27. Aiden
Ihated hospitals.
The smell of detergent, sorrow and death. The sounds of people crying, women suffering to give birth and the slow, incessant beeping of the machines.
Yet I was here willingly, sitting down in a nearly desert waiting room, my eyes red from fucking crying so much and my heart in pieces. I never understood the term heartbreak before that night.
This feeling of hollowness where your heart once beat, the shortness of breath, the emotions clogging your throat and the incessant buzzing in your head. The events of tonight kept on replaying over and over in my mind.
The basement door finally giving in after Maddox came to help me break it down. Running down the wooden stairs only to find Nova slumped down, bawling while her sister tried hugging her and calming her down. I could never express how relieved I truly felt when I saw them, alive and seemingly well, at least physically. My eyes then searched the rest of the room, only to find it empty. No one else was there.
No one alive, that is.
“I’m sorry for your loss.” Came the voice next to me, all raw and scratchy.
Damon Starling was the only other person in the waiting room. He was slumped over in his seat, elbows on his thighs as we waited silently for the doctors to give us some news on Rory and Nova’s states. The paramedics had to sedate the latter when she started getting violent as a result of the hallucinating episode she’d had in the basement.
I didn’t respond to the man at my side, not with words, and simply gave him a nod instead. I couldn’t talk. Everything hurt.
Knowing that I would never see my best friend’s smile or hear his voice again, it was too much for me, unbearable.
I thought I had been ready to grieve. I thought I had come to terms with the possibility of his death, but nothing would have prepared me for the heartache it actually was. Especially not given the fact that merely a week ago, my best friend was still alive.
He died at the hand of Kerill after attempting to defend Rory and help her escape.
That’s probably what hurt the most. Knowing that if I’d been a little better at investigating, if I’d been faster or smarter, he could’ve been here right now.
Everything hurt when I thought of the unnamable things my friend, my little brother, had gone through at the hands of this sick man. Everything hurt when I remembered what his body looked like when they took it out of the freezer under the basement’s stairs, promptly followed by three others. All of them as small as his.
Jumping up, I rushed to the small bathroom on the side to empty the content of my stomach inside the toilet.
Kneeling in front of the bowl, chest heaving and body trembling, the gruesome and cruel images I’d seen earlier tonight never stopped playing inside my head.
It was pure, cruel torture.
Knowing my beautiful, funny, courageous best friend was down in the cold, hard morgue, drove me crazy.
After throwing up for what felt like the hundredth time today, I got up and went to wash myself on the small sink next to the toilet. I was so fucking tired. I wanted nothing more than to wake up from this nightmare.
Going back to sit next to Nova’s dad, I squeezed my eyes shut and let my head fall back against the wall behind us.
Anger, sadness and something else I couldn’t quite place all battled within me. I wanted to fucking annihilate Kerill. The fact that he was still alive despite everything he did to these kids was the biggest form of injustice to me. My only regret was not killing him when I had the chance, when he was writhing in underneath me while I asked where the kids and Nova were.
But at the same time, death seemed too sweet for him.
He deserved to suffer.
Rot in prison for the rest of his days.
The remnants of two bodies had also been dug out from his front yard, and the rumors said it might have been his wife and daughter. Kerill was a fucking master comedian. He had the whole town believing he was nothing but a pathetic guy whose wife cheated on, while secretly being the worst killer out town had known.
“Mr. Starling?”
As soon as the doctor’s voice echoed around us, he was up and I followed. After spending the night here, I needed to know how both Nova and Rory were doing. The paramedics had said they would be fine, but that was only speaking of their physical health.
Mentally, there would be hell to overcome.
“We ran some blood tests on Aurora and put her under perfusion because she was severely dehydrated. Blood results showed traces of sedatives, which we believe were used on her quite a few times over the last week and a half.” She cleared her throat, eyes leaving Damon’s as she continued with a somber tone, “We… we also ran a rape kit and, unfortunately, the results came back positive. I’m so sorry, Mr. Starling.”
I stopped breathing.
Damon closed his eyes, silently sitting back down on the chair, elbows on his knees, hands over his face.
Looking completely and utterly defeated. I couldn’t imagine what he must have been feeling as a father, knowing that your child had gone through such a horrible predicament.
The news made me want to throw up some more, but there was nothing left in me to give. No tears, nothing.
The doctor bit her lip, “Regarding Nova, she’s stable now but still sleeping. We administered her usual medication, upping the dosage because of the events of tonight. We think she stopped taking them a little over a week ago, probably around the time Aurora was taken.” She nodded, “Please let us know if there is anything we can do, we’re always available to help. You can see them now, even though they’re both asleep.”
Damon acknowledged her with a nod, staring into the distance, lost in thoughts and she quickly left. I resumed my seat while he didn’t move. I got lost in my own thoughts. I thought about the look on Nova’s face when she realized she’d gone through a schizophrenic episode, not the first, but maybe the one who destroyed her most.
Because Nova didn’t suffer from PTSD like I had concluded that night she told me about her mother, no. What she discovered after her mother’s death, was that she, too, suffered from the mental illness.
Mr. Starling’s voice startled me, “I—” he gulped, tears evident in his voice, although he did his best not to let them win, “I am truly sorry for how I treated you, you know.” He shook his head slowly, “Especially on the night Rory was taken. I didn’t mean anything I’d said, not to you and not to Nova; my God, I regretted those words as soon as they came out of my mouth.”
“I know you did.” Was my quiet answer.
“I see myself in you, Aiden. And, Nova was right, because no matter how much I tried not to, I kept on seeing my wife in her too. I was so scared you’d trigger her. She had no control over her emotions around you. Anger, sadness, even euphoria, there’s things that can trigger an episode. Of course, on a medicated patient, it’s rare but I didn’t want to be taking any risks.”
Keeping silent, I let him talk because something told me he needed to, “Did she tell you what happened when she died? My wife?” He asked quietly.
“She told me she killed herself after getting off her medication. And that Nova was the one to discover her body.” I looked over at him where he nodded to himself.
“Nova did discover her body, but what she didn’t tell you was that she stayed sitting next to it for hours before she realized her mother was dead.” Our eyes met and he took in my frowning, confused face before continuing, “When Celeste decided that she couldn’t do it anymore, she went down to the pier not far from our house. She drowned herself in the lake right behind it,” he gulped, uneasy, “we don’t know for sure what happened, what led Nova there after she’d gotten off the school bus. I’d been gone to work all day that day, but when I came home and the nanny who babysat Rory and Cece told me that Nova still wasn’t back from school, I imagined the worse.
“My brothers and I spent hours looking for her before I realized my wife was nowhere in sight too. I knew she liked spending time down at the pier, so that’s where I went. When I arrived, Nova was sitting down on the shore, hugging her knees and all I could see of my wife was her long white dress as she laid down next to our daughter on the sand.” Mr. Starling rubbed his eye, the memory visibly painful, “The closer I got, the more I realized something was wrong. Nova was talking enthusiastically, telling her about her day like nothing was wrong, but Celeste wasn’t moving. She just laid there.”
“She was already dead.” I concluded and he acquiesced.
“Had been for hours. But Nova didn’t realize that, or rather, her brain had but in order to protect her, it created this image for her, this hallucination. She truly believed her mother had been responding to her and holding a conversation all the while.” He cleared his throat, “It’s rare for kids to be diagnosed so young, but given her mother’s history, the risk of Nova being schizophrenic was high and pretty obvious.”
“That’s what happened today too, right? After Rory first told her about what Kerill did and she fainted again, her brain made up the kids to help her cope with the fact that we’d been too late for them.”
Damon nodded.
“I love all of my daughters equally, but Nova was like a chance for me to redeem myself for what I’d done to my wife,” he pinched his lips together, “my biggest regret will always be that I was too blind to see that she was not the only one who needed help and attention.”
***
She seemed troubled and pale as she laid in that hospital bed, but not any less beautiful.
Shutting the door after me, I made my way to her and grabbed her hand quietly, bringing it to my mouth for a soft kiss. Nova stirred, until eventually, her eyes blinked open.
At first, when she saw me, a small smile stretched her lips. The lower one was busted and smiling caused it to start bleeding again, which is what seemed to make her remember the events of last night.
She took in the room around her, realizing where she was, and immediately her eyes welled with tears. Her voice was raw when she tried speaking, “Aiden—”
“Shh, baby, it’s okay.” I grabbed a water bottle from the small nightstand and helped her drink from it, cupping her chin as she gulped down the liquid eagerly.
I pushed a braid away from her face, staring down at her and silently thanking God that she was okay. Once the bottle was empty, I put it back on the nightstand. I cupped her cheek gently, observing her as if to reassure myself that she was okay. Nova’s hand, the one on which the perfusion was, came up over mine.
“I’m sorry.” She croaked, making me frown, “I’m sorry you’re seeing me like that, I didn’t want—” I cut her off, unable to listen to her apologize over something that was neither her fault nor a burden to me.
Not wanting to wait any longer, I decided now what the best time to tell her:
“I’m in love with you, Nova. I love you so much it keeps me from breathing sometimes.” Her eyes widened, mouth slightly ajar as she looked at me in surprise.
She whispered, “You love me?” Like the mere idea was crazy to her.
“I’d give anything for you. The fear I felt when I realized Kerill was the one behind everything, knowing that you had gone to see him, was excruciating.”
“I should’ve listened to you, I’m so sorry I got angry when you asked about my meds,” her lips trembled as she tried not to cry, “I had no right. Especially not since you were right. I… My mom used to say that she and I were the same, that we were born under the same moon. It’s like she knew I was like her before everyone else.
“When I told you about her and you thought it meant I was medicated for stress and PTSD, I let you think it. I was dishonest because I was scared you’d think I was… crazy or unreliable if you knew the truth about me.”
She looked down at her hands but I didn’t let her, immediately cupping her chin and making her look up at me.
“There is nothing you could do or say that will make me love you any less. You’re perfect to me, I’m not going anywhere.” It scared me a little, how sincere I was right then. There wasn’t anything on earth that would make me look at her differently. “I’ll be there for you no matter what. You never have to be ashamed for needing help.”
She cried softly and I took her lips in a chaste kiss, needing the softness and reassurance it would bring me.
“I love you too. So much.”
And when she tugged on my hand to make me come closer to her, whispering against my lips, it soothed me in a way nothing ever had. Suddenly, I knew I had something to look forward to in the midst of all this chaos.
I had her.