Free Scar by Kelly Favor

right. I’m not a good guy. I’m not a good person. And I should go to jail for the things I’ve done in my life. I have a debt to repay and I plan to repay it.”
    Caelyn just stared at him, shocked at what she was hearing. “You’re the best person I know, Elijah.”
    “Doesn’t change the fact that I’ve stolen, I’ve hurt people, I’ve done a lot of bad things in my life. And when I was in that house trying to save those people, I realized how useless so much of my time has been. What I did tonight, some people spend every day of their lives doing. They protect people. Like this officer, here,” he said, gesturing to the cop. “He’s spent years doing his job, getting shit from people like me, and then he’s supposed to consider me a hero because for twenty minutes I did the right thing?”
    Elijah began coughing and Caelyn began searching for something to help him. “He needs water,” she said.
    The cop grabbed a plastic cup and went to the bathroom, filled it in the sink, and came back quickly, handing it directly to Elijah. “You need to talk less and sleep more,” he said, and the cop’s voice sounded distinctly less sarcastic now.
    Elijah gratefully drank the water, and it streamed down his chin. “Thank you,” he whispered.
    “That’s my job,” the cop said, and this time he smiled and Elijah smiled back at him, nodding.
    Elijah turned his head to Caelyn. “I’m gonna sleep now, okay kid?”
    “Yeah, you sleep. You rest.”
    “I love you,” he told her, his eyes already closing.
    “I love you too,” she said.
    The officer scratched the back of his neck and squinted down at Elijah. “Maybe I was a little hard on him,” he said softly.
    Caelyn shrugged. “It’s okay,” she said. “He understands.”
    “Yeah, I think he really just might,” the officer replied, and then he walked back to his chair and sat down, seemingly lost in his own thoughts.

    ***

    Caelyn slept that night at the hospital on a couch in the Emergency waiting room. She was so completely exhausted that she actually passed out and slept straight through until dawn, opening her eyes as the sun began filtering through the window and the first shift of employees and patients began streaming inside the entryway.
    People glanced curiously at her as she sat up and rubbed her eyes, yawning.
    Doctors and nurses with their coffee cups, wearing their hospital uniforms, made light conversation as they made their way inside.
    Caelyn thought immediately of Elijah. If she could’ve stayed in his room all night long, she would have, but it wasn’t allowed. They’d kicked her out just before nine o’clock last night and she’d spent the next few hours sitting in the lobby before finally going unconscious from exhaustion.
    Now she felt better, although she most definitely needed a shower. Maybe she’d be able to use the one in Elijah’s bathroom in the next little while.
    The television set in the waiting room was playing the morning news, and Caelyn became slowly aware that they were covering the fire from the previous night, as she glanced up and saw them cut from an anchorman to the scene of the house with smoke pouring out of it.
    “This is footage that was shot from a bystander,” the anchorman said, as the shot panned in and showed Elijah emerging from the house, carrying the teenage girl on his back. “A young man heroically entered the burning house three times in attempts to save the trapped family members who were asleep when the fire started.”
    The television set cut back to the anchor desk, where a man and a woman were shaking their heads.
    “So is there any word on the condition of the people that were trapped inside?” the female anchor asked.
    “All four family members are listed in stable condition,” the man replied. “It’s a miracle.”
    “And the young man who risked his life to save them?”
    “Well, Tina, that’s where this story takes a very strange turn. Apparently, the young man in