"Walk me through this again." I said running a hand over my face.
"Why is this so hard for you to understand?" Ham snapped at me, tensions had been rising in the waiting room the entire hour we had been there, everyone was on edge waiting to hear about
Smalls and the Sandlot team was not a group that remained exactly calm.
"Why the fuck was Smalls on a tricycle?" I demanded glaring at him.
"Because we dared him!"
"Why would you dare him to do that?"
"Because it was fucking funny!"
Timmy leaned forward in his seat beside me. "Stop swearing in the hospital waiting room!"
Ignoring him I continued on with my argument with Ham. "Why wasn't he wearing a helmet?"
"It's a tricycle, if you fall you fall three inches from the ground!"
"Well he didn't fall he got hit by a car!"
"Will you two knock it off?" Grover hissed. "It's no ones fault but Clara's."
I slumped back in my seat crossing my arms. "Yeah we can all agree on that part."
No one asked but I knew what they were all thinking about. Clara had driven drunk and although it wasn't uncommon for people to drive with a few drinks in them she did hit someone and the
police obviously knew about it. This wasn't something she could cover up or charm her way out of, she had driven drunk, ran a stop sign and hit someone, she could be arrested and fined. In fact we were all hoping that she did, Smalls meant a whole lot more to me than Clara did and knowing that she was fine I didn't exactly care what happened to her.
The boys even more so. For years they had been the ones that saw the bruises on my body and knew what they were from, they were the only ones that knew that they weren't from playing ball like I had told everyone else. They had heard the yelling, witnessed it first hand and had been the ones I confided in and whose houses I went to when I just didn't feel like going home.
They hated her just as much as I did, maybe even more, and their disinterest in her well-being was well placed.
They didn't tell me much about what had happened, but I knew that it wasn't much of a good story. Smalls had been dared to ride a tricycle while some girls had been walking by, they thought it would be funny and they always looked for opportunities to make Smalls face turn a bright shade of red.
Apparently Clara came barrelling down the street and ran the stop sign—Smalls halfway to the other side of the street, wheels screeching as she tried to stop in time, she swerved and hit the stop sign on the other side of the street but side swiped Smalls as she did so. She had knocked him unconscious, and they said his head was bleeding a lot but they didn't actually know where he was bleeding from.
Kenny was the one to break the ten minute silence. "Do you think he'll have brain damage?"
"Oh Jesus Kenny!" Benny sighed.
"I have to ask! I can't just sit here in silence!"
Squints slumped in his seat. "Even with brain damage he'd still be smarter than all of us."
"Okay I can't sit here and listen to this." Benny said standing up and heading for the door.
"Benny." I called but he ignored me and headed down the hallway.
Smalls was Benny's best friend, we were all best friends but Smalls and Benny had a friendship that none of us could compete with. Benny was Smalls first friend in the Valley and although it was questioned whether or not Smalls was Benny's best friend we knew the difference. Benny and Smalls could talk about things and solve problems better than any of us could. I was Benny's girlfriend and I still knew that there was a friendship between them that no one else could dream of having with Benny.
When things went wrong Smalls was the one Benny went to, Smalls had been there with the whole thing with my dad, he was the one that went with him when Benny got his license, he was the one that helped him with his science classes when he wasn't doing very well, and Smalls was the one that Benny introduced to baseball.
I got up from my chair and followed him out the door to make sure he was okay, he hadn't said much about the situation when we had first found out, he had demanded to go and see Smalls but the nurse only asked him to sit down and wait.
It was pissing us off that they wouldn't tell us anything, Tommy had tried to say that he was his brother but him and Timmy looked so much alike that it got ruined when Timmy had said that he wasn't Smalls brother.
We hadn't called his parents yet, the hospital was going to take care of that and I was worried about how his dad Bill was going to react when he found out.
I was even more worried about what was going to happen when they found out it was Clara that had hit him.
Smalls lived across the street from Benny and I and on more than one occasion Bill had been the one to answer the door when I went over to Smalls when Benny wasn't home.
They had heard everything and Smalls even told me once when we were fourteen that his parents had sat him down and asked him about my home life. He said he didn't say anything because he didn't think it was fair of him to share the secrets inside my home without my permission, but they didn't need his confirmation. They had lived across from us long enough to develop and hatred for Clara and her antics.
Bill sneered whenever he saw Clara and Smalls Mom just ignored her all together, but there was a anger building up inside them for years and this might be the time that they let it all out on her.
Benny had stopped by a vending machine down the hallway and stared into the glass his arms folded and his stance rigid.
I didn't more than ten feet to him when three familiar faces turned down the hallway. I wanted to run, but they had seen me and pushed their way past Benny and came barrelling towards me.
"Oh shit." I muttered. My grandpa George, grandma Elena and my uncle James rushed towards me and I couldn't do anything but stand there and try to listen to their bombarding questions.
"Is she okay? What happened? Did you see her? Is she hurt? What did the doctor say? Can we go in?"
I took a deep breath and tried to remind myself to be as compassionate as I could, this was after all their daughter and sister that they were worried about, my smarts remarks wouldn't make anything better.
"She's fine." I said, they didn't ask anything about the boy she had hit.
"Oh thank God!" Elena exclaimed holding onto her husband for dear life. "Can we see her?"
"Uh. . ." I had arrived at the hospital and didn't even tell the staff that I was Clara's step daughter, I had asked to see Smalls so they didn't even think about telling me anything about her. "I
don't know you'll have to ask." They rushed past me towards the triaging counter and I could hear them urging the nurse to let them in to see her.
Benny was looking at me with a confused expression on his face but I shook my head signalling that it would be best if he didn't come over to talk to me.
The last conversation I had had with them didn't go well and it had been about him, I didn't want them knowing he was here because they would definitely tell Clara.
"Toni!" My uncle James called. "We can go in!"
I didn't want to go in but I didn't didn't have an excuse as to why I didn't want to see my Step- mom, well, not one that would go over well with her family and the hospital staff.
Clara was hysterically crying when we walked into the room and I am pretty sure it was partly because I had arrived in the room.
My grandparents began to fuss over her and anger boiled within me when I realized that Squints hadn't been exaggerating, Clara only had a inch cut along her forehead, the rest of her body was completely fine.
"They said that I have to stay here until they can insure that I don't have any other injuries and then the police. . ." She couldn't finish her words as she broke down crying again.
"It's okay, we'll figure it out, everything will be okay."
I couldn't do anything except stand in the corner of the room awkwardly, I didn't care what happened to Clara, I cared about Smalls and the fact that we still weren't allowed to see him.
Clara started to go on and on about how she didn't know how it happened and I resisted the urge to snap and remind her that she was drunk. I could feel the anger and frustration building up inside of me and was impressed with myself that I had managed to keep calm this long.
Twenty minutes passed when I felt someone tug on my arm.
"We can see Smalls." Kenny whispered to not be heard but the truth was that he could have yelled it and Clara's family wouldn't have noticed. She was still crying, still being coddled and still going on and on about how she was scared. Never once mentioning the kid she had hit.
I slipped out of the room unnoticed and followed Kenny down the hall to Smalls room.
He was awake, a bandage wrapped around his head, his left eye blackened and his baseball cap on to try and hide the bandage. He smiled at us when we walked in.
"You look like when I first ever talked to you" Benny teased pointing to his black eye, Smalls laughed and we were all relieved for it.
"Thank God you're alright." I said leaning over the bed to hive him a hug.
"Hey now if I'm gonna die I sure as hell ain't gonna let Clara be the one to do it."
"You know it was her?" I asked biting down on my lip.
He nodded. "Yeah, cops came in asked if I wanted to press charges and all that stuff."
"Finally that bitch is going to get what she deserves." Ham clapped me on the back but Smalls frowned at him.
"I ain't pressing charges."
"What?" We all demanded.
"Well she's gonna have to go to court for the drinking and and running stop signs but I'm not gonna charge her with hitting me."
"Smalls-" Benny started but he put his hand up to stop him and directed his attention to me.
"Sunshine, you're not eighteen."
"So what?"
"If I press charges she goes from here straight to jail, she's not getting out on bail until a trial can happen. Even if they did set a bail there is no way your grandparents could afford it."
"What the hell are you going on about? I don't care if she goes to jail—"
"What do you think happens to kids whose parents aren't around? They go to group homes Sunshine, there ain't any around here I asked and they won't ship you all the way back to LA either."
I looked at him, completely understanding what he was saying. "Well, she can live with her grandparents." Yeah Yeah pointed out.
Smalls kept his eyes on me. "You told me about your grandparents Toni, as much as I hate Clara I think the best place for you to be is with her right now, in your own house until you turn eighteen." He had a point, Clara had reached a stage where she didn't care where I was or what I was doing but if I lived with my Grandparents I was gonna be under their surveillance and
they took Clara's side in every argument I had had with her.
"She's gonna do jail time anyways." I said.
"Maybe, maybe not but you turn eighteen in a few months, that's how long it will take for her to get a trial date anyways."
I didn't know what to say and neither did anyone else. Smalls truly always was the smartest one amongst us even with a head injury.
I hated the fact that he was doing this but I couldn't do anything but thank him, there was no point in telling him not to do that because he was just going to ignore me anyways. I doubted she knew that it was Smalls that she hit, I doubted she would even remember him even though she lived across the street from him and had seen him many times before and it made the situation even worse. I wanted her to pay for what she had done to Smalls, any other person and she would have been sitting in a jail cell for a very long time.
But no, she hit Scott Smalls and he was too smart to let anger take over his decision making. We all deflated a little bit realizing that he was right.
We sat in Smalls room until we were forced to leave by the staff, I thanked Smalls again and he received a hug rom each one of us before we left the hospital promising to come see him tomorrow.
"Six stitches in his head and that asshole is still thinking about everyone else but himself." Grover snapped as we made it to the parking lot, lighting a cigarette as soon as he could.
"You know." Squint said as we walked. "I know we're all older and we kind of grew out of our plans and shenanigans but if you're all up for it I do have a plan."
I rolled my eyes at him. "Your plans include almost dying in a pool just so a girl will kiss you."
"What I'm hearing is that my plans work Toni, I am marrying her aren't I?"
Benny cracked a smile for the first time since we had arrived at the hospital. "What's your plan even about Squints?"
"We're here for a short amount of time and while we were messing around and before Smalls got hit we encountered this complete L-7 weenie. Wanna help us prank him?"
"Who?" Benny asked.
"You got a guy on your team named Adam?"