Page 78 of Grumpy Sunshine

I patted her shoulder and said, “I’ll be fine.”

I waited off to the side while the doctor and the dad of the little boy finished talking.

From what I was hearing, the little boy had suffered multiple breaks in his spine, his head was crushed, and there was really nothing left that was compatible with life.

“Apollo,” Webber said, surprising me with his soft voice.“Sept, look at me.”

Apollo.

God.

Was that who that was?

He finally looked up, and the ravaged expression on his face made me start to tear up.

“I can’t do it.”

“I don’t…” Webber began.

“I’m going to give you some time,” the doctor said before disappearing from the room.

“Webber…”

Hush.

The man that’d been in my apartment last week.

“Can we give him some time?”he asked.

The men filed out, and that’s when I saw my father there.

He’d been in a corner.

He was unsurprised to see me, and he patted my head as he left.

I waited until everyone was gone to go up to the man at the bed.

“Hey, can I get him washed up?”I asked.“We can get him all nice and clean.”

Apollo looked at his son.

I don’t know what he saw, but I could tell you what I saw.

Devastation.

This kid didn’t look like a kid anymore.He looked like a broken doll, one that would never be put back together again.

“Yeah,” Apollo rasped.“I think I’d like that.”

I left the room, passing through the group of men in the hallway.

They were standing outside of two rooms, and when I got to the open doorway of the second one, I heard Dr.Marsh having the same speech with another man dressed in a Truth Tellers MC cut.

This one was standing beside the bed of a woman with strawberry-blonde hair, lying lifelessly on the stark white hospital bed.

She looked just as broken as the boy did.

Had they been together?

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