by Ian Withrow
With Gabriel safely stowed, Lauren followed her companion to her bedroom. To Lauren, who spent much of her time outdoors, the house felt comfortable. Erin was a different story. Before she even entered the room she could hear Erin loudly lamenting the heat, her griping ranged from actual words to the loudest and most pathetic sighing that Lauren had ever heard.
When Lauren crossed the threshold she saw the room was empty. Erin must be in the walk-in, presumably changing clothes. Lauren flopped herself down on the bed, kicking out of her shoes. Erin must have heard her come in, because she called out from the closet.
“Seriously, who the fuck invented bras? They're hot, and constricting, and sweaty, and dumb; obviously invented by a man!”
Lauren laughed out loud, Erin's reaction to the would-be tragedy of having no air conditioning was hilarious.
Erin poked her head back into the room, glaring from the doorway. Wordlessly she returned to rummaging around through her wardrobe. Lauren threw up her hands, feigning innocence.
Finally, with an exaggerated sigh, Erin re-entered the room. She was wearing a tiny pair of dark blue shorts, smaller than anything Lauren had seen her wear before. Lauren couldn't help but follow the path of Erin's swaying hips across the room from her vantage point. The shorts left very, very little to the imagination as Erin's curves pushed the fabric to the limit. She didn't have a shirt on, instead she wore a black, front-zippered, heavy duty sports bra which was doing its best to suppress Erin's well-developed chest, but wasn't really up to the task.
Meeting her friend's gaze, Lauren blushed a little and averted her eyes. Mostly. She chided herself internally on peeking. Well, for getting caught at least. One of the few things she had yet to get fully used to was Erin's unabashed nature at home, which was so opposite her demeanor outside the house.
Erin held in her hand a bunched up ball of fabric, which she carried across the room to the nightstand. She yanked open a drawer, pulled out a long, orange-handled pair of scissors and savagely chopped the ball in half. Setting the scissors back down she held up the newly modified item, it was a shirt, although realistically it was more of a crop-top at this point. She nodded as though satisfied and pulled the shirt over her head, it left a fair amount of her midsection exposed. With her new garment in place she reached up, undid the zipper of her bra and pulled it off her shoulders, throwing it into the closet and then collapsing down onto the bed with a huge, drawn-out sigh of relaxation.
“So,” Lauren began, holding in laughter. “That's a pretty bold fashion statement you've got going on there.”
“Listen, the further into the alphabet you get, the more amazing it feels to finally set your ta-tas free,” Erin replied, stretching out on the bed but being careful to leave a space between herself and Lauren.
Lauren looked down at herself, her own chest had yet to develop as far as Erin's and frankly at this point she had given up on ever having more than she'd already grown. Erin had considerably more to deal with, though Lauren didn't know exactly how 'far into the alphabet' she was. She was jealous of Erin's shorter, curvier stature, preferring it to her own tomboyish looks. Though she would never admit those feelings to her friend.
It wasn’t that she was ashamed, not really anyway. But the idea of physical contact with another person was still too mortifying to really contemplate.
“Seriously, I think I'm going to melt,” Erin whined, oblivious to the envy her friend was feeling. “And my ass barely fits in these damn shorts anymore, I look like a hoochie and I'm too hot to care.”
“You're not going to melt, drama-queen,” Lauren said, exasperated. “But yes, you look ridiculous, where did you even get those shorts? I mean, I love that they're something other than black, but they look like they were made for a 10-year-old kid.”
A brief pause followed before Erin spoke.
“They are made for a 14-year-old, if you must know, and I'm not thrilled about the color.”
“You stuffed your ass into shorts from four years ago,” Lauren asked, lifting her head from the bed and looking at her friend incredulously. “Why would you even do that to yourself? Why did you keep the dang things?”
“I was hot,” cried Erin. “I can't be held accountable for the desperate measures I was forced to take! Besides, I resent the phrasing 'stuffed my ass into' being applied to anything.”
The haughty, indignant tone that Erin took on was too much for Lauren, who laughed even harder.
“We can't all be bean-poles you hussy. I bet you fit into clothes from when you were six!”
Their banter was interrupted by Gabriel, who chose that moment to start screaming bloody murder. His piercing wails were easily heard across the small house. Lauren slipped gracefully from the bed, her long strides carrying her from the room in just a few steps. Erin attempted to do the same but snagged a foot on her bedding, crashing to the floor instead.
“Ouch, fuck,” Erin said, causing Lauren to pause briefly. “No I'm fine go ahead.”
Lauren didn't miss a beat, she sprinted down the hallway, her socks skidding on the hardwood. Gabriel was laying on the ground near the center of his pen, his face reddish purple and covered in tears and snot.
Lauren let out the breath she was holding, he was fine, just upset. She stepped over the low wall of the enclosure and picked her brother up. Gabriel was shaking in her arms, Lauren looked around for the cause of his distress but could see nothing.
“What is it, what's wrong,” Erin asked, stumbling into the room.
“I don't know, I don't think he fell or anything,” came Lauren's worried reply.
Lauren began rocking Gabriel gently in her arms, and when that failed to quiet him she instead put him on her chest and patted and rubbed his back. Gabriel screamed and screamed until he ran out of breath, and then continued to cry noiselessly, his mouth open in silent howls. Lauren grew increasingly worried, though she tried not to show it, and Erin sat on the couch, nervously biting her fingernails and staring intently at the pair.
Lauren felt Gabriel stiffen in her arms, then go limp. Alarmed, she held him back a moment to see him better. His eyes were half-closed, and drool was dripping from his mouth. He stiffened again, his tiny body going rigid and quivering. Lauren's eyes widened in fright.
“Erin!”
Erin stood up, hands over her mouth.
“What's happening, why does he look like that,” Erin cried, her voice high with fright.
Gabriel finally went limp again, but his complexion was patchy, ranging from red to deep purple to almost gray.
Lauren had never seen a seizure before, but as her baby brother stiffened once more she knew that's what this must be. All clarity of thought left her, and without a word she tore across the room, yanking the door open so hard it smashed into the wall as it swung.
In an instant Lauren was out of the house, her strides eating up ground as she crossed the front yard. She halted her sprint by banging into the door of the truck, fumbling in her pocket for the keys as she opened the unlocked door.
With Gabriel's small form still held tightly to her chest she fumbled to start the ignition and violently shifted the vehicle into reverse as it fired up.
Erin was barely past the doorway as Lauren spun the truck, tires barking on the asphalt and then stomped hard on the gas, leaving smoke and rubber on the road in her wake.
Cobden had no hospital.
The nearest one was in Anna, the next town over. Lauren prayed as hard as she could, begging someone, anyone to help her. To help Gabriel. The roar of the engine couldn't drown out Gabriel's strangled cries as he bounced back and forth between rigid silence and limp screaming. The scenery outside the truck blurred as Lauren accelerated faster and faster.
Gabriel's cries grew weaker and weaker. Lauren tried to ignore it, to deny it within herself. She held her tears in, biting her lip so hard it bled. The thin red needle of her speedometer had gone beyond the numbers listed on the dashboard, and still she stamped her foot as hard as she coul
d on the pedal. The check engine light came on, she ignored it. Smoke began to billow from under the hood, she ignored it. Gabriel's cries grew weaker still, and then shuddered to a raspy halt. He stopped tensing.
She couldn't ignore it.
The truck began to make a high pitched, shrill keening noise as the rural landscape between the towns gave way to the larger, more developed streets of Anna. Cars honked and swerved away from Lauren as she whipped through the town. Lauren was nearly there, she could see Union County Hospital. In front of the hospital was a large, well maintained expanse of grass. Rather than drive around, Lauren cruised right off the road and onto the grass, the tires of the truck kicking up dirt and tufts of grass as she did so. The truck sputtered, jerking violently, and died at the edge of the lawn.
The hospital was still a few hundred feet away, she hadn't even made it to the parking lot. Lauren rocketed from the cab, Gabriel clenched in her arms, and ran with all her might towards the door. She didn't know what she was saying, but she was screaming for help from anyone who could hear her as she blew into the waiting room like a tornado. A woman in blue scrubs ran up to her, taking Gabriel from her arms.
The woman was speaking, yelling even, but Lauren couldn't hear her. All she heard was silence, Gabriel's silence.
“...Happened! How long has he been unresponsive?”
Sound returned with a rush, a deafening roar of noise erupted as Lauren tuned back in. The woman was looking at her, desperate for an explanation. Gabriel was being taken down a hallway, surrounded by nurses and a pair of doctors.
Lauren moved to follow, but the woman held up a hand as if to stop her.
“Don't touch me,” Lauren screamed at the top of her lungs, she shoved the nurse with both gloved hands, causing her to stumble backwards. She ran after her brother, following until she was stopped by a large security guard. The man restraining her was like a mountain. She couldn't see the sadness in his eyes as he held her gloved wrist, all she saw was her own rage and despair. He didn't flinch as she exhausted herself pummeling her free hand into his arm.
Finally, panting, she sank to her knees sobbing. Immediately the man let go, allowing her arms to fall to her side. He stood silently beside her, as if unsure what to do.
She didn't know how much time had passed, every moment felt like an eternity to her, but the nurse came back to her. She asked the same questions as before; what happened, when, how, where. Lauren answered softly, her voice robotic, distant.
After a time the nurse left.
Lauren stayed where she was, silently detached from the chaos around her. A million thoughts crossed her mind, a thousand doubts and countless worries. What did she miss? What if he had permanent damage? How could she forgive herself if she had made his life harder than it already was?
As though summoned by her thoughts, the pair of doctors re-entered the hallway, they’d been crying.
No.
The doctors saw her, still kneeling on the floor, and one began to cry again.
No-no-no.
Lauren sat, horrified. She knew what those looks meant. One of the doctors opened his mouth to speak. At the same time, the security guard reached out to place a comforting hand on her shoulder.
Something within her snapped, ice flowed through her veins and her heart stopped as surely as her brother's had. She slapped away the guard’s outstretched hand, rising to her feet. Turning on her heel she ran. Out of the lobby. Out of the hospital. Across the lawn. Past her smoldering truck. Lauren ran down the city streets of Anna, out into the wilderness between it and Cobden.
Her socks were tattered, stained dark red with the blood of a dozen blisters and cuts that had formed and healed as she ran. Her shirt was dotted with crimson from a nosebleed she had developed a few miles ago, it had only lasted a moment, her gift had seen to that.
Her body ached, but it was nothing compared to the shards of glass inside her heart. Night had fallen over an hour ago, and still she ran.
Headlights on the highway did not slow her pace, it wasn't until she heard Erin screaming her name that she finally slowed and stopped.
Erin came screeching up on her moped, slamming hard on her brakes, stepping away from it and ignoring it as it fell over in her haste to reach her friend. Erin had been crying, she wore long black jeans and a thick hoodie. Without hesitation she wrapped Lauren in a hug, the thick fabric of the hoodie warmed Lauren as she wrapped her arms around her. Lauren noticed the growing chill of the night air for the first time. Slowly, Lauren wrapped her arms around Erin.
They stood that way for several minutes, silently embracing.
Lauren had never felt so small.
Chapter Six:
Lauren looked at herself in the mirror. She’d lost weight.
Unsurprising.
Everything she ate, even old favorites, tasted like ashes in her mouth. The woman looking back at her had also lost much of her healthy glow- the tan she had cultivated all summer had faded in the thin winter sunlight.
She had the house to herself, again. Her father was at work and her mother had been gone for more than five months now. When Gabriel died, Allison had left. She didn't say where she was going, she didn't say if she'd be back, she'd just... left.
“Another gift from the girl who just keeps on giving,” Lauren whispered solemnly.
The woman in the mirror said nothing, she simply stared back. The stare haunted her, she looked into her own soul and she saw the blood of her brother on her heart.
Epilepsy, the doctors had said. Rare, but not unheard of in children with fetal alcohol syndrome.
"There was nothing you could have done. No way to predict it."
The words did nothing to comfort her.
They were a jagged pill for the girl who could cure anyone. Anyone but the people she loved, it seemed. Her thoughts turned, as they always did, to Gabriel's face. It wasn't the face she wanted to remember, not the smiling, laughing, joy-filled angel she missed every day. No, it was the blue-gray face. The lifeless, agonized little face she had carried into the hospital.
Lauren played the scenes over and over again in her mind. Should she have called an ambulance instead of driving? Maybe if she had left sooner, when he first started crying. Doubts piled onto doubts, building until they threatened to overwhelm her. Again her anger flared, higher than before. She had been angry for weeks, always simmering and threatening to boil over. At first, Erin had been the solution. She was the only person who could possibly understand the pain. But she wasn't here, not now. Another problem she had created for herself; Lauren had been pushing away the only person she could truly confide in, and she didn't even know why.
Lauren pounded a fist against the mirror once, twice, again. She lashed out at her reflection. She hit it harder than she intended, shattering it into dozens of large, razor sharp fragments. She gasped in pain as falling pieces of the mirror sliced open her hand, wrist, and forearm. She stood shocked while blood splattered everywhere as the cuts spread wide, dousing the white porcelain of the sink.
All other thoughts left her, the fire in her arm drove them away. She watched as her wounds stitched themselves back together, leaving just one mid-sized piece embedded in her palm. Slowly, excruciatingly, it was pushed out by her healing flesh, landing with a clatter in the sink before her.
As the last traces of the cuts disappeared, Lauren examined her arm closely, not even the faintest hint of her injury remained. What's more, the pain had been so distracting, so intoxicating in the way it had wiped her mind clean of Gabriel. Even now, after the fact, it stood fresh in her mind, forcing out other, darker thoughts.
Her cellphone rang. It was the soft, beautiful violin solo that she had chosen for Erin's ringtone.
“Hey... haven't seen you since school on Monday.. You ok?”
Erin was worried. She could hear it in her voice.
“Yea, of course I am,” she tried to control her tone, unwilling to worry her friend further. She tried to remember what day it
was. “I, um, just woke up from a nap, so I'm a little fuzzy. It's, um, Wednesday right?”
“Lauren it's Thursday. Night. Like eight o'clock at night.”
Shit.
“Lauren?”
“Yeah, I'm here,” Lauren replied. Could it really be Thursday? Where had the time gone? Did it matter?
“I'm coming over,” Erin said forcefully.
“No, no, it's alright I'm ok. I think I might just be uh, getting a cold or something, it's got me out of it,” Lauren lied.
“No, you misunderstood, it isn't optional,” Erin said. “I meant to say I'm in your driveway and walking towards the door.”
Lauren panicked, she stared at the pool of red in front of her and tried to think of a way to get rid of it, or explain it away. Hastily she turned on the hot water in the sink, full force.
“What is that racket? Did you turn on the shower,” Erin questioned her suspiciously over the phone.
“No, I'm washing my hands,” Lauren was stumbling over her words, making it up as she went along. “I was, um, I had to pee.”
“Well-”
“I'll see you at the door, gimme three minutes, Okay bye,” Lauren interrupted her friend and hurriedly ended the conversation. She ran to her room and grabbed a sock from the floor. Dashing back towards the bathroom she began scrubbing at the sink and counters, hoping to hide the evidence of her injury.
A knock on the door. Damn, that was fast.
“Coming,” Lauren shouted.
The sink had a stubborn pinkish tinge to it, but it would have to do. She ran back into the living room, tossing the sock through her bedroom on the way.
When Lauren opened the door she could tell her friend was displeased. Erin had the look of an irritated mother. Like a woman whose child had been misbehaving.
