My biggest fear is she’ll be dragged into all of this, and that’s the last thing I want for her. Me bringing her down.
I shrug noncommittally, focusing a little too hard on a broken shell I’m in the process of digging up, anything to avoid her gaze. I wipe the damp grains of sand off the iridescent anomia shell, trying to clean it. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Mack.”
The way she says my name gives me pause. I look up, giving her my full attention. “What?”
“You’re not any of the things she says you are. You know that, right? You’re incredible.”
I grimace, thinking of all the shitty things she’s said lately. “Doesn’t feel like it,” I mumble, biting back the sting I feel behind my eyelids. I’ve always cared too much about what others think about me. I don’t want to be this way. Why does it matter if I’m not liked? Why do I feel the need to be friends with everyone? Why do I want everyone to like me? It comes so easily to Madison. Everyone loves her, and the few who don’t? She really couldn’t care less.
“Hey,” she says sharply, drawing my gaze back up to hers. “Delilah is a catty bitch who is miserable in her own life and is taking it out on you. Do not let her win, you hear me? You’re strong and beautiful, Mack. Don’t ever forget it.”
The tear slips down my cheek. So much for keeping my emotions in check. My sister reaches out, catching the tear with her finger.
“I’ll always be here, Mack. I’ll always protect you, no matter what. It’s you and me against the world.”
Two Weeks Later
I stare out the windows with a bored expression, shaking the memory away. All it does it cause my heart to restrict with pain. I keep everything on the outside vacant, but inside, I’m working on finding a way out of here.
It’s been hell in this place. The past few weeks have been absolute hell since the “incident.” That’s what they’re referring to it as.
I want gone.
From the pain. From the thoughts and the memories.
Gone from this shithole. Held here with people who need actual help. I don’t belong here. That much I know. Yet, I’m being treated like I’m the flight risk.
It’s fucking insane.
They’ve just barely deemed me okay to go outside for fresh air and lunch, which is better than nothing, I guess. I’ve noticed the leaves have slowly started to change color from vibrant green to a maple rust. The calendar in Dr. Aster’s office has shown me the harsh reality—I’ve been here for a month and a half with no contact with anyone other than patients and doctors.
The only nurse here who has shown me an inkling of kindness is Stephanie. She’s taken it upon herself to deliver my meals with one of the other nurses, and to help keep me sane, she’ll hang back and keep me up-to-date on what’s happening in the real world. Just today at lunch, she showed me a clip from TMZ. The two stars of said clip? It was Vincent Hawthorne and Zach Covington fighting with each other in a club that looked a whole hell of a lot like Kings. The clip made me smile, despite the fact that I’m trapped here. It was good to know I wasn’t the only one falling apart. Apparently, the Savages were, too.
With only one cast left to go, it’s a bit easier to make my way around my plain room that feels a lot more like a prison cell. I’ve been working with the physical therapist, and even though the pain in my bones and my body is overwhelming at times, it isn’t completely unbearable. Each day gets a little easier to wade through, the pain subsiding a little more each day.
I still haven’t heard from anyone. Not the girls. Not my parents. It’s not like I expected to hear from Baz, but I can’t help but wonder where he is. I have no doubt in my mind that he’s heard about what happened, and even though I shouldn’t care, I want to know if he hates me. Does he hate me as much as I should hate him?
Does he think I’m insane?
I loathe that any part of me cares what he thinks. Especially after what I know. I should want him dead. I should be plotting my revenge against him, too. But sometimes, love outweighs everything, because even though I hate him with every fiber of my being, I love him, too.
Because where there is hate, there is love. And sadly, I’ve come to realize one can’t live without the other.
Every night, when I close my eyes, he’s there. But it’s a nightmare. Because I’m imagining that night. I’m picturing him hurting her. I’m picturing him these past few months laughing at me inside his head—behind closed doors. He was probably thinking I was stupid and foolish. All too pleased that he was able to get one over on me so easily. And to think I felt so disgusted with myself for how far I took things. To think I was heartbroken over what we had, even when it was all a huge lie. It was all a façade. He kept me around just so they could destroy me. He never really cared. He just wanted to finish the job he couldn’t finish years ago. Nothing has been clearer than it is now.
I let that anger and heartbreak fester. I’m almost at full capacity with it at this point. A part of me feels like I’m going to explode with it. And sadly, the other part of me wants to see him. I want to forgive him, and I want him to forgive me. I want to go back to that night. When we were strangers. Before we knew anything about each other, before any lies slipped past our lips.
Sometimes, I like to wonder what things would be like for us had we really been strangers. Where would life have taken us? Each and every time those thoughts pop into my head, I cry because it’s too good to be true. There’s no point in ever thinking about it.
I’ve never felt more alone than I do in here. I keep away from most of the patients for obvious reasons, but without visitors and consumed by my lonely, sad thoughts, it’s hard not to feel like I’ve been abandoned. Even Madison has left.
I haven’t heard her.
She’s no longer a permanent fixture in my mind or dreams.
She’s just gone, and I don’t know how to feel about it.
Part of me is relieved. Because it was so hard to hear her day in and day out. Being near her when I knew she wasn’t really there. But the other part of me? I feel like I’m crumbling. I am broken in every shape and form. My body and spirit are shattered. Where I normally had her to help me push through, she is no longer around to do that. She is silent.
I can’t even feel her anymore.
And I think that’s what hurts the most.
The feeling of abandonment. Even though she swore I didn’t, part of me still feels like I let her down. Now more than ever.
Her urges for me to move on and be happy are there, niggling at the back of my mind. If I were smart, I would do just that. I would stop dwelling on the past. I would stop trying to make sense of everything. I would let them fix whatever they thought was wrong with me, so I could get the hell out of here.
More often than not, I think about the future. What does the future hold for me after this? Can I really come back from something as low as this? Do I even have it in me to try?
Her recycled words of moving on and taking care of a little girl who needs me are what plagues me the most. Because the only little girl who comes to mind is Ava. I haven’t forgotten her. There hasn’t been one day when I don’t think about the little girl who is like staring at a figment of my past. She is the reincarnated version of Madison and myself. That, I am sure of.