One Day at a Time

The drive back to my place wasn’t too long and I managed to stay awake the whole time, so Joe was able to find the building easily. As he turned his car off, he quickly got out and came to my side to help me out. He walked slowly with my until we reached the inside of my apartment and I sat on the couch to relax. Joe sat in the chair across from me.

“Oh, Alexa. I totally forgot to ask you before, but since I’ll be watching out for you for a while, I wanted to know if you wanted to come over to my family’s house for dinner,” He said. “I promised I would be stopping by tonight after I visited my friend in the hospital. Would you wanna come?”

“Uh…” I started and he interrupted.

“You don’t have to. I could always show up late since your friend said she’d be back later.”

“No, its fine,” I insisted. “I don’t think I wanna be here at the moment,” I looked down at the floor where I had been lying earlier that morning. There was a decent sized blood stain still there. “Besides, I could use a good home cooked meal. Just let me change.”

“Hah, not a problem. You need help getting to your room?” Joe stood up, ready to help me walk to my room.

“No, that’s okay. I think I’ve got this,” I answered and shuffled slowly across the living room to my room. I realized my bed was still made from the morning before as I closed the door behind me. Finally by myself, and safe.

I didn’t want to stay in my apartment any longer than I needed to right now. Maybe it was because of boredom and maybe it was from pure fear of Erik coming back; fear of him walking through the front door and seeing Joe sitting in the living room scared me. I freshened up as fast as possible, walking in and out of the bathroom to brush my teeth, put on deodorant, and change my clothes that were more than a day old now.

As I finished getting dressed and making myself look approachable, I walked back into the living room to find Joe flipping through the TV channels.

“Ready?” I asked and grabbed my wallet, phone, and keys from the counter. He clicked the TV off and stood up.

“Sorry,” He pointed to the TV and then looked back over to me.

“Don’t worry about it. I know I took forever in there,” I admitted. “Moving around by myself, with a concussion, isn’t as easy as it looks.”

I chuckled a little when I saw he found it somewhat funny as well.

“Let’s go then,” He walked over to the door and opened it for me. We walked back out to his car and prepared for the half hour trip to his home.

“So, you’re family,” I began and looked over at him. “Do they know I’m coming? I mean, I don’t wanna intrude or anything.”

“No way, my mom loves company. I don’t think she’ll mind setting out an extra plate tonight. She usually bugs my brothers and me to bring friends over all the time. So, don’t sweat it.”

I sat back in the seat and breathed deeply. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. I’ve never met a famous band before, so I was excited and nervous all at once. And I was a bit nauseous as well; my head was still killing me. After a few minutes, I fell asleep to the sound of the rain hitting the windshield.

We arrived to the house; it was still light out, just enough to see the bright green of their grass in the front yard. I flinched a little bit when he placed his arm around my waist to help my down the walkway when he noticed I was shaking as I walked.

“Oh, uh, thanks,” I felt embarrassed.

“No problem,” He said softly. “Didn’t wanna see you face plant into the sidewalk or anything.” I nodded with more embarrassment, feeling my cheeks turn even redder with every second that passed as we reached the front door and he knocked. A moment later, a boy, who was probably around eight or nine years old, opened the door.

“Joe!” The boy exclaimed.

“Hey, Frankie. What’s happenin’, my man?” Joe held out his hand to give Frankie a high five.

“Not much. I was waiting for you to come. You promised to battle me in Guitar Hero,” he looked excitedly at Joe.

“Definitely, Frankie. After dinner,” Joe replied and followed him into the house and closed the front door behind us. A lady, who I figured was their mother, walked out to the foyer of the house and immediately brought Joe into a tight hug.

“Joe, you’re home,” and she pulled back and then followed Joe’s arm to where it was around my waist to my face. “Hello there.”

“Hi,” I greeted shyly.

“Mom, this is Alexa. I’m sort of watching out for her today.”

“Nice to meet you, Alexa. I’m Denise,” she smiled wide and led us into the dining room, where there were three other people, besides Frankie.

“Alexa, this is the rest of the family,” she pointed to each guy and named them. “This is my husband Paul, and my other sons Kevin and Nick. And you’ve already met Frankie.” They all waved back at me and I waved to them as well.

“Here,” Joe led me to a chair and pulled it out for me. “Like I said; wouldn’t wanna see you do a face plant.” I took a seat and he sat next to me.

“So, Alexa, what do you do?” Paul asked me.

“Well. I’m just a student right now. I’m working on my…” I stopped for a minute. They all looked up at me to see why I stopped.

“Sorry, what was that?” Denise asked as she sat in her chair.

I began to feel dazed and extremely confused. My eyebrows scrunched together as I looked around the room, trying to focus on something. It seemed nearly impossible.

“Alexa?” Denise’s voice was filled with concern.

The room was spinning and I wasn’t sure what was going to happen next, but it didn’t seem like something good was happening. My name was the last thing I heard before everything suddenly went black.