"I can't believe you're still with him, after everything he's done."
"You promised we wouldn't talk about Lionel."
"That was before I saw you. Have you looked in the mirror lately?"
Of course I had. I knew there was a bruise with a long red scratch down the right side of my face from Lionel slapping me with his belt buckle the night before. "Dammit Michael!"
"Fine, we don't have to talk about it. You're not going to listen anyway." He picked up his menu.
"He's going to get help and things are going to be better. You'll see."
"Right, because one therapy session is going to magically cure him, and everything will be okay. Who cares if he accidentally kills you between now and next Tuesday? It's no big deal."
"I wish you would stop saying that. He's not going to kill me!"
"A week and a half ago you said he was never going to hit you again, too. But I'm sure he didn't mean it, right? It was an accident, just an innocent reflex."
"Michael, you don't understand. I'm not the victim here; he is. I know he has a short fuse and sometimes I do things to provoke him. I can't be surprised when he lashes out at me."
"Oh great, you're still making excuses for him! There is no reason for him to ever lay his hands on you," he rolled his eyes, "but whatever." There was a pause while he opened his menu and then he said, "I thought you said you didn't want to talk about him."
"I don't." Michael pretended to study the menu. "Don't be that way Michael."
"What way?"
"You know damn well you're not really looking at the menu. You're going to order the flapjack special and we both know it."
"That doesn't mean I can't look at the options."
He must have read each item on the menu before he looked up at me again. I knew I had to change the subject, "So what are you going to do this afternoon?"
"I don't know. What are you going to do?" I was relieved that he sounded normal.
"I think I'm just going to go back to my room and get some rest. These early morning practices are kicking my ass."
His expression changed and he looked over my shoulder. "What the hell is he doing here?"
I turned around and saw Lionel walking towards us. He came over to my table and sat down next to me. "What are you doing here?" I asked.
"I got bored in the room without you, so I decided to come eat with you guys."
Michael said, "He's only been gone like ten minutes."
"But it was ten minutes too long. You know I can't stand to have him out of my sight." Lionel put his arm around my shoulder and squeezed.
"Lucas, um, why don't we have breakfast together another time?" Michael stared directly at Lionel. "I seem to have lost my appetite."
"Come on Michael, just stay," I told him as he stood up.
"I can't." He grabbed his coat and said, "See you later, Lucas."
I called after him as he walked away, "Michael!" He didn't turn around.
"Don't call him," Lionel barked. His tone made me flinch. In a softer voice, he whispered "Relax, Lucas. Damn, Michael really has you on edge." Lionel sat back in his chair. "What's his problem anyway?"
"I think you know," I told him.
"Oh, he's still pissed off because I kicked him out of our room that night?"
"That must be it," I said.
"He needs to get over that. I told him I was sorry."
"Uh-huh," I whispered.
"So what were you two talking about?"
"Nothing."
"I saw the two of you. You were talking about something and it looked pretty heated for a minute."
"How long were you watching us?"
"I followed you here to make sure you were okay, and then I stayed after I saw the two of you hugging. Why were you hugging him?"
"He's my friend. I hug him all the time."
"Well I don't want you hugging him again." I didn't say anything. "Did you hear me?" he hissed.
"Yes, I heard you."
"Good, now where's the waitress, I'm ready to eat."
The waitress came over and we placed our order. I thought Lionel would move to the other side of the table, but he didn't. We talked about practice and the upcoming game and the new semester and we both carefully avoided certain subjects, such as Michael, the night before and Lionel's upcoming therapy. We were almost done eating when a few guys from the basketball team came up to our table.
"What's up guys?" asked one of them.
"Not much," Lionel said.
"So, um, Lucas, have you always been so accident prone?" Troy asked.
"Huh?"
He laughed. "Lionel told us you're a skater and that's how you get all those strange bruises. I still can't believe you don't wear a helmet, I mean come on! Even the pros wear helmets. You must be really hardcore."
"Ha, guess I am."
"I skate a little. Nothing near your level, but I try. We should get together some time and go to the park."
"Um."
"See Troy, I told you he wouldn't want to go. He never does anything social," said James.
Troy sat down at our table. "What are you doing?" asked Lionel.
"You're cool Lionel, but Lucas here is, um, I don't know. He's different." Troy looked at me. "Why don't you hang out with us?"
"I have a lot of homework."
"That's bull! We all have homework, but we still find time to hang out, even Lionel hangs out sometimes."
"Well"
"Look, I'm not trying to force you to talk to us. I'm just letting you know that we've noticed you don't really interact with us much. You spend all your time in your room or with Lionel." Troy stood from the table. "Give me a call when you get tired of looking at his ugly mug."
"Okay," I said. When the guys left our table, I wasn't sure what had happened. It was true I didn't have much to say to them, and that included during practice and games, but I didn't think it was a big deal. Then I remembered the other thing Troy said. That was hilarious. "You told them I was a skater?" I asked Lionel. He didn't answer. "Lionel?" He still didn't answer. I followed his gaze to the table where Troy was sitting then I tapped Lionel on his shoulder.
"What?"
"Nothing," I said, recognizing his tone immediately.
Five minutes later, we had paid the bill and were walking back to our dorm. Lionel hadn't spoken, so I was worried about what was going on in his head and I went over our morning to figure out what I might have done to upset him.
At the dorm, the elevator was taking a long time to come, so Lionel said, "Let's take the stairs."
"Okay." Lionel opened the door to the stairwell and I saw Henry coming down. He stopped and stared at us. Lionel started walking up the stairs and I felt the need to say something to Henry before we reached him. "Hey, Henry."
"Hey."
"What's wrong with the elevators?" Lionel asked.
"One of the elevators is broken and the other one is stopping on every floor."
"Oh."
Henry grabbed my arm as I walked by him. "What happened to your face?" he asked.
"He had an accident," Lionel said. Then Lionel grabbed my arm and pulled me away from Henry. We were almost to our floor when Lionel started in on me. "I can't believe you!"
"I'm sorry." I didn't know what I did, but I knew I should apologize.
"How dare you disrespect me like that!"
"What did I do?"
"Let's see, you flirted with Troy,"
"What?"
"Shut up! You flirted with him. You flirted with Michael. You flirted with Henry. Who else have you been flirting with?" He pulled me to him and gripped my arm even tighter.
"I wasn't flirting with them."
"Yes you were!" He let go of my arm and punched me in the gut. I leaned forward and grabbed my stomach. I had hoped we would make it to the room before he started. He grabbed my arm again and pulled me up the last few stairs, "Come on!"
"No!" I yelled as I tried to pull my arm away from him. He responded by squeezing my arm and pulling me close to him.
"You really fucked up now!" he shouted as he pushed me away and let go of my arm. I stumbled on the steps and lost my balance. Suddenly everything was in slow motion. He had a look of horror on his face as he reached forward to try to grab me. He was too late. I saw him standing at the top of the stairs and I saw the white ceiling and the light, then everything went black. I opened my eyes and Lionel was kneeling next to me. "I'm sorry," he said. I couldn't feel anything. I closed my eyes and when I opened them again, I saw Henry running towards me.
He pushed Lionel away from me. "Get away from him! I heard you two, you sick freak!" They both disappeared.
I heard voices. I opened my eyes and the light hurt like hell. My eyes fluttered. I tried opening my eyes again. "He's waking up," someone said.
I finally succeeded in opening my eyes and I saw Michael and Henry and my mother and father. My mother was by my side immediately. "Do you know who I am?"
I tried to shake my head, but my head hurt too much to move. "Yes," I croaked out, but it sounded more like "ssss" than anything else.
My mother moved back and a doctor was soon standing over me. "Lucas, do you know where you are?"
"Sssss."
"Do you know what happened?"
I pictured Lionel at the top of the stairs. "Sssss."
"What's wrong with him?" asked my mother. "Why can't he talk?"
"He's been out for two weeks. Give him a little time. His tests didn't show any brain damage, but you can never tell when there's been that much swelling." The doctor shined a light in my eyes. "Lucas, are you in a lot of pain?"
"Ess."
He turned to someone in the room. "Set up a morphine drip." Then he turned back to me. "Try to move your fingers." I did. Everyone smiled. "Okay good," he said. He moved the cover off my legs. "Now try to move your toes." That's when I realized I couldn't feel my legs. I tried to move my toes, but there was nothing. He turned his back to me and blocked my foot then he looked at me and asked, "Did you feel anything?"
"No." `What's wrong?' I thought. "Wa wong?" was what came out.
"The nurse will be back to set up your morphine drip, then you can just press the button whenever you feel pain," he said. "Try to relax and don't worry." The doctor turned to my parents, "May I see the two of you in the hallway for a moment?"
I watched them walk out the door. Michael walked next to me and grabbed my hand. His touch felt comforting so I squeezed his hand. "He's squeezing my hand," Michael said to Henry.
"That's a good sign."
I was afraid I was paralyzed. I focused on my words and then I started to ask the question, "Am I,"
"You're fine," Michael said, "You're going to be just fine."
"Lionel?"
"Don't worry about him," Michael whispered as he gently stroked my cheek with his finger, tracing an imaginary line.
"I'm sure he's getting what he deserves," Henry said.
Copyright Lustyville 2006 Please send comments to lustyville@yahoo.com and check out my yahoo group at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lustyville.