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Mr. Müller huffed, but we could see the warmth in his eyes from her gesture. He pretended to be a grumpy old man, but he was—as Patricia always put it—a big ‘ol teddy bear.
“Take our car,” Jose offered, pulling out the keys and handing them to me.
“Really?”
“Yeah, we are not due at the hospital for another two hours.”
My hand lifted to get the keys, but Patricia snatched them before I could. “Forget that, I’m going with him. I love shopping!”
By the time we returned, it was cold outside and raining. Entering the house with Suzie under my umbrella, I set it to dry by the door while Jose and Mr. Müller rushed out to help with the bags. I sat Suzie on the hallway bench.
“What is the meaning of this?” Mrs. Reyes screeched, coming down the stairs. Her swollen eyes widened when she saw the others bringing bag after bag of food into the kitchen. “What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything,” I defended just as Patricia stopped beside me with a package of toilet paper bigger than her.
“He’s lying. It was all his idea.” She turned while Mrs. Reyes glanced after her perplexed.
“It’s nothing.” I shrugged. “We all pitched in and bought the groceries this month. Don’t worry. We got you.”
Honestly, I expected her to tear me a new one for doing something like this without consulting her. Or for having the audacity to assume she needed our help, but the next moment, her arms pulled me into a hug and she began to cry.
I held her, eyes stinging while she squeezed the life out of me. Mrs. Reyes wasn’t the type of person who wore their heart on their sleeve, probably hardened by what happened to her, so this show of emotion truly said more than any words could describe.
Leaning away, she wiped her cheeks and hugged Patricia too, then bent down to pick up her daughter. Her expression filled with horror when she finally focused on Suzie’s face. Half of it was smeared with the chocolate bar she’d been sucking on since the supermarket.
“You gave her chocolate at this time of night?!”
Her reproach was accompanied by a loud smack on my arm, and I chuckled. “Sorry.”
Her lips twitched, appreciation still shining in her eyes, but she narrowed them at me, promising retribution. Holding a bouncing Suzie, she walked to the kitchen to begin unloading everything.
Exhausted, I stumbled up to my room, my gaze focusing on the falling rain through my tiny window while my mind ventured to the past.
When I walked up to Mrs. Reyes’ door that fateful night, I never imagined I would find a home here. I was only sixteen, with nothing but the address portion of the “rooms for rent” flyer I’d seen on the board of the supermarket, and a bag with clothes.
A night not unlike tonight. It was cold, with a raging storm falling over my head, and what felt like the weight of the world on my shoulders.
Taking off my shirt and shoes, I made my way to the dresser on the right side of the bed. My room was small. Super small. Probably a large closet that had been converted so it could be rented, but back then, it was all I needed. A full-sized bed, with a small dresser on one side, and a tower fan on the other was all I could fit inside it—Oh, and the three pairs of shoes I had by the corner of my bed.
My hands plunged into the first drawer, taking out a metallic chest I kept locked, and I placed it on the bed. Pulling the key from my pocket, I opened it and began to place the medicine vials in order on the mattress, laying the syringe last.
Covering my hands with the gloves, I took the test tube, and began to add the medications one by one with precise measurements. Ten drops of this, twenty drops of that, a small scoop of something else, and three more ingredients I could barely pronounce. It all foamed and fizzled together while I gently stirred. My hands shook from my growing weakness, so it took extra effort to make sure I didn’t spill anything or screw up the measurements.
I had overdone it with work today, even though I knew better than to force myself like that. Still, after Lucas bailed, I had no choice but to work two whole shifts at the café, and that had drained me.
To a stranger, I might look like a regular, healthy guy. I exercised here and there, but it wasn’t like I would be taking pics of my muscles and posting them on Instagram any time soon. It was easy to forget, after having it under control for so long, but it was during moments like these that I was reminded of my illness.
Perhaps the reason I didn’t mind the small room, was that I had spent my childhood between the four walls of a lab, enduring testing for some kind of autoimmune disease no one had ever seen before me. It wasn’t easy being a sick child. Having your body attack itself, making you feel and see things that weren’t really there.
That shit really messed with you.
I, Braxton Storm, was the “one in a million” doctors were always talking about.
The only reprieve I ever got was when my mind created wild dreams to escape reality, and I found myself flying with Dragons along an indescribable paradise, filled with vast green mountains and mind-blowing scenery.
My gaze lifted to the poster of New Zealand that hung over my dresser, it reminded me of those dreams. Sadly, they stopped once my father did what my doctors hadn’t been able to achieve—find a treatment for my rare ailment.
He wasn’t actually a doctor, but he was a pharmacist, so he was able to recognize a few slight similarities between my condition and another rare disease. Soon after, he began to experiment with immunosuppressive drugs and other medications, until he found a combination of things that worked for me.
