Session Seven

This past Sunday was St. Patrick’s Day.  The entire building was decorated in green shamrocks and the old people drank green lemonade and listened to Irish music.  I walked inside Mr. H’s room and stopped dead in my tracks.  Mr. H was lying in his bed as usual, but there was one major difference.

He had a giant plush leprechaun hat on his head.

Mr. H looked horrified.  My phone buzzed and I saw that he had a text already written for when I came in:

I snorted.

Christa wasn’t paying attention.  She was singing “Oh Danny Boy” while she decorated the room. She wanted Mr. H to have a fun holiday and said she would put green food coloring in his IV if she wouldn’t get fired!  Then out of nowhere she told me, “By the way, I read your blog.”

            Oh God, what did I write?  No one was supposed to read this thing, not even Mrs. Felton!  She laughed at the look on my face and said, “Mom told me.  Relax, she hasn’t read it.  But I thought it was wonderful.  Well, besides you calling me ‘know-it-all.’”  I was relieved.  She rung her arm around my neck and ruffled my hair.  “You’re doing a good thing, bud.  I’m proud of you.” Then she left.

            I walked over to Mr. H and took off the hat.  “Better?” I asked.  He sighed and nodded.  “Sorry about Christa.  She loves theme parties.  But I guess you’re not really into them, are you, sir?”

            BUZZ!

            Anymore.  Oh.  I could see we were getting to a rough topic, so I went and sat in my chair and took out the book.

            BUZZ!

            Well, I should have known this would happen.  Christa wasn’t exactly being subtle about it.  I said yes.  He stared at me.  I closed the book and told him that it was a school project, just giving him the general overview.  He typed again.

            Oh no.  I couldn’t let him read it!  I tried explaining that it isn’t very good, that I’m no writer, and it’s just like recording our conversations and stuff, but he was stubborn.  He looked from me to his iPad and back to me.

            I didn’t know someone so quiet could be so loud.

            I sighed and walked over to him.  The iPad was hooked onto the stand so I had to lean close to him.  I could hear how he breathed: slightly wheezy and slow. I knew he was watching me and not the screen.  I brought up the page and stood up quickly.  “There you go,” I said.  His forehead wrinkled and he pointed to the title “Involuntary Volunteer.”  I rubbed my neck awkwardly and said, “That was before I started coming here,” or something stupid like that.

            Mr. H read the page.  I waited for him to tell me that I am an ungrateful punk or deserve a bad grade for what I’ve written.  I stood there for a minute.  When he didn’t look up, I moved back to my seat.

            I sat there the entire time as he read my posts, waiting for some indication of anger or annoyance, but nothing came.  That freaked me out.  Finally Christa came in with a leprechaun cupcake for me.  I said, “I’m leaving, Mr. H,” but he didn’t look up.  I took my cupcake and left.

            A couple hours later I was on my computer re-reading my posts. God, I sounded whiny.  No wonder Mr. H. didn’t say goodbye.  But why should I care what some old guy thinks?  I didn’t know.  I mean, I did kind of like hanging out with him though, I guess.

            My phone beeped.  It was Mr. H!  He had never texted me outside of Shady Pines before.  I took a deep breath, clicked the button and read the text.