Guarded Hearts

by L. A. Corvill

  “Where am I, Livi?” she asks me, looking at Nix. I take her hand in mine again. I know she is going to need some of my strength.

  “Dee, do you remember what happen after we talked to Tom?” I ask.

  “Yes, we went to speak with Kylie, but she was on the phone with Tom,” she replies. I can see in her eyes as she is going over today’s events. “Oh my God!” Mandy yells, coming to realize the impact of what Kylie said about what happened that night. I really hate Tom right now. If I had him in front of me I would cut his penis off and shove it down his throat. Bastardo.

  I see the tears running down her face. I can feel my silent tears pouring down mine. I hug her tight as her sobs turn into loud cries. I have no idea how to comfort her fully, since I have never had that done to me, but I just hug her as hard as I can, trying to make her understand that she is not alone, that we are friends, but most importantly we are sisters. I have no idea how to help her move past this. How I can make it all better? And she still doesn’t know about the baby. Her need awakens something inside me, my maternal instinct maybe, or just a feeling that I have buried deep in me that is finally responding to someone that I love.

  “Shh, Dee,” I say as we start to rock back and forth as I try to soothe her by rubbing her back. I can do this, it is not as hard as I thought. I have no idea how much time has passed as we sit here wrapped around each other.

  “I need a shower now, I feel dirty,” Mandy says as she gets ready to jump off the bed.

  “Dee, I need to go get a nurse. You are very weak, and-”

  “Oh my God, my baby!” she yells, struggling to move out of my arms to feel her stomach. I try to hold her still, since she is attached to lots of wires, and I don’t want her to get hurt. Nix walks up to help me calm her down.

  “Mandy, the baby…” The words lodge in my throat. How can I tell her this? I am not good at giving bad news. “Dee, you had a miscarriage,” I inform her with tears threatening to spill again.

  “What happened?” she asks softly. I set her back to rest on the bed. I hold one of her hands and Nix holds the other. I look at him so he can start; he knows more about the medical side of things.

  “The doctor who saw you in the ER said that your placenta detached, which then caused the hemorrhaging and the pain that you were feeling. Added to that, the emotional stress that you were going through didn’t help matters. He mentioned that it happens sometimes with first time pregnancies in their first trimester. He also stated that in the future there should be no problem for you to get pregnant again,” he finishes in a rush, holding her hand tighter. His only focus is Mandy, as it should be, but as I watch him holding her hand, comforting her, it hurts, even though I know it shouldn’t.

  “I’m so sorry, Mandy. I should have confronted Tom with my questions alone. I never should have asked you to come over and talk to him with me, but I wanted to make sure about who was lying to me. I’m so sorry about everything, about not believing in you. Please forgive me, because I will never be able to forgive myself,” I say with the tears in my eyes. I want to ask for her forgiveness, about what I had wished upon her baby, but I want to be alone with her when I do.

  “Livi, if it hadn’t been for your doubts about how Tom knew about our tattoos we wouldn’t know what really happened. Kylie was willing to destroy our lives for her selfish needs.”

  “Yeah, about that. How did you all know that Tom knew about the tattoos?” Nix asks. Yeah, he just had to go there. Mandy beats me to the explanation.

  “Well, when he saw Livi’s tattoo, he told her that he didn’t know we shared a tattoo in the same location. So she asked him when he had seen mine, and his explanation seemed shady, so that got her suspicious,” she informs him. That clears it up, and one would think that he would just leave it at that, but oh no. I look everywhere except at him, because I can feel his hot gaze on me.

  “Mandy, Olivia’s tattoo is in a very intimate area.”

  Bingo.

  My hands start to sweat, the room is getting so hot. “Wait, Mandy, are you fucking saying that Tom and Olivia… Fuck!” he yells. Where is the nurse? I think I am going to need one. I can feel his heavy glare, and I chance a look at his face. His eyes are narrowed and on fire.

  “Look, we are not together, so what I decide to do and with whom is none of your business, okay?” Before I finish he is around the bed and yanking me from Mandy’s grasp.

  “Fucking answer me, Olivia. Did you fuck him?” he seethes through a clenched jaw.

  “Get your hands off me, you brute. Like I said, it is none of your business.”

  “Olivia, you better tell me.”

  “Nix, she didn’t. Livi, tell him,” Mandy intervenes, her hands waving in the air.

  “No. Happy?” I say looking up into his burning eyes. “Besides, once he started talking about the tattoos, saying the he had slept with Mandy, I got turned off, got dressed and left. Sharing one guy with Mandy is enough, I didn’t want to share another,” I say, releasing myself from his loose grip.

  “Olivia, we need to talk about it,” he whispers in my ear as he makes his way back to Mandy’s other side.

  I really don’t think I can talk to him about us yet. I have so many mixed feelings. Yes, it was all a show, a misunderstanding orchestrated by Kylie. She knew it would destroy me seeing the two people I love together, and when I think about it I just want to punch her in the face. She sure knew how to play me. I thought she was my friend, and we all fell for her act.

  “Mandy, a detective and one of my father’s partners are going to come by tomorrow to talk to you about the night at the club and what you heard earlier today with O. They are going to take your statement to be able to bring up the correct charges up on Kylie and Tom,” Nix informs Mandy. His phone starts to ring, and looking at the screen, he excuses himself from the room.

  Mandy moves over on the bed to make more room for me. I move to the head of the bed and rest next to her, bringing my arms around her so she can rest against my chest. She sighs and I can feel my chest getting wet as she starts to cry. I want to talk to her about what happened with Nix and our friendship, but what she is going through is bigger than that. We had left the trailer park for this reason, to not be involved in this kind of situation, and most definitely not to get raped. We had moved here to be free of pain. And yet this is where we almost found our destruction. We can move past this, we have to move past this. I will do everything in my power to make sure this is a distant memory for Mandy. She doesn’t deserve the ugliness of this world. That is why I kept most of mother’s deeds to myself.

  “Mandy, let it all out. Don’t hold in any of your feelings, we are in this together. I might not know how to help you because let’s face it, you are the caring maternal one, but I am here, and I will never let you sink.”

  We continue to lay in bed, both of us lost in our thoughts. I start wonder who called Nix. He has been gone a while.

  “I don’t understand why people can be so cruel, and for what? For a stupid club that is not going to matter in the grand scheme of things,” she says suddenly when she gets her sobs under control.

  “I don’t know, Mandy,” I whisper sadly, because I don’t. I still can’t fully grasp what my mother did to me. “Some people are just born evil.”

  “Can you please call the nurse, Livi? I really want to shower.” I can’t deny her that. I know how it feels to be dirty. Many of my mother’s fuck buddies made me feel like that when they would look at me. I press the button for the nurses’ station.

  “Yes, can we help you?” blares from the side of the bed.

  “Yes, can you please send a CNA to room 5142? The patient wants to shower,” I inform them.

  “Let me clear it with her nurse and we will send someone over,” the lady responds.

  Her head nurse walks in and starts taking Mandy’s vital signs. She asks Mandy all sorts of questions, past medical information and how she feels, if anything hurts. The CNA walks in, her tag name reads Lori, a
nd she starts helping Mandy get up slowly due to all the IV wires, before she walks her to the bathroom. I stay sitting on the bed, wondering where Nix is at. I hope nothing else is wrong.

  “Miss, can you go there, and keep her company, I forgot to get some towels,” Lori asks me, interrupting my thoughts.

  “Sure,” I say as I jump off the bed. I make my way into the restroom, and I take a seat on the toilet. I can here Mandy’s scrubbing.

  “Mandy, earlier when I asked you to forgive me, it was not only about what happen at the house with Tom and Kylie. It was also because…” I start telling her through the shower curtain, because it makes it easier since I don’t have to look her and she can’t see me. “At one of my lowest points, after Nix and you came to the house to inform me about the pregnancy, at that point I really wished that your baby died,” I finish in a rush.

  I hear the curtain move, but I have my head bowed down, looking at my hands. I don’t want to raise my head and see the look of disgust that is surely there.

  “Livi, look at me,” she asks. I refuse; I can’t take her rejection. The water works start again.

  “Olivia Rey, you better look at me.” She puts her finger on my chin to turn my face towards her. What I see in her eyes surprises me; there is no trace of disgust or hatred, just sadness and tears.

  “Livi, I know you would have never wished for it if you were not hurt. It was your pain. I know that we hurt you, regardless of what we now know, so I can’t fault you for your way of thinking. I can’t imagine what I would wish for if our situation would have been reversed. Besides, the doctor said that it happens. So I have nothing to forgive you for.” Mandy will always justify everything I do because of my past. Every mistake I make she shrugs it off because of my childhood. How can you fault someone when they had a horrible childhood, with feelings that they grew up thinking where normal, like hate, vengeance, and negative retaliation?

  “Mandy, I don’t deserve you as my best friend,” I tell her, because it is the truth. I should have known that she would never betray me. I should have questioned the situation better, instead of jumping to conclusions like I did. Mandy had always been an open book with me; she was too sweet to be that conniving.

  “Well, good thing I’m your sister then.” We smile, our first one in a long time. Lori walks in with the towels and a clean hospital gown. I walk out of the bathroom and Nix is sitting on the couch, staring into space. I walk towards the bed again to wait for Mandy to come out.

  “Come home with me tonight, to talk,” Nix tells me.

  “Okay,” I whisper back. Mandy walks out with the help of Lori.

  “Hey, guys, does my mother know what happened?”

  “Sorry, I forgot to tell you that she is on her way here. She should be arriving any minute. She called when I was in the hall,” Nix replies as he looks from Mandy to me. I know he sees the tear stains. “Can’t leave you all alone without you guys crying, huh?” he says with a smile. His mood seems to have lightened up.

  “I also have some good news. My father called, and they have Tom in custody, so he might get booked tonight. Kylie made a plea bargain with the DA. She agreed to plead guilty to the drug charges, but she will testify against Tom in the rape case, since that wasn’t part of the plan. She will be set free on bail tonight because her parents will never allow her to spend the night in jail. Besides that, she will get expelled from the university and the sorority. The bargain was just for her to finish the rest of the year online and community service,” Nix explains.

  “My mother is here? How? She doesn’t have money for a flight,” Mandy asks, clearly confused. With all the things we talked about we forgot to mention that she was coming.

  “From everything I just said, that is all you heard, Mandy? Anyways, my parents paid for her flight. She will be staying with me in your room until you are released from the hospital. Then we can make more arrangements if she decides to stay for a short holiday after,” Nix informs Mandy.

  “No, but that is all I care about. I don’t want to give any thought to Tom and Kylie.”

  “Yeah, you shouldn’t. They are scum,” I agree with her. They don’t deserve any thought or emotion from Mandy or me. They knew what did would have consequences if the truth ever came out. The door swings open, and in rushes Mrs. Scott.

  “Baby, how do you feel?” She says with concern as she reaches Mandy and hugs her.

  “Oh, mom.” The tears start anew. That’s our cue to leave them alone. I know they have always been close. Her mother will comfort her better than me. I give the let’s-go look to Nix. He gets up and walks towards the door, but holds his hand out. I take it in mine, and just like that I am home.

  Love, death, hardship, pain; it is all difficult to overcome, but once you overcome it you can look back and wonder how you made it through. How can one person endure so much and yet be able to live to tell the tale? I realized that life has made me resilient. It held me in its hands and shielded me from breaking.

  A couple of days after Nix and I left the hospital, I moved all my belongings into his apartment. I could not go back into the place that caused so much pain. The darkness that lingers when I enter my room brings chills to my spine. I know that the house has many good memories, but in my case the bad memories have a great herculean force that overpowers all the good ones. My sisters have always been good to me, and I will see them around campus. I just can’t call that place home anymore. Nix is my home.

  So much has unraveled in the last couple of days. Tom got arrested and was charged with rape by use of drugs, and Kylie was expelled from school with no charges brought against her since she agreed to testify against Tom. Mandy has since left the hospital and is dealing with her loss of a baby she loved, as well as dealing with the repercussions of her rape. The sadness that blankets her makes my heart ache.

  It’s difficult to see someone you love hurt, and I want to wrap her up, place her in a bubble, and protect her from all the evilness of this world. I know shielding her could potentially hurt her, but I don’t want her hurting now. I want to reach in her brain and rearrange her limbic system. That’s how much love I have for her, it is unconditional. All the actions that have caused our lives to change have also caused reactions. Most have been supportive, but few have not, and for that reason Mandy is debating on staying here in South Carolina or returning to Texas.

  “Help me understand why you want to leave?” I ask, because I want her to stay. This is selfish of me, but I can’t bear the thought of her not being near. She is the one person I can run to about anything, and no matter how small or big of a problem, she helps me through it.

  “Livi, I just don’t have anyone here.” I open my mouth to speak, but she places her finger over my lips. “Let me finish,” she says abruptly. “You’re going to be with Nix, and I don’t want to be alone right now. If I go home I’ll have my mom and my sister.”

  I can’t believe what I’m hearing. How can she think Nix will consume my every moment? I clench my eyes shut, letting my hurt subside. My eyes begin to water, and I look right into her eyes. I take her in my arms and hug her. I feel the wetness of her tears on my shoulder and small gasps escaping from her.

  “I love you, and you won’t be alone. You will always have me. You come before Nix, you’re my family. You know that,” I tell her, still embracing her. I pull away so that she can see me and know that I mean every word. Without even consulting Nix I know what I need to do. I know he won’t mind.

  “Stay, there’s nothing more I want than you here with me, please,” I beg.

  “What? No way, I can’t impose. You two are barely restoring your relationship. No, no, no. That would be rude of me.” She turns around and faces the window. The apartment is quiet; Nix is gone, but he should be returning soon. I need him to help me convince her to stay.

  “No, it would be rude if you didn’t stay. You need to finish school. I know that it’s not going to be easy, but remember all the times you were there for me? Let me
be here for you.” She turns to face me again and I see her face rationalizing on the idea.

  “But I need my mom right now,” she says. Mrs. Scott flew back home the day Mandy was released from the hospital. She needed to go back to work and had no more vacation days left. I will never understand the feeling of needing a mother’s comfort. I know I have longed for it, but unlike Mandy, I never received it. A mother’s comfort is not something I can give her, and it pains me to know that she might leave for that reason.

  We both know that if she leaves she won’t come back. She can’t afford a round trip home and back, and neither can her mom. As much as I want her here, I know I need to let her go.

  I let out a deep sigh. “I understand.” I turn to hug her, and we laugh and we cry, but the embrace is so much more than just an embrace. It is an acknowledgement that we both know we will make it through this, that we can handle life and all its colors.

  “What is going on? I swear, every time I leave I come back to you girls in tears.” We pull away and begin to laugh. He’s right; we are big crybabies.

  I slowly walk towards Nix and I place my arms around him, leaning into his chest. “Mandy is going back to Texas,” I say to him, and I feel the tears well up just thinking about not having her near.

  “Mandy, you are welcome here with us anytime. We will understand your decision if you choose to leave, just know we love you.” Nix hugs me a little tighter.

  “I need my mom. I love you guys too, but I need my mom. Life has pulled me in so many directions that I feel like I’m going to fall apart. I want to finish school. I want to be here. I just want to feel okay again. I just don’t know how to.” Mandy’s voice breaks and tears roll down her cheeks.

  “If anyone knows how to get through life when it has chewed you up and spit you out, you are with the two people that would be able to guide you when it feels like everyone has walked all over you. The pain, hurt, and loss you are feeling will lessen, but only love can heal those wounds. I used to think nothing could heal me, but I was wrong. Olivia healed me. Please, let us help you heal.” At this point we are crying.