•It All Started With A Phone Call•

ØNĖ

RØRY

Everyone was overreacting. It didn't matter. I didn't care. It happened and I survived, so why did everyone keep tiptoeing around me like I was going to break?

Pa couldn't leave me alone for five minutes. It was like he thought that if he left me alone for too long I'd spontaneously combust. I knew he was often like, whenever Dad or I had a cold he was all over us, but this was more than ever.

Dad had never looked so distraught, when he walked into the hospital room for the first time...it was pure distress on his face, confusion and anger and distress. He hadn't been able to look at me for the first few days, probably because he knew that the pity in his expression would only make my anger worse.

Brendon was constantly trying to help, with his medical career we always had a doctor to go to, but this was out of Brendon's hands and he hated it, I knew he hated that he couldn't do anything.

Matt was just a silent presence through it all. He sat in the corner of my room, head bowed and elbows braced on his knees not saying a single word. I didn't know what he was thinking, he was the only person I have ever met that I couldn't decipher.

It hurt to know that I caused my dads and uncles a lot of pain, but at the end of the day, this was just a bump in the road. All this was just one bad thing that could have happened to anyone. That anyone just happened to be me, and I could get through it. I've had a lot worse.

Sure, I was confined to my bed healing from third degree burns all over my body, but I was alive and that was all that matters. I don't get all these what ifs', there was no use for them, I didn't die not like she did. Still, Pa kept on saying he wouldn't know what to do if I had died. I get he was worried, but there was no reason to be, I was fine. I saw his concerns and knew that they were valid, but I hated pity and he knew this.

I have said just that to everyone, but it always went in one ear and out the other.

I guess I still wasn't used to anyone caring about me, even after seven years. It has been seven years since my fathers adopted me and I was still that wary little boy I had been.

Now, Dad sat down on the end of my bed, going to pat my legs but pulled his hand back when he remembered the welts and scars under my tracksuit pants. He flexed his fingers before bringing the up to rub his eyes. I knew that my family hadn't been getting much sleep, I often heard Pa and Dad in the living room under my bedroom discussing expensive treatments that we couldn't afford and wether or not to send me back to school. I often pretend I didn't know that they were thinking about physiotherapy for me when I could move.

We weren't the richest family in the world, we often had to watch how much we spent every day and I had to get a job as soon as possible to be able to pay school fees. All this medical treatment that they wanted me to get was just going to put us in a worse spot than we have ever been in before.

"Rory," Dad began, scratching at the red facial hair contouring his jaw, "your pa and I were talking. We thought that -when you are able to get around again- that you see someone. Just to talk, you know?"

"I don't need a shrink." I snap. I had known this was coming, of course it had been their first thought. "I am fine."

Dad frowned a bit, his grey eyes softening. Less like cold pebbles that they usually were and more like the soft smoke from the cigarettes the Pa smoked when he thought nobody was watching.