The District Lights

"I'm serious Nina, we need to talk about this," Alex said to his girlfriend firmly.

Nina rubbed her forehead in frustration, Alex had been wanting Nina to go to Vermont with him to visit his family, but Nina was scared. Even though they had been dating for a good two years, Nina had yet to meet his parents, and it wasn't because Alex didn't want Nina to meet them, Nina didn't want to meet them herself.

For the past four months, Nina had been making an excuse that she was really busy and that she just couldn't leave Jack alone and just go to Vermont. Finally, Alex had enough of her excuses and said that Jack could go with them. Now, Nina was out of excuses.

"Can we not talk about this right now? I have to go, I don't want to leave Jack alone for too long," she excused herself and hung up before Alex could get another word out. Sighing exhaustedly, Nina flung the door open and entered.

She was too deep in thought to notice that there was a big commotion surrounding the tables with children crying and someone screaming.

"Jack its okay," one of the parents recited to the screaming boy. "Jack, its okay, no one's mad at you," the parent repeated again.

Patrick, Jonathan and Calla stood watching in shock as the tall man threw a temper tantrum. A minute ago he was fine, he was getting a drink when he dropped it and then started screaming. The parents immediately rushed to the young adult and tried to restrain him when he started hitting people. Then one of the children started screaming to the point where the mother had to take him out of the room.

Upon hearing her brother's name, Nina's head snapped up, eyes widening when she saw her brother and two fathers struggling to restrain him. She immediately rushed over to him and stood in front of him. "Jack, relax!" she said firmly. "Jack, its fine, everything is fine. No one's mad," she reassured him when she saw the spilt water all over the floor.

Nina mentally kicked herself for leaving Jack unattended. She should have been there to make sure things like this didn't happen. Jack seemed like a totally normal young adult on the outside. Sure the way he talked was like a child, but his outer appearance seemed normal to those who didn't know him. But when he got embarrassed and he did something that was embarrassing, he wouldn't know how to handle it and it would trigger his autism.

"Jack, please," she begged and tried to help the two fathers, but then she was slapped close to her right eye by Jack's flailing hands. Then she was pushed backwards hard by him when the two fathers accidentally let go out of shock. She fell back into the table behind her hard, water and other drinks spilling on her backside, she sunk to the floor.

"Nina, we're taking him outside," one of the fathers said and began to carry him outside of the room when Nina just sat on the floor shocked.

Blinking a few times, Nina was left dazed on the floor as some of the mothers looked at her in derision. Some gave her disapproving looks as they all began to whisper with each other, but she could hear them. They were all saying that she was a shitty guardian and that her parents, Richard and Olivia, never should have left him in her care.

Her hand made its way to where Jack had slapped her; she winced when she touched it as tears began to sting her eyes. She knew that she wasn't fit to take care of anyone, especially not a special needs person, but she couldn't bear to be separated from Jack and she saw the look on Jack's face when they were told that they might be separated.

A hand appeared in front of Nina. She followed it to the person it belonged to and she was surprised to see that it was Patrick Kane looking at her sympathetically. Nina slapped it away from her, earning her a few gasps from some of the teenage girls, got up and made a run for the door.

Patrick watched her retreating figure with great interest. He felt bad for her because of the way the mothers were treating the poor girl. He could tell, with the small amount of time he was able to converse with Jack, how much her brother adored her. It was like every sentence he spoke involved Nina. If her brother adored her that much, surely she wasn't doing a shitty job taking care of him.

*

"Wait, so you actually slapped Patrick Kane's hand away, when you could have been touching that man's magic hands?" her good friend and confidant, Kyla Gallagher, asked her skeptically.

Nina rolled her eyes and winced when Kyla dabbed cleaning alcohol into the cut above her cheek that she received from Jack a few hours earlier. "I shudder to think about what's so magical about his hands. That really hurts!" she exclaimed.

Kyla looked at her friend that she grew three heads or something. "Are you kidding me? He and Toews pretty much revived the Blackhawks from this godforsaken city," she said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Sighing, Nina hopped off the counter and examined her face. "You're kidding right? Patrick Kane looks like a twelve year old!" she exclaimed. "That's going to leave a nice bruise," she commented and looked at it closely.

"Nina?" Jack's unsure voice rang through the room and soon his head popped up from the bathroom. "I'm sorry," he apologized and looked at the floor. Nina could tell the he was on the verge of crying out of guilt for hurting his sister.

Nina smiled and motioned for her brother to come closer to her. "I'm not mad at you at all," she said lovingly and hugged him tightly. "I can never be mad at my big brother. Now, why don't you go and show Kyla the things you got signed at get together today?"

Jack's face brightened as he remembered all the things he got signed by two of his favourite Blackhawks players. "Come on Kyla, Patrick Kane signed my jersey!"

"Really? No way!"

Once the two exited the bathroom, Nina sighed and turned to look at herself in the mirror again. She winced when she saw the finger nail marks that Jack had left when he hit her; she knew that it was going to scar. It was also noticeable as it was at the bottom right corner of her right eye.

She shook her head, knowing what she had to face tomorrow afternoon when she would see Patrick Kane again. Nina hopped that he had a late practice or game so that she wouldn't see him or explain what happened.