“Shut up.” I bark at him. “Hayl had a family emergency and since she’s supplying me with her products, I thought it’d be fair to help her.”
“Nice shit,” Liam nods. “I like how you started this one. It’s way better than the friends with fucking benefits crap that Emma and—”
“Wife,” I remind him and abstain from saying without any fucking benefits. “What happened with my family free summer? I’m still honeymooning without you.”
One of the new advertising directors in his company quit yesterday and is now working for the competition. The man sold important information to the opposition. Liam really knows how to pick them. The same happened with Sam, our old partner. Dumbasses.
“You missed me.” He says. “Don’t deny it.”
“I did not, Sparky. We speak over the phone at least twice a week. Should I remind you that we worked on the advertising campaigns of the restaurants, and you modified Willows image some because Emma couldn’t work on it and—wait, actually we talk almost every day. How can I miss you?”
I have family drama to deal with—Hayley’s family—there’s no use thinking about adding my own family to the mix. Hayley would have trouble handling everyone at the same time.
“Don’t eat the store, this isn’t Hansel and Gretel,” I warn. They both laugh and say nothing about my warning before I head to the small back office to call Welsh and find out about Hayley.
“Knight, what can I do for you?” He answers at the first ring.
“My wife, where and how is she?” I hear a female voice-over hospital, airport… where are they? “I have the right to know, legally, I’m now her next of kin.”
“How much do you know about the marks on her stomach?”
I can’t answer him. I’ve seen them, touched them while we’re asleep when she doesn’t kick me to the guest room. I had bought a little time by teaching her to trust me; maybe I should have pushed her. “Knight?”
“She doesn’t talk about them.” Because I don’t ask, I don’t share.
“We’re in the hospital. She’s on a suicide watch for the next forty-eight hours,” he finally says. “Hayley doesn’t want to talk or see anyone. After the period is up, they’ll assess her. For what the psychiatrist said, if they think it’s necessary, they’ll assign temporary conservatorship. Hopefully to me.”
“No.”
The hell I’ll let him have any say about Hayley’s well-being. Whatever she has going on, she doesn’t need babysitting. I bet she needs her family’s real support instead of them fucking with her head. Once she’s out of there, we’ll address the issues she struggles with, and I’ll try to help her anyway she wants and needs.
“I’ll talk to my lawyer about this but I rather we don’t end up on a trial fighting for her conservatorship, sir.”
Now I wonder if she tried to kill herself. I regret leaving her alone to deal with her family knowing that they like to make an appearance between ten and eleven just to make sure she doesn’t have any peace.
“You don’t know her well enough,” Augustine Welsh says with a cracked voice, the voice that stops me from telling him that it’s he who has no idea who Hayley is and what she wants or requires to live. “I think she should stay with me.”
“Sir,” I interrupt him again. “I can guarantee that you’re the one who needs to get to know her. Call me when you know more about this forty-eight hour watch. I’ll see you in the hospital once the bakery closes.”
I hang up just as Liam knocks at the door. “Mitch. There’s a lady outside who wants to order dozens of muffins for tomorrow morning.”
I head out and look at Sophie hard at work, wondering if she’ll pull through. Another sleepless night awaits me.
“What’s going on?” Liam asks as we head to the front. “Mitch?”
“I don’t fucking know, Liam,” I say between clenched teeth, my heart continues pounding against my chest. “I headed out to make a delivery, left my wife alone and when I came back, her father took her to the hospital. As much as I’d like to close the place and go, I can’t. I need to get my shit together first and then find out how to help her, Li.”
“I’m staying for a few days,” it is a statement, not a question or an offer.
I shake my head because I don’t want to involve him.
“You look like shit, and you need family. It’s me, or I’ll call her.”
Anything but Mom. She isn’t the person I want to deal with right now. The baby of the house isn’t stupid and innocent; he’s more dangerous than Jake. Liam doesn’t believe in force, but he’s the master of manipulation—or is that me?
“Let’s fix the muffin or was it cupcake emergency?” Shit, he said it only minutes ago and I can’t remember. “Then we’ll check if we have everything for tomorrow. We’re hiring the new cake decorator today and perhaps another hand to help us keep the place running smoothly and tidy.”
Liam comes to a halt and arches an eyebrow then shakes his head. If he only knew the amount of phrases and words, I’ve been saying in the past few weeks that don’t fit with who I am, he’ll pick another brother to be his favorite. Or send me to some psych-ward to have a lobotomy performed.
*
I arrive at the hospital; Augustine is sitting outside the room number they gave me at the reception. “How is she?”
He shrugs. “She still doesn’t wish to see anyone.”
I head to the nurse’s station. Behind the white wide and long desk that holds several monitors, phones and files there’s a young petite woman who smiles as she sees me. That friendly, we’ll make everything better smile. I hand her the bouquet of flowers with a note I brought for Hayley.
I need to hold you, can you let me in? Promise not to talk, unless you want me to.
MAK
P.S. I have mac-n-cheese with me.
“She wants to see you, sir.” The nurse smiles as she comes out of Hayley’s room. “I think you’re exactly what the doctor prescribed.”
As I enter the room, she lifts her head. She smiles slightly and then her eyes glitter with moisture. I leave the bag of food on top of the blue chair and bend to embrace her tightly; her head pressed to my chest, my fingers stroking her back. Tears seep through my shirt as she sobs and gasps.
“Take me home, Muffin boy,” her words are almost lost through the beeping of the machines to which she’s connected.
“Soon, Hayes.”
I want to ask her what happened. I want to check her wrists and make sure they’ll heal but I promised not to speak, and I don’t want to make her feel inadequate with my questions. Later, when she stops crying and is strong enough to talk. I wait, and suddenly her sobs decrease, her breathing steadies and her limbs relax but her hands grasp my waist. I don’t move. I’ll stay with her until they kick me out of the room or she wakes up. I fear she’ll push me away once she feels strong enough, and I have no idea how to keep her with me.
Chapter 26
Hayley
I feel dirty, a fugitive, guilty for getting caught. This time the urge for release overtook my brain and I blew my cover. After so many years of practice, the actions of one person let everyone onto my secret.
“I can’t believe you did this to yourself,” my father said.
Now he thinks even less of me, he vowed, “I’m going to fight the court and I’ll be your guardian.” I’m not a child or a troubled starlet making bad decisions.
“What is wrong with you, Hayley?”
The psychiatrist told me self-mutilation is a way to beg for help.
Help from who? They all are busy judging my every move, too weird, too stupid, too smart, too naïve, too fat… I don’t do anything right.
“Why do you do it?” The doctor asked.
“To release the pressure inside my head and my chest,” I responded.
“What creates that pressure, Hayley?”
“I need to be perfect, one defect, and they stop loving me,” my bottom lip quivers but I continued. “Mom need
ed me to the smartest of the school, win awards, have the perfect test scores and look beautiful so she could say she was my mother. If not, she’ll say: I was a waste that I wasn’t worth everything she sacrificed.”
“How did it start?”
“It started with a bad hour, a bad day, progressing to a bad week and as though someone had switched the channel from children’s programming to a movie by Stephen King, it became a bad life. There is no silver lining to my life. I am unable to find the release of all the pain because it sounds delusional. I’m not starving on the streets; no one assaulted me. Anyone would think what I feel, the struggle I have inside me is childish. There are other more important things to focus on than what’s rotten inside me. It only takes a few minutes for me to feel better, though after the cut it doesn’t take long for everything to come back and for me to need a deeper longer cut to let it out.”
“You’re awake,” Mitch moves around the bed. I can’t believe they let him stay with me. Between dreams, I heard him tell the nurse that she’ll have to take him by force. That there was no way in hell, he’ll leave his wife alone in a cold hospital.
“Did you have a good rest?” he asks.
I nod.
“Good I did, too. I hope you don’t mind that I left Liam in charge of the bakery. We have the same crew that covered for you during Jake’s wedding and Sophie, of course.”
“You promised not to talk,” I remind him because I fear he’ll begin to ask questions, questions I don’t know how to answer. He smiles and nuzzles my neck, sending shivers through my body. “Thank you for the flowers and staying with me. Can you take me home? Make them lift that stupid watch?”
Tenderness turns his eyes a softer shade of green.
“I can’t do much about the watch,” he responds and brushes some strands of hair off my face. “One thing I can guarantee you, there won’t be any guardianship shit. You know what we need, Haysy? DTR—Define The Relationship. Eminence Magazine is right.”
“Haysy? That sounds worse than Hay-Bear. You need to stop reading my magazines and taking those quizzes, Mitch. I’m about to revoke your man license.”
“I’m in touch with my womanhood,” he says kissing the side of my neck. “Because I can’t touch any woman and Liam discovered that he is ready for the next stage, but he hasn’t found Mr. Right.”
“Did he read them too?”
I picture them sitting around the dining room table drinking a beer and asking each other what their answer for number seven was, or lounging on the couch bored to tears and mocking the questions or the articles—like Mitch usually does.
“I told him to leave them alone,” Mitch traces my collarbone with his lips. “Since he didn’t listen, well we had a nice round of tests. We did learn a few new poses and how to bring our girl to the Ultimate O. Want me to demonstrate?”
Before I can do severe damage to his hard appendage, a nurse waltzes into the room.
“We agreed,” the nurse says. “You can’t have sex while she’s hospitalized, Mr. Knight.”
“You and the doctor agreed,” Mitchel says, a seductive smile touching the corner of his eyes. “Though, if you must know, we haven’t reached second base yet. Now if you don’t want me to finish what I started, call that doctor and tell him we need to talk. I need my wife at home.”
“Forty-eight hours,” the nurse informs him. “Now get off my patient or I’ll call security.” Then she looks at me. “You have a consult scheduled for nine o’clock. The cafeteria will deliver your breakfast in a few minutes.”
Mitch grumbles some nonsense and pushes himself off the bed.
“Hay-Bear,” I roll my eyes, cursing the moment I told him that nickname. “I like that one. I’m going to make a few calls and find out what I need to do to release you today. You need me to bring you something?”
“Bring her clothes,” the bossy nurse answers for me. “She might like something more comfortable than the hospital gown for the tests she has scheduled for today, after that she’ll see three different counselors to help her find the right treatment.”
“More than one?” my question comes as a surprise, since I expected to talk to just one other shrink, not three.
She gives me a shrug, which I take as What are you going to do? “Your husband here demanded we clear you or prove that we have to put you under conservatorship.”
“Can you give us a moment?” He clenches his jaw, and his ears turn red. The nurse nods and leaves the room without saying a word. “Your dad wants to have the conservatorship; I thought you wouldn’t want it since he drives you crazy with all those mixed signals. Hell, the way they all treat you upsets me, I can’t imagine how you’ll feel being under his care.”
“Tortured.” I try to sip some air as my lungs compress by the idea of being under Dad’s care.
“Exactly,” says as he rubs his face. “Which brings us to; the tests or fighting your father about who’ll become your guardian. I’m trying to fight for you, Hayes. Please tell me if you want something different.”
“Are those my only two options?”
He gives me a stiff smile as he lightly moves his head.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” As I don’t have many options, I don’t take long to respond. “You know me well; I’d rather go through a day of whatever doctors have in store for me.”
“I got you, Hay-Bear.” His shoulders loosen as he walks toward me and gives me a hug. “DTR when you’re out.”
“Can you say Define The Relationship?” my question holds a mocking tone.
“Eminence calls it DTR, then it’s DTR, Hayley. So are we doing it?”
“What’s there to define, Mitch?” I ask him. It’s just what it is and shouldn’t be anything more than that. “I need my friend, don’t taint what we have.”
“Hay-Bear, trust me.” He sucks my lower lip, then deepens the kiss. “I ordered your father to keep whatever happened yesterday between us, not a word to your mother or your brothers. It’s up to you to change your mind.”
*
“This is the result of my bad choices,” Dad says to the counselor.
It’s our third appointment as father and daughter. My second day of torture. I simply want to stop and disappear from this hospital.
“My cowardice, for never wanting to have a real relationship with anyone, not even my children. Parker says it all the time. ‘We don’t need money or your approval.’”
“He’s right.” I agree, trying to change my whispery voice to a normal tone. “We need your love, Dad. I need you to stop telling me what I’m doing wrong, making me feel inadequate.”
“Hayley Bear, I love you.” He said. “I’m trying and I never thought … I just want what’s best for you. I wish you understood me. I didn’t think the consequences of my acts would have an impact on my children. I shouldn’t have changed my attitude towards you after I broke up with your mother. I just wanted to be away from her. It was a mistake; don’t punish me because of that.”
Punish him? I hug my legs tight to my body and close my eyes because he’s doing it again, making me feel guilty for his sadness, his unhappiness. As if he needs to be consoled because of my bad choices.
“I only wanted your company, your support but everyone in the family has more pressing things than to be around me.” I follow the counselor’s instructions, to let everything out—or at least as much as I can release. My entire body trembles by the thought of Dad lashing back, maybe not now when I’m in a safe environment, but later. “Everyone except Melanie made me feel unwanted, alone. Isn’t that ridiculous, that your first wife was the one making sure I had a birthday cake every year that I felt loved… until she died—stupid cancer.”
“You should have told me, Hayley.” His eyes fill with such pain that it shreds my heart.
“I tried to fix it my own way, to try to forget what it’s like to feel lonely.” I finally found my voice. “No matter how deep, long or painful the incision is, the pain reappears and so does the st
ing of every word you say to me: Not enough, you’re a failure, you can’t, if you try harder, look at you… I push myself, try harder, and nothing makes any of you accept me for who I am. Love me, make me feel as if I belong to the family.”
“This is where you need to decide how to approach your future, Hayley,” the therapist says. “I’m your guide; we’ll take whatever route you choose. Grow to find your place in the world, understand and live who you are, mend your family ties, accept them or if you prefer, detach yourself from them. It’s up to you to come up with the map. That’s your homework for our next one-on-one session.”
“I’d like for us to continue these family sessions,” Dad adds, my heart clenches as I look at those red eyes.
“Hayley,” the doctor calls on me. “What do you think? Are the two of you willing to come twice a week?”
No?
Chapter 27
Hayley
“Yes, of course,” I’m willing to take this first step while I trace that map the doctor is talking about. “As long as your disposition doesn’t fade, Dad, I’ll be here.”
Dad lets out a big breath out, and the tension on his face disappears as I say that, then he grabs my hand and pats it.
“Let me take you home.” I accept because even when Mitch came last night to feed me and sleep, I didn’t see him leaving and we didn’t agree on anything for today. It’s only a few blocks, but that’s a good first step, to accept willingly what he offers.
“Hayley, I’ll be here tomorrow at three for our appointment,” my father says right as his driver parks in front of the bakery. “Your angst is understandable but I won’t let you go until we have a close father-daughter relationship.”
“A little too late,” I snarl. Once we closed the office door, he told me that I needed to grow up and take responsibility for my actions instead of doing stupid things to myself. Parker shook his head as he was waiting outside the counselor’s office. He arrived yesterday morning and has helped Mitch with the bakery too. “Thank your lovely ex-wife for making my enchanting life even more magical.”
Standing By: A Knight's Tale #2 Page 16