Avery gently slips out of Sammy’s grip and pulls the already sodden jumper over Sammy’s shivering shoulders. He zips it up for his little brother and then his fingers flutter for a minute in decision.
‘You. And me,’ he says. ‘We.’
He’s too soft, they always said.
He shifts on the pillows, his eyelids swollen and sticky. He’s too tired to make a proper effort anyway and if he moves too much, he feels the clenched tightness of his stomach where he’s been punched.
Wait.
Stabbed.
A chair scrapes. Sheets rustle as elbows leans forward.
His cold hand is caught up in a warm one and a small metal object is pressed into Sam’s palm.
His fingers fold over it automatically.
His key.
‘They took it off you during surgery. But you have it back now. It’s OK, Sammy.’
Sam drags his eyes open. His face feels stung and swollen, his throat flayed raw. He pushes past the haze of pain, the cotton, the aching behind his eyes – and sees Avery.
He looks terrible. His face is cleaned, but there are butterfly stitches on his cheek and his bottom lip is a mess of scabs. But it’s his eyes, his storm-blue eyes that now look like a hurricane sucked them dry and filled them up with exhaustion and terror.
Sam’s eyes droop to his arm, to the IV taped there. To the bed with the hospital blankets folded over his chest. His clothes are gone. Moxie’s waistcoat is gone.
He ruined it.
All her work.
She’ll yell at him for six days solid for—
Oh.
There is no more Moxie. There will be no more Moxie.
‘This is a hospital.’ The words scratch on the way out. He wants Avery to deny it.
‘Yeah,’ says Avery, voice thick.
‘Do they … do they know …’
‘Yeah.’ Avery tugs the blankets up higher on Sam’s chest. ‘I’m sorry, Sammy. I-I-I had to tell them everything.’
Oh.
Sam waits for the fear to catch up, to pound into his chest with hot irons and hooks. But he just feels numb.
‘You had stitches,’ Avery says. ‘But it went in deep so … surgery. It took a while. I kind of passed out so I don’t know how long.’ Avery fusses with the blanket again, but Sam suspects it’s to distract from his flicking fingers. ‘I’m supposed to get the nurse when you wake up. For painkillers. Do you hurt? How bad?’
Bad.
‘I’m OK.’ Sam closes his eyes. ‘Did they – get Vin?’
‘No.’
‘She … stabbed me?’
‘She ran. And no one knows who she really is and – I couldn’t say too much or they’d know what I was doing for her but – shit, Sammy.’
He’s crying.
Sam puts a hand on Avery’s head. He’s let his hair grow so it comes just past his ears, but it’s flat and wispy, soft as sunlight and feathers.
‘Do they know about what I did?’
Avery grabs Sam’s hand and squeezes it. ‘I don’t think so. Just – just don’t say anything till we get a lawyer.’
‘Lawyer,’ Sam repeats dumbly.
Avery scrubs his eyes with the hem of his T-shirt. ‘You’ve got some asshat of a social worker already out there.’
Sam’s lips tremble.
‘Sammy, what was I supposed to do? I couldn’t let you die.’
He’s going to jail. He’s spent a year of his life stealing into houses and trying trying trying to run away, and it’s over.
A small part of his heart is glad.
He’s so tired.
‘I c-can’t let them lock you up.’ Avery’s voice shreds with panic. ‘I can’t! Sammy – I can’t. I need you. I n-n-n-need to be with you.’ He scratches at his throat, a second away from spinning out, and Sam’s in no shape to catch him. ‘I lied when I said I didn’t. You know that, right? I lied. I lied! I LIED—’
‘Hey, hey, shh. I know.’ Sam stretches out his fingers, brushing Avery’s wrist. ‘Have you slept?’
Avery shakes his head, whole body trembling.
‘Are you staying here?’
‘I’m not leaving you.’
Sam chews his lips for a moment. ‘Can you fit on this bed?’
There’s a pause and the sounds of the hospital filter in: hums of machines, squeaking of carts in the hall, a faint consistent drip drip past the curtains.
‘My hands are going like a psycho,’ Avery says. ‘I don’t want to hurt—’
‘Don’t talk like that about yourself. Hear me? You need to move. It’s OK.’
Avery whimpers.
Sam scoots over on the bed, even though it feels like punching himself in the stomach all over again. Avery hesitates a moment and then scuffs his shoes off and climbs on. The bed really isn’t big enough for two, but the Lou boys are small. Avery turns on his side and Sam tips his head so it rests against Avery’s chest. Avery flicks his fingers by his ear, listening to his own calming beat.
‘Is this OK?’ Avery says. ‘I can move.’
‘Don’t leave.’
‘I’m not leaving. I just don’t want to hurt you.’
‘Avery.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Don’t leave.’
Avery tucks into Sam, two broken pieces in a puzzle box.
‘I’m not leaving,’ Avery says.
The trick is to keep quiet.
The trick is to hold on to Avery.
The trick is to only cry in the dark so you won’t get pitying looks from the nurses who think it’s the pain but it’s not it’s not it’s not.
It’s the falling.
Sam curls in a ball on his bed, hospital gown slipping off one shoulder, while he focuses on counting the strands of the cotton blanket. His stomach feels like every muscle has been cut open and stretched like taffy. Sometimes he can’t take a deep enough breath. He won’t eat. It’s been twenty-four hours, and he’s so, so sore.
The nurse has just finished with his bandage change, and hands him a paper cup and pills. ‘Your social worker is coming in now.’ She pulls the hospital gown up his shoulder. It just slips back down.