Whispers

Punches

For the entire bus ride to Blackwood Memorial, Lucius didn’t stop holding Karina’s hand. He found comfort in enfolding her fingers in his. Her delicate fingers enveloped by the length of his gave him a sense of security more than she could ever know. She was like his anchor during a stormy sea. Each inhale, even if he wasn’t looking at her, reassured him she was there—real.

They didn’t speak much, and Lucius was glad for it. He was too focused on what was going to happen next. If the conversation he overheard that morning was anything to go by, he was sure Karina was going to introduce him to Ben—the boy in the picture. There was no mistaking it. Of course, there was still a chance he could be someone else, but who else did Karina have in her life that she wanted to introduce Lucius to?

He bit the inside of his cheek when he realized the list was long if the store owners and those she went to school with were any indicator.

A part of him was nervous. He wanted to make the right impression. Whoever he was going to meet was definitely important in Karina’s life. The look of calm sincerity on her face when she told him there was someone she wanted him to meet said it all. He couldn’t say no.

Another part of him was apprehensive. What if the person he was about to meet didn’t approve of him? Would it impact his relationship with Karina? Would her idea of him change?

He mentally shook his head. He refused to wallow in what hadn’t happened yet. He might be worrying over nothing.

Either way, he wasn’t backing down. He believed Karina cared for him enough to allow him to go with her to meet this person. It was definitely important to her, and he wasn't a flake. Dee could summon him and Lucius wasn’t going to leave Karina behind. Not this time. He was going to this meeting for her sake.

Like the pavement Lucius stepped onto after alighting from the bus with Karina, he grounded himself. He looked up at the imposing lines of the hospital and swallowed, steeling his resolve. The green foliage surrounding the structure softened its hard edges and intimidating size, but trees and flowers weren’t nearly enough. He reminded himself that everything was going to be fine. It had to be.

Karina gave his hand a squeeze. He had actually forgotten, for one moment, that they were holding hands.

“I’m sensing nervousness,” she said.

The teasing in her tone wasn’t lost on Lucius when he finally met her eyes since getting off the bus. “Can you blame me? You refuse to answer my questions about who we’re meeting. For all I know, you’re kidnapping me in some bid to make me into your slave.”

A sense of humor. One he hadn’t noticed he had until Karina brought it out of him.

A smirk. A cute, small one lit up her entire face. “I knew you were on to me.”

She moved her hand to his arm. It took all his strength not to capture that hand in his again. But having the warmth of it on his arm was enough. For now. She was still tethered to him.

“And I didn’t see you insisting on knowing who you’re meeting.” She moved toward the hospital’s entrance. The glass doors slid apart when they stepped onto the mat. “You asked me one time who you were meeting and didn’t again after I told you it was a surprise. If I didn’t know any better, you wanted to fall into this trap of mine to make you into my personal body slave.”

Lucius’s brow rose. Personal body slave. The idea was too appealing by half for his own good.

“In all seriousness,” he said, even if the image of Karina in leather with a whip in hand flashed in front of his mind’s eye. “Who are you introducing me to?”

Karina steered them toward the elevators. Nurses, doctors in white coats, and patients crisscrossed the straight path they were taking. “Someone very important to me,” was all she said, but those five words went through Lucius like needles. He didn’t know why it hurt to hear her say someone was important to her. Scratch that, very important. With an emphasis on the word “very.”

When the doors of the elevator parted, Lucius nudged Karina to the side so a nurse pushing an old man in a wheelchair could pass. Once the cab was clear, Lucius guided Karina inside, a knot forming on his brow. Her words were affecting him too much. He didn’t know he was the jealous type until then. It seethed like boiling water underneath his skin.

“Ow!” she said.

Lucius looked down. Sometime between the elevator doors opening and stepping into the cab, he had grabbed her hand again in a white-knuckled grip. He loosened his hold without letting go.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

The doctors that rode up with them looked over their shoulders, concern and curiosity on their faces. Karina gave them all a reassuring smile and they resumed staring at their reflections on the shiny surface of the elevator’s interior.

“Admit it. You’re more nervous than you’re letting me believe,” she whispered, her tone never losing its jovial cadence. She let go of what Lucius had done without judgment, which cut him deeper than if she had admonished him for being too rough with her. It was like she understood him on some level that he had no idea how to comprehend. “Come on, you don’t have to hide it from me. It’s okay to be nervous.”

He merely nodded. If he said anything then it might come out rude. He was already reprimanding himself for squeezing her hand too hard.

She patted his arm. “I promise. It won’t be as bad as you think it will be. He’s a really nice guy.”

There it was. He. It could only be Ben. She planned to see him that day. Did that plan include Lucius from the onset? Did she know he would be there waiting for her when school was let out?

When the doors opened, Karina said, “This is us.”

Lucius let her pull him out of the cab. A nurse at the station greeted her. Of course, she knew the nurses in the place. Karina was the type, and that got him to smile. He held on to the thought of her goodness. The way it made him feel calm inside. Everything was going to be alright. He believed it now as they passed several private rooms down the hall.

At the fifth door, Karina stopped. She met Lucius’s gaze. “Will you wait here for a second? I want to greet him first and see if he’s feeling well enough to receive visitors.”

The look in her eyes couldn’t be described as anything less than love. She loved the boy in the room, and instead of letting his jealousy take him over, he leaned down and planted a soft kiss on Karina’s forehead. She was his beauty, his light. She gave herself to everyone unconditionally, and if he was going to stay by her side, he needed to accept that. He needed to be alright with sharing Karina with the rest of the world.

He let go of her hand and watched her slip into the room. When the door closed, his gaze went to the silver clipboard by the door. He lifted it from the slot on the wall and flipped its cover. He scanned its contents. He was right.

Patient: Benjamin Freedman.

Age: 17

Sex: M

Then Lucius stopped at the paragraph describing what he was in the hospital for. Gunshot wound to the leg, shattering the bone.

It couldn’t be.

Lucius thought back to that day. The student who tried to get away. The one Tommy shot in the leg. Lucius couldn’t remember what he looked like. Well, he wasn’t paying attention then anyway. Too caught up in his own darkness to notice the details, but he knew if he searched his subconscious hard enough, he could piece the image of that day together.

The hand holding the clipboard shook. He hurt someone important to Karina. It might have been inadvertent, but he had a hand in it. Lucius returned the clipboard and covered his face with his hand. He hurt someone important to Karina. The thought kept repeating in his head until he was leaning on the wall by the door for support.

He needed to leave.

He wanted to leave.

There was no way he would survive standing in a room with a boy who suffered because of something Lucius had orchestrated. He stepped away from the wall and turned to leave. His whole body trembled.

“Lucius?” Karina’s voice cut through the screaming in his head. Not the voices, but the residual sounds of the shooting that still haunted his dreams. “Lucius?” She was beside him now. “Where are you going?” She grabbed his arm and stopped his forward progress.

“Ben,” he whispered. “He was hurt at the shooting.”

She moved to face him, her eyes bright from the surprise. “How did you know you were meeting Ben?”

Lucius pointed at the chart. “I read his information.”

Composure returned to Karina’s face. Then she smiled. A small compassionate one. The one she used many times throughout the grief counseling sessions.

“Everything’s going to be okay, Lucius.”

She said the words he had been using as a mantra since stepping off the bus. Hearing it from her made it sound truer than when he said it to himself. He squared his shoulders and breathed in her perfume.

“Come,” she said. “He’s waiting.”

Lucius gestured for her to lead the way. And, as if she thought he would run away, she held on to his hand. She opened the door, and Lucius’s gaze immediately went to the bed occupied by a boy who clearly lost some weight. His hair, a dull brown, dropped limply over his forehead. His cheeks were sunken in. And his lips were cracked. The hospital gown he wore sat too big on his frame. But what Lucius zoomed in on was the white cast the covered his lower leg.

“You must be Lucius. Karina has been talking my ear off about you. I’m Ben. It’s nice to meet you.” He reached out and Lucius leaned forward to take his hand. Despite his apparent fragility, Ben’s handshake was firm.

“Pleased to meet you, Ben,” he said, ending the handshake. No matter how firm the grip, Lucius was worried his strength might break every bone in Ben’s hand. He glanced at Karina. “I wish I could say the same about you. This is the first time Karina has mentioned you.”

Ben laughed. It was a clear sound coming from such a thin chest. “Sometimes I think she’s trying to hide the fact that we’re friends.”

Karina blushed red hot. She hurried to Ben’s side. “I’m not hiding anything. I brought him here to meet you, didn’t I?”

“Oh, you know I like to tease.” Ben’s grin grew cheeky. “Thank you for coming. I was getting a little lonely.”

“For the looks of your room, lonely isn’t what you’re feeling.” Karina indicated the space that Lucius saw the entirety now that relief relaxed his muscles. “Look at all these flowers and balloons and cards. How many is it now?”

“I don’t think there’s a flower shop in the greater Blackwood area with flowers left,” Ben joked. “Please tell everyone ‘thank you’ for me. The cards and well wishes were really sweet. Couldn’t feel any more spoiled than I am right now.”

The word “friend” felt like a balm to Lucius’s ego. Seeing them interact did exude a platonic relationship. They were comfortable with each other without being intimate and the love they had in each other’s eyes came from a bond forged through years of friendship. It was effortless, like breathing. Like his friendship with Desmond.

“Lucius,” Ben’s voice pulled him back to the present. “How is Karina treating you? Has she dragged you on a shopping trip yet?”

“As a matter of fact . . .” Lucius let mischief coat his tone. “I didn’t think I’d end up carrying as many bags as I thought I would at the beginning.” From the corner of his eye, Karina busied herself with arranging the more than two dozen vases of various flowers filling every available surface of Ben’s room. “She doesn’t pay for anything, does she?”

“You noticed that, huh?” Ben chuckled. “It’s the magic of Karina. Everyone loves her. If you think I have lots of flowers here, just imagine if she was in my place.”

Lucius’s heart constricted. There was no forgiving himself if Karina was the one in the hospital. No amount of sympathy for her would keep him from punishing himself. He didn’t even want to entertain the thought any longer.

“So, are you being released?” he changed the subject, but judging from the darkening of Ben’s expression, he’d chosen the wrong one.

Karina was the one who answered. “There were complications to the gunshot. He’ll be here for a while.”

Ben rallied. He quickly pieced his shattered congenial expression back together and said, “Don’t sound so morose, Karina.” He met Lucius’s concerned gaze head on. “She makes it seem worse than it is. They’re just keeping me here for a few more tests just to make sure everything is fine. I’ll be out sooner than Karina believes. She just worries too much.”

The last part he said to Karina, who moved the Mylar balloons with Get Well Soon on them from one corner of the room to another. Then she grabbed a bunch of daisies and mumbled something about finding them a pitcher of water to put in and promptly left the room.

Lucius stepped forward to follow, but Ben’s voice stopped him. “Leave her be for now. I love Karina like a sister, but sometimes, she worries too much. She may hide it with that pretty smile of hers, but she’s really sensitive.”

“She likes helping people,” Lucius said to the door that swung slowly shut in Karina’s wake. Then he faced Ben. “She’s the most unselfish and compassionate person I know.”

A grave expression hardened the already harsh lines of Ben’s face. “Then you have to do everything in your power to protect her.”

The words woke up Lucius like he had been dreaming until then. “What do you mean?”

Ben folded his hands on his lap and sighed. “I don’t know what’s going on, exactly. But Mrs. Wilson came to me yesterday while Karina was at school. Apparently, Karina has been leaving the house at night when she thinks everyone is asleep.”

Lucius felt all the blood leave his face. He swallowed. “Why would she do that?”

“Karina’s father followed her once. She’s been wondering the streets for no apparent reason. Then, when she gets tired, she lies down on a park bench and falls asleep. That night, her father carried her home. But how she gets home on the other nights when she wasn’t followed is beyond them.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because . . .” Ben shifted this gaze to the flowers. “I see the way you look at her. Not five minutes in my company and I already know that you care about her very much. You care about her wellbeing. The fact that you were willing to follow her out of this room when she was clearly upset is proof of that.” Then he returned his eyes to Lucius, which he noticed were the color of slate. “Maybe she’s sleepwalking. I don’t know. But I asked one of my doctors and he said it’s often common to feel depressed after a traumatic experience.”

“The shooting.” Lucius’s tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.

Ben rubbed his face, his fatigue rising to the surface. In seconds, he looked paler. “We had a fight that day. I left her by her locker, pissed. I don’t even remember what we were fighting about. She thinks if I didn’t hurry off that I wouldn’t have arrived for first period early.”

Realization almost knocked Lucius over. “She’s blaming herself for what happened to you.”

“I can’t be sure. She refuses to talk about it when I try to bring it up.” Ben grabbed Lucius’s arm. Lucius had to keep still. Ben's touch burned like he was running a high fever. "Her parents don't know what else to do. And I'm clearly not in a position to help her. So that leaves you. I know I'm asking too much—"

“I’ll protect her,” Lucius cut him off. “You have my word.”