The Bad Boy with a Heart of Gold

✖ Chapter 35 ✖

The heaviness that settled in me was as if I'd aged a decade, when in truth only a couple of hours had gone by since we found out about what had happened. The nosy neighbor who always popped his head out to glare every time I knocked on the Logans' front door was the one who heard the screaming. It was so bad that he called the police.

But before they'd arrive, Jack Logan had vanished from the face of the Earth, leaving his broken son behind.

I had learned since that the neighbor's name was Phil. He was an old man whose defect of getting his face in other people's business might have saved someone's life. Phil knew Sawyer had no one else, so he'd got in the ambulance with Sawyer that took him to the ER and had gone as far as visit him when he had a chance to see if there was any progress. He'd been in the waiting area of the hospital when we arrived and recognized my papa before telling us everything.

A nurse told us that Sawyer was uninsured and an unaccompanied minor, which meant they were restricted in what they could do. He'd arrived to the hospital two days ago in the morning and ever since he'd been in a medically induced coma, waiting for help.

"I'll take care of it," papa told the nurse, surprising all of us.

Mama gasped, looking like she was going to lose her bearings as she said, "We can't afford it!"

"Maria Lucia," papa told her as he put his hands on her shoulders and looked deep into her eyes. "We also can't afford to turn our backs."

That was when my waterworks started anew. It was a long night of calling our insurance provider, a lawyer and a visit with the local authorities. I missed school the next day, a Friday, so I could be there when they finally took Sawyer into a second surgery that was supposed to better repair the damage. No one had given me details of what kind of damage it was, or whether he was going to make it out of this one. So I just stayed put that day, and the next, and the next.

"You stink," Toni told me as she sat next to me and handed me a sandwich. "Are you going to school tomorrow?"

I sank into the chair I'd claimed as mine in the middle of the waiting room, looking off at the hallway ahead of me and how the staff bustled with their activities. I'd been an inanimate object in the middle of all the action, inadequately equipped to deal with this.

"I don't know."

"You should," she said. "You need a change of pace."

"But-"

"With the way things are, he's not going anywhere any time soon." She patted my arm.

I looked at the sandwich in my hand. My stomach told me it could really use with food, but my soul just wanted to wither away. I was so bogged down by the circumstances and didn't know how to keep myself afloat right now, that the last thing I could think about was going to school and pretend that I was okay. That life hadn't just taken a cruel shift that altered my very essence.

My mind circled the situation like a vulture that had set sight on prey. Except that the vulture was trapped in a loop, never able to actually catch the prey. There was something I had to be able to do to help, I just didn't know what. But maybe Toni could help me understand myself once more.

"Toni," I started, and she shifted her full attention back to me, although her hands kept absentmindedly rubbing her round belly. "I have something to tell you, but I need you to promise it will stay between us."

Her eyes widened slightly but she nodded.

"Sawyer spent that night with me."

For a long while no reaction came from her, until, "What?"