“Hmhm. How’re you doing with your medications? Any side-effects?” I asked, changing the subject.
“Not so much anymore …” she answered, thankfully, not picking up on my mood change.
We talked for a few more minutes about Journey’s different medications and the treatment plan she was continuing to work through with her doctors. I sent up a silent prayer, thankful that my sister had been brave enough to seek out the help she needed and that she had the means to do so.
And of course, my thoughts wandered to the other person in my life who was in need of help. I still wasn’t sure whether or not I made the right decision in calling Dr. Kearns. Jacob had agreed to the in-patient treatment but that didn’t mean he liked it or wasn’t pissed at me for facilitating it in the first place.
“I’ll call you in a couple of days, sis,” Journey said as we ended our call.
“Love you.”
“Same.”
I hung up the phone and stared at it, wondering what Jacob was doing right then. And just when I was about to turn my phone over on my nightstand and crawl into bed, the screen lit up with an unfamiliar number. Usually, I didn’t answer numbers I don’t know but something niggled at me to pick it up.
“Hello?”
“Hey, baby.”
My eyelids closed at the deep sound of his voice.
“Jacob.”
****
Jacob
All the oxygen was sucked out of the room when she said my name. I pressed my back into the wall behind me to steady myself even though I was seated comfortably on the bed. It’d been a long two weeks since I last heard her voice.
“It’s late,” I stated as if I wasn’t the one who called her.
“I just got in from work and then Journey called. How are you? Are you okay?”
Ordinarily, someone asking me those questions would tick me off, but the inflection of worry in Grace’s voice only made me long to soothe her anxieties.
“I’m f—” I started to say I was fine but that wasn’t the complete truth and I was working to be more truthful with the people who mattered to me the most. “It’s … difficult.”
“Willow Springs? Do you not like it? Is the staff not—”
“No, they’re fine. Dr. Kearns is fine. It’s all the other shit that’s … hard. The shit in my head.”
“Oh.”
“But that’s what I’m here for, I guess.” Sighing, I pressed the button to turn the phone’s speaker on and placed it on my lap to run my hand through my hair in frustration. I hated how pathetic I sounded.
“I didn’t recognize this number.”
“I bought a temporary phone.”
“From where?”
“There’s a little store not too far from Willow Springs. I pass it most mornings on my daily runs around the grounds here. One of the trails leads to a road which leads to a town. Anyway, they sell phones. And since they confiscated mine once I arrived here …” I shrugged even though she couldn’t see me.
“So you’re not supposed to be calling me?”
I chuckled because she caught me. “No, but it’s not like I’d let a little thing like rules stop me from contacting you.”
Her giggle on the other end of the phone caused my heart to stop beating for a full second.
