Page 145 of Call You Mine
Turns out, he was probably making sure I wasn’t coming home anytime soon to fuck up whatever he’s gotten himself into.
“These surgeries have been tough on your brother’s body,” the doctor explains, bringing me back to the moment. “We’ll continue to keep a close eye on him for these next few hours.”
My uncle took my mom home last night when Auggie was finally out of his second surgery and deemed stable again this morning, and she luckily didn’t see the cops handcuff him to his bed, as if he could even get out of it if he wanted to.
The twins came by last night—about the same time I got here—but they headed home to get some sleep when my mom did.
So it’s my responsibility to get the latest updates on Auggie’s condition.
“There’s no telling what condition he’ll be in when he wakes up,” the doctor continues, going into some details about possibilities, but my mind is fuzzy, operating on a lack of sleep and trying to be present here when half of my heart is two hours away back at home.
When the doctor says he’ll be back in an hour, I settle back down in my chair next to Auggie’s bed. I barely recognize my little brother under all the bandages and machines. He’s pale, and when I touch my hand to his, it’s cold. There are blankets draped over his body, and there’s a fear, deep and overwhelming, that he isn’t just sleeping. But like he’s lost somewhere, not even close to waking up.
There’s swelling and bruising all over, like he took more than the four bullets that were shot at him. His shoulder and legs are wrapped where they operated, and his head iscovered in bandages, making this all feel too real—my brother wasshot.
And I still don’t know why.
Tubes and IV lines run into his arm, monitors stuck to his chest beeping steadily, and I know the noise will haunt me for nights to come. There's a clip on his finger, tracking his every heartbeat, and I find time passing faster than I can keep track of as I watch it, making sure he’s breathing.
I keep telling myself that he’s stable as I watch the machines. But they don’t change.
He doesn’t change.
It feels like he’s slipping away to somewhere I can’t reach, and I can’t help the feeling that it’s somehow my fault.
“Sonny?”
I jolt awake, my head popping up from where it was resting on Auggie’s bed. I immediately look at him, but he’s still unconscious.
There’s a hand on my shoulder, and I find my uncle looking at me with my mom and twin brothers standing just behind him.
His voice is hard. “The police are here.”
Standing up, I wipe the sleep from my eyes as two police officers walk into the room. One is about my age, and the other looks to be a few years older. She has her hands on her hips, her blonde hair pulled back in a tight bun, her face unreadable.
“Full house,” she says, maybe trying to break the tension or maybe just stating the obvious to fill the silence.
“Did you find out who did this?” My mom asks. Her eyes are still red-rimmed and damp, but she looks more rested than she did earlier this morning—the thought of how longI’ve been asleep briefly crosses my mind, but it’s gone when I see the look the two officers exchange before telling my mom to have a seat.
Standing up, I usher her to my chair, coming to stand behind her, next to my uncle.
“Ma’am, it is my understanding that you have a prescription for painkillers.”
My mom nods, and I feel my brows furrowing. “What the hell does that have to do with anything?” I ask, letting my frustration and lack of sleep show in the form of minimal patience. “Are you going to tell us who shot my brother or not?”
The older officer looks at me, her expression calm and still unreadable, virtually unaffected by my outburst. She looks back at my mom, ignoring my questions.
“Mrs. Montgomery, is it true that you’ve switched doctors a few times in the last year?”
I open my mouth to ask what the point of interrogating my mom is, when my uncle pins me with a look that has me shutting up.
“Yes, that’s right,” my mom answers, looking back and forth between the two officers. “There were some issues with getting my prescription filled when I ran out, and then there was a problem with my insurance all of a sudden not covering my pain medication.”
The officer hums, nodding her head, but there’s something about the way she looks at my mom that has me thinking she’s not looking for answers—she’s asking these questions because she already knows what my mom is going to say.
“And it was your son, Augustus Montgomery, who helped you with these issues. Is that correct?”
My mom nods, bringing a tissue to the corner of her eye.
