Chapter 42
“Knock, knock,” Tara said, poking her head into our hospital room. “I heard you were here.”
I’d taken my mom to the hospital early that morning because nothing had changed overnight. The rotating Tylenol and ibuprofen schedule and cold compresses throughout the night had done nothing to shake her fever.
“Hi,” I whispered, getting up from where I’d been attempting to sleep in a chair. It wasn’t working. My mom was on fluids and antibiotics and was very much asleep. They still weren’t sure why she had a fever, but they were running tests and treating it like an infection in the meantime.
I joined Tara at the door. She opened it wider and I stepped out.
She immediately pulled me into a hug. “Are you okay?”
“I’m tired,” I said. “Wait, why wouldn’t I be okay? Is this more serious than the doctor made it seem?”
“No,” she said, walking toward a row of chairs across the hall. “No. It’s just a lot. You went away for a weekend and you came back to this.”
“Yeah,” I said. I came back to a lot more than this, but I couldn’t think about that right now.
With everything that had happened with my mom, I hadn’t followed through with my threat to Michael about telling Tara.
And I was honestly too emotionally and physically exhausted to want to tell her now, even though I knew I should.
“She was fine when I hung out with her Friday. Maybe she just caught a bug or something,” Tara said.
“That’s what the doctor said.”
She sat down. “I broke up with Michael, ended our engagement.”
“Whoa, what?”
“You know why.”
So he actually told her on his own. I nodded slowly while I sank into the chair beside her. “Are you okay?”
“No,” she said, her flat expression unchanging. “But it was my only choice, right? He lied to me and jumped through a million hoops for what? To get out of a few weeks of therapy? How stupid is that?”
“It’s pretty stupid.”
She sighed. “If he can’t even do this one little thing for me, how is he going to be as a husband? A father?”
“I’m sorry.”
She blinked rapidly, obviously trying to hold back some emotions.
“I’m sorry,” I said again. “About not going to the piano recital with you.”
Her head whipped over to me. “What?”
I took a deep breath. Why did I shut people out so much? I needed to be more open. Talk. Let her in. She’d long since proven she belonged in my life.
“My dad played the violin. Plays. Of course, you know that,” I said, shaking my head.
“Yes.”
“I had watched so many concerts. He had left out of nowhere … I was devastated. I didn’t know if I could go watch another concert.
Be there on that stage with you when the last stage I’d been on was his.
I know I blamed it on my mom, and she had recruited me in her angry cleaning.
She was on one that day.” I let out a breathy laugh.
“Every day. But I could’ve left. I mean, I should’ve left, gone with you. ”
“I thought you were embarrassed, didn’t like all the attention on you.”
“I didn’t. I don’t. But it was about my dad.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“I know. I don’t know that I fully knew that either at the time. I was always pretty private, suppressed a lot of things. Especially about my parents. But you were always a good friend. Made me feel light. Made me feel better. I’m sorry I couldn’t do that for you that day.”
She pulled me into a hug. “Thanks for saying that. It means a lot.”
I nodded against her cheek. “I’m sorry you gave up piano because of me.”
She wiped at her eyes as she pulled away. “No, Sutton, what? I didn’t. It wasn’t because of you. That was just the last straw. I’d never wanted to do it. I hope you haven’t been feeling guilty about that all this time.”
“Guilt is one of my main food groups.”
She smiled. “I fear it’s one of mine too.”
“We need to work on that.”
“I agree.” She sighed. “Enough about that. How was your weekend with Elijah?”
“Good. Really good. Then we came home and it blew up.”
“It did?”
“He didn’t want to tell you about how Michael lied and I did. It was a whole thing.”
“Don’t call it off over our problems.”
“It’s more than that. I overheard Michael say that Elijah thinks I was just a short-term thing and that I have daddy issues.”
“Elijah thinks you have daddy issues? That’s pretty ironic coming from him, the king of daddy issues.”
“Yeah. I mean, he’s not wrong. I do. But still, he didn’t need to tell the world.”
She laughed.
“And he was defending everyone else in this situation except me. Michael, Fake Dr. Franklin.” I sighed and slumped against the back of the chair.
She did the same. Our hands were linked. “That sucks.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Out of curiosity,” she said, “before all this, did you see Elijah as more than a short-term thing? I figured since he was here and can’t really leave anytime soon and you’re nearly out the door, that it would be over.”
“I wasn’t sure how I was going to keep Elijah in my life. But I wanted to. I’d decided that on our trip.”
“And now you don’t?”
I thought about her question. “It was already complicated. I guess this made it easy.”
“To let go?”
I nodded. “Why do I feel like you’re team Elijah here? You think I should give him another chance?”
She let out a tired laugh. “Do you think I should give Michael another chance?”
“I think you’ve given Michael a lot of chances.”
She squeezed my hand. “They’re both stupid.”
“Agreed.”
“Her leg appears to be healing properly. In fact, we’re going to take off her cast while she’s here.
She’ll have to be gentle with it, but she should be able to put some weight on it.
Start using it. Her other injuries on her head and abdomen aren’t infected.
I think she just caught a virus,” the doctor said.
I stood at the foot of her bed, watching her sleeping form. “But she’ll be okay?”
“Her fever is really high and not budging, so we’d like to keep her here until that shows signs of improvement. But I believe she’ll be fine,” he said.
I rubbed my arms. “Okay.”
“We’ll call you if anything changes,” he said.
“I can’t stay?”
He shook his head. “No, we can’t accommodate overnight visitors.”
“But you’ll definitely call me if something changes and I’ll come right away.”
“We will.”
“I’m first on her call list, right? The first person you’ll call.”
He lifted her chart from a hook on the wall beside the door. “Sutton…”
“Yes.”
“You are … the second.”
I sighed and nodded toward the hall. My mom appeared to be asleep, but she also could’ve been listening. We stepped out of the room.
“Is Charles Scott the first on her emergency contacts?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“That’s my dad and he hasn’t been back here in fifteen years. And he’s not coming back. Can you call me first? And second and third? Can you take him off the list?”
“That part is up to your mother.”
Wasn’t that the truth? It was always up to my mother, and she always seemed to make the wrong choice. I wondered if, after our talk last night, that would change.
“But I will make a note to call you first,” he said.
“Thank you.”
I didn’t know what to do with myself back at the house.
I’d already cleaned and organized and done several loads of laundry, full of all my mom’s blankets from her bed and coverings from the couch.
My phone had been in my pocket the entire time, in case I got any calls.
I hadn’t. I was exhausted, but also, I couldn’t sleep.
I pulled my phone out and dialed a number.
“Hi,” Raya answered in a soft voice.
“Did you get the tickets? I sent them yesterday.”
“I got them. Thank you.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, tears immediately springing to my eyes.
“I trust you. You’re doing an amazing job, and I couldn’t do any of this without you.
I want to be different. I feel like I’ve learned so much in the last couple months here about myself and my past and my issues, and I can’t change overnight, but I am aware that I need to.
That I need to let go of the tight grip I like to have on everything.
But also, I do have problems with trust, and it doesn’t help that half the time they are unfounded and half the time they are completely right.
But not with you. Never with you. You’ve been perfect. ”
“I have not been perfect,” she said. “And I’m not mad anymore. I get it, Sutton. And it’s not fair of me to appreciate your nature when it benefits me and our business and not appreciate it when it doesn’t.”
“But I understand. I don’t have to be so controlling all the time.”
“No, you don’t. I bet you’d feel much better if you weren’t as well.”
I chuckled. “I’m sure I would.”
“Did something happen?”
I sat down on the couch, the blankets I had just taken out of the dryer were in a pile next to me, and I pulled one over, its warmth seeping into my legs. “What do you mean?”
“You said half the time your trust issues are justified. Did something happen?”
I told her about therapy and Michael and Fake Dr. Franklin and Elijah and finished with, “So yeah … justified.”
“Wow,” she said. “What a bunch of assholes.”
“Yeah.”
“You should definitely tell her sister. The real doctor. She’d be horrified.”
“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe she’d think this was funny too. And what would I say to her? So yeah, we were lying to your sister about needing therapy, and she was lying back to us about being a therapist. You might want to talk to her about that.”
“Yeah, I guess this is messy and all morally gray.”
“I don’t think I’m mad at Fake Dr. Franklin anymore. She probably has a crush on Michael or something, wanted to do it for him. Thought we’d all think it was funny. I’m mad at…”
“Elijah? He was more than just a fling, wasn’t he?”
I took a deep breath and hugged the blanket to my chest. It was no longer dryer-warm. “I really liked him. Probably loved him. More than I have anyone in a while. But I don’t trust him now.”
“Even though he’s not the one who lied?”
“But I don’t know that. At the very least, he was completely ready to lie to Tara for his brother. If he could lie so easily, what else is he lying about? Maybe nothing. But maybe everything.”
“What would he have to do to make you believe him?”
“He’s done nothing. He told me I was taking this all too seriously, that I was looking for a reason not to trust him, and let me walk away. I don’t think I have to worry too much about what it would take for me to believe him. He doesn’t care enough to try to make me.”
“Oh, babe, I’m sorry.”
I shook my head, even though she couldn’t see me. “It’s fine. Don’t be sorry.”
“It’s not fine. You’re sad.”
I sucked in some air at her words, and my chest expanded with an intense ache. Tears filled my eyes and streamed down my face. “I’m sad.”