I Have Lost My Way(27)

“So,” she says to Nathaniel. “Where are you headed?”

“Guess I’ll meet my dad,” Nathaniel replies unsteadily.

This is the most she’s heard him speak, so at least he isn’t brain damaged. Though he still seems pretty dazed, and looking at him makes her feel, bewilderingly, homesick.

“Are you staying with friends? At a hotel? Or Airbnb?”

No response.

“Or does your father live here?”

“Uhh. My dad’s taken care of that.”

Is it her, or is he not making a lot of sense? She looks at Harun, cocks her head to the side. He gives the slightest of nods.

“Maybe you should call your father,” Harun suggests.

“I don’t want to worry him,” Nathaniel says.

“I don’t think you should be out wandering alone after a concussion,” Harun says.

“Right!” Freya says, remembering something from a TV show. Was it Grey’s Anatomy? She and Sabrina used to watch that together religiously. “In case you fall asleep.”

“Fall asleep?”

“It’s dangerous to fall asleep,” Freya says. She has no idea if this is accurate, but as Hayden would say, the truth is how you sell it. “You might not wake up.”

“The doctor didn’t say anything about that,” Nathaniel says in slow, measured words. “He wasn’t even sure it was a concussion.”

“The doctor was incompetent,” Harun says. “When my brother Abdullah was concussed, he was told not to go to sleep without supervision, in case he had a subdural hematoma. If you get those, you die.” Harun turns to Nathaniel. “You wouldn’t want that to happen, would you?”

When Nathaniel doesn’t answer, Freya answers for him: “No,” she says. “You wouldn’t.”



* * *



— — —

Now that Nathaniel’s head is clearing, he’s more confused than ever.

He understands what happened to him. The girl, Freya, fell onto him, and the other guy—Harun?—saw it go down, but what he doesn’t understand is what they’re still doing here.

He gets why they didn’t leave him in the park, though he wouldn’t have been surprised or even all that disappointed if they had. And he understands why they took him to a doctor and even paid for the doctor—they felt guilty and obligated.

But whatever debt there was has been paid. They’re free to go. He’s told them it’s all good so many times.

And yet they’re still here.

Which unnerves him. Almost as much as the questions they continue to fire at him. Because after warning him about his imminent death—which made him almost laugh—they started quizzing him about his plans, asking for specifics—wheres, whens, addresses, things for which Nathaniel has not prepared.

“Maybe we should wait until you talk to your father,” Freya says.

Nathaniel is not by nature a deceptive person, but he’s learned a few tricks over the years to throw people off the trail, to protect his father, to protect himself.

Nathaniel pulls out his phone. “Oh, look. He left me a message.”

“I didn’t hear the phone ring,” says Harun.

“The ringer’s off.”

They don’t make it easy, these two. Nathaniel excuses himself and puts on a big show of listening to the voicemail and calling his father back and talking to dead air. Yeah, he says to his father, saying how great it is to be in New York City. Me too, he replies when his dad says he’s looking forward to seeing him. After a minute or two of this he hangs up and returns to the others.

“So?” Harun says.

“He says we can meet earlier,” Nathaniel says.

“Now?” Harun asks.

Nathaniel nods.

“Maybe we should escort him up there,” Harun says to Freya. “Hand him off.”

It’s getting worse and worse. Why are they so persistent?

“Well, not now now,” Nathaniel says, tripping over his story. “In a few hours. He’s busy.”

“Busy? Did you not tell him you were concussed?” Harun demands. He seems affronted by Nathaniel’s father’s perceived neglect. And Nathaniel feels that age-old instinct to protect his father flare up.

“I didn’t tell him,” he says. “I didn’t want to worry him.”

He expects an argument from Harun, who has been a fierce interrogator so far, but he just nods at this, as if in agreement about the need to not worry fathers unnecessarily.

“Let me at least get you a car,” Freya says.

They’ve wasted enough time and money on him already. But if he accepts the car, they’ll be done with him.

“Okay,” he agrees.

“Where are you headed?”

“Umm, 175th Street,” Nathaniel guesses.

“Where are you staying?” Freya asks.

“With friends of my dad’s.”

They seem to accept this, but Nathaniel is still uneasy. What if they want to come with him? What if they want to meet his dad?

“What’s the address?” she asks.

Why are they doing this? He’s given them every opportunity to leave. Why are they making it so hard? He knows that they are nice people who mean well, but don’t they know that once you start feeding a stray cat, it will come back, it will depend on you?