Read Chronicles of Jonathan Tibbs 1: The Never Hero for Free Online

must have been in shock right?” Collin asked.
    Hayden shrugged.
    “Without knowing what happened, he could have been like that for two minutes or twenty before we got home.”
    The police had questioned both of them for a statement, but they knew so little. When they had returned home they hadn’t entered immediately. Since leaving the bar they could speak of nothing other than rebooting the New Testament. They’d sat on the porch brainstorming about it for five minutes before even going inside.
    The floor had been slick. Collin had nearly slipped in the dark the moment they entered. When Hayden flipped on the light in the kitchen they saw that the pitcher of water from the refrigerator was lying on its side on the linoleum. Then they had noticed that the water was more pink than clear. Finally they had seen Jonathan’s foot from around the corner of the kitchen’s center island.
    Collin remembered thinking that he must have underestimated how much Jonathan had drank if he’d dropped a pitcher full of Kool-Aid, neglected to clean it up, and then fell asleep on the kitchen floor. They had both been giggling at the sight until they had turned the corner and found that they had grossly misjudged the situation.
    The reality had been like taking a crowbar to the face.
    Jonathan laid face up on the linoleum. His pants and shoes were still on, but his shirt had been torn off the front of him. The remnants of the shirt sleeves were still attached to him. His entire chest was red with blood, his jeans saturated with it. He was in a puddle that had spread so far it had mixed with the water from the pitcher. His face looked like someone had taken a can of red spray paint across it.
    For a moment neither of them had moved. Their feet were like iron weights anchoring them to the floor as they tried to process what they saw in front of them. When Jonathan’s body finally took a long labored breath they’d snapped back into the moment, stopped trying to understand and rushed to find some way to help.
    They had been forced to kneel in the puddle surrounding their friend, desperately yelling his name. They’d felt the blood, cold from the linoleum, seeping into their clothes and covering their hands as they searched for some way to help him, both frantically looking for the injury where it had all come from.
    “Jonathan! Can you hear me? What happened?”
    “Jesus! Where is he hurt! Where is the blood coming from?”
     

     
    Until he’d been put in the machine, Jonathan hadn’t been able to close his eyes without seeing the blond man’s face, the needle, the blood on linoleum.
    The loud noise of the equipment was dampened by the ear plugs. He’d never been in an MRI. On television the machines had always appeared loud, uncomfortable, and claustrophobic. Jonathan didn’t feel any of those things. He found the cocoon of metal safe, the dulled white noise soothing, each a layer of buffer between him and reality.
    As a child he’d often fallen asleep to the sprinkler systems running outside his bedroom window. When the water would stop, the abrupt end of the noise would wake him from sleep and leave him feeling like he’d been abandoned. The repetitive sound was just as comforting now as an adult, but the MRI would only provide this retreat for a short time. It gave him something to focus on, something to hold his panic at bay.
    No one knew anything yet. The doctors, the police, not even Hayden and Collin could help piece together the moments between losing consciousness and waking in the puddle.
    Jonathan had felt their distrust of his story. All that blood with no wound; it left too many unanswered questions. They hadn’t said it, but their eyes gave them away as he tried to explain. Whenever he said he couldn’t remember, that he’d been unconscious, the look of skepticism flashing through their thoughts was poorly hidden. At least they kept their opinions to themselves until the facts had been gathered.
    He couldn’t