I slumped to the floor beside the car and leant against the door for support. Tears rolled down my cheeks, soaking my knees.
“Oakley,” Mum shouted frantically. Within seconds, she was crouching down in front of me. “Honey, please don’t cry. It won’t hurt. Please let him do the procedure, please?”
She sobbed and stroked my hair. I could barely breathe; I was so worked up, I was just gasping raggedly.
“Calm down, it’s okay. It doesn’t have to be today. You get in the car, and I’ll go speak to the doctor quickly. We can look into the procedure a little more and then decide, okay?”
That was the best I was going to get so I nodded, even though I had no intention of ever going back.
“Okay, here.” She handed me the car keys and helped me up. With shaking hands, I managed to unlock the car and stumble in. By the time Mum came back, I had calmed down a lot more, knowing that it was over for now.
“Home?” she asked softly. I nodded, staring out of the window and hugging my legs to my chest protectively.
“Hey?” Cole greeted me, a questioning look on his face, and stepped aside so I could walk in his front door. “I’d ask how it went, but I think I can guess.”
He nodded towards the stairs, gesturing for me to follow him up to his room.
“So,” he prompted as I crawled onto his bed.
Shaking my head, I felt tears sting me eyes. Stop all the damn crying! I screamed silently at myself.
“That bad?” he said, soothingly, then climbed over and pulled me into his arms. As he stroked my hair, I let the tears flow. Why couldn’t everyone just leave it? I was trying to forget and move on, but it was impossible to do that when they were constantly asking what was wrong, or making stupid appointments.
Cole held me until I calmed down. I pulled my head away from his chest and smiled at him apologetically.
“You okay now?”
I shook my head and sat up, wiping my face with my sleeve.
“Did you go in?”
I nodded slowly, and looked up to see his reaction – which was unsurprisingly one of surprise. Last time Mum had tried to get me to go to see a doctor about my ‘condition’, I didn’t even make it out of our front door.
“Did he examine you?”
I shook my head.
“But you got into the room.”
He smiled, looking hopeful. I could tell what he was thinking. I made it into the room so maybe next I would allow them to do an examination.
“Are you supposed to go back?”
I nodded, grimacing. I could feel myself start to sweat at the possibility of having to go through that again.
“I could come with you if you want?” he offered, speaking gently. How important was this to him? Did our being together properly depend upon me talking again?
I wrapped my arms around myself. The thought of losing Cole felt like someone was stabbing me in the chest.
“Don’t do that.” He pulled my arms apart and kept hold of my hands. “Oakley, it doesn’t matter to me if you never speak again. I’ve told you that a million times so please believe me. I know you better than anyone else does. I know what every little facial expression means and how you’ll react to a situation before it’s even happened. All I want is for you to be happy.”
My eyes filled with tears again, but happy tears. See, you idiot.
“I mean it. If you’re happy as you are then that’s all that matters to me. Are you happy?”
Happy, I repeated in my head, testing the word. No, not happy, not with myself anyway. Scared, confused, broken, dirty, and lost – they all seemed to fit better. I nodded, telling him the biggest lie I had ever told.
He smiled. Wow, he bought it. Was I getting better at lying or did he just want to believe I was happy so much that he missed it?
“Okay, I’ll help you tell your mum to back off then.”
That was it? I had just basically told him there was no chance I would ever talk again, and he just breezed past it like I’d just said I wanted to trim my hair.
Someone knocked on Cole’s door. I wiped my eyes again even though they were dry now and smiled.
“Yeah?” Cole called and flicked the TV on with the remote.
Jenna pushed the door open and walked in, with a worried smile on her face. Mum had obviously told her about the doctor’s, then.
“Do you want to stay for dinner, sweetie? We’re having tacos,” she offered, brushing her blonde hair behind her ear. I nodded eagerly. Mexican night at Cole’s was the best. There wouldn’t just be tacos; there would be wedges, salad, tortilla chips, salsa dips, and nachos too. There was also the chilli challenge between Cole and his dad. They would both try to eat the most and see who ‘pussied’ out first.
“Great. Chris is coming too,” she said and frowned. Jenna wasn’t a fan of Chris either. What are you doing, Mia? I hoped that one day she would realise she could do so much better than him. Cole mumbled something under his breath. I couldn’t quite make it out, but I could pretty much guess what it was.