Chapter Fourteen-New Beginnings

Chapter 14

            The beeping noises bugged me. I tried to roll over to turn my alarm clock off but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t sit up or breathe in deeply. I opened my eyes thinking I was at home. A white room with a window was where I really was. I moved my head slowly from one side to another. To my left was a door and my right was a chair and medical equipment. I wanted to get up I hated being restrained like this. Every time I tried to sit up the beeping would come faster, I finally gave up.

            A nurse came in not too long later, she seemed surprised to see me awake. She quickly took my pulse, wrote a few notes and rushed out coming back with a doctor. They. Were. Annoying. They wouldn’t leave me alone, or shut up. Once they were gone Carmen and Kirk came in.

“Milo!” Carmen said happily she rushed over and hugged me.

“Ouch! Let go Carmen.” I said.

“Milo’s allergic to human happiness.” She said to Kirk as he sat in the chair.

“I’m sure he his.” Kirk said returning the joke.

“Where’s Jack and Don?”

“After the cars crashed someone called the cops, and when they heard the gun shot they ran into the forest found Jack and-“Carmen stopped.

“Jack fired back and was shot, two bullets in his body, the rest missed.”

“He’s dead?”

“Yes.”

“Don?”

“Back with his mom.”

“He’s okay though, right?” I asked.

“His arm broke from the hard crash, but other than that yes.”

            The doctor came back and asked Carmen to leave while he talked to my ‘father’. Carmen reluctantly left shutting the door behind her.

“While we stitched you up we noticed you had a numeral amounts of cuts, bruises, and two scars. We are concerned for your health and would like to know how you got them.”

            I looked at Kirk who sat up suddenly worried, “I was in a rumble.”

“Yes the bruises and cuts are new, but the scars are not.”

            I stopped wanting to choose my words wisely, “When I was younger I accidentally knocked a beer bottle off the table and it fell on me.”

            He asked no further questions and left.

“Milo, why would you defend me?” Kirk asked, “After everything I’ve done to you.”

“You saved me, if I were dead Carmen would be left with you.”

            Kirk huffed, “Couldn’t let that happen now, could you?”

“Naw.” I smiled.

 

            About a month later I was walking home with Jim. Still covered in car grease with the sun shining down on my back.

“This doesn’t make since.”

“What?”

“Anything.” I said.

“Meaning?”

“How could something so terrible end up sort of okay?”

“I don’t get you.”

“Course you don’t.” I said. While Jim climbed the fence and I walked through the open gate I said, “You know there’s a door right?”

“Course.”

“So use it.”

            We stepped up the three porch steps, as I looked in through the kitchen window I saw Kirk and Carmen sitting at the kitchen table. They looked so happy.

“I get in now.” Jim said, he put a hand on my shoulder and we both walked through the door.

          Me and my father may never make up with each other, but for Carmen, there are new beginnings.