Burning Red [TMNT Raphael - FanFiction] Chapter 2
I pulled the folder out of April’s hands; I was scared, like I got news that I was going to be a father. Reading over the paper, I was going to be the legal guardian over my cousin if I signed it, if I didn’t she’d be the property of the State.
I moved April away from the desk so I could have my one-on-one with the woman. “What if I didn’t sign this? What would happen to her?”
“She would become property of the State of New York,” she explained as she stood from her chair. Reaching over her desk she flipped the paper over for me to another paper where I would sign to give up my rights of guardianship.
“She’d then go to a foster home and her name would be placed on a long list of children waiting to be adopted. But because she’s sixteen, adoption is difficult.”
I rotated between the two different pieces of paper, both waiting for my signature. “How?”
“Well, most people want to adopt when children are just babies, when they’re cute. Who’d want to jump the gun and take in a pain in the ass teenager?” She explained as she handed me a black inked pen.
“Casey?” April took her hands and rubbed my shoulders. I placed the folder back down on the woman’s desk, staring at it. Just staring into space and time. I was thinking about my #life, how hers’ and mine were so close together. I was unwanted and she would be too. Angry, scared, and crying under the street lamps looking for someone or something to saying “I’m with you”.
St. Francis Hospital, New York.
My brain was slowly waking up, noticing the darkness and stars that were in behind my eyes. My eyes hurt, I can’t keep them closed anymore. I have to know if I’m still in the ditch. I opened my eyes, noticing I wasn’t in the ditch or even outside anymore. I was in a hospital room.
I opened my eyes to see the closed window shades in the room, blocking off the painful sunlight that would most likely melt my eyeballs. I should move my legs to see if they work still.
I started rubbing my legs against each other, not just to see they were actually okay but also to keep them warm. They felt so cold! I tapped something with my foot, something that was blocking my leg movement…and taking up my bed space! I turned over onto my back to look at what this something was.
As I turned over that something was waking up from my twisting of the sheets. I looked at ‘him’ and he lifted his head from the edge of the bed he was laying on to look at me. He looked like he came out of a drunken stupor. I’m guessing it came to his attention that I was looking him. He quickly lifted from his seat and reached over the bed, placing his black marked, dirty hands around my upper arms.
Just as quickly as him I outstretched my arms, tightly gripping his shoulders to keep him at a distance from me. But he pushed through my shield, giving me a firm hug, pinning my arms against my sides.
“I’m so glad you’re awake,” he whispered. He swayed me gently from side to side, brushing my tangled bed-hair down with his hands occasionally gripping it tightly, enough for me to feel that that’s what he was doing. He pulled way a little bit, to look me in the eyes. He hands cupping my face, rubbing his calloused fingers underneath my eyes lightly. Who is this? How do I know you?!
“Umm,” I was trying to ask those questions but my voice was raspy and hurting. Before I could try to say anything else a knock at the door was heard. He let go of me to stand and look at the visitor, a nurse.
“Tallie? Hi, my name is Harley and I’m your nurse in the mornings.” She walked into the room, taking out a clipboard from the plastic holder on the side of the wall. She was writing something down as she walked over to the bed. She set the pen and board down on the rolling table next to the bed, blocking the guy from me without even an “excuse me”. I watched her the whole time as she messed with the machines behind my bed and checking my IV as well as adjusting the airflow of the tubes that were apparently in my nose, making me cough a little at the sudden gust of air through my passages.
“What happened?” She didn’t look at me; she just stood up straight and took up the clipboard again.
As she was continuing to write on the clipboard she explained “You’re in St. Francis Hospital in New York. You came in with bruises, lacerations, broken bones, and head trauma from the car accident out on the freeway.”
“Crash?” she lifted her pen and turned to me but didn’t answer whatever question I was asking. She just walked over to the holder, put the board back and walked out, closing the door behind her. The guy looked over at me and I looked at him, expecting him to answer me now. If he and I were ‘family’ then he’d tell me.
He rubbed his hands on the sides of his jeans and sat back down, pulling the chair closer to the bed. He rested his elbows on his legs and held his hands together, as if to brace himself for what he was going to say too.
‘Uh, Tallie. My name is Casey; your mom is my aunt. Aunt Tabytha. I don’t know if you remember anything but you and your mom took a wrong exit and went into oncoming traffic. I’m guessing she swerved to move out of one cars way and…hit another.” He bowed his head, running his fingers through his hair he raised his head to look at the ceiling in a very pained way, his eyes red and moist with sorrow.
“Where’s mom?” I knew what the answer was but maybe I was wrong, and if I was and she was just in another room in critical care I could tell him to leave me alone and forget about it. But I waited.
“She died…didn’t she?” He bit his upper lip and rubbed at something above his lip and through his fingers he replied “…Yeah.”
I was dying too. The reality that I’m alone left behind by whomever decided that mom should go and not me. My throat was hurting even more, but I wasn’t just sad, I was pissed.
If I had the strength to rip this IV from my arm and get out of this bed I’d run out of this room, to nowhere. Thinking that if I ran, I would run away from this situation and run into a different one, a better one. One where mom would live and I would die. But…
I just turned over onto my side again, turning my back on him and curling up into a ball to cry with myself. “Can you leave, please?”
I heard the chair scrap back, steps walking away, a door opening and closing again. I was alone. But this type of alone didn’t bother me as bad as the real ‘alone’. The tears were endless, I wanted to scream but if I did people would run in and bother my grieving state. I don’t want people! I want my parents back!
So I silently screamed, silently begged, pleaded, prayed, and cried. And said the billion dollar questions and phrases someone in my situation would say and ask “Why? Come Back. Please. Don’t leave me.”
I was alone until the stars were out and the street lamps were glowing. People came and went. I didn’t talk to any of them. Even when the tears would stop they would start again, on and off. I stayed in my state of discontent and silence. I was still thinking and talking to myself and anyone who was there, listening to me in my silence, in my mind. A woman named April came in and she tried to talk to me too. I just watched her when she was on my side of the room, listening to her but not saying a word to her.
She explained to me that I was going to be with her and Casey in their apartment, living in the loft up the stairs over looking the living/kitchen area. “There’s a small window in the room, as well as another window by the stairs as you walk down it…I think you’ll like it. Like having your own apartment.” She faintly laughed at her statement looking at me for some type of reaction, a smile maybe. I just sighed and continued to listen to her. Her smile disappeared into disappointment. She also explained that I would be going to a private school and that all my records from my other school were being moved over to this new one as she spoke.
“Oh, Casey is talking to movers now and we’ll move everything in your room over to our place. Is there…anything of your parent’s that you want to keep? Something of Dad’s and Mom’s?”
These two move fast. Everything of Dad’s was taken care of a year ago. All I have of his is in a floral memory box in my room along with a photo album filled with pictures of him and his #life’s story. I also have his leather jacket, dog tags, and AF (Air Force) ring. As well as the Memorial Box with his own personal American Flag in it that the Honor Guard gave to us at his funeral. I know they’ll get those if they’re grabbing everything in my room and closet. I started thinking about everything of Mom’s. What of Mom’s would I take that will remind me of her, her scent, some memory that has her imprinted on my heart and mind?
Mom didn’t have a lot; she was more of a photo hoarder then an object hoarder. She had a big box of photos in her closet that I’d like, as well as the crystal lemonade pitcher that held the fake wild flowers she bought in Maine on our last vacation, that she placed on the kitchen table. She was so proud of that simple centerpiece.
I didn’t mention any of that to April. If I even opened my mouth to tell her all that I’d probably cry, because I’m telling her what to do with my deceased mother’s things. I’m not ready for this. I just turned onto my back again to look at the ceiling while she waited for my answer but she wasn’t going to get one.
“I’ll just have you come with us when we go, okay?” She said as she stood from the chair, taking the notepad she had in her hands to write down the information she was telling me that she was going to take care of for me. I watched her as she was leaving and softly closing the door behind her.
I turned over onto my side, facing the door. Humming a silent, unknown song that I don’t know and never heard of but whatever I was humming sounded right for how I was feeling. Loss.
