Page 7 of Unloved

He hands it to me.

We’re going to call the ambulance to pick you up so you don’t have to wait too long in the emergency room. They’ll strap up your arm properly and do enough tests to work out what’s going on with your hearing and make sure you’re not injured anywhere else. I know Samuel is with you, but do you want us to call your family?

My family.

It shouldn’t have been a complicated question, but something about it is like kicking a hornet’s nest. I’m twenty-two years old and I still refer to myself as a foster kid; the mention of family always taking me back to the past, remembering all that I lost in order to get to this point in my life.

My parents, my foster parents… Frankie.

When I was eight years old, I was reunited with my biological brother, Frankie, where we lived in a group home together along with Arlo, Clem, and Remy.

The connection between all five of us was unbreakable, or so I thought. Arlo and Frankie aged out of the system first and then Clem and I, followed by Remy. The plan was to all live together while each of us found our footing in the world, all of us being there to support one another.

And for the most part it all went according to plan.

Except Arlo and Frankie fell in love, broke each other’s hearts, and Frankie moved to Seattle. Away from us. Away fromme.

Objectively speaking, I always understood why he left, but as his younger brother, whom he moved heaven and hell to be reunited with, I will never understand why he didn’t ever ask me to go with him.

It’s been four years of pretty much radio silence between the two of us. No visits on the holidays, no weekly FaceTime calls, no daily texts. He’d tell you he’s giving me space after knowing how much he hurt me by leaving, and I would say he just flat out abandoned me.

Potato, potahto.

Randy shoves the phone in my face again, bringing me back to the present, and I know he wants an answer to his question.

“Samuel will call my family,” I tell him.

He nods just as Samuel returns to the room. Knowing he heard what I just said, I look at him pointedly. “Call Clem, please. But tell her not to call Frankie.”

* * *

Where am I?

The thought disappears as quickly as it came, my heart beating wildly inside my chest, my lungs struggling to inflate. Unease settles over me as I try to calm myself down, remembering where I am and what I’m doing here.

One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi.

My eyes frantically dart from object to object, the hospital room eventually taking shape around me. While my mobile hand reaches for my ear, tugging at the lobe, almost like the movement will change the outcome of the last however many hours I’d been here.

News flash: It doesn’t.

Thankfully, my collarbone didn’t need surgery and will heal on its own in a sling and with some regular icing, but it’s truly the least of my worries. The longer I’m here, the longer I stew in my anger. Everything takes twice as long now that I can’t hear, the stopping and the starting, sometimes even the slightest dismissal in my presence has me on a knife’s edge. The initial shock has well and truly worn off, and reality is something I have no desire to face.

Shifting my body in frustration, I try to turn over, but pain courses through me, my shoulder and elbow throbbing in protest. I grunt as every bone and muscle aches, but instead of hearing the sound echo around the room, I feel the rumble at the back of my throat and the clench of my jaw, but I don’thearanything.

As the pain of my broken collarbone subsides, my eyes manage to land on the sleeping form in the corner of the room. With his arms crossed over his chest and his ankle resting on his knee, Samuel is two sizes too big for the chair he’s currently squashed himself into.

The sight of him has me pressing pause on the constant stream of hurt and confusion that’s been fogging up my brain since I arrived at the hospital and just taking him in.

No longer in his football gear, he wears gray sweatpants and a blue UCLA hoodie. I don’t get to just stare at him often, and definitely not without him noticing. He is quintessentially good-looking—easy on the eyes with his blond hair, blue eyes, and a body that could only come from our grueling exercise regimen and strict lean diet. He is the All-American boy, with the bright eyes and carefree smile that he saves for me.

We’ve been best friends since our first day of college, and I think I was already in love with him on the second. It’s stupid and going absolutely nowhere, but I can’t shake it. I know he doesn’t feel the same, because he told me exactly that, but my heart feels safer being caught up in his unrequited love than ever giving it to someone else.

He might not be in love with me, but he loves me in his own way, and the way he prioritized my well-being over absolutely everything else today will always be enough for me.

I watch as he stirs in his chair, his foot falling off his knee, his eyes rushing to open. In only a short amount of time, I’ve already noticed how much I’ve changed. My eyes work overtime taking everything in, not realizing how certain sounds could easily fill in the blanks.

I grab my phone off the overbed table and send him a message. Texting is a lifesaver, but it still doesn’t fix the discomfort that comes when people talk around me or I’m the only person in a room speaking.

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