Page 102 of The Way We Are

She closes the back doors of the responder van we are standing next to before handing me the sedan driver’s possessions the fireman pulled from the wreckage. While she and Regina continue talking shop, I rummage through the bag of papers. Most are cash receipts for fast food restaurants and local liquor stores, but there's one slip of paper that may aid in identifying the driver. It's a delivery slip for a J-45 Gibson Guitar.

I hold the paper into the sun attempting to break through the dark rain clouds hovering above my head, hoping the faded ink will pop off the wrinkled paper with better lighting. My idea has the effect I am aiming for when a name peeks through the creases.

“Tre... Trey...Trev...or? Trevor.”

After jotting down the name “Trevor” in my notepad, I set to work on unraveling the second half of the driver’s name. It's more jumbled than the first, meaning it takes me twice as long to unearth.

“Ta... Tae... Tao”

“Taylor?” comes a voice from behind, a voice I immediately recognize.

“Look,” Regina says, carefully removing the delivery slip from my hand.

Her finger traces a loop hidden by a large crease. “That’s a Y? T. A. Y.”

I take note of each letter she unearths. “L. O. R. Yep, it’s definitely Taylor.”

Confident in her findings, I add the name Taylor to the one I wrote earlier. My stomach swishes when I absorb the names sitting side by side. “Trevor Taylor,” I say out loud, as if expressing it will alter the evidence presented before me.

As the ground spins under my feet, my eyes rocket to the dark-haired boy sitting cradled in the arms of his African American friend. When his dark, stormy eyes lift, the air sucks from my lungs.

Oh, no. God no.

“That’s, uh... He’s, uh...”

“Big breaths, Ryan,” Regina encourages, fearful I’m on the verge of hyperventilating. I’m not. I just can’t get my mouth to cooperate with my brain.

After a quick swallow, I stammer out, “The victim is Chris’s brother. He’s my best friend’s brother. His name is Michael. He only turned four last month.” I return my eyes to the dark-haired teen. “That’s Michael’s brother, Noah.”

When Regina follows the direction of my gaze, she curses under her breath before signaling for a fellow officer to join us next to the wreckage.

“We need a counseling team brought in. A member of the fatality’s family was present during extraction...”

The next hourpasses in a blur. The process was one I trained for, but the confliction I felt knowing someone affected by the tragedy is something that could never be taught. All I want to do is comfort Chris, but I’ve yet to reach out to him. Regina and I were first on scene. If we had left before handing over our findings to the forensic crash team, we would have risked prosecuting those at fault for Michael’s death to the full extent of the law. Thankfully, with the legalities being officially handed over, Regina and I are now entering the hospital Michael’s body was taken to.

“I’ll wait for you inside,” I advise Regina when she stops just outside the emergency department’s automatic doors.

She jerks her chin up, acknowledging she heard me before slipping her cell phone out of her pocket. My unsure steps into the horrible-smelling space are halted by a lady rushing past me. Not bothering to issue an apology after ramming into my shoulder, she charges through the nearly empty waiting room like a woman on a mission, her face as hard as her stomps.

Any annoyance from her rudeness is set aside for empathy when I notice who she's approaching.Noah.

I jump out of my skin, startled within an inch of my life when the slap the unnamed lady inflicts on Noah’s cheek echoes around the isolated room. She struck him so hard, not only does his head rocket to the side, blood also trickles from his nose.

“Ma’am,” I shout in warning when she raises her hand into the air once more.

My warning doesn’t deter her in the slightest. She slaps Noah for a second time, her hit even more brutal than the first.

“This is your fault,” she screams in his face, her shift of blame one I’ve heard many times before. “Your brother is dead because of you! If you just stopped being so selfish, this wouldn’t have happened.”

She continues screaming insults at her son, who couldn’t be any older than sixteen, until a team of doctors and nurses rush to her side to sedate her. All the horrible things she says swirl in my head on repeat. They are so familiar to ones I’ve heard before, I’m having a hard time separating fact from fiction.

“Ryan?” Regina murmurs when I race past her entering the hospital.

“Ryan!” she shouts again, shadowing me down the sidewalk.

“Ryan!!” she screams, demanding I stop using nothing but her words.

When she grips my elbow in a firm grasp, I violently yank away from her. “Don’t touch me,” I demand, my voice unlike anything I’ve ever heard.

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