Chapter 16
Jamie and I went to the hospital almost as soon as we woke. Although the doctor wanted my mother to stay, he signed her release papers right away and we left the hospital before nine in the morning. I’m not sure if my father ever came to check on his wife.
I haven’t had a chance to talk with my mother. Jamie won’t leave her side. They’ve spent most of the day lying in mom’s bed watching TV. I took them up lunch—soup and sandwiches—a couple of hours ago. But the need to discuss last night with my mom is plaguing my conscience and making my stomach roll.
I’d forgotten Chloe was coming over dealing with all the turmoil going on in my head. When she showed up at the door, I was almost thankful for the mindless primping get-together. She’d come to fix my hair, nails, eyebrows, and whatever else she deems necessary.
“How can I paint your nails with your hands clenched?” Chloe asks, holding the small brush, dripping with black polish over the kitchen counter.
I look down at my curled hands then straighten them. “Sorry, I’m a bit tense.”
She raises a brow. “A bit?”
“Long night,” I murmur then think about a safe topic. “So how was your date?”
She swipes at my nails. “Pretty good. He’s rather mature. Maybe too mature for me. I hadn’t realized he was twenty-seven.”
Staring at her platinum head bent over my hands, my eyes grow huge. “Twenty-seven? Where did you meet this guy again? And does he know you’re eighteen?”
“He works in the garage across from my cosmetology school. And yes, he knows I’m eighteen.”
My nose wrinkles as she finishes a pinky. “Then he’s skeevy.”
She shrugs. “He’s nicer than most of the tools I date.” She gestures toward the stove and the boiling pasta. “You want me to drain that?”
I nod while the whole Marcus thing is at the tip of my tongue. She always calls Marcus a tool and she’s been different since that night. Not her usual fun, sarcastic self. I’m thinking of the best way to voice my knowledge and get it over with when my phone bursts into a fast drumbeat. The name on the front has me almost falling off my chair. It’s like my thoughts conjured up his call.
“You gonna get that?” Chloe asks from her spot at the sink.
Nails still wet, I carefully reach for my phone. “Ah hello.”
“What happened to your mom?” Marcus asks.
“Who told you?” My warm feelings for Romeo from last night instantly fade.
“Justin said you ran out in the middle of the gig to the hospital.”
I get mad at myself. I should have known it was Justin instead of Romeo. “She’s fine. She’s home.”
“Why was she in the hospital? What happened?”
I can only guess and I’m not sharing that with him. He’s already dissing my mom. “I…don’t want to get into it right now.”
“Huh, well…okay. How are you doing?”
“I’m alright. Getting my hair done and cooking dinner. Can I call you back later?”
“Ah sure,” he says. “She’s okay though, right?”
“Yes. I gotta go before the chicken burns. Bye,” I say quickly and hang up.
Chloe glances at the already cooked, cooling chicken. “Who was that? And what was it about? Because you’re beyond flustered.”
“No one. Nothing,” I mumble.
Chloe’s eyes narrow on me. “What the hell? What is with you lately? Everything is some deep dark secret with you.”
I wince. I wouldn’t call it keeping secrets. Just withholding information. My mom’s issues are hers. And though I didn’t tell Chloe about Romeo wanting me to quit, I did tell her about messing around with him. “Oh, and what about you?”
“What is that supposed to mean?” When I’m stubbornly silent, she reaches for her keys at the end of the counter. “I don’t know if it’s the divorce or the scholarship thing or what, but you’re edging on the line of bitch.”
“You’re going to leave me with foils still in my hair?” I ask incredulously, pointing to my head. If it were up to me, I would have left the roots underneath brown.
“Wait another twenty minutes. You can take them out yourself,” she snaps and whirls toward the hallway.
“I know about you and Marcus,” I blurt.
She snaps around and keys fall to the floor, but she doesn’t bend to get them. “He told you?”
I’m not sure which indicates her shock more, the screechy pitch of her question or her open-mouthed expression. I shake my head. “I almost walked in on you two. One of you must have left the door open.”
Eyes down cast, she slowly slides onto the stool next to me. “He asked me not to say anything to you. So I didn’t.”
I’m not sure why he cares about me knowing, but at the moment, I’m interested in her. “Do you like him?”
She sighs. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Why?”
She twists a glass of ice tea between her hands. “Because he’s in love with you.”
I instantly stop blowing on my nails and burst out laughing. “Trust me. He’s not.”
Her long lashed eyes rise to mine. The pain in them kills my laughter. “He is and always has been.”
I shake my head. Though I suspected he had a crush on me before I started dating Aaron, I haven’t noticed that vibe from him in a long time. “He told you that?”
“He doesn’t have to.” Her sigh is longer. “Remember when we become friends?”
I go around the counter and reach for the drained pasta. “When you started coming to the skate park during eighth grade.”
“I kind of used you. I set out to be your friend because of Marcus.”
The strainer wobbles in my hands. “Are you telling me you’ve been my friend for the last six years to hook up with Marcus?” Finished dumping the pasta in a baking pan, I force myself to set the strainer, not slam, it on the counter.
She waves a hand. “No, that was just at first. Within a couple of weeks, I realized how awesome you were. It’s just like I’ve always been mega aware of him while he’s always been mega aware of you,” she says with a frown.
I’m frowning too because it does sound like the last six years of our friendship have been for a hook up. “So I’ve been keeping secrets?” I snap, grabbing the butter dish from the counter.
She gnaws on her lip until lipstick edges her teeth. “I didn’t want to make it difficult if you ever returned his feelings.”
Anger fizzles out of me at her reasoning. Her self-sacrifice is actually touching. “Wow, Chloe, that’s pretty amazing you’d do something like that.” She blushes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her blush. “But I’ll never be with Marcus. He’s like a brother. But I think he may like you, even if he doesn’t realize it.” I cut slivers of butter into the pasta.
A hopeful gleam enters her eyes, but she blinks it away. “He’s always been into you.”
Though I’m not sold on his undying love, I say, “Maybe he thinks he is, but the way he gets so worked up over you is almost ridiculous.”
Her expression brightens. “What does he say?”
“Um…it’s kind of like the way you treat him.”
She frowns.
I open the fridge and reach for the chicken stock and milk. “You’ve been crushing for years and act like you hate him. Maybe he does the same thing.”
She follows the trails of condensation on her glass with a bright red nail. “Sometimes I wonder if my feelings are a stupid rejection thing. Like Chloe the Testosterone Conqueror finally getting her way. Then I see how caring he is with you and my heart goes all gooey and does this little melting thing.” She snarls at her ice tea. “Sometimes I hate that little gush of melt.”
After sprinkling parmesan over the pasta, I start stirring. “Ah, please, please don’t get too graphic, because I might hurl, but how was that night. I mean did Marcus seem into you physically?”
Chloe’s gaze devours the motion of her nail on the glass. However, her lips curl into a slight smile. “It was good. He was into me and our drunken haze of lust. But almost right after he started talking about not telling you.”
My stirring turns vigorous. How could he? If Marcus were here right now, I’d bitch slap him with the wooden spoon in my hand. “That’s why you left?” She nods and I imagine her spending the night crying her eyes out. “Marcus is an ass.”
Her smile is wide before she lifts her tea. “So are you going to come clean with me?”
“No, not really,” I say sadly. “It’s about my mom. I’m not sure what’s going on, but it’s not really my problem to share.”
“Oh,” Chloe says then points at me. “But it’s affecting you.”
I plop pieces of chicken over the pasta with a shrug. “I’ll get through it. I’m always getting through it,” I say with a huff that causes my bangs and the foils in them to lift. “What about Neil? I thought you were in love with Neil. I thought he destroyed your heart when he broke up with you after prom.”
“I did like Neil. Not as much as Marcus, but sometimes you take what you can get.”
I can’t help a frown. That is just plain sad.
Except for the crinkling of aluminum foil, the kitchen is quiet as I wrap the top of the pan. “I guess I’ve been holding out on some band drama too.”
She gives me a calculated look. “More Romeo stuff?”
“Sort of,” I say, opening the oven and pushing the pan in. “It’s not like I purposely didn’t tell you. I just want to play. Not get sucked into male drama.”
Chloe laughs. It’s good to hear her laugh. “Male drama? That is wicked funny.”
While she pulls the foil from my hair, I tell her about the night Justin hit on me—his lines have her laughing almost as much as I did—then about Romeo wanting me to quit, which has her in a pissed off fit. She’s still sputtering over what an asshole he is after I explain his reasoning and that he’s over it. I don’t tell her I might quit. I don’t tell her about last night. Wishing I could, I remember Romeo offering to listen.
After rinsing my hair and torturing my eyebrows with wax, Chloe packs up her beauty equipment, gives me a long hug, and leaves.
I clean up the kitchen then wander up stairs and am relieved to see Jamie sleeping against my mother’s side. Part of me is terrified to face last night, but I have to know. I sit on the edge of the bed and my mother’s gaze leaves the TV screen.
“Has she been sleeping for a while?” I ask, gesturing to my sister.
My mother nods, scoots up, and holds the lapels of her robe in a stiff grip. She’s small and tired looking yet her posture is defensive. While her fingers whiten in their tight grip and fear pounds in my chest like a drum, I try to find the right words to ask her about why she spent the night in the hospital.
“Last night was an accident,” she says as if reading my mind. “I would never do anything like that to you or Jamie. To myself. And I’d never want to scare you like that.”
I want to believe her, but she’s been so depressed lately that her actions override her words. “Then how did you…” I can’t seem to get out overdose.
She looks away and clears her throat. “I don’t quite remember. Before I told Jamie to get ready for bed, I took a couple sleeping pills. Then we read some books in her bed and I fell asleep. But when I woke up and went in my own bed, I couldn’t fall back asleep. So I think I took some more. I don’t remember how many. Obviously too many.” She rubs my sister’s back. “I’m lucky Jamie woke up and found me.”
My hands grip the edge of the bed while I try to believe her. “Do you usually take sleeping pills?”
She sighs and drops her hands into her lap. “Yes Riley, sometimes worry keeps me from sleeping.”
“Are you still going to take them?”
She shakes her head. Her face appears strained. It’s an expression that has become part of her. “My doctor warned me about having behavior side effects. Obviously that’s what happened.”
Finally, relief comes over me, but not entirely. “Maybe you should see someone.”
Her chin lifts. “Like a psychiatrist?”
I nod. “Or a counselor. The way dad left and with everything changing so suddenly it’s easy to see how—how you could be depressed.”
She shakes her head. “My insurance only partially covers visits. We don’t have the extra money.”
“Your health is more important than money,” I say lowly.
She looks away again. “My regular doctor already has me on anti-depressants.”
“Huh,” I say startled at the news because she’s always so down. Then I blurt, “They don’t seem to be working.”
“They’re helping. Things just take time, Riley.” She reaches out and grabs my hand. “And you’re always helping. I can’t tell you enough how much I appreciate your help. How much it means to me.”
I grasp her hand back. “Mom, I just want to see you happy.”
She gives me a weak smile but the expression behind it is tense. “I’ll be happy again.”
I nod and force a smile back but think, when? Next month? Next year? Ten years from now?
No matter how much I try, I can’t imagine her happy ever again.