“Lyla? Did he hurt you? Does anything hurt very badly?”
His soft voice made me feel even sleepier, and a little less panicked. I struggled to make sense of what he was asking. When had my brain decided to shut off?
“Lyla!” This time his voice was a little sharper, more impatient. “Did he hurt you?”
“N-no,” I finally said. “Just some buh-bruises, I think.”
“Come on, let’s get you home,” he muttered, and before I could guess what he meant to do, I found myself swung upward by the strongest arms I ever could have imagined. Holding me seemed to be completely effortless, as though I were a feather pillow. Around me, the world seemed to blur as he started walking, going faster than I ever could have. The exhaustion I had been fighting off now seemed to overwhelm me, and I felt my eyes closing of their own accord. I wasn’t strong enough to keep myself awake, and so, I let myself fall into the blissful darkness.
“Does this mean we don’t have to go to church today?”
“No, silly, you know Lyla would never miss church. She has to get up in time!”
“But he said she needed to rest!”
I groaned and rolled over, only to be stopped mid-roll by the two small bodies whose talking was disturbing my sleep.
“See?” Colton said triumphantly. “She’s alive and about to wake up!”
I cracked one eye open, meeting four smaller blue ones. “What are you two arguing about?” I asked in a sleep-hoarse voice.
Grace regarded me seriously. “It’s ten forty-five and we were deciding if you wanted to go to church today or sleep.”
“Ten forty-five?!” I yelped, tossing back the covers and jumping from my bed. I never slept past eight,
never
. Mass started at eleven thirty, and we had a twenty minute walk to boot! A sudden aching sensation in my arms and back stopped my mad dash, and I looked down, confused. Only when I saw the bruises around both my arms in the shape of a perfect handprint did the memories come flooding back; Austin driving me home, attacking me, and my rescuer saving me. I turned slowly to Grace and Colton. “Colton, who brought me home last night?” I asked carefully.
Colton’s face screwed up. “Some man I’d never seen before. I opened the door ‘cause I was getting a midnight snack and heard him knocking. Grace came too. I know we’re not supposed to open the door to strangers, but he was carrying you, so I did it anyway. He was big, bigger than Dad. Grace almost started crying because she thought you were dead.”
“Did not!” Grace hollered.
“Did too!” Colton shouted back.
“Hey, hey now!” I said, standing between them. “No fighting, please! Colton, just finish the story.”
“The man told us you weren’t dead, you were just really, really tired from helping at the party. We showed him where your bed was and he laid you down. We let him out the front door, and by the time we looked out the window to see him leave, he was already gone!”
“His name?” I asked urgently. “Did you ask him what his name was?”
Grace looked at me curiously. “Isn’t he your friend? Don’t you know his name already?”
I shook my head. “He… was a new friend. So new I don’t even know his name.”
“Gracie asked what his name was,” Colton said, pleased with his all-knowingness. “You know how nosy she is. What was it, Gracie? I forgot.”
“Rafael,” Grace supplied helpfully. “He said his name was Rafael.”
The next day, Monday, I slowly pulled my blue and green plaid jumper over my freshly ironed white shirt. Luckily, I had both long and short sleeved shirts, and though I would look a little ridiculous wearing a long sleeved shirt on a warm September day, it was more important that I hide the handprint bruises that were on both my arms.
The good news was, they were no longer causing me any pain. I bruised easily, but healed quickly. Long sleeves in warm weather were a usual occurrence for Lyla Evans. To me, it was more important that I block Colton and Grace from any physical harm from our parents; bruises were more likely to be found on their fragile little bodies, and the questions asked would get us nowhere. I had already tried to get out. There was no escape.
I gently rolled Colton and Grace out of bed, sitting them up and gently pulling a comb through their tousled locks as they rubbed sleep from their eyes. When I was finished, they groggily tumbled into the clothes I had laid out for them on my bed. Soon I had a twin in Grace, with our matching uniforms, and Colton looked older than his ten years in his pressed navy pants and white polo.
Grace pulled on my knee socks for me, and I assisted her with her own (the only compromise she would make in order to put the darned things on), and then we all picked up our shoes and tip-toed past our father, who was snoring loudly on the living room couch, which adjoined the kitchen and dining room. I had already filled three bowls with corn flakes in the kitchen; I snatched the stack of them on the way out, and the three of us sat on the front stoop of our sagging house and ate our breakfast.
“Sorry there isn’t any milk, guys,” I said apologetically over the sounds of small mouths crunching dry cereal. “I’ll stop by the store sometime this week.”
Colton and Grace both made noncommittal noises as they finished eating, and after chiding Colton for slurping his orange juice too noisily, we left for school. It was a familiar routine, one I had been doing for as long back as I could remember; since I was old enough to realize that our parents were parents in name, not deed, and that I needed to be strong and mature quickly to keep my siblings – and myself – safe and whole. Colton and Grace both grabbed for my hands without reminders when we crossed streets, and Grace still got a little teary on bad days and clung to my legs, begging me not to leave her in the classroom. Grace and Colton both saw and treated me as their mother, and my instincts toward them were much more maternal then sisterly.
That day I walked them to their classes as always before showing up in my homeroom, sitting down in the half empty classroom to check over my homework from the weekend. I could only see one way out of my situation, and that was scholarships and our community college, Columbus State. It was close, no farther in walking distance than my high school or church, and tuition was notoriously inexpensive. I could finally land some kind of steady job, live at home with Colton and Grace, and study as hard as I could to fly through an associate’s degree so I would be qualified for something that paid more highly than just minimum wage.
The plan wasn’t ideal, it wasn’t rock solid, and I didn’t want to go to school for something that I wouldn’t truly enjoy. But the important thing was being able to provide steadily for Colton and Grace. When they were a little older and had jobs of their own, maybe I could pursue my dreams of becoming a doctor; I liked the idea of helping others.
I had just struggled through checking all my calculus problems when there was a clatter and the tornado I liked to call my best friend settled into the desk next to mine.
“I swear,” Natalie groaned, sticking her head into her backpack and trying to rearrange the books inside, “my mom needs to realize that laundry should be done
before
eight o’clock on Monday morning.
Oh I’m sorry honey
,” she mocked in a high pitched voice. “
I just totally forgot about it all weekend. Just wear a t-shirt!
Look at me! It’ll be a miracle if Sister Elizabeth doesn’t write me up!”
I looked at the white T-shirt Natalie had on, instead of the appropriate button down or collared shirts stated in the uniform guidelines. I wished my biggest problem was wearing the wrong shirt to school. “Your cardigan totally covers it. Sister Elizabeth will never notice,” I assured her.
Natalie scowled ferociously. “She better not. Detention is
so
boring! And I can’t get one so early in the school year. Dad will have my
head
.”
I shook my head. Natalie didn’t need her mother’s aid in getting detentions for failure to dress – she had a couple a year for refusing to follow the dress code perfectly. “Start doing your own laundry,” I suggested to her, as I always did.
Natalie laughed as though this was the most ridiculous thought in the world. “So, can you still come over tonight to study for that American history quiz tomorrow? I don’t think I can pass without your help. You can stay for dinner, and Colton and Grace too, of course. Matt promised to keep them entertained, and Mom promised to make a
huge
batch of spaghetti and her secret sauce.”
“I don’t know…” I said, trailing off. I still felt a little bit unsettled by the attack from Austin and my mysterious rescuer.
“Oh, please!” Natalie cried. The room around us was starting to get noisier as more people entered. The bell would ring in just two minutes. “I’ll even let you take home the leftovers. Every drop of sauce, cross my heart.” She did so, giving me a pleading look.
The sauce was always delicious, and I felt myself wavering. It wasn’t often Colton, Grace, and I got to sit down to a real family dinner, even if that family wasn’t our own. And I never turned down leftovers. We didn’t starve, but we didn’t always get to exactly eat our fill of home cooked meals.
Seeing me on the brink of making a decision, Natalie grinned again. “I’ll throw in the leftover meatballs too. Final offer.”
I smiled back. “All right, it’s a deal. What time?”
“Six o’clock will be perfect. We can eat first,” Natalie decided, as the bell rang and everyone scrambled for their appropriate seats. I resigned myself to another boring, if normal, day. But I had forgotten just one element.
Austin.
I didn’t run into him until after lunch, by which time I was pretty much back to my normal self. Surrounded by the boring familiarity of school, friends, and teachers, I could hardly hold on to my weird mood and confusion for very long. Curiosity over this Rafael person was crowded away with information about calculus, American history, Latin, and essays. It was tradition for Austin to meet me outside the lunch room, so we could walk to our AP Biology class together. Today, it appeared, was no exception. I had no sooner disposed of my trash and exited the cafeteria when I almost ran straight into him.
“Hey!” he said brightly, looking the same as always, unfailingly cheerful and weighed down with the same stack of AP textbooks as I was. “What’s up? How was your weekend?”
For a moment I could only stare up at him in utter shock. Then I ducked my head and began walking quickly to our classroom.
“Hey, Lyla, wait up!” I heard him call. I only walked faster. How could he even speak to me after what had happened?
But Austin’s height and longer legs won the day, and he caught up to me easily. “Lyla, what’s wrong? Did I do something?” he asked.
The worry in his voice made me stop to face him. He sounded genuinely… confused. “Do you honestly not know?” I asked sharply, unable to keep some sarcasm from my voice.
Austin’s blue eyes were bright with concern and desperation. “I have no
idea
,” he said, his voice low with frustration. “Come on, Lyla, we’ve been friends forever, what’s wrong?”
“You-” I began, unsure of exactly what to say, but he cut me off.
“Wait, wait. Is this because of Saturday night? Is that it?”
“Um, yeah?” I could barely keep my voice down. All around us, people rushed to class, pushing past us, concerned with their own problems.
“Look, Lyla, I would have driven you home, I really would have, but I don’t even know what happened! One minute I was leaving the church with you and telling you goodbye, and the next I was home in bed, waking up on Sunday. I’m sorry, I know it was rude, and I should have made sure you got home safe.”
I shook my head, confused. “What are you talking about? You took me home.”
Austin seemed just as confused as I was. “I know I stayed to help you clean up, Lyla, but, then I just remember telling you goodbye and being at home. I woke up with a monster headache and, and I’m just really sorry, okay? Please, just tell me what to do to make this better.”
I stared at him in amazement. He didn’t remember. He really seemed to have no recollection of what had happened – the fight, the strange Rafael person, trying to
attack
me – he had no idea. And how could I really be mad at him if he didn’t remember what he had done? I peered into his eyes, but they were innocent, guileless. I didn’t believe Austin had it in him to lie about something like this.
“You know what?” I said, trying to sound nonchalant, not as though I was unnerved or still massively confused. “Don’t worry about it, Austin. I’ve just, I’ve had a kind of crummy day is all. Did you understand this bio homework? I couldn’t figure it out to save my life.”
“Lyla? Confused?” Austin laughed as he held the door of the classroom open for me. “Looks like we’re all in trouble then.”
And just like that, it seemed everything was back to normal with Austin.
To say I was confused about what had happened would be a vast, enormous, gargantuan understatement. I was baffled. I was clueless. I was frustrated. All I wanted to do was find this Rafael man and shake some answers out of him. But even more than that, I wanted to thank him for what he had done. It had taken a lot of bravery to save me the way he had; and then to take me home afterward. And to reassure Colton and Grace, well, that told me that this stranger, no matter who or what he was, had a heart. It was against my nature to let something like this go without expressing my thanks. Though I gave up on the idea ever being able to track this man down, I got my chance eventually.