You're not alone

Part 9

After Karen and Jolene had talked a little for a while and exchanged numbers she drove off again and Jolene closed the door before making her way upstairs and into Andrew's room where she found the two kids sitting on his bed while he was proudly showing her his collection of miniature old-timers that he collected ever since he was five years old. She saw Meredith smiling tiredly and it was obvious that she was exhausted. Andrew told her a story to every single one of them since they all had a story he had made up that always contained a chase with the police and a mafia boss or gangster.

"Hey guys, it's already half past seven, what about you change into some comfortable clothes? And you could watch a movie if you'd like." She suggested, looking from Andrew to Meredith and back but in the end her gaze landed on Meredith. Andrew turned around as well to look at Meredith but when he noticed that she was a little uncomfortable while both of them were looking at her he turned back around to look at his mother and answered: "Sounds good!"

Meredith still didn't say anything as Andrew turned around to her. "You can take your clothes and change in the bathroom if you want, I'll show you." He said excitingly and Jolene could tell that no matter what circumstances Meredith was in he wanted to make her feel as comfortable as possible which made her even prouder. He was just ten years old but he already was a gentleman.

Meredith slowly stood up and Jolene could see that she was shaking a little as she opened the suitcase and grabbed a sweatpants and shirt as well as a jacket, clutching the clothes to her chest. Andrew stood up as well and took Meredith's hand in his walking past Jolene into the hallway, leading her into the bathroom. Jolene couldn't help but smile a little at seeing that they were really cute together. A moment later Andrew came out of the bathroom again and closed the door behind him, walking over to his mother.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" he asked, walking past her into his room and grabbing a fresh pair of pyjama's out of his closet. "No reason, I'll go grab my laptop then you can watch the movie in here." Jolene smiled before disappearing and Andrew quickly begun to change and clean his room as good as possible. After a few seconds Jolene appeared with a mat and his sleeping bag that she laid onto the floor before placing her laptop on his bed, where Meredith was going to sleep. "Great." He said, smiling brightly, looking around the room. "Do I look okay?" he then asked Jolene which surprised her a little but she just gave him a thumbs up, chuckling a little.

After a few more seconds Meredith came into the room. Her hair was falling loosely around her shoulders in soft waves but her eyes were a little red and she wasn't wearing socks so that her prothesis was visible. But it seemed as if she didn't care about that. When she noticed both of them looking at her again she moved her head down to look at the floor as she started to shiver again. Andrew had already told his mother about Meredith's prothesis so that it wasn't as shocking as it would have been but the little girl suddenly seemed even more vulnerable so that Jolene quickly said: "I'll leave you too alone, good night, and don't stay up too long you have school tomorrow." Before leaving the room. After closing the door, she thought about what she said. Probably it wasn't a good idea to send Meredith to school tomorrow since this had been a really rough day for her and she should take some time to figure her thoughts out and process her emotions and feelings.

Jolene had seen enough to know that Meredith's shyness and closed up character was a product of parents that didn't care about her or abused her. Maybe not physically but definitely emotionally. She could see that her ADHD hadn't developed the universally known energetic-hyperactive way but more this way where she had started to suppress her feelings to a level where it had started to affect her personality. Maybe her mother had denied that she had the disorder or that it was the right diagnose and had made Meredith believe the same. At least she had medication which wasn't exactly a cure but better than nothing. But if it was the only thing her parents had done about it and had never let her see a therapist or talked to her about it, let her express her feelings and talk about them, then this was way worse than thought. Also, the fact that Meredith was behaving the way she was could be a result of a live that she was living all on her own, meaning that she was more independent than any other ten-year-old. She thought of Andrew who was awakened by her every single morning with a kiss and for whom she made breakfast every morning. She doubted that Meredith's mother would do something like that and that the poor child was raising herself all by herself which could explain her under development concerning her height or social knowledge. And then there was her leg. She knew that she wasn't allowed to judge the family she didn't knew but from what Andrew had told her Meredith was very closed up and insecure about it which could mean that her parents also never really talked to her about it or let her see a therapist if it was connected to a traumatic incident.

Jolene took a deep breath. Sometimes her knowledge and her skill in reading people was a curse. She had spent ten minutes with Meredith but she felt as if they had already talked to each other for two hours so that she couldn't stop analysing the poor girl. All Meredith had said to her had been 'Hello' but it had been enough for Jolene to come to a temporary conclusion about her personality. If that kid's ADHD was being treated it was being treated very poorly because she obviously had trouble controlling her emotions and she would bet all her money on the fact that she was being bullied more than what Andrew had told her or had trouble at school in general.

_______

Upstairs Meredith and Andrew had sat down on Andrew's bed and Meredith was currently watching him setting up a movie on the laptop. Meredith shut her eyes as suddenly a wave of pain shot through her left leg. Phantom pain was the last thing she needed right now. But it was only getting worse the more time passed so that soon her eyes started to fill with tears that now ran down her cheeks. As Andrew turned around he noticed that she was crying and quickly crawled over to her. "What's wrong, are you okay?" he asked worried, laying his hand on her back.

"It hurts." She whispered as more tears ran down her cheeks. "What hurts?" he asked confused, looking at her up and down. "My leg." She sniffled quietly, not knowing if she was even allowed to cry but she couldn't help it right now. "Maybe it would help if you would take the prothesis off Mer, it's okay, really." He said, trying to make her comfortable. But she just shook her head.

"Come on, take it off. If it hurts you, you should take it off. I really don't mind, please. I don't want you to be in pain." He said, rubbing her back. "Okay." She said softly, sniffling again before rolling up her sweatpants and loosening the straps, slowly taking off the prosthetic leg, laying it on the floor, starting to massage the stump a little. "Is it getting better?" he asked as he scooted even closer to her, hugging her from the side. She nodded almost unnoticeable, leaning a little into him. He kept watching her stump as he noticed that her fingers were a little weak.

"Can I?" he asked as she noticed how tired she was. She seemed a little insecure about it but then nodded, sitting a little further on the bed. He sat down next to her, making sure she was comfortable as they leant back against the pillows and he started the movie. While she was looking at the screen, somehow even a little excited to watch the movie because she had never watched 'Zoomania' before, Andrew started to massage her leg with his fingertips very, very carefully, scared that he would hurt her. "Please tell me if I'm hurting you." He said as he moved her knee to lay over his tight as he continued to massage her leg. "It feels good." He heard Meredith whisper, and he saw a tiny smile on her lips as she watched what he was doing because no one had ever offered to massage her stump before and it felt really good and relieving. She leaned closer to him, somehow feeling safe now that he was with her, a feeling that she had never felt ever before and that was really hard to describe.

Andrew kept massaging her leg with his left hand while he laid his right arm around her after covering both of them with a few blankets so that Meredith would stop looking down every few minutes. It took her a while but after about thirty minutes she was already fast asleep in his arms. He smiled brightly as he carefully entangled himself from her, getting up and closing the laptop before covering her with the blanket again, grabbing the stuffed bunny that was laying in her suitcase and placing it in her arms before climbing into the sleeping bag on the mat, closing his eyes and falling asleep with the brightest of grins on his lips.