I Will Save You by Matt de la Pena

you and you followed her into Mom’s room and got so scared looking at her in that hospital bed, hooked up to all those tubes and hanging bags of liquid medicine. Her face black-and-blue and swollen, almost like she wasn’t really your mom, but a car-wreck costume somebody made her wear. Your stomach felt instantly sick. Her head was all bandaged on one side and a cast on her left arm, and when her eyes turned to you she tried to make a smile but it didn’t even look right. It was crooked. And she said: “Oh, no. Honey, don’t cry. Mommy’s okay.”
You wiped your eyes and looked at the floor and she said: “Mommy’s still here, isn’t she?”
You nodded and stared through blurry eyes at the lines between the black-and-white tiles.
“Honey, I want you to look at me.” You looked at her. “Sometimes things happen that we don’t necessarily want to have happen. Obviously I didn’t choose to end up in this hospital bed, right?”
You shook your head, wiping your face on your shirt.
“But I’m here. And now I have to make a choice. I can either lock myself in a room when I get home and sulk and say ‘poor me,’ or I can look myself in the mirror and accept what’s happened and come up with some sort of plan that will prevent it from ever happening again.”
She touched her head bandage and cringed a little and then looked at you and made herself smile again. “I’ve done a lot of thinking about this. And a few things have become very clear. I have to be a stronger person. And I have to do a better job of protecting you. I thought I understood this two days ago, but I didn’t. And we paid for it. Both of us. But I’m going to tell you something very important, honey.”
She lifted your chin and said: “I will never. Ever. Let this happen again. Do you hear me, baby? Never.”
You told her okay and looked at her bandages again, and right then the doctor walked in the room holding a clipboard and closed the door behind him. He smiled on his way to Mom’s charts and told you: “Hey there, little buddy. You must be—”
“It’s not my name anymore,” you interrupted, so he couldn’t say the name your dad gave you. ’Cause you were so mad.
He looked at Mom and then looked at you again, nodding, and said: “No problem, son. It’s nice to finally meet you.…”

 
    I was stacking and restacking all my new clothes when Mr. Red came by and stood at my open tent door and said: “Knock, knock.”
    I quickly hid my stolen pile from view and told him: “Hey, Mr. Red.”
    He nodded his head for me to come out so I got up and stepped through the door and stood there looking at him. It was the first time I’d ever seen Mr. Red wearing long pants and shoes that weren’t flip-flops, and he wasn’t wearing his beat-up sombrero.
    He’d even combed his hair.
    This time he was with a beautiful tall blond woman wearing a short black dress and high heels and a thin silver necklace with a cross at the end. Her smiling face was like a fashion magazine.
    I felt bad about Maria.
    “Claudia, I’d like to introduce my partner in campsite crime, Kidd Ellison. Kidd takes his steak rare and his potatoes mashed and his caramel lattes with extra whip. Kidd, Claudia.”
    “Hi there,” Claudia said.
    “Hi,” I told her back.
    Mr. Red looked past me, into my tent. “Good work, big guy. Finally got yourself some new duds.”
    “I bought ’em at this clothes place,” I said. “I went yesterday and paid with my own money. What I made here.”
    “That’s usually how it works, partner.”
    “I got new jeans like you said.”
    “These campsite girls won’t have a prayer.”
    “I think he’s cute in the clothes he has on,” Claudia said. “You didn’t tell me he was so handsome, Red.”
    I turned to her, embarrassed, and said: “Thank you, ma’am.”
    She winked at me and smiled and then she looked at Mr. Red, who was shaking his head. “Well, isn’t this a touching little Hallmark moment,” he said. “Look,