Leon

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I was alive.

It came as a surprise at first, finding light flooding my eyes and veins and feeling the breath flow through my lungs, after that night, after what had happened.

"Leon?"

Voices miles away. The first thing I felt was something soft, maybe, softer at least than the roughness of my hands that ached and snagged against it. My hands had never been so coarse.

I tried to open my eyes, but my lids held shut like glue. The light behind was blurred and foggy, distorted through a wall of lashes, like seeing life through sheer, rippling water.

There was life in me, but I couldn't feel myself. My fingertips felt sheets, my eyes felt the light, and my ears heard the murmur of voices fading in and out of reality. But my body was numb.

Gradually my eyes fell open, and my head began to clear.

"He's awake!"

images blurred and distorted began to fuzz and fade away into something clearer. I saw two lights gently vibrating until they made a decision to converge and focus into one. I blinked once, twice, and tried to lean forward to see the voices wandering off at the edge of my vision. something caught, a tug at my arm, and the sudden pounding in my head and swirling vision sent me falling backwards and hitting the soft cushion of a pillow. They came closer, and a face leaned over to peer at me. a face I didn't recognize.

their mouth moved, but no sound registered in my ears. I listened through them instead of to them and the words echoing through the caverns of my skull bounced around a bit without my notice before dancing off the way they came. A medical mask was tucked under their chin. I lowered my gaze. A needle in my arm.

As my heart rate sped with surprise I felt myself flinch. something cleared. I felt the stabbing, with it a pain that covered my whole body, aching deep and low, hundreds of them, masses, on my hands, on my arms, covering my chest and scattered down my back. the pain on my face stung, sharper than the needle now held in a pair of gloved hands. the sound cleared along with the rest, biting my already bleeding mind.

"Please, calm down," the mouth above the mask sighed speaking through a glinting set of wax white teeth. "I just need to take some blood,"

They gave me pain killers and I could finally think straight. My family was there, taking up residence in a set of musty waiting room chairs at the edge of the room. Kylie hid her face in a comic book, blue legging clad legs swinging under the chair. Mom was chewing at her claw-like fuchsia fingernails--usually pristine, eyes flicking between the hospital bed I was entrapped in and the fingerprint worn window on the other wall. Dad walked in and out of the room. There was a flower vase on the bedside table.

The nurse came back and talked to Dad who rolled from heel to toe and rubbed his hands together. They looked at me. Everyone looked at me. I closed my eyes.

A few hours later I could finally open my mouth and put a few coherent words together.

"what happened?"

"We were hoping you could tell us that, Leon."

Dad spoke my name like he was sending an arrow through it, burying it into the shrouded deep of what meaning was left in their praised son's name. I couldn't tell them, could it? Was any of it real at all? I was swimming in oceans of puzzled thought, mind buzzing with the comically loud, overwhelming hum of the room around me. Everything hitting me all at once and melting through the stress in my mind as beads of sweat down my forehead. The sticky cold feeling sunk deep into my eyes, weighing them down and flushing out in buckets as I closed them, tears running down my cheeks. I never cried.

"Honey?"

It was mom.

I opened my eyes and the lights broke me again. "I don't remember,"

A lie.

Kylie plopped her book through a crevice between the seats, and was hopping up onto the hospital bed in seconds to give me a glare.

"Were you... drinking?

"What? No! I mean... I don't think I- I didn't, I don't drink!"

"Hm..."

Mom got up, and sitting next to Kylie, ran her fingernail along the side of my face. "Leon," She said, seriousness printed on her eyes. "Tell the truth. You smell like alcohol."

"Look. I don't know what happened. I was just walking home, after football. We went..." Their eyes followed mine as I flicked around the room, trying to remember what I hadn't done. "At the pizza place first. Some guy spilled his drink on me. It took hours for them to bring out our order,"

They exchanged a glance, mom and dad, and dad's eyes met the floor as his breath dropped to the tiles. "Alright, we believe you."

"We do?"

"Yes we do."

"Chris-"

"Our son wouldn't lie, right?"

This seemed to be an unarguable statement to my mom, who stroked my blond mop out of my face with something like love. I winced as she brushed against a bruise along my hairline. "I guess," She muttered. It would take longer than a simple explanation to convince her.

"What happened after that?"

I squeezed my eyes tight and searched whatever happened last night, watching it like a movie that moved just a little too fast to focus on, some parts blurred out some frames completely blacked out, even some repeating, going back and over and moving around until I wasn't sure what happened and what hadn't. I got something. That was all I needed.

"Then... I was walking home. Alone, and... It was really dark and I kinda forgot where I was. I think somebody was following me, so I ran. But that just got me even more lost..."

"Somebody was stalking you?"

Dad was off his seat and mom's eyes shot into mine.

"Look, I'm not sure, okay? I was running and then they caught up to me and..." My memories flashed, sharp claws and teeth like daggers. "He had a knife."

An intake of breath ran through the room, catching everyone off guard as the imagery of a man in the night with a knife standing over me sliced through their minds.

"Yeah and he wanted my wallet."

"Did you give it to him?"

"No, it was still at the parlor. I'd forgotten it."

Silence.

"He... he cut me up pretty bad. I don't remember anything else."

I could feel their stares, melting with concern, bubbling over with all the fear and heartfelt sadness at what had happened to me, but at the same time just happy it hadn't happened to them. Poor Leon, I could almost feel echoing through their heads. Poor son. Poor brother.

"How long have I been here?"

A pause.

"Three days."

There wasn't anything left to say. And after talking in low voices to the doctor, and collecting their things, my family left, leaving a cold feeling behind them in the now dim, empty room.

***

They were supposed to let me rest, wait in the lobby until 4 when I was scheduled to be released. But I could think of nothing but staying awake, all sleepiness rushing out of my head and out of the range of possibility altogether. I'd gotten sick of studying the ground, the ceiling, the chairs, all the things in the room I could look at. So I started studying my memory.

Not just the memory of last night. I'd recounted it so many times every frame of the happenings flashed in my head repeating itself through whatever I'd chosen to distract myself with, and when it was gone leaving a tired ache behind it. I thought of my friends, of school. The day before night that seemed years ago, like a childhood long passed since some great event that aged me faster than anything I'd ever known. I thought of the game, and of the school day.

The only remarkable thing that had happened, apart from our game, landed in the social studies classroom when the group had convinced me to come with them and try a couple beers. I'd resisted, but giving in to the pressure and the laughter was easier than not.

I noticed someone's eyes on me. It wasn't rare, I'd gotten used to it. But this was different. It was a feeling, not a set of dream-lost pining eyes gazing at me, but a cold sensation from the back of class. I'd never felt someone watching me with disdain before. That's when I turned, burning with curiosity, into the bluest eyes I'd ever seen. Ever.

And they were looking right at me with hatred.

I could feel it.

They were the kind of eyes I could drown in, washing over like waves, sending an icy shiver through me. I'd never seen them before, searching my memory I wondered who they belonged to but brought up a blank. Something ached in me, like they were a soul I had never tried to connect with and was suffering the consequence.

That was it. I had seen them before. A passing shadow I'd probably bumped into walking through the hallway, but never acknowledged. Two different people. Two different worlds.

He was still glaring at me when I realized I'd been staring, like a sudden wake up call. I spun back to facing the front of the class, feeling confusion flood my senses.

I thought it then, and the same words were running through my head now.

Who was that, anyway?

I stared down at my arms, wrapped over the blanket and clutching my chest like I could heal myself just by holding on tight enough. A sort of feeling was seizing over me, a gnawing feeling that I couldn't ignore. It burrowed under the marks on my skin and brushed against my insides, feeling my heart ache. My head wonder.

Forget it, I thought, and let the words leave my mouth and shatter into the silent air of the room. "Forget it,"

I didn't forget it.