DaySleeper

Alice demands to know where I was at dinner, or better yet, where Avid and I were. I pointedly ignore her. Rebecca pointedly ignores both of us and rolls over, staring at Kyle’s empty bed.

“You kissed him,” she accuses, “I know it! I can tell by that guilty look and those rosy cheeks! Just tell me!”

I look at her.

“No,” I say, “besides, I’ll be encouraging him to move along next time we have a private conversation. It’s a terrible time in my life.”

“HE DID KISS YOU!”

“Alice!” I cry out. She claps her hands and launches herself onto my bed, sitting cross legged and staring hopefully at me.

“Tell me everything!” she begs.

“No!”

“Wait—You’re sending him along? What? Why!?”She demands. Her face has fallen terribly.

“I just got out of a terrible, abusive relationship,” I remind her, “Plus, he’s…”

She looks at me, and does not encourage me to go on.

“I'm tired,” I say. She looks at me, down to the bed, bites her lip, and nods after a moment and climbs off my bed, before going to turn the lights off and getting into her bed.

He’s too good for me. He’ll see that when he realizes what I am doing here.

I roll over and sigh.

~~
My plan to push Avid along, away, whatever, fails miserably. I am not aware of this until after we break away for air and I realize that it would be terribly rude to tell him I am not interested after we made-out for the entire duration of a cigarette break. I mope the rest of the day.

~~
It takes eight days of prayer for Josiah to come back. He has a black eye and I hug him tighter than I thought was possible. He doesn’t seem too upset over the whole thing, but he clings to my jeans the rest of the day, until he has to go to bed with his mom. I pull her aside.

“Please don’t do that again,” I whisper. She looks up at me for the first time today, and I stare at the bruise spread across her nose to her left eye.

“After he touched my baby, I wouldn’t dare,” she murmurs. I bite my lip and nod, until she begins to cry and I find that I can’t let her cry into the open room, and I let her hide in my neck for awhile. I imagine that her head is very full of a lot of things, but I know how it feels to not know how to word anything, so I don’t ask her to. I just hold her until Maggie gingerly leads her back into Wing C and I go back to Wing D, her tears drying slowly from my neck.
Kyle watches me enter and I smile weakly at him.

“He hit him with his fist,” he says, and I sit down on my bed. Alice joins me and holds my hand. “I want to kill him,” Kyle grinds out and we stare at him.

“Want all you want, but don’t do it,” Rebecca says.

“What am I supposed to do?!” he bursts out and we all jump, “There’s no justice for anyone anymore! Am I just supposed to sit back and let him get away with beating a four year old?!”

“He will not get away with it,” I promise. Kyle stares at me.

“Why are you so sure?” he demands.

“Justice comes in unexpected ways,” I say, “If you don’t hit him, maybe a train will.”

He looks down at his fists and releases them, nodding.

“Maybe a train will,” he mutters.

~~
Avid and I don’t kiss at our cigarette break, as we have been for nine days. He lets me cry for Josiah, who’s curled up asleep right now, black eye and all. He doesn’t ask why I am crying, because there’s a special kind of crying you do for kids. It hurts more when it’s for a kid. I think he can differentiate.

My throat burns so badly that I think I might throw up, so I rush inside and do just that. Avid rubs my back and begs me to calm down.

I eventually do, clutching at the fabric covering his back. Alice finds us like that, and tells us the kids are awake, but she’ll buy us five more minutes.

I could kiss her feet sometimes.