Page 86 of It's Always Sonny

Her words should soothe me, but they can’t penetrate the layer of fear coating me. “Harry’s a kid. This can’t happen.” I shiver so hard, my jaw hurts.

PJ grabs my hand and laces her gloved fingers through it. There’s enough warmth that my hand feels like it’s burning at her touch. “Nothing is going to happen to him. Tripp and Rusty know every inch of the farm. They know every hiding spot. They’ll find him. But we need to get you out of this storm, Sonny. You’re freezing.”

“I’m fine,” I insist for what feels like the hundredth time.

This place is huge, what with us taking a serpentine route through the forest to try to cover as much ground as possible and shouting until our throats are raw. It was already a dark night, but here in the woods, the darkness is oppressive. It pushes down on us, encroaching on our lights. It quiets the worst of the wind, but it also dampens our cries.

It starts snowing hard, icy flakes that pelt and melt.

Pelt and melt.

That’s funny.

What’s not funny is how much it hurts to shiver. I’m almost convulsing, and my jaw aches as my teeth smash into each other. I can barely pry my mouth open to yell his name anymore. His name.

Whose name?

“Who are we looking for, again?” I yell over the wind.

PJ stops and whirls on me. She holds her phone up to my face and her massive eyes widen. “Sonny, you’re blue!”

“Huh?” I ask. My mind tries to ask more questions but my mouth won’t let them come out.

“You’re hypothermic! We have to warm you up, now!”

The shivering stops, and I shake my head. “No, we have to look for Daniel.”

“HARRY!”

“I’m Sonny!” I laugh.

Why am I laughing?

PJ is on her phone yelling at someone to drop her a pin, and the next thing I know, she’s looking at a red dot on a weird picture of land on her phone, and there’s no pin anywhere.

Pin.

That’s a weird word.

She pulls my hand, and I stumble heavily. What is wrong with my leg?

“My knee hurts,” I say, but I say the word wrong, because it has a k in it and I forgot to say the k. “K-nee. K-nee?” A sound like a choked cry comes from Parker’s throat. “Don’t cry, baby!” I tell her. “I love you! I’ve always loved you!”

She puts her arm around my waist, and I put my arm around her shoulders, and I laugh as she tries to take some of the burden of my weight. But I also want to cry.

“All I’ve wanted since the day we met is to share your burdens, and now you’re sharing mine,” I blubber. I shouldn’t be saying this. It’s so weird!

Weird.

That’s a weird word.

“I need to make another call,” she yells. “We’re almost to the tent, okay? It’s thirty yards away!”

“I can catch a thirty yard pass in my sleep,” I say. She holds the phone up to her ear, but she must accidentally press speaker with her cheek, because I can hear it, too.

“Hello, Parker.”

“Dad!” she cries. “I need your help.”

---