Chapter Thirty-Eight: "Deep Talk Really Does Happen In Hospitals."
"MOM? What are you doing here?" I question in surprise.
I can't seem to show any other emotion but confusion. I'm surprised my mom is here, and I love that she's here, but. . . why? Dad said she couldn't make it. Did he lie to me? Did she lie to him? Did she change her mind?
"I cancelled my bookings," she explains, her eyes filled with worry and remorse. I wonder if shipping her only child to another country is something she's starting to regret? "I can only stay until tomorrow, but I needed to make sure you were okay."
I nod, still unable to form words. She hesitates when she walks up to my bedside, and she looks like she's debating on whether to hold my hand or hug me, since her eyes keep trailing to my arms and chest.
In the end, she reluctantly leans in for a soft hug, but I pull her in closer. As much as we're distant and argue a lot, I love her and miss her and I know thatâmost timesâshe has good intentions.
"I don't want to hurt you." She whispers. "It's worse enough I've already hurt you by sending you to Canada."
I frown. "It's okay, mom," I reply, "you had good reason. I wasn't exactly in the right state of mind to be able to stay home alone."
She pulls away with a sniffle, and I see her tears falling down her face. "If you. . . i-if you were betterâa lot betterâI would have let you stay with a friend. But you weren'tâ"
"I know."
"You were disobedient, and-and you kept drinking and takingâ"
"Don't." I hiss. "Don't finish that sentence."
She stops, and I think she forgot where she was and who was here, because her eyes widen and she looks away embarrassedly, ignoring the confused glances of the boys. I assume Ella already knows, but even I don't know what she does and I really don't want to ask.
"R-right," she stutters, "um, I parked in a no-parking zone, and I have frozens in the backseat so I'm just going to go and um. . . unload at the hotel and I'll see you in a bit."
I give her a small smile and she disappears out of the room.
I notice that my doctor and a few of the boys have left, too. Lance, Lucas and Liam had left, alongside Ella, though she excuses herself to catch up with my mother.
"So you're a drinker?" Louis speaks up, not taking his attention away from his phone.
I gulp. "Um, I-I guess?"
"Sweet." He smirks, then glances up. "That's good because I don't think we can throw parties with a non-drinker in the house."
"Huh," I snort. "And what if I was in Alcoholics Anonymous?"
"Then tough luck for you," he shrugs. "You'd need to find a place to crash whenever we did."
"Well aren't you just a sweetheart," I say sarcastically.
"It's my charm, baby."
"Don't call me that," I gag. "That's makes me feel like a pedophile."
"You're only like, a year older than me," he points out, "two tops."
"I'm over two years older than you." I state.
"Whatever." He grumbles. "Point being, it's a good thing you drink because we have a party coming up."
"Coming up?" I question confusedly. "Nobody mentioned anything to me about a party."
"It's recent," he explains, "since you were sick for Halloween, we couldn't throw our usual parties so people demanded we have a make-up one."
Huh. I guess Halloween was last week. I didn't even notice; I've just been so focused with school and my sudden illness that dates never really applied to me. Had I really been in this house two months?
Shit.
I've been here, with the McGibbons, two months today!
Wow, time flew.
"When is it?"
"Friday. Plenty of time for you to be in bed, plenty of time for you to heal and not complain about how loud the music is." He grins.
"I probably can't drink," I say. Friday is six days away, I doubt I can heal that fast.
"It was your appendix that ruptured, Brooklyn, not your liver." He laughs.
"She'll probably need to take it easy for a few weeks, Lou," Landon interferes. "It ruptured, the toxins escaped and it could have affected her liver. The alcohol could cause problems."
"Whoa," Louis says with his hand up, "when did Mr. Badass become a doctor?"
"I had my appendix removed, genius," Landon retorts. He then turns to me. "I drank after I got my appendix out." He explains. "Worst. Mistake. Of my life."
"I haven't drank since my mom outted me to the cops, so I think I can wait a while to do it again," I laugh.
"Speaking of which, what was your mom about to say?" Louis asks curiously. "She said you used to take something beforeâ"
"Louis, shut up." Landon growls.
"No, I'm curious!" Louis argues. "Anyway, before I was so rudely interrupted, she said you used to take something."
"I don't think that's any of your business." I say. "Not because y'all can't know, but because it really is none of either of your businesses."
"Okay, okay," he says. "Hey, I'm hungry, do you want anything?"
"A coffee, actually." Landon replies.
"Really?" Louis scoffs. "No three hotdogs? Two slices of pizzaâ"
"Pizza sounds nice, actually," Landon says in interest. "I'll take that."
Louis smirks. "I knew it." And then walks out.
I know Landon is curious as to what my mom was going to say, and I figure that right now, it didn't really matter. What did matter was my story; this was not my story.
"You're thinking right." I say.
"What?" He questions. It seems as though he was deep in thought, but a blind person could see that he was thinking about my interaction with my mother.
"I know you're thinking about it; what my mother said. It wasn't hard to catch."
"And I was. . . right?" He asks in confusion.
"I'm sure you were thinking about if the next couple words were 'drugs' or 'heavy drugs.' Am I right?" I press with raised eyebrows.
I watch his neck turn a shade darker. Is he. . . embarrassed?
"No." He lies.
"Well, the answer to your thoughts that you don't want to say aloud, would be yes."
"Why, though?" He asks. "Why would you choose something that could break you?"
"Like I said," I sigh. "I was involved in the wrong crowd. It does things."
"Like peer pressure?" He asks softly.
"Like peer pressure," I confirm. "But it was so much more than that. I was probably in more trouble not doing them than I was to do them."
"You'd take them knowing you could die from it?"
"I'd die if I didn't." I mutter. "They weren't heavy, Landon. I had that much power. I knew my limits."
"Yet you wouldn't stop yourself from ruining your body."
"I couldn't." I explain. "I was under oath. I had duties and I had rules that I needed to abide by. There was never 'no' in my world. No meant bad things, and bad things scared me."
"Whoa, hold up, are you telling me. . . are you telling me that youâ"
"Yes." I say. "Just. . . don't finish that sentence, please. I hate the word."
"I understand." He says. "I never liked the word, either."
"I had no choice, you know." I say a little louder. "I guess that's what I got in return for being in love with a criminal, right?"
"You were in love?"
"With the boy who ruined my school life? Oh hell yeah." I scoff. "I was so head over heels, that I did whatever I could to make him happy."
"Was he. . . physical?"
"In that way?" He nods reluctantly. "No." I say immediately. "God no!" I scoff again. "He was amazing, absolutely amazing. It's like he had two personalities: the one he showed around me, and the one he showed around them. They were so, so different yet he never expressed one in front of the other."
"He loved you back?" He asks.
"He said he did," I sigh. "I never believed him, though."
"Why?"
I stop. I could never find words to explain how I felt like he never loved me, even though I know he did. Everyone said he did, and the people of Riverton, the name of whom I was associated with, even caught on. They accepted us and said that we were a 'forever couple' whatever that meant. I never knew why I doubted his love, but I also doubted a lot of things people thought of me, and I think that was the reason why. And I think the day that when everything went downhill for me, I knew that Taylor truly, deeply, loved me.
Because he went to prison for me.
"Words couldn't explain my doubt," I mutter. I didn't even notice how Landon now occupied the chair that Lucas was sitting at. And that his hand was holding mine. His hands are rough, but still somehow soft, and against my cold skin, he's really warm. It's really comforting. And the tingles I feel? I don't even know how to explain those, either. "But when my life changed for the worst, I finally knew that every time he said the words, he meant them. I believed him when it was too late."
"Was he good to you?" He continues. As much as I hate talking about my past, for some reason this doesn't seem to bother me. Everyone has a story, and sure mine contained some violence and regrettable occurrences, but I feel. . . kind of happy that I'm having it. And with someone who seems to understand where I'm coming from.
"Yeah." I smile. "Honestly, it felt too good to be true."
"Ah, so it was one of those romances." He smirks.
"What's those romances?" I question with a laugh.
"I don't know, like a fairytale, I guess." He shrugs. "You know what I mean though."
Sadly I do. I'd like to know how he thinks of love, and maybe him explaining mine would give me an inside view on how he sees the emotion.
"It wasn't a fairytale." I say. As much as I wanted it to be, I wasn't exactly in a Disney movie. Since I'm pretty sure that no fairytale romancesâwhether that be Disney or in real lifeâend up with both lovers behind bars.
Why are we talking about my love life? I know next to nothing about this boy, and here he is knowing a lot about me.
Enough of that!
"And what about you?" I question.
He furrows his eyebrows. "What about me, Blue?"
I shrug. "Have you ever been in love?"
He lets go of my hand and looks away.
I'm a girl, and I know that he's doing this because he's ashamed of what I asked, what I asked didn't end so good, or he's just not one for sharing intimate detail.
I understand either way.
When he doesn't say anything, I continue, though I swear I'm just rambling.
"You know, I was ashamed of discussing my love life," I say to him once he doesn't elaborate. "At one point, I didn't like explaining what happens between Taylor and I. I always thought I'd get judged for it, you know? That we weren't doing what everyone else in relationships were doing. I was a late bloomer when it came to boys, and it embarrassed me."
"Why did it embarrass you?"
"Because it just wasn't something I was into. I had a perfect grade, a perfect attendance record, in all honestly, I was considered a 'perfect' girl. Boys were never on my mind; school was."
"But that kid changed you?"
"He did," I sigh. "He changed me for better, and worse. I was content with my life and school life. Then here comes this boy, an amazing, kind, and caring 'loser' who sweeps me off my feet and makes me feel things I never felt before. I was new to it all, and I was scared that me being inexperienced would make him not want me. It really was scary for me. I didn't want to be made fun of for knowing nothing."
He takes in the information, all the while I'm laying down nervously.
A few minutes pass and he finally clears his throat. "Listen here, darling. You don't need to be embarrassed for not getting involved in relationships until you were older. You're smart for choosing books over boys; guys are stupid assholes and that's coming from a guy himself." Landon says, and I crack a smile at that. He was right. "Same goes for doing what everyone else did. You go at the pace you want to, not what everyone else tells you to, and that's that. You're in a relationship with, what was his name, um, Taylor? Yes! Taylor! Anyway, so you're in a relationship with Taylor, not anyone else. What they say shouldn't matter to either of you. You do you and that's all there is to it."
"I was popular," I tell him. "Everyone had done things I never even thought of."
"Like what?" He asks in an annoyed, sarcastic, disbelieving tone.
"For starters, while everyone was getting boyfriends and girlfriends, I was hanging out in the Music Room playing guitar."
"You play?"
"I did." I nod. "But I haven't played in a couple years, so I probably suck now."
"Nonsense." He grins. "You'll just need to find yourself again. Anyway, what else were these people doing that you weren't?"
"They were going to dances and grinding on guys meanwhile I never even had a guy touch my butt," I laugh at how stupid that sounds. "I mean, a guy who wanted me, that is. I have guy friends who would do that to me all the time; hence my nickname."
"What was your nickname, Blue?" He winks.
I roll my eyes. "JâLo." I smile. "It used to be Nicki, from Nicki Minaj, but once the guys found out her ass was fake, they changed it."
He nods, a small smile on his face. "That's cute, honestly. And?"
"Let's see. . . they were kissing casually, meanwhile I was the one who never had a first kiss. Then. . . when I turned sixteen, I knew that there were people. . . having sex, and Taylor never went to the gates of even touching me in that way. I never had the experience when they did."
"Okay, let me clarify some more things with you, okay, Blue?" I nod. It was a rhetorical question but I answered anyway. "First, sixteen is a good age to have your first kiss, and even have your ass grabbed. A little feel isn't doing any harm. Second, sex? Fifteen, fourteen, and even sixteen is young to lose your virginity. Of course, I'm not saying that those who have lost it earlier were bad.
"Like, it depends if you're actually ready for that to happen and have that kind of intimacy with that person, but it's still young. You're young. You have your whole life ahead of you to explore those things. Whether you're sixteen or twenty-six, it depends on you on what you want to do. Some go their whole lives living happily as virgins."
"Yeah, that's touching and all, but I don't want that." I laugh. "As much as it scares me, it is something on my Bucket List."
His eyebrows raise in amusement. "Really, Blue? Well, if you want help with that. . . don't hesitate in asking me. I'd love to assist."
"Pervert." I giggle.
"Offers on the table." He smiles, genuinely. I blush, because for some reason, it seems like he's telling the truth.
And for some other weird reason, I feel like I might take him up on it one day.