He stared at me for a moment, like he was trying to peel back my physical being to see underneath if I was lying or telling the truth. None of the doctors or nurses I had spoken to so far even pretended to listen to the story I had to tell, so why should I believe he would beany different?
Daxton handed Shemar the first-aid kit back after he secured the gauze in place with medical tape, his large hands dwarfing mine as his touch lingered. For having an office job, his hands were rough, covered in calluses, suggesting he worked with them a great deal. I found myself wondering what kinds of hobbies this man had to have made his hands so worn and rugged.
As calm started to spread through me, my head started to swim, small black dots blurring my vision as the adrenaline began leaving and my mind started trying to process what had happened. Reaching my hands out, I grabbed his thick forearms to balance myself, willing the dizziness away.
“Raelynn?” I hadn’t heard the elevator announce its arrival since security had left with Craig. My sister's voice brought a flood of emotions to the surface for reasons different than Craig's.
Letting go of Daxton’s arms, I had barely turned around before my sister was enveloping me in a bone-crushing hug. Touching visitors wasn’t permitted, but with Daxton standing over us, none of the nurses told us to let go. Hugging my sister was both healing and heartbreaking. I wanted nothing more than to just be able to go home with her and fix this mess with a carton of ice cream and a horror movie marathon. Nostalgic for the days when our comfort routine would solve most of our problems.
When the embrace finally ended and I could properly see her, fresh tears still remained streaking the makeup on her beautiful face.
“I thought I had lost you,” she admitted, leaving her hands on me to grip my shoulders.
“I couldn’t ever do that to you, not after mom and dad.” Tears formed in my own eyes as I took in her appearance. For being sisters, we were night and day when it came to our looks. Michelle took after our mother, tall and slender with high cheekbones and matching dark hair and eyes. Unlike our deceased mother, she preferred to keep her hair cut short and expertly styled. Micky took great pride in how she presented herself and rarely ever left her house without her hair and makeup perfectly executed.
“Ladies, why don’t we get you some privacy?” Daxton had let me have as much time as I wanted, as I had held onto my sister like a life raft, but he opened his arm to indicate an empty room behind us, offering us privacy from the eyes of any onlookers. We stepped around him and headed into the doorless room. “Don’t worry about the thirty-minute time limit, I’ll speak with the charge nurse out here.”
As Michelle sat down, I turned and thanked him, offering him a tight smile all while trying to convey just how much his promise meant without using words, before taking a seat beside her in a well-worn armchair. She grabbed three tissues out of the box on the small table between the chairs and dabbed at her eyes, wiping off the trail of mascara that had started to run down her cheeks with her tears.
“I’m so sorry, Mickey,” I whispered, guilt eating me alive at what she must have been going through the past several days.
“You have nothing to be sorry for, Rae. That sick bastard does.”
“Well, everyone is leaning towards believing that small dicked asshole, so it doesn’t seem to matter,” I scoffed, my nerves still on edge.
“I promise you, we will figure out a way to prove it.”
“How?” I didn’t want to cast my doubt on her, but hearing so many people believing him made me doubt it myself when I drifted into the dark recesses of my mind.
“I’m not sure yet, but we will figure something out. In the meantime, we just have to make sure to get you better. I was able to bring you some clothes from your house, but the nurses have to search the bag. They said they would put it into your room when they were done, so you should have them by lights out.”
“Thank you so much, you have no idea how uncomfortable these scrubs are. How's Riley?”
She must have known I was going to ask. Pulling out a folded piece of paper, she handed it to me.
“Before you ask, I already checked, and they said you could have paper.”
I unfolded it and smiled. She brought me a picture of my baby. One of my favorite photos from when I took him on a hike back when it was just the two of us, without a psychotic ex-boyfriend in the picture.
“Thank you so much. I miss my boy.”
“I know you do. I’ve been staying with him to make sure he doesn’t get lonely. How's the therapy going here?”
I filled her in on how my first day went, giving her a vague picture of what happened with Brandon. Michelle didn’t have a strong stomach to tolerate details like that, so I kept it simple, telling her a patient basically went off the deep end and screwed up the group's schedule. She seemed satisfied with the answer and didn’t ask any further questions about him.
Even though Daxton had told us not to worry about restricting our time together to the thirty-minute limit, an hour still flew by way too fast. A security guard arrived at the end of visiting hours to escort her out of the building. I didn’t risk giving her another hug since I wasn’t sure how this guard would react. If he had been one of the guards from earlier that had to escort Craig off the property, he probably wouldn’t have cared, but I couldn’t bring myself to risk it.
After saying goodnight to my sister, I was happy to find a bag of familiar clothes had been left in my room. Nothing fancy, mostly just T-shirts and leggings, but the comfort they brought me was immeasurable. Throwing on a pair of black leggings and an old band shirt, I crawled into bed early, not bothering with joining the others and finishing the movie we had started in the lounge.
Sleep didn’t come easily. Ice blue eyes still haunted my dreams, stalking me from the shadows.
June 2nd 2020
My weight has always been a sensitive topic for me. Ever since I was a child, and my mother would call me chubby and put me on fad diets. I always tried to watch what I ate and how much. She never made sense to me. My body was always too fat for her, but she would use food as a comfort solution instead of offering any emotional support. If I had a bad day and she was too high to process the complexity of communicating, she’d give me junk food as a way to be supportive. When I made the decision a few years ago to finally get into shape, I thought my self-esteem would stay high.
Craig has always called me beautiful, but one thing he doesn’t like is if I sit on his lap, due to the weight loss, my ass is too bony for him, and it digs into his thighs.
However, over the past few weeks, due to the stress of being understaffed at work and fatigue from the long hours, I haven’t been able to eat as healthily as I normally would or stick to an exercise routine. When I stepped on the scale and saw that I had gained fifteen pounds, at first I wanted to cry. And as much as I was hoping Craig wouldn’t see it as a negative, last night proved that wasn’t true.
