I asked if Julie Michaels was there today. The woman told me she was. I didn't need much information after that. I kind of knew where she was.
The woman asked if I wanted her to get her for me. I told her no. I wanted it to be a surprise.
♥
I didn't really have much of an excuse of why I couldn't go and see her. Of course, the original idea came back to mind. I couldn't offer her anything. Only pain.
I was pretty good at that. Kind of an expert.
The truth was, Julie was nice. I liked talking to her, but I also didn't want to be around her. I couldn't really explain it, only that she was interesting, and I was reaching for the stars.
That didn't stop me from getting into my sister's car and driving to the hospital. It didn't stop me from wanting to see her.
Somewhere along the drive, I realized I would have to apologize. I didn't do the whole apology thing too well. I'd never really apologized for much in my life. Mostly, people were always apologizing to me.
Maybe that was why I wanted to see her. She didn't treat me like that boy with burns. She treated me more like what I was: that boy with the sarcasm and 'don't care' attitude.
When I went into the hospital, I asked the nurse at the front desk where the children's ward was at. She lead me to the top floor, and I stumbled around from there. I peeked in a lot of rooms before I found the double doors that lead to the play area.
I made my way in quietly. I didn't know what to really expect. Maybe a bunch of children running around, screaming at the top of their lungs, and paint splattered across the room.
It wasn't like that. The room wasn't quiet, but no one was yelling or running. There wasn't any paint, but there were a bunch a crayons on the floor, and coloring books, and toys were scattered and being played with by children.
Most were bald. With a cannula in their noses, or an IV wheeling around behind them. Kids with cancer, or lung problems, or heart diseases. Kids that wouldn't stare at me as if I were ugly.
Kids that probably wished they had my problems.
That guilt thing could really get you at the most inopportune times.
I just stared at them, and wondered how it felt, to be so young and already know so much pain and heart ache. I had been older when my life had been severed, but the kids in here were mostly under ten. All still wet behind the ears. Still at that age where the world could be magical and forgiving.
That had been taken away from them.
I almost turned around and left. I started to. I turned my back to them, and took one step toward the door before her voice calling my name stopped me.
I looked at her, standing there, her hair messed up, with a little girl clinging to her ankle and vomit on her jeans, and I couldn't imagine a more beautiful sight.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, smiling softly. I didn't see any anger on her face, like I had seen before. Everything she had been mad about a week ago was gone.
I shrugged, holding up the white crayon, as if it held the answers. “A peace-offering?” I told her, smiling crookedly.
Julie bit the side of her lip, and held my gaze for what seemed like an eternity, and that was fine by me. Eternity with her didn't seem too bad for a guy like me.
She looked down at the little girl and touched the top of her head. “Jenny, go give the new guy a hug. He's feeling lonely,” she told the little girl.
“Actually, I'm fine-”
The little girl jumped from Julie's leg to my waist as if a magnetism had drawn her to me. She clung to me with a tight hug that knocked the breath out of me.
Julie was still biting her lip, smiling at the display. I knew I had to look like a fool, my arms out like I was afraid to touch the little girl, staring at Julie like she was crazy.
When the little girl looked up at me, I realized she had Down syndrome. She was still smiling at me, and her eyes were trained on me like a hawk.
I looked up to ask Julie to call off her kid, but Julie wasn't there anymore. I looked around the room, but I didn't see her anywhere. She had deserted me.
“You know, frowning causes wrinkles,” she told me, and I looked down at her genuinely happy face.
My laugh was bitter. “In case you haven't noticed, I'm covered in them,” I told the little girl.
She rolled her eyes and giggled. “Those aren't wrinkles. They're angel kisses,” she cleared up.
I laughed more heartily, relaxing slightly in the embrace of the little girl. “My angel must have been a prankster,” I told her, and she began to laugh loudly.
“I want in on the joke,” Julie replied, coming up behind us with a teddy bear. She waved it at Jenny, and the little girl left me immediately for the stuffed animal.
“His angel is a prankster, Ms. Julie,” Jenny told her. She hugged the bear as tightly as she had me, until the point that I was seriously concerned it's plastic eyeballs might pop out.
Julie raised a brow at me, and I smiled. I seen her smiling too, and that did something inside of me. Brought things into perspective.
“Jenny, will you go check on Mitchell for me? Pretty please?” she asked. The little girl nodded excitedly, and left, leave Julie and me together, kind of alone except for
