Chapter 28Hailey
CHAPTER 28
HAILEY
“I’d really like to keep you overnight,” the ER doctor, Dr. Verdeem, determines after another look at my CT scans. I know him well after years working as a paramedic.
Shaking my head, which probably would have made me sick an hour ago, I push back. “I’m fine. It’s just a concussion.”
“Severe concussion,” my mother reminds me from her seat in one of the few private rooms in the ER. I’m not sure if they gave it to me because it gets darker than the curtained areas, or because of what happened, but I’m not complaining. “It’s not just a concussion, Hailey.”
“With your history, I don’t think it’s a bad idea to admit you and keep you overnight, just to be on the safe side,” he agrees, glancing towards my mom. “I can’t force you to stay, but at the very least, I’d like to monitor you for a few hours.”
The only reason I’m entertaining the idea is because of the anti-nausea drugs that made the world stop spinning. Dr. Verdeem said he’d send me home with something for it later, but I know it won’t be as good, and the thought of any nausea makes me want to hurl. When I came to after passing out, once we were safe, the world didn’t cease rotating. It felt like I had gotten off one of the rides at the Boardwalk. I was grateful when the paramedics showed up and gave me something to calm it down.
“Avoid bright lights, stimulation, and get lots of rest, especially in the first forty-eight hours, right, Doc?” I ask, eyebrows raised. It only lasts a second before they’re dropping again, my eyes drooping towards closed. Pain meds. I’ve been fighting against the rest they’re wanting me to take. There’s no resting until I know Luke is okay.
“Hailey, please? Look, honey, I know that I’ve made a lot of mistakes, and I have so much to apologize for, but please, if you can’t do this for yourself, please do it for me,” my mom begs, taking my hand to squeeze.
Sliding my eyes in her direction, I swallow my sigh. I don’t know what to do with her or how to feel about her right now. I know that I love my mom and that I want to work things out. But I’m still so damn mad at her. And yet, so bloody grateful. And proud. She did things today I never would have thought her capable of. Defending herself against Priscylla, running into an unpredictable situation when she came up the stairs to find me, rather than fleeing out the front door. Facing her fear of being up high and on a roof. I don’t know if I’d believe it if I hadn’t witnessed all of it.
It feels complicated and messy, and I don’t know how to deal with it.
I’m itching to find Luke. It’s the main reason I don’t want to stay here. It’s been a couple of hours since he was taken away. Long enough that I’ve been taken for scans, talked to an officer about everything, and now gotten my results from the doctor. I’m done being patient. I need to see him. Whatever they think he did, he didn’t do, and I tried to tell the officer that, but he just said he’d take it under advisement.
“I’ll stay, at least for a few hours, on one condition,” I finally say, crossing my arms over my chest. The wire from my IV pulls, though, and I drop my hands back into my lap, lifting my chin instead.
My mom nods vigorously. “Name it. Anything.”
I was hoping she would say that. “Go find Luke.”
She looks stricken, her eyes widening, her hand clutching her throat. “Hailey, no. No, you can’t be serious. He’s dangerous.”
“Pardon?” I question, incredulous. “Dangerous?” Surely I heard her wrong.
“Yes, dangerous, Hailey. This is the second time he’s almost taken you away from me,” she hisses, and I’m shocked to discover how sincere she looks.
For a minute I can only blink at her, trying to wrap my head around what she’s saying. It sounds as delusional as Priscylla with her non-existent relationship with Luke. Luke didn’t try to take me away ten years ago, and he definitely hasn’t done that since he’s been back. The only person taking me away from her is her.
“I think I’m going to give you two a minute,” Dr. Verdeem says, getting up from the stool he’s been sitting on since he came in so we could talk face to face without me having to look up. “I’ll see you on my next set of rounds, Hailey.”
Watching him leave, I wait until the door is shut to turn back to my mom. I don’t know if I’m ready to know or try to understand why she did what she did, but she’s opened the door, and I can’t help but walk through it.
“Mom, what are you talking about? Luke isn’t dangerous and he hasn’t tried to take me away. Ten years ago he was willing to move here because he knew I couldn’t leave you, and lately he’s been the one encouraging me not to hate you,” I tell her, shaking my head, trying to make sense of it.
“It’s not—him, so much,” she stumbles, wrapping her arms around herself, her forehead creasing. “He’s a very nice man. I can see he takes care of you, but Hailey, he’s—he’s always been, just, a bit… danger follows him.”
My eyes close and I reach up, pressing my fingers against my temples. If it weren’t for the drugs, I think I’d have a headache trying to understand what she’s talking about. Or maybe I’d understand if I wasn’t drugged. Taking a breath, I let it out slowly, trying to find my patience.
“Explain to me like I know nothing, mom. Please. Because I truly don’t. I don’t understand why you think this about Luke, or why you kept us apart all those years ago.” Opening my eyes, I gaze at her, my eyebrows pulling together. “And if I’m ever going to forgive you, which I’m not sure is possible, but if it is, I need to understand.”
“Oh Hailey.” She scrubs her face roughly. I give her the time, letting her collect her thoughts in peace, and then she slowly drops her hands, her eyes focused on her lap. “After your dad died, you were all I had left. I tried to keep you safe. Your whole life, I kept you from as much harm as I could because I was so scared of losing you.”
As a kid, I didn’t see it. It didn’t bother me when she said no to doing things because I understood from a young age how we were the only ones each other had. I think I felt her pain and fear, and I wanted to keep her from it where I could, so I didn’t rebel, I didn’t argue, I just went along with everything. I tried to make everything as easy as possible. And slowly started to allow her fears to become my own.
“I knew I wouldn’t be able to protect you when you went to college, but you had such a good head on your shoulders and had stayed out of trouble, and you were so keen on becoming a doctor that there wasn’t much I thought could get in the way of that,” she explains with a sigh. Then, with a sad smile, she lifts her eyes to me. “Until a boy came along.”
“Luke. But mom, I was already going to college, it wasn’t like he was taking me away from you, I was already leaving.” I frown at her, still not following.
She nods. “I know. It wasn’t so much the boy, as what the boy did. Do you remember coming home that first night after you’d met him? ‘Cause I’ll never forget.” She sits back in her chair, releasing a breath. “You came rushing in, told me all about going on the Double Drop, and how incredible it made you feel. How he’d been there for you at the top, when you’d been so scared, and how you’d kissed him when the ride was over. And I knew. In that moment, I knew how dangerous he was.” Her eyes shine in the dim light of the room, and I watch a tear slip down her cheek. “Because I knew right then that he could get you to do anything.”
“Mom, you couldn’t have known that. I mean, it’s not even true. Anything is pretty extreme.” Exasperated, I shake my head.
“Oh, my baby girl. I did know, because the look in your eye was the same one I had when I met your father. And that man could make me do anything, including jumping out of a plane,” she says, and my eyes widen to saucers, making her laugh. “Don’t look so surprised.”
“You consider trying a new coffee shop scary. There’s no way you’d willingly go skydiving,” I roll my eyes. The notion is ridiculous. She’s being ridiculous.
“Oh, but I did. And back then, I even kind of enjoyed it. There’s nothing quite like it,” she says, and the dreamy look that sweeps across her face, taking her god knows where, tells me how serious she is.
Sitting up straighter, my head shakes in disbelief. “Oh my god, what? You? You jumped out of a plane? Actually?”
“I suppose it must seem a little strange to you,” she says thoughtfully, pulling her attention out of her memories and back into the room. “But yes, Hailey. Me. Your dad was the love of my life, and he made me brave.”
Dropping her eyes back to her lap, another tear slips down her cheek. “I think he took that bravery with him when he died.”
Sucking in a breath, I bite down on my lip. Ten years ago I realized Luke was the love of my life, and he made me feel fearless. When he disappeared, so did my courage. Without knowing the full story, I turned into my mom.
Or my mom turned me into her?
Anger rises inside of me. The same anger that had me at her front door, telling her I hated her. “So you decided to take Luke away from me? Because why? You needed someone to feel the same kind of pain that you felt? What the fuck?”
“No! No, Hailey,” she says, jumping up from her seat, putting her hands up to slow me down. “No, I… I was trying to prevent the pain. Oh god.” Shoving her hands through her blonde hair, she starts pacing beside the bed. “I should have known better, I know. But I was distraught, and not thinking clearly. You were my whole world, and you almost died.”
“And?” I throw my arms out to the side. “You decided to make me wish I had?”
“No!” She whirls towards me at the end of the bed, forehead scrunched, lips in a thin line, the pain radiating from her. “You came home every day with a new adventure the two of you had gone on. Things that were dangerous, Hailey. I mean, some of it only made me anxious, like riding on his bike handlebars, and scootering all over Santa Rosé. But then you came home and told me about the cliff jumping, and it terrified me.”
She continues, after a pause to take a breath. “There was nothing I could do. I knew if I told you, you couldn’t see him anymore, you wouldn’t listen. I wouldn’t have if my parents had told me I couldn’t see your dad,” she says, wrapping her arms around herself like they can protect her or keep her together. “So I hoped and wished and prayed to your father that he would watch over you and keep you safe.”
I turn my head at that, closing my eyes as my throat clogs with emotion I don’t expect.
The first thing I remember after waking up in the hospital after my accident was seeing my dad’s face as he looked down at me. It was fleeting and made no sense—actually, it made me think I was dead. Until my mom started to freak out and pulled my attention away from him for just a split second. When I looked back, he was gone.
It was something I never told anyone because I thought I imagined the whole thing. Now I wonder if I didn’t. They never understood how I survived, but what if it was because of him?
I’ll never know, but…
“But then you took Luke to the airport, and if it weren’t for him—if you hadn’t taken him that day, you never would have been on that road. You wouldn’t have been in that accident,” she whispers, bringing me out of my memory. “They didn’t know if you were going to live, and I couldn’t handle losing you. Not after losing your dad. I couldn’t outlive both of you, Hailey. And Luke, he took so many risks, and he wanted to be a police officer. I couldn’t let that be your life.”
My chin trembles, tears sliding down my face as her pain slides into me like there’s a chord tethering us together. Slowly I bring my eyes back to her, now needing to wrap my arms around myself to hold me together. The heartache of thinking Luke hadn’t wanted me back then flares inside, a wound that’s been slowly healing the last few months, and especially the last few weeks, being reopened. Except the wound doesn’t belong to him anymore. It belongs to my mom.
“I broke into your phone. It wasn’t that hard—you always used your dad’s name and birthday back then,” she continues, having the decency to hold my stare. “And I erased every text, every call, every email… everything. I persuaded Cindi to go along with it, because I knew she would need to help me convince you he didn’t want you. With her not being here, she just kept saying she wanted to do whatever was best for you, and I told her you forgetting about Luke was that.”
“And she just went along with it? Just like that?” The words are a strangle, and I don’t even know if they make sense, but when she shakes her head, I know she understood.
“No,” she whispers. “No, she hated it. She tried to convince me not to do it, and then tried to convince me that we needed to come clean. But the damage was done, and I knew you would hate us both if you knew the truth, so she agreed not to say anything.”
“We were never the same,” I say, more to myself than my mom, thinking back. “I thought it was the accident, and the depression over Luke, but… it was because she couldn’t handle talking to me.”
My eyes close and my head dips as I realize that my mom didn’t only take Luke away from me, she took my best friend away too. God, the destruction she’d caused. And for what? To save herself? Because from where I’m sitting, that’s what it was for, cloaked in some bullshit that it was to keep me safe.
“It was to keep you safe,” I breathe, my words barely loud enough for her to hear. I feel her take a step towards me, and I lift my head. “None of this was for me. It was to keep you and your heart safe. It wasn’t for me.”
“No. That’s not true. It was for you, Hailey, but I never meant for it to make you stop living your life. I didn’t mean for it to cause all the heartache it did, or for you never to settle down. That’s why I’ve been trying to find you someone,” she explains, moving towards my end of the bed, reaching out a hand for me when she’s close enough.
I twist my body away from her, making it clear I don’t want her touching me. Through gritted teeth, I snarl, “That’s why you’ve been setting me up on blind dates?”
“Yes,” she nods vehemently, like doing so absolves her of everything she did. “I was trying to make things right.”
“I lost the love of my life, just like you did! You don’t get to try and replace that and think it makes everything better!” I explode, shouting at her, grabbing a pillow from my side to throw it across the room. Though I don’t touch her, I might as well have the way she stumbles back from me like I’ve physically hit her.
“Hailey, I didn’t?—”
“Get out.”
Her head jerks back, her eyes widening. “What?”
“You are my mom, so I will always love you, but I can’t be around you. And I don’t know if, or when, that’ll ever be possible again.” Lifting my hand, I point at the door, my chest heaving with each breath that seems harder and harder to take. “Get out.”
“Hailey, please?—”
“Get. Out.”
“I’m so sorry, Hailey. I’m so, so sorry.” Tears are falling quickly down her cheeks, but she grants me the peace of not having to repeat myself a fourth time, turning towards the door. She stops with her hand on the handle before opening it to look back at me once more. “I love you too. Always.”
Then she leaves, and every ounce of air whooshes out of my lungs, but when I breathe in again, only pain and heartache rush in, no air. At least that’s how it feels. Like I’ll never be able to take another breath again. The heartache, while different this time around, is almost as intense as when I lost Luke ten years ago.
Pressing the nurse call button, I let the tears flow freely down my face as I wait for someone to show up. A minute later Jordan is poking her head through the door with a smile. It only takes one glance at me for her to realize I’m not okay, and she rushes in, somehow knowing it isn’t a doctor I need, but a friend.
“Oh, Hails,” she whispers as she reaches my bed and pulls me into a hug.
I slide my arms around her and press my face against her shoulder, the first of many sobs wracking my whole body. Somehow, I manage, “No more, okay?”
“Okay, sweetie, of course,” she nods, rubbing my back in soothing circles. “No more. But you need to tell me no more what?”
It almost makes me laugh. The fact that she’s willing to agree without even knowing what it is. Almost, but not quite. “Visitors. No more. I can’t. I can’t take one more thing, Jor.”