Nothing. He couldn’t tell them anything. Because he couldn’t make his words work.
“Do you remember what happened the day you disappeared?”
Yes. But god, how he wished he didn’t.
“Can you tell us where you were before Jake found you?”
Rye shook his head again, though the questions were only playing on repeat in his head now. He couldn’t tell them. His words wouldn’t work. And even if they did, there were absolutely no words to describe that awful hellhole.
“Ryan, hi, I’m Sue,” came a soft voice from just in front of him. He barely stopped himself from flinching as a chair scraped the ground lightly. “I’m a nurse practitioner, and I run the medical clinic here in town.”
“Sue’s a good friend of mine, sweetie,” his mom said. Her arm squeezed his shoulders gently, but the gesture didn’t make him feel better. He tucked his head down more against his knees.
Couldn’t they just leave now? When would he get to go home? He didn’t want to keep failing as they tried and tried and tried to get him to talk.
“Jake mentioned you’d had a few coughing fits over the last week, and I wondered if I might just do a quick checkup to make sure you’re healthy,” Sue explained. “Would that be okay with you, Ryan?”
No. Don’t touch me.That was what he wanted to say. An uncomfortable buzzing started in his fingers, and he opened his eyes partway and lifted his chin just enough to see Sue. She sat in a chair just a few feet in front of him, and she was short like his mom, but thinner. Her dark eyes were kind, and she had a soft smile.
She seemed nice.
Not awful.
Yet the thought of anyone touching him made the knots in his stomach coil tighter. He swallowed against the discomfort.
“It’ll be quick, just a few minutes,” Sue said, and he sort of wanted to believe her.
But he shook his head, scrunched his eyes shut, and shrunk back against the wall more.Please just leave me alone.He didn’t even know why he was so scared. He shouldn’t be. Yet he felt himself start to tremble again.
“Ryan, maybe you should—”
He shook his head, cutting off his mom’s plea.No!He wanted to scream the word, as he had at Jake’s that first time he’d found his voice. But nothing happened.
There was some quiet murmuring, and then some familiar, uneven footsteps came closer. The chair scraped the ground again.
“Hey, Rye. It’s me.”
Jake.
Rye lifted his eyes to see Jake sitting just in front of him, where Sue had been sitting not a moment ago. He had one hand resting on his bad leg, rubbing it lightly, and Rye frowned, remembering how much pain Jake had been in many of the days he’d been at Jake’s house. He looked up and met Jake’s soft gaze. Jake smiled at him.
“This is all kind of overwhelming, huh?”
You have no idea.
Jake chuckled quietly with a small shake of his head, almost as though he knew exactly what Rye had been thinking. A tiny bit of the tension left Rye’s shoulders.
“I know it’s scary too. But you’re safe here,” Jake promised, his smile even softer now. He continued. “Sue would like to do a short checkup to make sure everything’s okay with your lungs and heart. Your mom can stay with you, or I can stay with you, so you won’t be alone. It’ll only take a few minutes.”
I’mscared.
“You can say no. It’s your choice, Rye.” Jake said the words quietly, and Rye closed his eyes as a shudder rolled through him.
There it was again, that promise that Rye somehow just knew Jake would always keep. That promise that it really,reallywas Rye’s choice. And Jake trusted Sue and would stay there with him if he asked.
He also... didn’t want to be sick. He’d been sick plenty of times before, and it had always been awful. Cold and hot and painful and scary.
Fighting against the nausea and fear and whatever else it was that was making him uncomfortable and scared, Rye made his decision. Then he somehow managed to force out one word, his voice low and shaky. “O-okay.”
