Badly Behaved

“What do you mean?”

We lower onto one of the benches, and he stares at the door we stepped out of. “He put her in this place because he doesn’t want to take care of her. She was in the hospital for over a month after the accident, and then, bam. Straight here, like she hadn’t already lost enough.”

“Do you think she’s unhappy here?” I ask.

He shrugs. “She says she’s fine and I think they’re good to her, but still, they’re not her family. They’re strangers and she’s young. I’m sure she gets scared sometimes, but she hasn’t said out loud and she wouldn’t. She doesn’t like to worry me,” he scoffs, his jaw clenching and he flies off the bench, a long exhale escaping him. “I know she needs real care but for the price he pays to keep her here, we could have someone at home for her. It’s a fucking miracle he’s paying for this place, even if it is her money to begin with.”

His eyes fall to the ground, his jaw clenched angrily. “I’ve watched him step into her room here, listen to her nurse, sign whatever got him here, and just... walk out, like she can’t see or hear or feel. Like she can’t fucking speak.” His muscles clench and release over and over. “Sometimes I wish she would yell at him, but I get why she doesn’t. She knows he wouldn’t care; he makes that clear to her when he doesn’t even look her way.”

“He’s an asshole,” I force out.

Ransom chuckles, but it’s heavy. “Yeah, he is.” His eyes find mine, and slowly roam along my face as he slides closer, lifting my chin slightly.

“He’d hate you,” he says quietly, and my shoulders stretch. “He’d hate you because I don’t.”

Something settles over me and a sense of self-preservation knocks at the back of my mind, but I don’t answer.

Even if I did, it would be a Ransom shaped silhouette standing on the other side of it.

He was right before, a piece of him has found its way into every part of me. Even the ugly parts I hide.

I don’t know how or when it happened, and I can’t claim to care.

I like who I am with him.

Without him, I’m not sure I exist.

Ransom’s eyes soften as he stares at me, but then they lift over my shoulder and his entire being transforms.

The anger is gone, the heartache no longer lingering.

He smiles same as I witnessed that day I saw him in the park with her.

I’m almost nervous to look but then the foot of her chair comes into view and slowly I turn, watching as Ransom leans in to hug her, gently kissing her cheek.

She is young, maybe fifteen, and beautiful. Her hair, the most striking shade of blonde and her eyes, the exact shade of her brother’s.

She sits up in her wheelchair with the help of padded straps around her legs, chest, and her left arm. Her fingers tap at the right handle in which her palm lays flat and she tips her chin the slightest bit, her eyes sliding from me to her brother and back again.

Nervousness comes alive in my stomach like never before and I’m tempted to smile and exit, but I won’t. Emotions don’t come easy for me, but no part of this can possibly be easy on him, so I have to suck it up and open myself up to the terrifying feelings taking over me.

“Hi, Sienna.” I smile softly. “I’m Jameson.”

It takes several moments, but her blue eyes move back to Ransom, holding.

His grin is small, and a low chuckle leaves him. “She knows who you are.”

My mouth runs dry as I stare at his profile.

This is insane. I’m overwhelmed and in need of a little blue pill pronto. Even as I think it, I know how weak I sound, because how pathetic are my worries compared to theirs?

I want to run, but I sense her eyes on me once more and he said she knows who I am, so he must have shared my name, if nothing else, so, for him, I swallow the overwhelming emotion threatening to consume me.

I turn to Sienna, holding my breath when her lips part and she speaks.

“How do you put up with him?” she teases, her tone soft yet holding a hint of a rasp and she lifts her right arm up a few inches, pointing his way.

My heart pounds wildly in my chest, and her lips curl as her brother’s did. It’s subtler, a little less even, but it’s there, and I can’t help the airy laugh that follows.

I swallow and realize this is what she wants, to sit and be the little sister of the boy who brought a girl to meet her. Everything else forgotten, as it should be.