Gina
Parker was nervous. There was no denying that. The way he tossed random clothes inside the suitcase, the shake in his voice when he asked questions, the way he answered questions with questions of his own. I had never seen him so nervous. Not that he didn’t have good reason to be. But whatever reasons he might have, none were as good as mine. And he didn’t have to suppress his nervousness the way I did.
I knew what lay in Oklahoma awaiting him. I thought back to when I had seen Lawrence sitting by himself in the cafeteria in the hospital and what he had shared with me. I didn’t believe him at first but when I knew it was her for sure, I had felt my heart sink to the ground. I suddenly felt afraid of losing Parker. My son, my best friend. I wasn’t ready to give him up. I couldn’t lose him.
Things looked up when I didn’t see Annie at the hospital again after the day Lawrence and I had conversed in the cafeteria. I was able to breathe a sigh of relief.
It wasn’t until I got a call from Diana and Walker saying that Taylor was now living with Annie that I knew that seeing her at the hospital was only the angel of the apocalypse.
It was obvious, though I hadn’t been rightfully told, that Annie planned on telling Parker about who she was on his trip to Oklahoma. How would he react? Would he stay with her and Lawrence and Taylor there? Would I lose him?
“Gina?” said a timid voice from the doorway.
I jumped, startled by the sudden interruption of my train of thought to see Parker standing in the doorway to his bedroom, his head leaning tiredly against the frame, his eyes half-open, and his hand clasping the other elbow.
“Yeah?” I said, getting over the surprise.
“I can’t sleep,” he said.
I nodded, knowing better than to ask him why. Parker had become a bit of an insomniac when he was little. Whenever I asked him why he couldn’t sleep, he’d just get frustrated with someone--whether it was me for asking or himself for not being able to give a good reason, I couldn’t tell--and then disappear back into his room. Eventually he got tired enough of me asking that question that he stopped coming to me and chose to suffer alone. For the most part I’m pretty sure he slept fine, but some nights I would wake up in the middle of the night and hear the creaking and groaning of the old, rusty springs in his bed as he tossed and turned restlessly to all hours of the night. Sometimes I would go in and tell him stories that I made up as I went along until the frustrated film of sweat disappeared from his forehead and his eyes drooped down for the last time, thumb in mouth always.
“Neither can I,” I said. I moved over and patted the seat next to me on the couch. He gladly obliged and scrunched up next to me, curling up his tall frame so that no part of him was hanging off the couch. A position I would probably be very uncomfortable in but he didn’t seem to mind as he rested his head on my shoulder and closed his eyes. I put my arm around his shoulder and kissed him on the top of the head, wondering how many more chances I would have to do this for him and knowing, with a hint of satisfaction, that even if he did move in with Annie, he would never do this with her.