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"Cory," he said finally, "isn't the boss of me. Neither are you, for that matter."
An uncomfortable silence passed between us. I took a few more sawdust-filled bites of pancake, then pushed the tray away after I took the edge off my hunger. Brandon looked at the mostly-full plate critically.
"That's it?" he asked. "That's all you're going to eat after three days?"
I just glared. "Why do you even care?"
Brandon's jaw dropped. "Are you kidding me?"
I opened my mouth to snap back at him, but was interrupted with the entrance of another few people: Dad, Bubbe, and Matthew Zola.
"Oh, there she is! My sleeping beauty is awake again!"
I ventured a smile at Bubbe, even though the movement pulled slightly at the stitches over my eye.
"Hey, Pips," Dad said softly as he leaned down to kiss me on the head. "Glad to see you're up and about." He glanced at the pancakes. "And eating something. It ain't Junior's, though, is it?"
I chuckled with him, but Brandon rolled his eyes.
"Maybe you need to bring something from the house, Sarah," he said to Bubbe as he stood up. "She needs to eat more than a few bites of pancake."
I quirked an eyebrow at the sudden use of Bubbe's first name. Apparently, they'd been getting much more familiar with each other.
Bubbe nodded from the end of the bed. "Blintz. I'll bring blintz." She looked up and down Brandon's large form. "You can come help. We'll be back by the time they're done here."
She turned to leave the room again, giving Brandon no choice but to follow. He clapped his hat back on, but before leaving, glanced at the tray and back at me.
"Eat," he mouthed.
I stuck my tongue out. His lips twitched, and then he left.
Zola pulled the doctor's stool over to one side of the bed while Dad sat in the newly vacated chair. He was the same as I remembered––the same shock of thick black hair, lean form, friendly smile. At one point, I'd thought there might be something between us, but it had been clear from the start that Zola and I were only supposed to be friends. And right now, I was glad to have a friend like him in my pocket.
"Hey there," Zola said. "You look..."
"Like shit," I supplied with a weak grin.
He just nodded, and pulled a pad of paper out of his messenger bag. "I was gonna say better than before, but yours works too." He clicked his tongue a bit and shook his head. "I'm so sorry, Skylar. We've been watching them for a while, but we haven't been able to get an arrest warrant without sworn statements from any witnesses. Now Messina's gone underground––we think to New Jersey––and the NYPD doesn't have the jurisdiction to cross state lines."
I grimaced. "It's not your fault."
"No, it's mine."
Zola and I turned to my dad, who was gripping the sheets on the other side of my bed, tightly with his right hand, but not so tightly with the left. His crippled grasp was the result of a similar beating he'd suffered last spring at the hands of Victor Messina. He looked to me, his gray eyes reddened and wet.
"It's my fault you're here, Pips," he said with a cracked voice. "If I hadn't been such a lousy, no-good, goddamn gamblin' loser, we'd none of us be here right now. Not Brandon, not Matthew here. And my baby girl wouldn't have been beaten within an inch of her life and in a goddamn coma."
"Dad, it wasn't really a coma––" I started, but he swiped away the words with his bad hand.
"No, Pips," he said, and then turned to Zola. "I'm done bein' a coward. I could've made it easier for you to arrest the bastard last spring if I'd've testified, isn't that right?"
Zola glanced briefly at me, then nodded. "The police would have had grounds, yes."
Dad sighed. "And then Victor could be locked up right now, huh?"
"Well," Zola said, "I don't know if things would have moved that fast, but..."
"That's it, then. I'm ready to testify, or whatever you need to do to put that piece of shit behind bars. He hurt my daughter. I ain't nothin' if I can't stand up for that."
