It Was a Therapeutic Chain of Events (Tomas and Josh's story)

Chapter 1 (Josh)

I don't know why I crawled back into the basement after I took Nicolas to the hospital. He was so weak and frail from being in the cold basement for so long that I knew I needed to be here so that they didn't go looking for either of him. I needed to protect him and the only way for me to do that was to go back and distract them from looking for him. I have no clue why no one came to get me, they must have know that he wasn't the only one here because he could barely walk a few feet let alone walk the 2 miles to the hospital. I was beaten harder than ever when the man who was suppose to be my foster parent came in and saw he was gone. I could barely move or think. I was sore all over and my head had hit the floor and wall hard multiple times. I was in so much pain that I went numb and I couldn't even feel if anything was broken. I was left alone for days with out food or water and it was getting so cold that the numbness I felt from the pain was slowly changing to numbness I felt from the cold. After a week he finally threw a bottle of water and four slices of bread into the cold and dark room. It was gone quickly but it gave me enough strength that I was able to climb out of the small window in the basement that night and stagger down the street, away from that house once and for all.

When I was too tired to walk anymore I found myself at a park. I slowly made my way to the jungle gym tower when I saw someone sitting on a bench with their face in their hands. I walked over to them weakly and slumped down next to them. They peered up from their hands and I saw it was a boy, maybe around my age, with tears running down his cheeks.

“What's wrong?” I managed to get out through my dry throat, my voice seemed to startle him and he gave me a full look over.

“What's wrong with you? You look like you haven't eaten in days.” there was concern in his voice.

“I haven't.” I managed a weak laugh.

“It doesn't matter what's wrong with me. Come with me, I'll make you something to eat.” he offered me his hand as he stood and I took it.

He helped me walk to his house and sat me at the kitchen table. He made me and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and set it in front of me, along with a glass of water. I immediately ate the sandwich in a a matter of seconds and chugged down the glass of water. He made me another sandwich and refilled the glass and this time I ate a bit slower. I looked up and he was already making another. I ate that one slowly, smiling now that I was full.

“You good now?” he asked, still sounding worried.

“Yeah, I'm good.” my voice was almost back to normal.

“Why are you in such bad shape?”

“I was in the worst foster home ever. They kept me and another kid named Nathan in the basement. I helped the other Nate get to the hospital and then went back. I was beaten really badly and starved for a week as punishment.” I don't know why I told him all of this but I couldn't help it.

“That makes what I went through sound like a walk in the park,” his features turning from concern to sadness, “Today's my birthday and my adoptive parents left me here. My mom left me some money and a note telling me it was my fault that my parents died and my dad stole all of that and practically all of the money I've been saving for years.”

“That's rough. I got over my parents death but it must be hard to think about your parents abandoning you and the finding out something like that. How old are you?” I wanted to relate to him but I also didn't want him to feel bad for himself or me.

“I'm 18.” he said quickly and I noticed that his eyes were filling with tears again.

I hugged him tightly and tried to sooth him as he cried into my shoulder. We sat there with him crying into my dirty shirt for a few minuets and then he finally lifted his head and wiped away the remaining tears.

“I'm sorry for getting your shirt wet.” he croaked out, trying not to start crying again.

“It's alright, it'll dry. What's your name.” I wanted to get him thinking about something else.

“Tomas, but you can call me Tom.”

“Ok Tom, my name's Josh.” I gave him a small smile and he returned it.

“How about we get some rest, you must be tired.”

“Ok, but where can I sleep?” I hadn't slept in an actual bed in months.

“There's a guest bedroom right next to my room, you can take it. I'll let you borrow some of my clothes too until we can go shopping for some of your own.”

“Ok.” I couldn't help but let a big smile cross my face.

He showed me to a medium size room with a large bed, a dresser, and a night stand in it. He helped me onto the bed after giving me a change of clothes and wrapped me in heavy warm blankets and then he left the room to go to his own bed while I drifted off to sleep.