Page 2 of Broken

His smile is kind.

His eyes are beautiful.

He’sbeautiful. It’s like his soul is shining back at me.

“Do you think there’s any hope of his release being negotiated by the French government?”

I tug on my bottom lip as I switch my focus between the priest on the TV and the door, where I notice that a nurse is escorting one of the visitors out of the waiting room. I’ve been here longer than most but no doctor has come to explain to me how the boy’s doing.

And that’s exactly what he is—a boy.

After the fifteenth missed call from Dad, I know I need to woman up and answer.

“Where are you?”

I grimace at my dad’s bark. I hate when he’s mad at me. “I’m in the hospital.”

“You’rewhat?” So, his bark is better than his shriek. “Which hospital? What’s wrong? Send me your location—I’ll be there in five minutes.”

Smiling sheepishly at the floor, feeling his love through the airwaves, I admit, “I’m fine. I swear. It isn’t me who’s… I was just walking to school, Dad. Same route as always. No difference. But you know where the Lithuanian deli is?—”

“On Burbank and Greens?”

“Yep. In the alley behind it, I saw a foot.”

“A foot?” he repeats, but he sounds like he’s wheezing. “It was attached to a leg, right?”

“Oh, yeah, but?—”

“Lead with that in the future, honey, please. My old ticker can’t take it. I never know with you. The weird stuff you come across...” I can almost see him shaking his head. But there’s no denying he’s right. I do notice more than most. “Okay, so, the foot. What about it?”

“There was a boy passed out in the alley,” I mumble. “He looked dead, Dad, but I couldn’t just leave him there, could I? Don’t you always tell me to help people?”

He blows out a breath. “You didn’t call the police?”

“No, I called an ambulance instead. He wasn’t dead. His skin was this weird shade of blue though. He was breathing but barely. I didn’t dare put him in the recovery position because the needle was stuck in his arm?—”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!”

“I couldn’t leave him when the ambulance showed up,” I wheedle. "He shouldn’t have to travel alone. What if he woke up and was frightened?—”

“Of course, that’s where your mind went,” he mutters.

“He looked really uncomfortable, Dad.”

“By the sounds of it, he was overdosing, honey.”

“Why do people want to feel that way?”

“Because they're seeking an escape.”

“I think I’d prefer not to escape and not turn blue in an alley.”

“Thank the Lord for that!”

The next time Judith Foster shoves weed in my face at one of her dumb parties and I feel the early crumbling of peer pressure, I’m going to tell her to go fuck herself.

“So, the hospital’s where you’ve been all morning?”

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