Chapter 14
Ryan
S he wobbled. As much as I'd have liked to stop talking to her and walk away in a dramatic display of support for my best friend, I couldn't leave her. She was exhausted, clearly. The bags under her eyes let me know that she hadn't gotten any sleep. If she was anything like my mother, she had forgotten to eat when she left the house.
Hissing beneath my breath, I got closer, needing to be nearby in case she fainted or something.
"Is there someone I could call?" I asked, hoping to pawn this responsibility off on someone else.
"For what?" She turned her nose up at me.
"To come pick you up," I said. "Take over from here." I gestured to the woman in the wheelchair.
"I'm fine," she insisted. "I'll take her back to my car when I'm done."
Groaning, I took the wheelchair from her and pulled the woman off the walking trail and over into the grassy area toward the shade of a tree. "It's clear you're not fine."
"What are you doing?" She held her head, coming after me.
"Helping you." I parked it. I used to help my mother take care of my sick grandma for years. I understood the struggle. "Couldn't you have called in sick today? You obviously need some rest," I said, testing to make sure the wheelchair was locked in place by trying to roll it against the browned leaves that had fallen from the tree.
"Called in sick?" She looked from me to the chair as if deciding whether to continue accepting my assistance.
"To your job." I looked pointedly at her uniform. "You're a practical nurse, right?"
"Certified, yes. But no one's paying me to look after my mom." She tilted her head at me, and it was somehow condescending. "I can't just take a day off. Not all of us have that luxury." She sighed, taking the cap from her head and running her hand through her glossy hair.
Deciding to accept my presence and although she wouldn't admit it, grateful for the break, she leaned back against the tree and closed her eyes. She looked so peaceful when she wasn't being grumpy. Peaceful, but in need of some sleep. The woman in the wheelchair stared ahead without emotion. It was as if no one was there. At least my grandmother had life. She was a piece of work when she wanted to be but cracked the house up with laughter other times. I couldn't imagine tending to someone this broken.
The pettiness would have to wait another day. Lily needed someone, and I guessed today, that was me.
"What happened to her?" I asked.
She opened her eyes a tiny bit, peeking at me from the corners. "She got caught in the claws of a man."
"A man did this to her?" I asked, zooming in on the scars across the side of her head, her arms, neck, and cheek.
Lily huffed and straightened herself. She looked at me studying her mother and scowled. "How is that any of your business?"
Letting out a breath, I made an offhand comment. "Geez, are you always this aggressive when someone's being kind to you?"
This went over like a brick to the head. "And are you always this entitled after helping someone?"
"Entitled?" I brought my brows together.
"How am I entitled?"
"You think that just because you gave0 me some water and kept me from passing out that you're entitled to a smile and my mother's life story? Do you always do things expecting something in return?" she attacked.
Sucking air between my teeth produced a whistle like a tea kettle as my eyebrows climbed into my short hairline. Patience was a hell of a thing, and mine was wearing thin. I didn't have to stand there and take this kind of abuse for making conversation.
"This is fucking ridiculous." I turned to walk away just as her mother rolled down the small mound of grass, the chair jerking her and her body tilting forward.
"Mom!" Lily screamed, jumping forward for her, but I got there first. Running in front of the chair, I stopped it with my hands on both armrests, sweat gathering at my forehead from the adrenaline pounding beneath my skin.
"Whew!" I sighed, looking up into her dilated pupils. We're both freaked out, but her mother had barely moved a muscle. It's a weird thing to think, but it's almost as if she's dead. At the risk of being yelled at again, I repeated, "What's wrong with her?"
Her mother echoed my words back to me, and I almost let go of the wheelchair. She said it slowly, in a monotone, and her eyes glided in robotic movement. It's fucking freaky, man. Not something I've seen before.
I'm surprised when Lily doesn't yell at me. Pulling the chair back beneath the shade and making sure to lock it in place with force this time so that the wheels are stiff, she raised her head to me. "My father was an asshole," she confessed.
Taking a deep breath, I sat on the grass, blocking the front of the chair with my foot as the back of it rested against the tree next to Lily. She lowered herself too.
"My father was an asshole. They kinda both were." She whispered the last part as if her mother could hear her. I suppose she could.
Lily explained her entire childhood and at the end, I found my shoulders weighted by the load she bore. She's angry, and it's not like she doesn't have a reason to be. Hell, I'm angry, and I didn't have to live through it. Her father isn't a man; he's a little bitch. I wish someone could've stepped in to protect her from that. But I know how it can be.
I grew up in a low-income neighborhood, and the worst I had to deal with was poverty, going to bed without eating sometimes, a grandmother who could be overbearing, and a mother who was overburdened and would pass those burdens onto us. Nothing like what Lily lived through though. My mother was single throughout my entire childhood. She wasn't that trusting of men. Guess that's another thing Lily and she have in common.
I didn't know my dad, but if he was anything like Lily's dad, I'm glad I didn't. While I may not have direct experience with a drug-addicted parent and an abusive father, it doesn't mean I didn't live around it and see it happening with the neighbors. Some of the kids would come over to ours to play and escape the chaos happening at home. And we'd hear the chaos: objects shattering, screaming, crying, thumps, people running down the street, threats and on some occasions, gunshots. Sometimes, the cops would be called; other times, it would go under the radar. I thought that was hell. But at least I got out of it.
Lily had to bear it and still, it has her trapped in its claws. She's given her life up for her mother because she has no one else. And anyone who would do that, I know from watching my own mother do it, has a heart of gold, of the highest value and heavy to carry. She's far from the heartless person I thought she was, and the initial attraction that pulsed through me yesterday has returned with full force. Not only do I think she's sexy as hell, but I respect the hell out of her. So much so that the attraction is difficult to contain.
Oh, this was bad. If Eric could have seen my thoughts right then, our friendship would have collapsed. A part of me wanted to go back to thinking the worst of her; that was easier.