Page 23 of Sacrificing Zoriah

“Okay, well, I am going to undress because I am not going to lay in that bed with these on,” he says.

“I smelled really bad,” I say with a weak smile.

“Yeah…. Yeah, you did,” he chuckles. “I do think we should have a doctor look at your back, though. How does it feel?”

“Uh… It’s okay. Can we cover it with a bandage?” I ask.

“Yeah. Roll over and I’ll take care of it,” he says. I nod and roll to my belly. He goes to the bathroom for a second before returning to sit beside me. He pulls the blanket down but keeps my ass mostly covered when he pulls the back of my shirt up.

“My mom is a nurse,” he says. “I can have her come look at it tomorrow, if you want.”

“Just my back?” I ask.

“That’s it,” he says as he gently rubs something into the burn. I flinch and whimper when pain radiates through my back. “I know it hurts. This will make it feel a bit better.”

“What is it?”

“It’s like a numbing cream for burns. I just have some left over,” he says. “It’s definitely expired, but it will be fine until Mom can get you something.”

“What do you have it for?”

“My niece,” he says. “She stays with my parents, but she’s been over here.”

“Did she get hurt or something?” I ask.

“Mhmm. My sister and her husband were high as a kite, and something caught fire. A neighbor got her out, but she had pretty severe burns on her back. She was curled up with her back to the fire when she was found,” he explains.

“Oh my God. When was this?” I ask. “That poor girl.”

“Well, Kelsie is twelve now. This happened when she was six. Wow, this really is expired,” he says.

“I’m not going to get an infection, am I?” I ask.

“No. This stuff has a good shelf life,” he says. “I didn’t apply much. Just enough to help ease some of the pain you’ll feel when all that adrenaline wears off.”

“Did your sister die?” I ask carefully.

“Uh. Yeah,” he says. “They did autopsies to confirm because he did have a history of domestic abuse. They were dead before the fire even started. They both overdosed on heroin.”

“Oh God… That poor girl,” I say sadly.

“Yeah. She doesn’t remember much of the bad. Kelsie has been in therapy ever since, and she seems to only remember happy memories with them. They tried so hard to get clean. They actually were for six months. She found out she was pregnant again and stopped right away. She lost the baby at twenty-four weeks, and they relapsed the day after she came home from having him. Kelsie was supposed to be with me the night of the fire. Bridgett told us right away when she relapsed and asked me to come pick her up. I finished my meeting but got stuck on the interstate behind a huge pileup. When I finally got there, the house was fully engulfed, and she was already on her way to the hospital.”

“I feel like I remember this,” I say as he lays the new bandage on my back. “I was still new, but I had worked there for a bit.”

“Yeah. My assistant at the time had you come here to grab a bag and take it up to the hospital,” he says. “I was in the pediatric ICU with her for a long time. This was shortly before my fatherretired, so he and I were going back and forth so someone was with her at all times.”

“I remember your dad. I like him,” I say.

“He pops in sometimes. You are generally always running around when he does,” he tells me before helping me roll back.

“You wanna know what the worst part about all of this is?” I ask.

“What’s that?” he asks.

“All I want to do is go back to before,” I say. “I want to go back to when I worked most of the day and read before I went to sleep. I want to go to sleep and have a nightmare about Mom getting killed, but I know that isn’t what I will dream of. I feel like a prisoner to my own thoughts, and I can’t escape them like I did that fucking church house.”

“You will find your way out of the dark, Riah. I know it’s scary, but you aren’t helpless,” he says. “You said earlier that you didn’t want to be babied, so… I’m going to say what I would have said last week.”

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