Young Writers Society

Three days later, we had news of my discharge. The doctor was certain that I'd be good to go home in two weeks, "Give or take a day on either end," and I was too happy to point out the redundancy of his statement. My mother cried, and Francis had to be reminded not to hug me too hard by a nurse with blonde hair and pretty green eyes (the same nurse snuck me an extra butterscotch pudding at suppertime to commemorate the occasion).

Parker was the first to show up that evening, and even he hugged me. Only after my arms invited him, but I couldn't blame him for being hesitant.

"I kind of feel like I've been around the entire time," he murmured, lips far too close to my ear to be anything but hazardous. I had memories of those lips near my ears and, for now, said memories still hurt. "Is that... self-absorbed or something?"

I laughed under my breath and shook my head. "No. I keep forgetting that you haven't been here since day one, too." He'd only been coming to see me for five days, and the boy- the man, now, I suppose he was- was a permanent fixture again.

He pulled back, and I let him, but my fingers hooked around his before his hand could fall away completely. He tried to hide it, but I caught the smile. "God," he started. "You know, you already look... better." He looked up at my mother. "Am I just losing it, or has he massively improved over the past five days, Mai?"

Mom shook her head, and I swear it on my life, I hadn't seen her smile like that since Dad went missing. "He has." She chuckled, squeezing Francis's shoulder. "You haven't had anything but Tylenol One today, either, have you?"

I shook my head, falling back into the pillows, because I could fall into them without hurting. Well, badly, anyway. The thrum was still there, but it was tolerable. "Two doses. Nothing stronger than that."

Francis wiggled away from Mom, plopping herself down on a chair next to Parker's. She pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on them. "Think you'd be better at Uno in our own living room?" she asked.

I winked at her. "Probably not." I raised a finger. "But, I bet I can still kick your butt at Scrabble."

Parker scrunched his eyebrows at us. "You could kick anyone's butt at Scrabble, dummy."

I didn't have time to tell him that Nicky was actually a formidable Scrabble foe before she and Michael were stumbling through the door, Michael with a fresh bouquet raised above his close-shaven head, Nicky ducking under his opposite elbow, which seemed to have been trying to collide with her sternum.

"Brazil," Nicky started, and with a level of enthusiasm that I hadn't heard from her in a long time. "We found lilacs." She pointed proudly to the bouquet that was hoisted over Michael's head, and he lowered it. "Like, in a flower shop and I didn't even know they could get them in this time of year."

If my eyes hadn't gotten a good two sizes bigger, I would've been surprised. The light purple kind and everything. I didn't have time to properly respond before Michael was shoving the entire thing in my face.

"Smell and believe!" he said, and I did, but I didn't know what I was supposed to be believing. I didn't ask, either- just took the flowers from his hand when Parker dropped mine, fingering the petals with the fingers of the other.

It may not have been exactly masculine of me, but I was observing every dip in every petal, then the entire petal. The blossoms. The branches. A thorough admiration, starting with the smallest, most minute detail, ending with the object of interest as a whole. It was something that my father had taught me, and I was glad that I'd learned it.

I looked up at Mom when I was finished, and she whisked over to take it, pulling the old flowers from the vase to put the new ones in. "Do you want me to dry these ones?" she asked, and I nodded when she looked over her shoulder. She laid them out on the dresser and leaned a shoulder on the wall.

There was a brief intermission, during which Michael and Nicky fought over the only chair with purple upholstery, and he ended up sitting on her lap in the end, anyway. My eyes rolled more than once, but I was savouring the atmosphere. Everyone was here who needed to be, and nobody looked ready to throttle anyone else (mostly, Nicky didn't look ready to throttle Parker), and it was... nice. For the first time in a month and a half, things felt nice.

I leaned back against the pillows and cleared my throat. "I have an announcement." I rolled my head around to look at Michael and Nicky. "Which is actually only for you two, because Parker's punctual and already heard." Michael blew a raspberry, and Nicky swatted the back of his head.

My sister giggled, and then she giggled again, and I swear, I thought she'd start crying. She'd always been emotional, and she'd always been a crier, and God knew how these past couple years had been for her. I made sure to smile at her before I kept going.

"The doctor thinks I'll be out of here in a couple of weeks."

There was a moment of silence, followed by the single most feminine squeal I'd heard from Nicky's mouth, and Michael finished with a very, very enthusiastic, "Dude!" Even Parker laughed, and I don't think that it would've been physically possible for me to smile any bigger.

"You're going home," Nicky whispered. "Freaking... gosh, it feels like forever, Braz."

I nodded, letting my head rest against the pillows again. I looked at Mom, and she shook her head disbelievingly- and tilted it in Parker's direction. I looked in his general direction, catching sight of his hand on its side, resting suggestively close to my wrist. I took it again, and when I squeezed, he squeezed back.

"I don't even remember most of it," I said, sending a short, single-syllable laugh at the ceiling. "But it does feel like forever." It could have been worse, and I kept trying to remind myself of that. From a year stuck here with a steady line of surgeries to stop internal bleeding and damage to six feet under in a wooden box.

There was a pause. Francis started squirming, just like she did when you knew she was getting upset by something. I looked at her and offered a gentle smile. "I don't feel like losing a game of Uno right now, but is our Monopoly game still here?"

The smile was returned, and before I could blink, she was nodding and digging it out from under a pile of jackets on a chair against the wall.

"I call the car," Michael chirped.

Nicky shoved him off of her lap, which warranted laughter from all directions. "I call the car to infinity and beyond."

The banter started- the kind that Parker always distanced himself from. I withheld for once, looking at him while everyone was distracted. "You'll be there, right?" I asked, voice barely above a whisper.

He blinked at me, eyebrows knitting together. "Be where?"

"Here. When I get to go home." I couldn't help myself; I gave him my best pleading eyes. It had been the stone in my stomach since he'd agreed to keep visiting- him falling off the face of the planet again- and I didn't want him to stop showing up once I was out of the hospital. Whatever pieces he was willing to give, I wanted to take back, and I couldn't do that if he disappeared.

He stared at me for a second. And then another. And another. The tray, game set up, was placed on my lap, and I let myself be stolen from the moment. My shoulders fell a little, and I picked the dog piece out of the box lid when Mom extended it to me.

I watched Parker take the thimble from the corner of my eye, barely catching the whispered, "Yeah, I will be."