The Life of Nathaniel

Chapter 23

We enter the same bathroom that we had been in the night before. I turn on the faucet to wash my arm off. Aubry grabs a towel from underneath the sink. I run my arm under the water and gently rub off the quickly drying blood.

Aubry gently pulls my arm out from under the water and starts to wipe off the water, blood was starting to run again. "Where's the bandages?"

"In the cabinet behind you." I point behind her. She wipes my arm and then turns around and opens the cabinet. She pulls out a roll of gauze and some medical tape. She turns back to me . She wipes the off rest of the blood and wraps the gauze around my arm, securing it with the tape.

"How's that?" She asks.

I move my arm around, "It's great, thank you." I start to pull her into a hug before I remember that her shirt was stained from my blood. I stop her, "You should probably change your shirt."

Aubry looks down at the blood-stained shirt, "Oh yeah." She laughs nervously. I grab the shirt off the floor, where she had dropped it. "Thanks." She grabs the shirt from me.

She uneasily glances at me then at the shirt. "Oh. I'll turn around." I smile softly and turn away from her. A minute later the blood-stained shirt was laid on my shoulder. I grab it and turn back to her.

"Wow," I say, "The light blue brings out your eyes."

She blushes and smiles. "Hey! If you want pancakes, get down here!" MacKenzie yells from the kitchen.

"I guess we should go." Aubry says, smiling.

"Yeah, I guess so." I smile and open the door. Aubry walks out and goes downstairs. I run to the laundry room and throw the shirt into a sink full of water to let it soak during the day.

I then turn and run down to the kitchen.

I slow down to a walk as I enter the kitchen. When I walk in, I had to hide my surprise because I saw my aunt sitting at the table.

Instead of sitting down, I stay standing by the doorway. Aubry was getting a plate of pancakes. MacKenzie sees me, "Come on and eat."

I fill a plate with pancakes and then sit as far from my aunt as was possible, which was beside Mackenzie.

"I have a list of chores for you to do," my aunt says, "I expect them to be done before you retire to your sleeping chamber."

I just nod. The rest of breakfast was eaten in silence. MacKenzie looks at the time, "Oh no! We gotta go." MacKenzie and Aubry quickly put their dishes in the sink, then run up the stairs to grab their bags.

While they were ul there, I started to put away dishes. "Let me make this clear. This will be the last day that you go with them," my aunt says, "Scooping will never help you." She then gets up and walks to her room.

I finish putting all the dishes into the sink when MacKenzie and Aubry come racing down the stairs.

They walk out of the house. I follow and we all get into Mackenzie's car. As soon as we were all buckled up, MacKenzie quickly changes gears and starts towards school.