"The bandages are being removed tomorrow." Mrs. Hanson announced as she fixed her skirt.
Zac ignored the statement, as he had been ignoring most of them today. He just nodded his head and answered, "Uh huh."
Mrs. Hanson narrowed her eyes, and hoped that Taylor was too busy getting Avery and Mackie snacks to come back so soon. She leaned forward and splayed her hand across her son's cheek. "What's wrong, Zac?" She questioned him softly.
Shrugging it off, Zac shifted in his uncomfortable-miniature-bad-excuse-for-a-bed. "What could possibly be wrong, Mom?" He asked dryly. "I was in another bad accident. Again. And I'm in a hospital. Again. With bandages on my eyes. Again."
He sneered derisively, "So what could possibly be wrong?"
Uncrossing, and then re-crossing her legs, Mrs. Hanson sat back in her plastic seat. "I don't like you taking that tone with me, Zachary."
Zac felt his insides clench sharply, and his head began throbbing again. It happened every time someone came by to visit him. "I don't like being here, Mom." He answered weakly. "I hate it here. I'm tired, and I just want to go home, crawl into bed, and never come out again."
Sighing, Mrs. Hanson stood. She couldn't bear to see her son like this. "I think we're just going to go home, Zac." She murmured quietly as she rested the palm of her hand on his forehead.
Zac sighed softly. He missed being coddled by his mom. He wished he could give in to calling her 'mommy', crawling into her lap, and crying his eyes out only to get his back rubbed and a cookie to make him feel better.
"We'll come back later on to say goodnight, and then see you again in the morning." Her voice dragged him from that small fantasy of his, and he realized she was already at the door and ready to leave.
He nodded, "Uh huh."
Hearing her sigh before she left made Zac's head pound even more. Putting his hands to his temples he tried to hold his head together instead of ripping apart as it felt like it was doing.
He couldn't understand their optimism. Didn't they realize what was going to happen? Didn't they know that he did?
This wasn't like last time. He wasn't going to be so excited to be healed and then go back to normal living.
Once the bandages came off, he'd work hard at tuning his old tricks and trying to piece together another life for him.
One without Seymour, Jakob, Summer… and Hanson.
