No clean clothes just the hospital gown I just striped off my body. The clothes I came in wearing were sitting in a brown paper bag that said patient’s property in big black letters. Opening the bag, I slipped on the oversized Tee that wasn’t mine, it was Jayden’s, and I know I wasn’t wearing it when I came in, on over my head. I thread my arms through the sleeves before sliding a pair of undies on. Climbing back on the bed, I fold my legs under me as I reach for my phone. Arghh time to face the music and answer Blair back.
But before I got the chance to, there was a sharp knock on the door to my hospital room.
Doctors and nurses don’t knock, and I have no friends that would even care or know I was here.
I slip the phone under my pillow.
“Yes?” I said my tone scared and cracking as all that was running through my head was the looney bin peeps coming and taking me away, locking me up and feeding me the wrong pills. The ones that made you rock in a corner and dribble not dance on a rainbow colored cloud.
I was terrified of what was on the other side of that door. When it didn’t open right away my heart stopped and my mind came to the realization that I have to wake the fuck up and finally accept all the mistakes and bad decisions that I have made lately and really stop blaming Jayden. Yes, a lot of this current situation was totally his fault, but I chose to use again, and I chose to really take it to the extreme that it was. Like I was tongue kissing death while dancing with the devil.
But being sober meant remembering… and to remember was the worst part of the whole thing. The door opened and in walked a tiny lady. She was dressed old school Italian and didn’t look like she belonged here at all. “Are you lost?” I asked as she slipped in with a small worn travel case in one hand and an arm full of flowers and paper bag in the other.
“Me child, only if you’re not Miss Tru.” Blowing her fallen curls from her eyes she kicks the door closed.
“I am,” I said looking over her thinking do I, should I, help her.
Shifting to move off the bed she says, “No child. Stay.” She spoke with broken English, her accent still strong.
“Ok, then,” I say watching her as she walks in placing all her items down before walking over to me and engulfing me in a huge hug that crushed me. This woman may be tiny, but she sure could hug. In that moment inside her arms I felt at peace, comfort and a strange eerie feeling of home. Like I had found home. She just held me, and I just melted into her and before I knew it tears were breaking free from the cage behind my eyes and sobs where leaving my body without permission.
“That’s it child. Just let it all go,” she said to me as my sight blurred with tears and my body shook. I came undone in a stranger’s arms and I didn’t even care she was an angel and I needed her in that moment.
She was the saving grace my soul sought as the room began to spin with all of my emotions. I came undone, for months I had numbed, self-medicated and drank myself into a coma. Now I was feeling. It was all over heightened and it hurt. My God, did it hurt.
“How could I do that to him, to myself. How?” I snarled out more at me than asking her a question.
Her voice was pure softness when she answered running her hand over my back. “My child, because you are human my dear.”
Blinking away more fallen tears I don’t even have an answer to that.
She screams knowledge and safety and I don’t want her to let me go so I hold on to her, wrapping my arms around her tighter as she pushes her tiny body further up my bed.
I felt guilty, really fucking guilty, for having let him, me, and my granddaddy down.
“We want the best for you, my child. I will fix you right up.” Her words wrapped around me like a blanket but as quick as the feeling hit so did the flee emotion. I could never accept it, her kindness and the sweetness she exhibited for me. The way Jayden said he loved me, the look in his eyes that told me he did, but his demons were begging to play. All I wanted was to forget. Forget. Forget. And then move the fuck on. It was an eternal motto, numb. Forget. Numb. Forget.
I turned toward the window as this woman whom I didn’t even know pulled a hanky from her breast and dabbed the tears from my face. “How I was supposed to lead the broken mess of ourlives’ back over the finish line?” I say as her arms snake around my back and she sits next to me both of us looking out the window.
“The sun is bright. The day is new, and the world will still turn my love. Love is hard, life is harder, but through the hard times its each other’s side you need to be on.”
“But I couldn’t handle it. Hell, I couldn’t even handle looking at myself in the mirror. My eyes spoke of what I had been through, and I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t see the way he would play for them; the way he would worship their screams and the way he just threw me away.” My voice was raspy and apologetic, and I didn’t know why it should sound mad and annoyed like my heart. It felt all kind of mad.
“I’m sorry. I know I’ve fucked up.” I heard his voice shatter though the still room that held all my tears and most of my fears.
Twisting my body toward him it was like all the air was sucked out of the room. I had dreamed of what the day would be like when I saw him again and just what I would say, be wearing and how my hair would be. I have overthought and over wished. It hasn’t gone like the one I had pained over for weeks. No, it went so fucking wrong and twice in one day to boot.
He stared at me, his eyes fixed, steady, and with a weak smile. He was trying so hard to not let the pain show on his face, but he forgot his eyes can’t lie nor fake anything, especially emotion.
I shoved my hands into the pocket of my hoodie clenching them into fists and I closed my eyes taking in a deep breath.
A rush of emotions crossed over me in an instant, and I allowed myself to be washed away with them all. That’s what it’s like with him. He takes you off guard and consumes you. I couldn’t help it; he was to blame. He held the power to wreck me, drown me and steal me from all the screams inside my head.
With him near me it was like drowning in the light after months of being trapped in the dark. I knew very well who I was before him and he broke me into so many pieces that I was sure I wouldn’t be able to put myself back together the same. I was left with just a memory of it. The old me where I wished I could replace that memory with the shattering pain. I felt myself falling fast for the Rockstar in devils clothing.
Jayden stayed still in the doorway as the beautiful little lady stood and walked toward him. She wrapped her arms around him pulling him into the room. I watched in amazement as he dissolved in her arms just the same way I did when she wrapped me inside one of her hugs. He was wearing a grey pair of sweats that hung perfectly around his hips. His white tee shirt made his inked skin come alive with color and light. His smile was for her, but his eyes were for me. They still held the same look he always had for me and me alone. No one got the look I got from him. He looked at me as if he was lost and found me all at once. That he could be the person he has always been away from expectation.
I tried blinking away the tears that were forming inside the corners of my eyes.
