Messed Up Youthful Innocence

{Andy's Point of View"

“Jacob put me down!”

Katie’s voice carried through the Bryar’s house. The kids had left the house an hour or so beforehand, so we shouldn’t have heard Katie nor should she be back here. Bob and I made our way to the living room and I saw Jake rush to her side carrying something. Katie was sitting on the couch, her back to me. Jake knelt on the ground.

“Don’t you even come near me with that alcohol!”

“But you don’t want it to get infected.”

“That shit is going to burrrn”

I glanced at bob before walking to the other side of the couch to see why exactly Katie feared alcohol. I sighed as I saw Katie’s legs. She bit her lip and looked up to me.

“What happened?”

“We were running and hit a patch of loose gravel and she slid.” Jake mumbled.

Katie had blood all across her shins along with some gravel and sand still all up her legs.

“Where is there gravel?” Bob asked.

It was the fourth of July; the kids were obviously running from the cops with their copious
amount of fireworks.

“Uhhhhh” Jake mumbled avoiding eye contact with the both of us.

I shook my head and kneeled next to Jake, taking the alcohol wipes from him and brushing
off the small rocks off. She gave me the scared look that matched the one she used to give me when she was little and I did this the first time.

“Daddy” she whispered, not putting up a fight with me like she did Jake.

“Sweetie what am I going to do with you?” I whispered back as I opened the towelette then
carefully started to clean away the blood and dirt from her legs. She winced and looked back at me and started breathing heavy because of the burning sensation caused by the alcohol.

“It looks worse then it is”

“that’s what I was telling Jake.” Katie said an air of annoyance in her voice.

She only had about three cuts, but on the way back from wherever they had been, it just made it look worse. In fact, the cuts and scrapes were not deep enough to scar, because they had stopped bleeding already. I did one final spot-check.

“Okay you’re good to … wait… lemme see your palms.”

Katie sighed before showing me her palms and looking in the other direction. Her hands were scraped pretty bad, but again, had already stopped bleeding. After I cleaned her hands she blew on them trying to cool them down.

“Thanks daddy” she said as I helped her up, she pulled me into a small hug. I smiled and
returned it before she looked back at Jake. They walked away hand in hand, halfway out the house; she turned her head back and smiled at me. I smiled back.

“I’m pretty positive I’ve only seen you smile when it involves your kids or Chrissy.” Bob said looking sideways at me.

“Chrissy, Katie and my mom are the only three girls in my life.”

“So you’re not going to kill Jake because he’s trying to steal her away?”

“No, because she’s my little girl, and she gets what she wants.”