’t make sense anymore, there was no way that she was even remotely close to being like her father and I was an idiot of even suggesting that.

“Niall, is Mary okay?” I shrugged, holding in the tears from the possibilities my mind was deciding to run through at this very moment. There were two things that my mind was thinking about right now, the part where I could have just stayed with Mary and talked it all out instead of slamming the door on an unfinished situation and the part where she was almost killed, and is probably hanging at the seams and could drift away at any moment. “Niall—,”

“Tony, I don’t know.” I snapped, “I shouldn’t have left last night. I should have stayed in the motel room and talked to her about her father. I accused her of things, which now, just seem completely ridiculous and impossible with the way Mary is. I shouldn’t have yelled at her the way I did, and I should have stayed there with her. If I would have stayed with her, she wouldn’t be nearly dead in a hospital bed. She wouldn’t have gone back home.”  I shook my head, blinking the tears out of my eyes. This car just doesn’t go fast enough and I knew that three hours was too long to wait and see if she even had a chance of being okay. I should have kept trying to win her that big teddy bear at the carnival two nights ago, and I should have never even let the thought of going back to get the money sound good.

-

M A R Y

My whole body hurt, I guess that’s what happens when you have broken ribs and bruises all over. The nurse quietly knocked on my door, giving me a quick smile before speaking up.

“Mary, there is someone here to see you, can I let him in?” I sighed, nodding thinking that maybe he was just another newspaper guy looking for answers about what happened. But when Harry came gliding through that door, a smile slid onto my face.

“Mary, how are you doing?” he smiled, hesitant on giving me even a gentle hug. “You know how strict they were about letting me in here? I couldn’t have my switch knife.” He whispered. I laughed, quickly wincing at the pain at my rib cage.