We went to the infirmary, where the nurse examined Leo's injuries. Fortunately, the bruises weren't serious, though they looked awful. She decided to keep him under observation for the rest of the day.
"Are you sure you don't want me to stay here with you?" I asked.
"No, don't worry. You've already missed too many classes this year."
"And my grades are still perfect, so don't worry about me."
"I don't know how you do it. I miss one day, and suddenly I can't even remember basic math."
I laughed. "Sometimes I feel like I've been through all this before, so it seems easy to me," I joked.
Jeremy appeared in the doorway, and we all fell silent. He looked at my brother with a guilt-stricken expression, as if he bore responsibility for Leo's current condition.
"I heard you got your face rearranged for being, quote, 'super gay,'" Jeremy finally said, his attempt at lightness not quite masking his concern. "I thought you might need some company."
Jeremy and Leo hadn't spoken since Sunday at our house, so I knew his presence here was important to both of them.
"Uh, I'm okay," Leo stammered. "Lily's here and..."
"He needs it," I interjected, standing up. "I'm going to class now. Don't leave him alone." I smiled at both of them. "Call me if you need anything."
"Yeah, thanks," Leo replied with a small smile.
"Thank you," Jeremy whispered to me as I passed.
I opened the infirmary door with tears burning my eyes.
I couldn't prevent my brother from being beaten. I couldn't prove it wasn't a spontaneous fight in the principal's office. I couldn't do anything, once again.
Because just like ten years ago, I was utterly useless.
I looked down the hall and saw Oliver against a wall, staring at me like he was waiting for me to get out.
I decided to go to the opposite side of where he was.
At the hospital that afternoon, I tried desperately to concentrate on my work, but my mind was elsewhere entirely. Every patient reminded me of Leo, every injury made me think of his bruises, and every worried family member reflected my own helplessness back at me.
It was Friday, which meant the weekend was here and I could rest, but it also meant we were one day closer to the moment that would change our lives forever, and my nervousness was evident.
As I moved from one room to the other, I dropped a saline IV bag that was meant for a dehydrated patient, sending itcrashing to the floor in a splash of clear liquid and broken plastic.
The floor supervisor had had enough.
"Lily, why don't you go to the supply room and do inventory"? she suggested. "Take your time organizing things back there."
I knew it was a gentle way of removing me from patient care when I was clearly a liability. But I was grateful for the privacy.
Alone in the supply room, I finally let myself break down. The tears came in ugly, gasping sobs that I tried to muffle with my hands. It was as if everything I had been holding back all week had been waiting for this moment to pour out of me. The exhaustion, the fear, the guilt—all of it collided inside me until I could hardly breathe. I sank to the cold tile floor, my back against the wall, clutching my knees to my chest as if I could hold myself together that way.
Images of Leo kept flashing through my mind, the way he used to laugh, the sparkle in his eyes when he talked about his future, the way his entire face could light up a room. And now all of that was slipping through my fingers, and no matter how hard I tried to change things, I couldn’t stop it.
I wanted to scream, to tear the world apart until it gave him back to me. But all I could do was sit there, surrounded by the sterile smell of antiseptic and the quiet hum of the fluorescent lights, crying into my palms and praying that somehow, somehow, it wouldn’t end the same way this time.
That's how Kyle found me, curled up on the floor between shelves of gauze and medication, crying like my heart was breaking over and over again.
I almost asked him how he always knew where to find me, but then I remembered that, like me, he'd been through all of this. And he knew exactly my way of thinking.
"Hey," he said softly, immediately dropping to the floor beside me. "What happened? Are you hurt?"
