Chapter Thirty-Five
Naomi
The sweating is the worst part.
I can take pills for the nausea, for the headache, for the aches and pains. But the sweating, the shakes… Those were the things that made it difficult to get on with my day.
Stumbling into the bathroom, I pop four ibuprofen and an omeprazole, chasing them down with the merlot I keep under the sink.
Then, without looking at my reflection, I hop into the shower for my exceedingly long hair routine.
Luckily it’s the weekend, and I can afford to sleep in and take my time.
Unfortunately, it’s well past noon, which means I’m already running short on time.
I opted out of a summer semester- despite my father’s protests- needing a break before going into my final year.
Of course, a break to the Mychal family meant that I would be spending another three months interning at the capitol.
With said internship came the usual perverse politicians, shaking hands with seedy donors, and practicing fake laughter for jokes about the poor and the criminal.
I hate that the most.
I can tolerate men in suits staring at my ass all day, but the condescension and total disregard for people they think are lesser than them…
. It makes my stomach churn. At least in Lightning Cove there was a sense of propriety.
The ridicule of the help wasn’t so boisterous, especially with them present.
Even the Winchesters’ treatment of Elias had been behind closed doors.
But at this level of power there is a clear line being drawn between us and them.
Stepping out of the shower, I wrap a towel around my middle, reaching for the wine before I reach for the curl cream. Finally, I let myself look in the mirror.
My eyes were bloodshot, though nothing a few eye drops won’t fix. My skin is sallow, but I did spend a lot of time inside this semester, away from the cold, my nose buried in books.
Maybe I’ll try to get back home for a week or two, go see Nelly and Clara, help with wedding planning. It’s still a year away, but Penelope wants to make sure the entire affair is the opposite of everything her mother and Vivian planned.
For starters, they won’t be getting married in Lightning Cove.
A lot of Elias’ family still live in New York, and he has grandparents pushing one hundred and two years old.
So, it was decided early on that the wedding would be held in his family church, a Catholic service to please his mother.
Nelly has never been particularly religious, but when she saw the stained glass of the cathedral she was all in.
Not that she ever would have told him no. They never deny each other anything.
I’m pretty sure they fucked in the church, but neither will admit to it.
Nor will Rowan and Clara, who accompanied them as they almost always do.
Rowan is still Elias’ security detail and Clara, as his wife, is always welcome.
Plus, as Nelly’s Matron of Honor, it’s good for her to be there. One of us should be.
Turning away, I grab the eyedrops, blinking them into my eyes, and grab the products I need to make my curls bounce and shine. I haven’t decided if I’ll wear my hair up or down this evening, but I still have time to decide that. This is the process that takes the longest.
When I finish, I put the bottle of merlot back under the sink- after another long sip- throw on a robe and go downstairs to fetch a banana and some toast.
My brother looks up from his tablet with a raised brow. “Did you just wake up?”
“No,” I point to my hair. “This takes at least an hour.”
He checks the time on his watch. “It’s three in the afternoon.”
“On a Saturday,” I remind him, stealing the pickle off his plate. He swats my hand away from his sandwich and I smirk. “Don’t get your panties in a wad.”
“Jokes on you,” he takes a bite of his lunch. “I’m not wearing any.”
“Gross,” I wrinkle my nose, putting a slice of bread in the toaster.
I start in on a banana, pouring myself a mimosa while I’m at it.
I drink down half before turning back to him.
He averts his gaze back to his tablet quickly, but I don’t miss the set of his brow. “Are you coming to the gala tonight?”
He takes another bite of his sandwich. “Of course, I am. Dad said all the Mychals need to attend.”
Snorting, I turn back to the counter, adding my Prosecco to my splash of orange juice before buttering my toast. I toss the banana skin in the garbage, taking my glass and breakfast with me when I turn to leave.
“Naomi?”
I pause, my butt cracking the door open as I look back. “Yeah?”
He opens his mouth, then closes it again, shaking his head. “I’m flying out tomorrow,” he sighs. “If you want to come, I can get you a ticket. You can come home, see your friends, get away from it all.”
My grip tightens on my champagne flute. God I wish I could say yes. “I have to finish up the project I started this week. Have a lot of paperwork to read—”
“Naomi—”
“Maybe next time.”
I force a smile, then back out of the kitchen, letting the door swing shut behind me. I finish my champagne before I make it back to my room, refilling the glass with the rest of the merlot.
Time for a new bottle, I guess.
Wiping the sweat from my brow I make myself finish the toast and pull out my make up bag from the cabinet. I take the eye pencil out and very carefully start applying the charcoal under my lids, pausing every now and then to clench the shakes away.
I don’t know how it got this far. I don’t know when I started to need the alcohol and not just want it. I don’t even really enjoy it, I just hate the feeling of being without it so much more.
At least the headache has stopped.
Swallowing bile, I raise the pencil back to my eye and resume getting ready for another night as the senator’s daughter.
???
“Is she going to be okay?”
“All of her vitals have returned to normal. The surgery went well and we were able to stop the bleeding—”
“How bad was it?”
“It was… It was not the worst we’ve seen. But she’s very lucky to be alive.”
“She’ll be able to walk? Talk? Nothing is damaged?”
“There will be no lasting damage. She will need physical therapy for the leg and for her hand, and we do highly recommend rehabilitation following the blood-alcohol levels we got back from analysis.”
“It’ll be taken care of immediately.”
“Thank you, Doctor…. I’m going to start making the arrangements for her care.”
“I’ll stay with her. I’ll text you when she wakes up.”
“Did you know, Nathan? Did you know how bad it had become?”
“I… Yes. I knew.”
“And you said nothing?”
“I tried talking to her—”
“Why did you say nothing to me?! You should have come to me the moment you realized!”
“I’m sorry, Dad…”
“Honestly, between the two of you… I don’t know who has disappointed me more…”
???
When I open my eyes it’s only to close them against the too bright fluorescent lights.
There’s an incessant beeping coming from my right side, an uncomfortable pinch in my elbow when I try to reach for my phone.
A sharp pain shoots through my fingers when I try to move them and I groan, taking a deep breath.
That’s when I realize there’s something in my nose. Things do not belong in my nose.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” a strong, but gentle hand wraps around my wrist when I reach to pull the foreign object off my face. My vision is cloudy, but I recognize my brother’s voice when he murmurs, “Slow down there, Mimi. Everything’s alright.”
I blink, trying to clear the fuzzies from my eyes and Nathan comes into better view.
He looks awful, tired, wearing just his dress shirt- unbuttoned and wrinkled- over a t-shirt and his suit pants.
His jet-black hair is all over the place, his mouth set in a firm line as he lowers my arm to my side.
“Nathan…?” My speech sounds slow and slurred to my own ears. My tongue feels too heavy. “What…” I swallow, but my mouth it too dry. “What happened…?”
Nathan pulls up a chair, gently taking my hand. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
Frowning, I try to recall the last thing I was doing before I woke up, but it makes my head hurt to think too hard. Squeezing my eyes shut, I shake my head. “I… I don’t know. I remem- remember getting ready for the- the party. I think I- I think I talked to someone?”
Yes, that’s it. I was talking to a member of the house and a diplomat from Cairo.
They were discussing a new bill that would be passed here in just a few weeks.
It was one of those tricky ones that would decrease prices on pharmaceuticals but make it more difficult for former addicts, trauma victims, and the disabled to receive coverage for their care.
I’d been so furious I’d—
“Oh God…” I groan. “Did I spit on an ambassador’s shoes?”
“I think it was more specifically his pant leg?” Nathan’s face scrunches. “You were…. Well, you were quite upset when you left the gala.”
That’s right, I couldn’t stand to be around those people for another moment. “I wanted to go home…” But I hadn’t driven myself to the gala. So, how did I….?
He squeezes my hand again, sensing my confusion. “You took my keys from the valet.”
My eyes widen a fraction. “I drove?” He nods slowly. When I try to shift, a horrible bite in my ankle makes me cry out, “FUCK!”
Nathan is on his feet again, hovering over me. He reaches behind my head, and I hear the click of a button being jammed over and over. “Relax, Mimi. Don’t move too much.”
I try to breathe through the pain, my eyes tight shut when I hear a door open and an unfamiliar, female voice. “Mr. Mychal?”
“Morphin,” Nathan tells her. “She needs more.”
There’s a quick tapping of buttons, and then slowly the pain starts to ebb. My heart rate comes down, my breathing calms. Relaxing back into the pillows, I finally open my eyes in time to see the nurse leave.
“I’m in the hospital…”
“Yeah.”
Nathan adjusts the blanket over my legs, and I finally notice the cast around my right ankle, the splints on the first and third fingers of my left hand.
Swallowing, my voice shakes when I ask, “Did I kill anyone…? Was… Was anyone else hurt…?”
My brother is quiet for too long- long enough that a million horrible thoughts fill my mind- drawing my attention as he finally takes a seat next to my bed again. Only when I’ve imagined terrible visions of smashed cars and bloody faces does he shake his head, “No,” he whispers. “Just you.”
The relief that washes over me is more intense than the pain killers. Tears leak down my cheeks which Nathan brushes away for me. “Tell me what happened,” I beg. “Please.”
He sucks at his teeth, averting his gaze to my hand in his. “You took my car and left. Twenty minutes later Dad received a call from the paramedics that you were being brought to the ER. You wrapped my Audi around a tree—”
“I’m so sorry, Nate—”
“I don’t care about the car, Naomi,” he tells me firmly, finally meeting my eyes again, his jaw tight. “Fuck the car. The only thing I was thinking about was you. My little sister was being taken to the ER, and they were telling us there was a chance you might not live.”
My lower lip trembles and I close my eyes again, unable to look as his eyes flood with tears. “You had internal bleeding, two broken fingers, bruised ribs, a fractured clavicle. Your ankle was apple sauce. And your blood alcohol level was just over point three percent.”
Unfortunately, that sounds about right. “Dad—”
“Is fucking pissed. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so mad.” Nathan sighs heavily. “But I also haven’t ever seen him so scared.”
I sniff, unable to stop the tears cascading down my cheeks as I picture my father getting that call. “I never meant to hurt anyone…”
“Only yourself, right?” I force my eyes open to look at him, at the tears he lets fall.
“This is over, Naomi. Do you understand? I don’t know what started this or how it got this far but it ends now.
You’re going to heal, and you’re going to get better.
For good. No more drinking yourself numb, no more masking.
Whatever is hurting you, you fucking tell me.
You tell us. You tell Clara or Nelly or that guy you were seeing back in Lightning Cove. You tell someone.”
At the mention of Graham something in my chest gives an uncomfortable twinge.
It’s been almost a year since he left me in Vegas.
Months I’ve spent wanting to call him and denying the desire.
I turned down his help too many times to just reach out now.
He deserves the chance to move on with his life.
Shaking my head, I whisper, “I don’t know if I can—”
“You’ll learn. You have to learn, Naomi.” His hand tightens around mine. “Because I don’t ever want to get that call again. I don’t ever want to be back at your bedside in a hospital unless I’m welcoming a new niece or nephew. Do you understand me?”
Chin trembling, I nod haltingly. Nathan kisses my fingers. “I love you, Naomi. We all love you and if you’re this unhappy then we want to help fix it. You have to trust us to want to help you. Can you do that?”
I try to nod again but everything is becoming too heavy, too fuzzy. I’m so tired. The pain is dull but it’s still there. My eyes flutter closed again and Nathan stands, kissing my temple.
“Get some sleep, Mimi…” He brushes away the remaining tears from my cheeks. “I’ll be here when you wake up. I promise.”
I know he will, because he’s always there when I need him. Everyone is always there when I need them and I never am. I just keep pushing them away and I can’t figure out how to stop.
Trust us to want to help you.
I don’t know if I can.
With his hand still in mine, I allow myself to drift back into the dark, the numb, the quiet, knowing this might be the last time I ever feel this kind of peace.