In the early morning light filtering through the hospital window, Parker looked almost lifeless, arm hanging listlessly through the railing of his bed, the other suspended in the air above him by the intricate metalwork of the medical grade sling. His chest rose and fell in slow beats, lips frozen in a straight line. Birds chirped outside along with the thrum of traffic, and somewhere on the floor, a nurse was speaking loudly with a doctor, complaining about his bedside manner. These were things that could of woken Parker up from his long sleep following Dani's visit, but they were not the cause.

It was a phone call.

The land line buzzed beside his bed, breaking out in a chortled ring that stirred the boy deep from the layers of unconscious. His hand shot out before he was aware of it, and he tilted the receiver to his mouth, the plastic edge bumping against his bandaged chin. Clearing his throat, Parker took a deep breath and gruffly said, ”Hello?” A part of him assumed it would be Dani. She had been there the day before, and though his chest panged to see her absent when he woke, he felt no resentment. There were visiting hours, and the fact that Dani had come at all had been surprising enough. She was his only visitor, after all. When the phone rang, Parker could not think of anyone else it might be.

There was a little shuffling on the other end, the sorting of papers, but no response. Parker sat up a little and said again, ”Hello? Dani?” On the other end, the receiver clattered, and Parker thought he could hear the distant sound of a coffee maker brewing up a fresh pot.

It took a few more seconds, and then a darkly familiar voice came over the line. ”Parker, my boy, how are you doing this morning?” Despite the friendly question, Parker did not smile. This call would not be a pleasant one.

”Rick,” he said, flatly.

”That's my name, kiddo. Glad you remember it.” Rick did not pause to let Parker respond. ”So, buddy, I hear you ran into a little trouble. Ended up in the hospital.” He let out noise of sympathy, but it was empty, meaningless. Parker could hear the squeak of his plush reclining chair as he leaned backward. He could almost remember the man's office: degrees and awards hanging on every wall, plaques lining the doorway, trophies prominently displayed on a mahogany shelf, a single file cabinet containing the actual hard copies of all of his cases. His father's lawyer never had a problem asserting just how great he was – verbally or nonverbally.

Parker shifted uncomfortably in his bed. Balancing the phone on his shoulder, he struggled to find the controls that could adjust the angle of the mattress. It took far more effort than necessary. ”I'm sure you are troubled by my situation,” Parker said, derision seeping into every word. The last time he had spoken to Rick, it had been to scream at the man for turning his cat, Darwin, in to the pound without warning Parker. Rick had promised to take care of Darwin while Parker attended Hillworth. He promised, and he lied. It had been stupid to trust the man to begin with anyway. That was a guilt Parker would live with for his whole life, each time he thought of Darwin.

Rick chuckled as if Parker was being playfully serious, which, of course, they both knew he was not. ”Gotta keep that nose clean, partner! You don't want me to end up having to defend you one day, eh?” He laughed again, thick and throaty, chin bumping against the receiver. Did he think it was funny to joke about his father's incarceration? To insinuate that Parker might be on the same path? It appeared so.

Outside the privacy curtain under his bed, someone was moving. Parker glanced toward the shadowed shape and recognized the familiar outline of the middle-age woman who had been caring for him. Was she trying to eavesdrop? Lowering his voice, Parker dropped pale eyes to his sock-covered feet poking out at the other end of the bed. ”What do you want?” he asked. He had no intention of dragging this out.

There was a pause. Parker tried to envision Rick, the lawyer with perfectly coiffed hair and teeth so straight and white he could have been a model for Crest. He probably had a cup of coffee in his left hand, a stack of papers in the other. Parker could only see Rick like this – as a caricature of a real human being. After what felt like an eternity, Rick finally cleared his throat and said, ”Your father asked me to call you.” His voice was free of the typical razzle-dazzle, the usual insipid small talk that he used to win cases and dates on a regular basis.

The nurse moved to the other side of bed, frail fingers slipping in between the two panes of the hanging sheet of the privacy curtain. She scraped her nails against the stiff fabric. It was a move she did anytime she wanted Parker to tell her 'yes' or 'no' about pulling back the curtain. He dragged a swollen tongue around the inside of his mouth and said, ”Come in.” No sooner had the words left his mouth than the nurse was yanking back the curtain with a metallic screech, beaming like the sun at Parker's prone form. Her eyes surveyed his face, and as if seeing something that displeased her, the nurse frowned sympathetically, rubbing at Parker's calf through the blanket.

”C'mon, Parker, don't be like that. You're dad is a genuine guy.”

”What?”

”Look, son, you gotta stop acting like that man did something—“

”No,” he said, pinching the top of his nose. ”Why did you tell me to don't be like that? I didn't say anything.”

”You said, 'Come on!' in that annoyed way you always do.”

”I said, 'Come in.'”

”To who?”

”The nurse.”

”What nurse?”

Parker paused, eyes flickering to the nurse as she moved about his bed adjusting this and that. She straightened his pillow, pulled the blanket over his feet, smoothed the bedspread. It was the kind of thing mothers probably did, and by the nurturing aura that this woman gave off, Parker felt fairly certain that she had at least five kids. Maybe more. Maybe she was one of those desperate women with a self-serving reality TV show centering around her children. It was a dark thought, and when the nurse turned to smile at him again, Parker felt a little guilty for it, even guiltier for not knowing her name. On the other end of the phone, Rick cleared his throat. ”I'm in the hospital, Rick. There are nurses at the hospital.” There was an audible intake of air on the other line, which dissolved quickly into the fake laughter that Parker had long since realized Rick used when he was trying to cover up his own failures.

”I knew that, kiddo. I knew that,” he said. Parker imagined him tugging at his shirt collar, head bending slightly to one side. In all of Marcus Damhnait's highly publicized trial, Rick Crofton had never flinched. He was ruthless, pointing the finger at every doctor who had ever prescribed Parker's father pain medication of any kind. An old woman who Marcus had seen when he was barely sixteen broke down in tears on the stand when Rick attacked her for being the one who started it all. She treated Marcus for a shoulder injury from his sports team, and for the pain, the woman gave him a low dose painkiller to make things easier on him. Any doctor would have done the same thing. Under the sway of Rick's silver tongue, the jury saw the then-retired doctor as a monster, a willing destroyer of the resistances of young men.

The only sign Parker ever noticed that revealed any kind of uncertainty or anxiety in Rick was the occasional collar pull. It happened three times, and Parker remembered each instance precisely. Once, when the prosecution played a recorded phone conversation in which Marcus made light of his wife's tragic passing while speaking to a client, using her sudden death in a fire to threaten the client that a similar fate might be possible for him should he fail to pay up. Twice, when the prosecution showed evidence of two failed drugs tests from Marcus's adolescence several years before he allegedly became hooked on pain medication. And the last time – when Parker took the stand.

Up until he set foot on the stand, Parker hadn't been sure what he would say. He wanted to tell the truth, but a part of him, no matter how small, felt a sense of duty toward his father. One wrong word from Parker could tip the jury against Marcus. It was as if Parker was able to choose whether he wanted to be an orphan in the foster care system, or to accept the grim reality of a negligent father instead. His father just stared at him and said, “Please, Parks... we're all we've got.” Rick loomed over his shoulder and whispered, “He will go to jail for a long time if you don't support him. If his only son won't support him, then the jury won't either.” Marcus Damhnait had been caught with a massive quantity of illegal drugs, and the only thing standing between him and a cold, cramped jail cell seemed to be the testimony of his son. It was a lot of pressure for a prepubescent boy. He answered all the questions as fairly as he could, even those that revealed the depths of his father's drug use, the source of the nasty scar on his lip, and the death of his mother.

The questions were repetitive and closely packed. They fired off at Parker like rockets, each one exploding in a flurry of light and color as words left his mouth. He moved through the questions like a machine, sweaty hands creating stains on his knees. He was just a kid, and yet he was treated as the tipping point in the case, the main collaborator with a dirty drug dealer like Marcus Damhnait. The question on the table no longer seemed to have anything to do with guilt. Marcus had been caught with enough drugs to get New York City high; he could not deny that. What Rick was defending was whether or not it was Marcus's fault that he was a drug dealer in the first place. After being pumped full of addictive painkillers all of his life, what was a single father to do to make ends meet? The medical community was practicing bad faith; they were at fault for Marcus Damhnait's addiction that led to this downward spiral. Even as a kid, Parker thought that didn't make any sense. Every person has a choice in life. Marcus chose to get high. Marcus chose to deal drugs. Marcus was to blame for this, for everything.

After what seemed like hours, the prosecutor finally let out a long breath. “We're almost done, Parker,” he said. In his eyes, there was a glimmer of sadness, of sympathy for the little boy sitting on the stand. Parker would always remember that glimmer. The prosecutor took a few long strides toward the witness stand. “Parker, you're a smart boy. We talked before about your mother, about how you two love philosophy and logic.”

At the defendant's table, Rick shot to his feet. “Objection,” he said. “Does the prosecution plan to ask a question at some point in all of this?” His brows shot up in mock amusement.

The prosecutor turned to the judge. “I'm getting there,” he said. He adjusted his cuff links and folded both hands behind his back. It looked like he might be preparing to ask the judge to dance. Parker imagined it for a moment, the chubby prosecutor extending his arm to the judge, and the pair of them spinning and spinning in looping circles all across the courtroom. It was a silly thought. Parker shook it from his head.

The judge leaned over the bench and stared down at the prosecutor. Her mouth folded into a tight line. “Get there faster,” she said, tilting her round glasses down to the bridge of her nose.

The prosecutor turned back to Parker. “With your love of logic, tell me...” He leaned in close. “Parker, do you think that people who break the law should go to jail?”

Parker swallowed. “Yes.”

“Did your father break the law?”

“Yes.”

“So, if people who break the law should go to jail and your father broke the law, then should your father go to jail?”

Rick shot out of his chair again. “Objection! Leading.” He shook his head dramatically, shooting a skeptical gaze to the jury. He flashed his perfect teeth, and a small blond woman in the front row cracked a smile.

The judge barely looked at Rick. She simply said, “Sustained. Strike the last question from the record. The prosecution will rephrase,” and flipped over a sheet of paper on her bench.

The prosecutor paused, took another breath. “Okay,” he said. “Parker, do you think your father should go to jail?” The room fell silent, but the prosecutor stayed close to Parker, moving only to adjust to the right slightly so the jury could see the uncertainty on the young boy's face.

Every eye on the courtroom was focused on Parker. He could feel Rick's eyes boring into his skull the hardest, followed only by his father's intense gaze. Unable to lift his head, he kept his eyes fixated on the short railing that formed a barrier in front of him. In that moment, it felt like he was in a prison cell.

”My mother always told me that my father used to be a different person, a better person before he got injured and started on the pills. She said he was happy then. And that he had plans for us.”

The prosecutor put his left hand on the railing and tapped it lightly. His wedding ring hit the wood with a hard ping. “Parker,” he said, fighting to make eye contact with the boy. He could not. “Should your father go to jail?” The question hung in the air like a dark raincloud.

Parker didn't move. He hardly blinked. His breath was slow, even, and practiced like the ebb and flow of surf on a sandy shore. It was the same pattern of breathing he used when he was hiding from his father when Marcus got violent, or when he brought over people who scared Parker. Under the bed was not a good spot, either were most closets. These were always the first places searched. Parker had to be inventive with his hiding. Nothing was worse than when he hid and was found before Marcus or his friends passed out for the night. Marcus would be furious, but his drugged-up friends were more wicked. In time, Parker learned the hiding spots low to the ground were the best, and so he spent some nights folded in half under the bathroom sink, others tucked into the bottom of a laundry basket under a heaping stack of unwashed clothes, and on a few occasions he had retreated outside, wiggling in to the crawlspace under the trailer. These events punctuated his life like the steady slam of a hammer on a nail.

The prosecutor shifted weight, glancing up to the judge. The older woman removed her glasses and cupped her hand over the microphone. Leaning as far as she could, she said, “Parker? Parker, you need to answer this question. This will be the last one, I promise – but you have to answer it.” The prosecutor opened his mouth as if to object, but one look from the judge halted whatever words might be coming out. Parker still did not move. “Parker, nod if you understand me.” He nodded. “Okay, answer the question.” The judge straightened back up, glancing over to the defense and then back to the paper in front of her.

Slowly, very slowly, Parker raised his head. He said something, but the word was not audible. “I'm sorry, Parker. Could you repeat that louder for the court?” the prosecutor asked, withdrawing his hand from the railing of the witness stand.

Parker looked up. He stared at the prosecutor, and nowhere else. “No,” he said, the word coming out like a fading wind. It whispered over the courtroom. The prosecutor did not react. “He's sick, not bad. He's just sick from the drugs.” The moment he said it, Parker dipped his head back down, nose prickling and chin wrinkling pathetically. He wasn't upset by the line of questioning. He wasn't afraid of losing his father. He was upset with himself for lying, for rejecting the obvious logic and protecting a man who had never once protected him. Almost. The fire. When their home caught on fire, Parker only lived because Marcus chose to save him. It was a life debt, and one that Parker now considered repaid. His chin poked into his collarbone, and Parker rested his head in his hands, shoulders sagging underneath the weight of all of it, of everything.

Someone snapped a photo.

The next morning, Parker was on the cover of the Destiny City Times. The image was black and white and showed a pre-teen Parker sitting on the witness stand. He looked so small there, dwarfed by the judge's bench on one side and the meaty bailiff on the other. His head hung low, obscuring his eyes in a fringe of dark shaggy hair, but his chin jutted in to view. It was wrinkled and pruney. That single image was used to sing of the plight of Marcus Damhnait, of his poor little son Parker, of the sadness of their whole family. Marcus Damhnait was given a light sentence to be served in a rehab facility, and Parker was shipped off first to a foster home, and then eventually to Hillworth Grammar School.

The memory faded back out of focus, and Parker returned to the hospital room with its bleaching lights and sterile landscape. The nurse still fussed with his area, throwing away crumpled cups and sweeping dust off of his nightstand. She patted him lightly on the shoulder, and it made the receiver bounce with a hollow click against his ear. ”Parker? Hey, kiddo, you there?” Rick said, impatience leaking into his voice.

Parker swallowed down the lump in his throat. ”What did he need to tell me?” he asked, trying to picture his father in a similar room – the sterile whiteness of a rehab facility. In truth, the place looked more like a preschool. Brightly colored murals covered the walls. Books and crafts were stacked on tables. Motivational slogans hung in bold banners across every entrance way and arch. “You can achieve anything you put your mind to!” “Do not try – do.” “Hang in there!” Parker hated the place; he hadn't been there to see his father in two years.

On the other end of the conversation, Rick leaned back in his chair again, and Parker could hear him fiddling with something metallic – a pen perhaps? ”Well, buddy, as you know, your father's appeal is coming up, and if things go according to plan, he could be out and back at home with you within this year,” he said, the false excitement in his voice bouncing through the receiver.

Parker closed his eyes and scowled. ”You want me to testify,” he said, voice flat.

”Your father needs you to testify, kiddo. You could be the tipping point that gets him out of that place and back home with you.” Home. Home? Home. Whatever life Parker had with Marcus, it was nowhere near a home. It was a situation of convenience that Marcus destroyed with his addiction and his idiocy. Even if Marcus got let out, Parker would never – never – live under the same roof with him. Parker wanted to scream at Rick, to tell him how ******** up it was to call his client's son in the HOSPITAL and ask for a favor. For an instant, a tiny spark of a moment, Parker had almost believed that his father might have been worried about him, that he might have wanted to make sure that Parker was doing okay. But no. He didn't. He just wanted a ******** crying kid to parade across the courtroom and make him look like Dad of the Year.

Parker grit his teeth, sucking in his bottom lip. At his foot, the nurse slowly stopped what she was doing and crossed to his side. The heart rate monitor began to beep faster, and her pale blue eyes flickered with concern between its black and green projection and the increasing look of pure fury and hurt that sparked up across Parker's face like wildfire. Rick seemed oblivious to Parker's heated silence. ”Okay, buddy, so how does next Saturday sound—“

”Rick.”

”Yeah, buddy?”

”Jump off a cliff, and ******** die.”

Pulling the receiver from his ear, Parker tried to slam it down, but his cast got in the way. The metal of the medical grade sling jangled, but he didn't stop flailing, each move more desperate than the last. The nurse leaped forward and snatched the phone, setting it quickly back on the carriage. She reached out to touch Parker's shoulder, but he jerked away from her. Her warm hands found his shoulders anyway, steadied him. When he stopped struggling against the confines of the hospital bed, she practically ran for the privacy curtain, jerking it closed as fast as she could. Parker's chest buckled weakly and he bit down on his tongue, trying every move in his book to control the emotions that welled in him like waves crashing on the shore. The nurse reached for his hand, and he let her do it. He let her sit there and pat him consolingly while he cried. He cried for a long time.

In the morning, Parker checked out of the hospital. He did not thank the nurse. He did not even say goodbye. He just left. Leaving was all that mattered anyway. It was the only thing there was. The entire world and everything in it were just objects in a constant state of departure. Even if things were there now, they would be gone tomorrow. And if not tomorrow, then the day after that. And if not then, then the next day. And the next day. And the next day.

No one stays.
Everyone leaves.

You will always end up alone.