the spade brothers' little sister

seventeen

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I decided to shut up and stay in my seat next to his hospital bed. We watched whatever stupid show he was watching and I actually kind of became interested in it. I kept making comments about certain characters in the show or asking questions about the plot and Brady would just shush me. 

"Are you Brenna?" A woman asked from the doorway. I jumped in my seat a little bit, not expecting someone to come into Brady's room without knocking. 

Brady and I shared a glance, and then I nodded. 

"We need to ask you and Brady a few questions before he's discharged from the hospital." I glanced back over to Brady who looked at me with a confused expression.

"Um," I spoke. "Why?"

"Because you two are minors, we need to evaluate what happened and how your legal guardian allowed this to happen to one of his dependents," she replied. She pulled out a clipboard and started to write down something.

"Are you talking about Jace?" Brady asked from his bed. He winced in pain as he tried to sit up.

"Jace Christopher Spade, yes," the lady replied, not looking up from her clipboard.

"Jace didn't do anything wrong," Brady said, already starting to get agitated with this lady questioning about Jace's parental abilities.

"Why were you in Phillips instead of your home?" she inquired. I guessed the place we had been staying was called Phillips, but I never cared enough to ask.

"We were on vacation," Brady replied. "A little summer getaway."

"To Phillips?" she asked. She raised her eyebrows at Brady and then at me, clearly not believing what Brady was saying. "Were you guys on a vacation, Brenna?" she asked me. I did what I assumed Brady would want me to do and I nodded in confirmation.

The lady sighed deeply. "Okay. We are going to be talking to Jace about sending a social worker to your home to evaluate his guardianship capabilities and the standard of your home lives. Does that sound good?"

Brady and I both nodded, not really understanding exactly what she was talking about.

The lady left the room at the same time that Jace was coming back in to check on me and Brady. She stopped him before he entered the room and they stood outside of the door for a few minutes.

Through the glass part of the door, we could see their lips moving and their facial expressions, but we couldn't hear the exact words that were being said. But based off of Jace's seemingly distressed responses, I got an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I glanced over at Brady and he looked nervous too. We both knew that the conversation she was having with Jace was definitely not a good one.

♤ ♤ ♤

The next two days passed by slowly. Brady was kept in the hospital for 48 hours to continue being monitored. Of course Jace insisted on staying with him while he was there, so Charlie and I brought a few bags of clothes and work things that Jace had requested. 

Larson and Charlie fought over who would be able to go back to their work and who would have to stay home and watch me. With everything that had happened in the past few weeks, there was no way that anyone would let me stay home by myself. But by the way Larson and Charlie were arguing over it, it seemed like no one wanted to stay home with me. 

Charlie ended up winning, and Larson was stuck watching me at home. He called in to work and said he was sick. A lot of the guys he worked with, including his boss, knew what had happened and why we had moved for a short time, so luckily he was able to keep his construction job.