Bethany Roachell

Healing Wounds

Jake and Alice entered the silent house. Instead of going straight to her room, Alice told Jake she would meet him upstairs in a moment. She had to find her mother, to make sure she was all right. Her father had been a hard character to crack since the accident but her mother was fragile.

Susan, Alice’s mother, was in the living room, perched on the couch, her feet tucked underneath her—curled in a ball. She was looking through the photo albums again. Some books lay on the couch beside her, one rested on her knees as she flipped through the pages but she wasn’t crying.

“Mom?”

Susan looked up, surprised to see her daughter in the doorway. Her eyes were glazed, a memory holding her sight a moment longer. “He would’ve been fourteen today.”

“I know.” Alice took a deep breath to calm her nerves and slowly made her way closer to her mother—the new brace for her leg made it hard to walk. She couldn’t break down in front of her mother, not now. She glanced over her mother’s shoulder to see which album she held. The open pages revealed Sammy with a cheesy grin, in cannonball position above blue chlorinated water and another one with him pulling Alice’s hair.

It hurt to look at Sammy so happy and care-free as if he had hundreds of years to live. Page after page he carried a smile on his mouth and love in his eyes. So instead, Alice stared at her mother’s silver-lined curls and wondered how much of the gray was caused because of her, what she did.

A strained one-syllable laugh—which sounded more like a choke—forced its way from Susan’s mouth as she thought about her present misfortunes and the past with a healthy son. “Death is cruel,” she murmured.

Alice knew the impact itself was not her fault but deep down inside she felt as if she could have saved her brother. Her leg was broken, her head gashed open along her hairline and bleeding but despite the blinding pain she felt it was her responsibility to get her brother out of the car. His head lolled to the side, rested on his shoulder. The buckle did not cooperate, stuck in its sheath and the car caught fire. She cried out for her brother and the heat licked her skin as she jerked the seatbelt. There was nothing she could do; the buckle wouldn’t give her brother up.

Eventually, she was pulled from the wreckage by someone she didn’t know: an EMT? A bystander? All she remembered after was the frightening scene as both cars were engulfed completely in the fire; the booming sound of something exploding; someone’s screams; the wailing siren of police cars and ambulances and fire trucks; the slow draw of time as she was poked, prodded and interrogated. No one would answer the questions she wanted to ask: where was her brother and why had no one saved him?

The next thing Alice remembered was the curtain divider in a hospital room and the saddened faces of her parents. The weight of the news of Sammy and everything that happened that day pulled down the skin of their faces. Purple skin sagged underneath their red eyes from crying. Her mother smiled though her eyes remained dead when Alice awoke from her medically induced sleep.

“I’m so glad you’re alive,” she said. Susan’s fingers lightly traced the long cut along Alice’s hairline.

Alice pulled her head away from her mother’s touch and focused on the heat of her father’s accusing glare. Kevin’s arms were crossed and though his eyes rested on her form, she wondered if he really saw her. She turned back to her mother.

“How much longer do I have here?” She asked.

“We’re not sure, honey,” Susan replied. “I’ll go ask about getting you discharged.”

When Susan left the room, Kevin remained in the same position. His glare never wavered and made Alice uneasy. She turned on her side, her back to her father so she didn’t have to see the truth nestled in his expression. Her leg was stiff inside the cast and it was uncomfortable in this position but she stayed on her side until her mother came back with the announcement that she would be able to leave soon.

Sammy’s funeral was three days later. At first Alice didn’t ask the details of what happened to her brother but she put the pieces together from overhearing other people’s conversations. His body was charred, the reason there was no open casket; most of his remains were ashes anyway, the reason there was no casket at all. Instead a silver urn was placed on a pedestal with an 11x14 photo of him only weeks before the accident. Samuel W. Remington was cut into the mat board underneath his smiling face as if the viewers needed a reminder as to who the boy they were mourning was.

During the service, her mother barely controlled her sobs and her father sat in her chair, face emotionless. The very few times Alice was in the same room with her father, he had an expression on his face that wad indecipherable. She couldn’t tell what he thought, if he was okay. In fact, he hadn’t talked to her since before the accident. Her mother on the other hand, when she wasn’t crying about Sammy, tried to help Alice around the house. Alice was grateful for everything that her mother did but she was worried about her father but didn’t know how to approach him.

After the service, family and friends paid their respects to Alice and her parents by kissing, hugging or shaking hands—sometimes a combination of two or all three. Alice thought it was a routine, more patronizing than comforting, as if it was an obligation to fulfill. Some people who showed up—Alice wasn’t even sure she met before today—claimed to be distant relatives or long time friends of the family.

Katie, Sammy’s best friend, was there, dressed in solid black with an orange—Sammy’s favorite color—ribbon tied on her wrist. She looked like a ghost of a person in her black dress; her dark hair fell into her darker eyes which contrasted against her milky white skin. When Alice saw her, she wanted to run. Katie grabbed Alice before she could take a single step—not that she would have made it too far because of her awkwardness with her new crutches.

Alice thought a hug should never feel like a trap but with Katie’s arms wrapped tightly around her Alice couldn’t breathe. The top of her crutches dug into her underarms and pinched her skin. The girl’s shoulders shook from her sobs and Alice—ignoring the pain from the metal contraptions—smoothed Katie’s hair until she found control over herself.

“I’m so sorry,” Katie whispered and finally released Alice.

“Why?” Alice asked as she adjusted her balance. “You loved him.”

“But he was your family.”

Alice decided at that moment she needed to get fresh air. Jake offered to give her a lift home but she refused saying she needed to be alone.

“It’s a long walk,” he told her but kissed her forehead and let her go as long as she promised to call him if she needed a ride the rest of the way home.

 The funeral home was a mile and a half from the house but Alice began the long walk home anyway. She couldn’t take the sympathy from any more people or the pity from the others she didn’t know. The only place that seemed welcoming to her was bed.

Phoebus remembered to do his job today, she realized, looking up. The sun shone bright, high in the noonday sky. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky to help mourn the dead. He should know what it was like to lose someone you cared for. His son Phaethon died when he convinced Phoebus’ to let him drive the chariot, the car that guided the sun along its difficult path to light the day, and failed. After his son died, Phoebus refused to rise for an entire day. Yet there he was, now, at his highest peak, shining down on her brother’s fate.

She adjusted her crutches underneath her arms, the cumbersome contraptions were uncomfortable and hindering but she trekked on knowing she couldn’t turn around now.

Alice kissed the top of her mother’s head where the gray gathered most and she murmured, “Are you sure it’s death and not life?”

Susan didn’t respond, instead she flipped another page in the album.

Alice left her mother alone with Sammy’s memories. Alice had to grab the banister of the stairs to help her conquer the flight.

 A couple months had passed since the wreck and the only thing that changed was what encased Alice’s leg. At first it was a cast that went up above her knee. She went seven weeks with it and now had to wear a cast boot for another four, just to be on the safe side. While the removable boot was supposed to make things easier for her—for example, walking without crutches, taking baths, and sleep—she found that it didn’t help with everything.

As Alice reached the top of the stairs she caught her father exiting Sammy’s room, dried tears streaked his cheek—tears she didn’t even see at the funeral. He held her gaze for a moment. Alice could never hold her tongue, or emotions, like her father could.

“You okay?” she asked. He had to answer her one of these days she thought.

Kevin blinked at the question, the only sign he heard her. He always disappointed her. If only he would speak to her—it had been weeks.

When her father disappeared down the hallway, Alice entered her own room. She lay on her bed, propped her foot up and heaved a great sigh. Jake sat next to her on the bed and grabbed her hand, trailing his fingers softly along her palm.

Alice said. “He hates me.”

“No he doesn’t.” Jake pulled her into a sitting position to make her look at him.

“Yes he does.” Alice shook her head, stubborn to a fault. “He blames me.”

Jake walked across the room and gathered their books from school and plopped them on the bed next to Alice. “No use in worrying over that when we have Algebra to think about.”

Leave it to Jake to change the topic with his favorite subject. Alice rolled her eyes but allowed the distraction. Algebra wasn’t something she was good at but at least she had Jake to help her out when she got lost in the problems. If it wasn’t for Jake, Alice knew she might have been as lost as Katie, who walked around the halls of school in a daze, tears always threatening to fall. She might have been like her mother, broken and always looking at the past hoping to fall back in time when things were right. Or she could have turned out like her father and block out the rest of the world and live on auto-pilot.

Instead, Alice was able to face each new day the sun announced—even if she had to struggle through it. She wasn’t falling behind in school; in fact she was doing better than any of the years before. No one seemed to notice the changes, no one except Jake. All she wanted was her father to acknowledge her.

Alice dropped her pencil onto her notebook, “I can’t do this.”

“Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally.”

“What?”

Jake leaned over her to point to the problem and said, “When working the operations it helps. Parentheses, exponents—“

Alice shook her head, “That’s not what I meant.”

Ignoring Jake, she left the room in search of her father. Kevin was in his office, shifting paper around on his desk. Either he was working or pretending to. He looked up when she walked in but didn’t say anything. So Alice stayed silent too and stood in the doorway watching her father.

She noticed Sammy’s urn on one of the shelves against the wall behind the desk. After the funeral, Alice realized she never stopped to think about what would actually happen to Sammy now. Would he now have to spend the rest of his afterlife perched on a shelf somewhere?

What about taking his ashes somewhere meaningful like the Pacific Ocean and spreading them out into the sea? They could take him to the Golden Gate Bridge and drop his ashes from the edge. There was a place in town they could spread his ashes that he liked to go. They could take him to Iowa and spread his ashes amongst the cornfields next summer just because he would get a kick out of it—you couldn’t get more country than that. Anything seemed better than keeping him closed up in an urn. He was a free spirit and it seemed wrong. They could leave parts of him everywhere they decided to travel.

“It’s empty,” Kevin said.

Alice jumped at her father’s gravelly voice, too shocked to say anything herself.

“I couldn’t have it full of—“ He choked on his words. “I dumped it outside the funeral home.”

Of all the places Sammy could have ended up, it was outside a place meant to help separate the living from the dead. A place to say good-bye and never again.

Alice looked for her father to apologize, to ask him not to blame her and to just say something. Now, however, she wished she never found him. She wished she had never heard him say anything. Anger swelled underneath her skin, thickening her blood—she didn’t think she could move.

Kevin stood up and hugged Alice, her arms remained at her sides. He backed away but kept his hands on her shoulders. In that moment, Alice felt she could read her father thoroughly. Almost quick as the anger filled her, it dissipated. Still, she left her father standing in the middle of his office without saying a word.

She returned to her room and Jake. For the first time in what felt like forever—the numbness gone—Alice curled into her covers and cried. She cried for her brother, her family, for Katie and for relief knowing everything would turn out okay.

Jake was still there when Alice’s tears stopped.

Revision Account 

This story originally was a chapter one to a more intricate and drawn out storyline. I took the basic elements of the story and condensed it to the version you see above. At first the Healing Wounds, when it was known as Decadence, started out with this paragraph:

 Her brother Sammy died the summer before his freshman year of high school. Changes were expected for those who lived on after he passed away to fill in the gaps he left behind. However, no one knew the devastating effect it would have on the girl who was driving the vehicle when it collided with another.

After Rachel Barton looked at it one of the first things she said was that this had to go. It was more of an author intrusion and that is summarized practically the entire story. When she pointed this out I realized she was right and took her advice, cut it out and then the story started with this sentence:

Alice knew the impact itself was not her fault but deep down inside she knew she could have saved her brother.

Amber Buitron pointed out that I used contractions sometimes and not other times. I wasn’t being consistent in my work. She also helped me with grammar mistakes and in places where I was too wordy. For example the sentence above at one point sounded like this:

Alice knew the impact itself was not her fault but deep down inside her she knew she could have saved her brother.

While all I had to do was take out the first “her,” it made a big difference with how the sentence sounded. When I changed the storyline to fit a short story requirement, I cut out several characters. Alice’s best friend, Molly, didn’t show up in the shorter version or her cousin Emma. At first I planned on cutting even Jake out but Lauralie Pope convinced me to keep Jake around because she liked his character so much.

Lauralie also helped pick out a few awkward sentences and even when actions the characters made didn’t seem to make sense. For example:

A strained one-syllable laugh forced its way out of Susan’s mouth.

Lauralie said that it “doesn’t seem to fit the mood.” While I still kept it a laugh, for lack of a better way to describe the sound, I tried to make it sound more convincing as a somewhat pained sound:

A strained one-syllable laugh—which sounded more like a choke—forced its way from Susan’s mouth as she thought about her present misfortunes and the past with a healthy son.

Other awkward sentences were fixed. Descriptions of situations and characters were changed for the better (especially the scene with Alice and Katie). All with help from Rachel, Amber and Lauralie.

 This was somewhat of a hard piece to write. I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go with it. In fact I wasn’t sure where to end it but I decided to end it where it is now because grieving is an ongoing progress. Also, I had realized through the entire story, even the original piece, Alice never cried. You have all the inner turmoil she feels about what had happened but no outward appearance of it. She’s so caught up in worrying about everyone else and the fact she can’t even get her father to speak to her, she doesn’t realize what she herself has been holding in. A lot of the silence throughout the story is to show that sometimes, there aren’t words for what’s going on.

Healing Wounds was an interesting story to write in the end. I love the characters and everything they represent. If I did want to go further with this I still believe I could. Although it has changed completely from the first draft.

[ Original Copy: Decadence ]

Her brother Sammy died the summer before his freshman year of high school. Changes were expected for those who lived on after he passed away to fill in the gaps he left behind. However, no one knew the devastating effect it would have on the girl who was driving the vehicle when it collided with another.

Alice knew the impact itself was not her fault but deep down inside she knew she could have saved her brother. Her leg was broken, her head gashed open along her hairline and bleeding but despite the blinding pain she felt it was her responsibility to get her brother out of the car. His head lolled to the side, resting on his shoulder. The buckle was not cooperating, stuck in its sheath and the car had caught on fire. She cried out for her brother as the heat licked her skin but there was nothing she could do even then.

Eventually, she was pulled from the wreckage by someone she didn’t know: an EMT? A bystander? All she remembered after was the frightening scene as both cars were engulfed completely in the fire; the booming sound of something exploding; someone’s screams (probably her own); the wailing siren of police cars and ambulances; the slow draw of time as she was poked, prodded and interrogated. No one would answer the question she wanted to ask: Why would no one save her brother?

The next thing Alice remembered was the saddened faces of her parents, the weight of the news of Sammy and everything else that happened that day pulled down the skin of their faces. Purple skin sagged underneath their eyes, red from crying. A small smile that contradicted the emotion in her mother’s eyes formed on her lips once Alice had awoken from her sleep.

“I’m so glad you’re alive!” she whispered her exclamation, her voice ragged. Susan’s fingers lightly traced the long cut along Alice’s hairline.

Alice turned her gaze from her mother to her father’s stony glare. His arms were crossed and though his eyes rested on her form, she knew he didn’t see her. Alice turned completely away from her parents so she didn’t have to see the truth nestled in the wrinkles of their faces. Her leg was stiff inside the cast and it was uncomfortable in this position but at least she knew she deserved everything bad that would come her way.

Sammy’s funeral was three days later. At first Alice did not ask the details but put the pieces together from overhearing other people’s conversations. His body was charred, the reason there was no open casket; and most of his remains were ashes anyway, the reason there was no casket at all. Instead a silver urn was placed on a pedestal with a small oval picture of Sammy weeks before the accident centered on the side. Samuel W. Remington etched underneath his smiling face as if the viewers needed a reminder as to who the boy they were mourning was.

Katie, Sammy’s best friend, was there, dressed in solid black with an orange ribbon tied on her wrist, Sammy’s favorite color. Her dark hair fell into her darker eyes but she was still gorgeous and it was no wonder how Sammy had fallen for her. When Alice saw her she wanted to run. How could she face the girl who loved her brother when she was the one who let him leave? Katie on the other hand grabbed Alice and wouldn’t let go for the longest time. Her shoulders shook from the sobs. Alice hugged her back not knowing what else to do.

“I’m sorry,” Katie whispered and finally released Alice.

She turned away from Katie and left without a word. The church was four miles from the house but Alice began the long walk home anyway. Helios shone bright and Alice cursed the god of the sun. Why be so joyous on a day like this? No cloud in the sky to help mourn the dead. She adjusted her crutches underneath her arms, the cumbersome contraptions were uncomfortable and hindering but she trekked on knowing she could not turn around now.

---

School started a month later. Alice slumped over in her desk as the homeroom bell rang. Her chin rested in her hands and the teacher walked into the room followed by a young man. Alice watched as he sauntered into the room and slid into the desk beside her.

“Hi,” he said when he caught her glance.

She didn’t respond. He had a carefree smile and it annoyed her. She looked the other way and waited for the teacher to start class. She hoped the fading scar that now faced him would be enough to scare him off.

Since the accident her friends Molly and Jane tried to be supportive the best they knew how but she became withdrawn. As the first few weeks passed they invited her to come over to their houses to hang out. She would always comply and they would flip through glamour and watch television but Alice still seemed detached. The bubbly blond they knew had changed and they no longer recognized the being in front them. Molly and Jane never saw her laugh anymore nor smile. Alice would go home early, never stay the night and actually did her summer reading list. When Jane asked her why the sudden change, Alice just shrugged and said it helped her keep her mind of things.

The teacher droned on as she read from a syllabus she passed out earlier. As if none of the students could read it for themselves. She wished Molly or Jane were in the class with her, that way she could keep herself awake by passing notes. Luckily she did not fall asleep before the class was over but she was barely awake. The bell rang and everyone started to evacuate the room and started to their next class.

Juggling her bag full of books with her crutches was a lot trickier than she thought it would be. One of the crutches caught a leg of a desk and the crutch flew out from underneath her arm and landed a few feet from her. To keep her balance she let her bag fall to the floor and leaned heavily on her right crutch. The toes of her left leg rested lightly on the cool marble floor as she assessed the situation in front of her.

The boy from earlier was quick on his feet and picked up her things, handed her the fallen crutch. He walked out of the room with her bag in his hand.

“Hey!” Alice called.

She hurried as best she could out of the room. He nonchalantly leaned against the wall in wait for her.

“My bag?” She asked; her hand outstretched for it.

He shouldered the straps of her bag and grinned. “You looked like you needed help.”

Alice adjusted herself, hopping out of the way of some of the more rambunctious students who didn’t seem to care about a girl wobbling about with a broken leg. “Thanks for the help. Can I have my bag back?”

“Have you always been this sharp?” He damn near pouted. “I just wanted to help.”

Alice rolled her eyes and pushed past him headed to her next class. She glanced behind her in hopes that he would follow her. He did.

“You catch on quick.” She did not have to look at him to feel his smile. “My name’s Jake.”

Alice grunted in response. Silence accompanied them as they approached the elevator and Alice pressed the up button. Jake waited for her to enter the elevator first and after the doors closed he decided to speak.

“Do you mind if I ask what happened to you?”

“Yes.” She avoided anything further when she asked: “Are you new?”

“Yeah. My father moved here for work so I tagged along.”

“Hmm.”

The doors opened once they reached the second floor and they worked their way through the crowd for her next class.

“Mom chose not to move. The situation is pretty complicated.”

Relief passed through Alice when they finally reached her door. “Thank goodness I get this thing off in another week, so you won’t have to keep doing this.”

Jake ran a hand through his hair and rested it on the back of his head. A sheepish look crossed his face. “Uh…”

Realization dawned on Alice on how the last sentence sounded and scoffed. “I didn’t mean it that way,” she said with a shake of her head. She took her bag from his shoulder. “Thanks for the help.”

---

When school was over, Alice waited for the buses at the front of the school. Lunch had been a blessing in disguise. It was a break from the mind boggling bustle of the classroom. She joined Molly and Jane who sat at a table inside the cafeteria and as she listened to them jabber she realized how much the two meant to her. Without them she was sure she would not be where she was today. She sighed, the bag weighed heavily on her shoulder.

“What happened to you?”

Alice had gone an entire summer without running into The Girls, save her cousin Emma. She had hoped she could go an entire school day but luck was not on her side. Taylor, biggest bitch of them all, stood dead center with her arms crossed and her lips pursed.

“What, too good to talk to anyone anymore now?”

The blond rolled her eyes and looked at her cousin, searching for someone who would understand but Emma avoided eye contact by looking off to the side. Nicole, standing nearly a head taller than the others, rested an arm on Taylor’s shoulder to calm her.

“Come on, you know what she’s been through.”

Taylor jerked from Nicole’s grasp. “That doesn’t mean I should give her any of my pity.”

“Taylor,” Emma spoke up gently but stern, “let’s just go.”

Shocked, Alice caught Emma’s eyes for only a second but she noticed the tears in them. In junior high and the first year of high school they had been a group but as freshman year passed on the other three became wild. They partied every weekend and drank heavily and even experimented with drugs and sex. At first Alice always said her parents wouldn’t let her go with them but eventually they started to get smart and tried to invite Alice for a slumber party and then try to sneak her out that way.

Alice never wanted to go though and one day Emma asked her parent’s for her. When her father said she could go, Alice got a taste of what it was like in her friends’ shoes. Little did she know what was really going on during their late night outings. Of course, she knew what they told her but she never realized how crazy things could get.

Guys would grope you inappropriately just because you were standing close, a joint and the harsh smell of weed was passed around without care and drinks were in endless supply. All of this Alice experienced in one night and she knew after that she could never hang out with them again. When she voiced her opinion to the girls they took it as she didn’t want to be friends with them anymore. They never let her live it down.

As they walked off from her now, Alice somewhat regretted her decision. Molly and Jane were great friends but her childhood was spent with the three who turned their backs on her. The Girls were a part of her make-up and that was the only way she could explain why she put up with their endless taunts; she could never part with them entirely.

“What was that all about?”

Alice jumped, almost losing her balance but a hand steadied her. “Long story,” she said when her heart slowed down.

“They aren’t responsible for…” Jake gestured to her cast.

She hesitated a moment before she shook her head.

“Okay,” he said with a nod. “Just making sure they weren’t in for a dose of their own medicine.”

“Ah.”

“Here, let me.” Jake reached for her bag. If it hadn’t been so heavy by now she might have protested.

“Thanks.”

He shrugged.

“Are you going to follow me on the bus so I don’t have to carry them?”

He laughed, “Is that an invitation?”

Alice shook her head, “You followed me this morning. I just wanted a warning this time.”

“Actually I’m parked right over there.” He pointed to the parking lot at the side of the building.

The buses started to pull into the designated pick up area and the kids around them started to pile into them.

“I was wondering if I could give you a ride home.”

Alice glanced in the direction of the bus she would ride home in otherwise.

“Look at the perks,” he stated. “More leg room which you obviously need-“

“Hey! That was rude!”

“And,” he drawled out ignoring her comment, “You have better company.”

Alice shook her head, “I don’t want to make you drive out of your way.”

Jake shrugged, “Where do you live?”

“On Cherry Blossom Avenue.”

Jake started walking, “No big deal, I live a street over.”

She rolled her eyes and followed him knowing she wouldn’t have a say in otherwise. “Good,” she said to his back. “You’ll know where you going at least.”

He stopped, waited for her to catch up and replied, “You forget I had a whole summer to learn my way around this town.”

---

Jake was a year older than her and a Senior she found out in their short drive home. Since he was nice enough to offer the ride she figured she could be nice enough to have polite conversation with him. However, when he pulled up alongside the curb of her house she waved goodbye and refused to let him walk her to the door. Her mother was home, she said, and it would have been weird right now to bring a boy home. When he asked her why, Alice wouldn’t give anymore information away but he complied anyway.

Susan was in the living room, perched on the couch, her feet tucked underneath her. She was looking through the albums again but she wasn’t crying.

“Mom?”

Susan looked up, surprised to see her daughter standing in the doorway. “He would’ve been fourteen today.”

Alice took a deep breath to calm her nerves. She couldn’t break down in front of her mother, not now. “I know.” She glanced over her mother’s shoulder to see which album she held. The open pages revealed Sammy with a cheesy grin, in cannonball position above blue chlorinated water and another one with him pulling Alice’s hair.

A strained one-syllable laugh forced its way out of Susan’s mouth. “Death is so cruel,” she murmured.

Alice kissed her mother’s forehead and as she left the room she murmured, “Are you sure it’s death and not life?”

Susan either ignored her or didn’t hear her because she didn’t say anything in reply. Later Alice heard her father come home but they never talk anymore so she didn’t bother going downstairs to greet him. Instead she walked outside, her little balcony was a cozy get away. There was enough room for a small table a chair and a little wiggle room but it was perfect for her. It was a home away from home and a great escape from the secrets of the house.

The backdoor of the house directly across from her window slammed and a figure became apparent. She squinted against the setting sun as she tried to make out who the person was. Last she knew the house was vacant and she wasn’t aware someone had moved in. A shot of black hair was the first detail she noticed, then the recognizable face of none other than Jake.

“Hey!” she yelled.

He looked up, searching a moment before he found her perched in her balcony. He grinned a boyish grin, “Hey yourself!”

“Nice little convenience we got here!”

He rested his hand on the back of his head much like he did that morning, the same sheepish expression settled on his features. “If you say so.”

Alice looked down on him and had the urge to smile for the first time in weeks but catching herself as the corners of her mouth twitched, she suppressed it—she wasn’t supposed to smile. “Well, I guess if you ever need me for anything you know where to find me.”

Before he could respond she slipped inside her room again and slapped her hand against her forehead. Throwing her crutches on the ground she collapsed in her bed with a sigh.