Free Painless by S. A. Harazin

how my grandparents never expected my dad to dump me and never return.
    In the car, Joe starts lecturing me again. “You have bad judgment,” he says. “You should not have taken the car last night.”
    “I won’t do it anymore,” I say.
    All my life I’ve been trained to live by the rules or else I won’t survive. Check your body. Take your temperature. Don’t bang your head. Don’t bite. Don’t pick scabs. Don’t scratch your eyes. The thing is, I’m grateful I was reminded. Now I’m feeling like “Don’t breathe” has been added to the list, and I’m ungrateful.
    “I don’t suppose you can come up with a good reason why you were driving without a license and why the wreck wasn’t your fault.”
    “I don’t suppose you’ve checked with the mechanic,” I say. “Maybe it wasn’t totally my fault.”
    “I did. The brakes are worn out.” Joe clears his throat. “I should have discussed a few things with you earlier, but to be honest, I don’t know what to say to you.”
    “You’re doing fine,” I say.
    “You go through life like a bull in a china shop,” Joe says.
    “That’s a myth. A bull can actually be very coordinated, but I get what you mean. I know what’s dangerous.”
    The world’s a scary place for me, but I want a life even if it’s short. If I mess up, I don’t have anything to lose. The worst that can happen is I’ll die from disease complications. Lately I have realized there’s more to life than staying inside, afraid to go out.
    Considering I’ve been in the hospital dozens of times, I’m doing all right. I’ve heard doctors say I wouldn’t survive. My lips, hands, and legs are scarred, and I’ve had a hole in my throat, tubes in every opening in my body. Wouldn’t the doctors who said I’d be retarded and die young be surprised to see me now?
    “You could say you’ll try to find my parents,” I say. “Give me a chance to meet them.”
    “And you think they’d want you with them?”
    “No.”
    “Even if I found them, I would not trust them with your future. You had two broken legs when your father left you here,” Joe says. “Dog bites on your arms, bruises, and I don’t even remember what else. You thought you were like Superman with super-genes.”
    I remember using crutches and going fast. “I’m not a little kid anymore,” I say.
    “You had been in the hospital ten times.”
    Nobody wanted me. Not my mother or father or my make-believe friend.
    “I have hired a detective to find your father and let him know his mother’s condition. I’m warning you, though. Only one of three things can possibly happen. We find him, and he wants to be left alone. We don’t find him because he doesn’t want to be found. Or he’s dead. Somebody’s going to get hurt, no matter what.”
    “He’ll come if he’s alive and knows Nana is sick,” I say.
    “We tried to find him when your grandfather died,” Joe says. “And many times before.”

Chapter 11
    The morning sun hangs over the top of the mountains in a clear sky. The light makes the backyard look like a garden in a magazine.
    Luna and I go down the steps of the deck to the swimming pool. When Nana was well, she’d sit on the deck and watch me. Sometimes she’d swim too. She swims better than she walks. A long time ago she competed in the Olympics.
    Luna sits cross-legged on the side of the pool. She’s wearing jeans and a heavy sweater, and I’m wearing a swimsuit.
    I sit next to her and kick the water.
    “Where’d you go yesterday?” she asks.
    “Joe took me to an assisted living community. He’s trying to force me to live there.”
    She shakes her head. “I think he was trying to scare you,” she says. According to her, the management of a retirement community doesn’t usually allow someone my age to live there. The residents who don’t want to be around kids would move.
    “Joe’s serious. He doesn’t kid around. He’s perfectly content not to have to worry about me.”
    “Then