At 11:21 p.m. on Monday night, I noticed Rosie's seizure. At 11:23 p.m., after calling for my parents, we came back into her room and noticed that she wasn't breathing. At 11:25 p.m., the three of them drove away in the truck towards the hospital.
Adrian emerged some time after, only to find me clutching a mug of untouched coffee. My bedhead must've been something else, but he ignored it. He knew what was happening. Graciously, he didn't say anything.
Luke didn't come out until about half past midnight, but not because he was a heavy sleeper. He just didn't want to come out and face the reality of the situation. Granted, he was only eleven, but he knew his how bad this was.
So we waited. One o'clock, two-thirty. Only just after three did we finally hear the truck pulling into the driveway. Luke glanced through the windows, bravely, and Adrian stood to put away my still-untouched coffee mug. I didn't move. I didn't want to move. I didn't want anything else change, because for all we knew right now, she was still okay.
The door opened.
I heard Luke say, ''Dad?''
My father didn't answer, or he didn't have anything to say, or it was too quiet for me to hear. I couldn't see the door, but I could see the top of Luke's head facing it, his light hair softly tousled. I suddenly remembered a moment when both of us were younger, and it was the day our parents had brought Rosie home after she'd been born, and we crouched around her carseat. There was a set of tubes around her cheeks and in her nostrils, and her face flushed just a little when she breathed.
Luke, tiny at four, had said, ''Is she gonna be able to breathe okay?''
And Mom said, ''Yes.''
And Luke said, ''Is she gonna be able to talk okay?''
And Mom said, ''Yes.''
And finally, Luke said, ''Will she be my baby sister forever, Mom?''
And Mom said, ''Of course.''
When I looked back to where Luke had been standing, there was nothing for me to see except the shadow of him crushed in my father's arms. And there was nothing for me to hear but the ugly crying that came from both of them.
Rosie.
Forever was a lie.
YOU ARE READING
Hiding From Us
Teen Fiction❝We can't win. We're fighting a spherical war. We're hiding from us. And we're losing.❞ This is the sequel to Looking At Us, where a new generation of teens come into Shain and Erick’s lives, and love becomes a force of power and weakness.
