by Claire, Ava
We moved to the elevator and I cleared my throat as I punched the button for the ground floor. I dropped my hands to my side, trying to prepare for whatever excuse she was bound to whip out to explain how she had nothing to do with any of this. How it wasn't her fault that Mia clearly had issues. She was just doing her job, after all—and passing the buck so her hands were clean and washed of any guilt. But Missy didn't say a word.
I looked over at her. Her expression was pure anguish and her skin was several shades paler than normal, eyes glittering with...tears?
I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at that and whip back to the front. I punched the elevator button repeatedly, trying to make the thing move faster. Any other day it would be like one of those rides at the fair that plummets down and your heart lurches to your feet. When I was stuck in a confined space with some woman pulling out all her acting chops to play the victim, it chose to take its precious time.
The doors finally slid open and I stepped out, drawing a breath as I blasted through the lobby. I didn’t have time to deal with Missy. If she was waiting for me to ask if she was okay when our client had just attempted suicide, she would be waiting a very long time.
The car was waiting at the curb, the driver immediately moving to open the back door. Missy was hot on my heels, sliding into the seat beside me, snapping her seat belt, then facing the window. Like she couldn’t stand the sight of me.
I crossed my arms, more offended than I liked. She was a piece of work. Maybe I should have let Jacob come because right about now he’d be giving me a look that said ‘leave it alone’. But it was just me and an anger that said she was throwing some sort of temper tantrum and wanted attention. She wanted attention? I’d give her attention.
“You’re worried about Mia, huh?” I said, dripping with sarcasm.
She sniffled and wiped away a crocodile tear. “Of course I am.”
Of course she is? The car merged into traffic and I gripped the seat cushion, trying to mince my words, but they were ringing in my ears. She was worried about her? Maybe if she wasn’t so busy trying to show everyone how badass she was we could have seen that Mia needed someone to talk to, not someone to berate and belittle a girl that thought her life was worth next to nothing.
“I find that really interesting, Missy.”
She turned to face me, her eyes flashing brown, then nearly black with rage. “Excuse me?”
“I’m over this belated show of concern,” I said, not backing down. “During the meeting I tried to help her. After the meeting I told you I thought she needed a gentler approach. And when I saw her in the bathroom I tried to talk to you again and-”
“What do you want me to say, Leila?” she roared. “That I’m a horrible sister?”
The car went silent, the driver’s eyes were forward even though I could tell from the rigid set of his back that he was wondering what he’d gotten himself into—and trying to get out of the thick of this drama ASAP. I was quiet because of her last sentence.
Because she was a horrible sister?
I inched back, not sure what button I pushed, but feeling nervous because once again I was in a confined space with someone I didn’t trust further than I could throw her.
“Horrible sister?” I said finally, ending the silence. “What are you talking about, Missy?”
“I misspoke,” she said dismissively, giving me a look so acidic it could eat through flesh.
“Okay.”
Satisfied that I was dropping it, she turned away. I did the same, wishing that it was that easy. That I could just flip a button and turn that annoying, empathetic part of me off. It was far too late for that anyway because I was already recalling the first real conversation we had.
She talked about a younger sister who was a fan of Mia’s back in her Carolina, California heyday. That was the first time I saw her show any real emotion besides extreme dislike. The first time I thought maybe she wasn’t pure evil after all.
I fiddled with a corkscrew curl, debating whether I ask the question. I was wasting time because I already knew I was gonna do it. I wasn’t a hard ass. I cared about people that didn’t deserve it. My mother said it made me good, honest, but right now I just wanted to shut it off and save my concern for Mia. When Missy sniffled and tried to cover it by clearing her throat, I gave in.
“Did something happen with your sister?”
She went rigid, her voice low and unsure. “Why do you care?”
“Because if something is bothering you that impacts your ability to do what’s in our client’s best interest, we need to take care of it. Mia needs us, Missy. What happened with your sister?"
Missy flipped her hair over her shoulder, clearly irritated. “I just misspoke, Leila. They really don’t have too much in common. Both are eighteen. Both are from privileged families.” She paused, her jaw twitching. “Both have been in rehab.”
I opened my mouth and slowly closed it. I didn’t know what to say.
Missy fiddled with the hem of her blazer. “I swear things weren’t so complicated when I was a teenager. There were still boys and hormones and alcohol and drugs. I made it out alright.” She flung a hand in my direction. “You made it out alright. Plenty of people go through it and manage just fine. And my sister was dealt a better hand than most. I just couldn't understand why she turned sixteen and all hell broke loose. So when my mother called me and said I was her big sister and Ana looked up to me, that’s exactly what I said to her. Get over it or she’d end up ruining her life or worse. Straight, no BS.” Her voice went ragged, the edges cutting at my attempt to not care, making it impossible.
“Not even a day after our little conversation, my mother called me in a panic. Ana ran away.” A tear dashed free from her dark eyes but she swiped it away before it got too far, making me wonder if I’d imagined it. If I was imagining this entire conversation. But I could feel my nails digging into my palms.
"She was gone for two whole weeks and my mother was inconsolable the entire time." Missy pinched the bridge of her nose. "And my father...he was barely around anyway so this gave him an excuse to sleep at the office and focus on work even though he had no idea if his sixteen year old daughter was dead or worse."
I bit my lip, seeing the parallels between her story and Jacob's. Both came from well-off families. Why was it that the people with so much spared so little for their children?
"And then they found her." Missy's voice pulled me back to the story. "Strung out, barely clothed in the seediest part of the city. Selling her..."
There was no stopping the waterfall that streamed from her eyes now. She crumbled, leaning over as far as the seatbelt would allow. Sobbing.
"I always had to be the strong one," she said in between gasps, "I had to be strong for Ana and my mother. It's what they always needed. How was I supposed to know how far gone she was? It wasn't my—" She stopped, eyes widening as she looked at me through the tears. Her body still shuddered, but she’d silenced the crying, like she realized that she was breaking down behind enemy territory.
But I wouldn’t use this against her. That’s not who I am.
I reached out and put a hand over hers. “I’m sorry that happened to your sister, but I’m sure she knows you love her. That you were just trying to do what was best for her.”
“Rehab at sixteen. That’s what was best for her?" Missy said with a bitter laugh.
“If it kept her from making a mistake at eighteen that couldn’t be fixed without permanent damage.”
I couldn’t believe I was about to say this, but like it or not, Missy was being genuine. I didn’t think she could pull this off, turning her makeup to soup, losing it in front of me with some sort of ulterior motive. She’d made a mistake with her sister and obviously another with Mia. The fact that she was here was proof that she wasn't all bad. That there was hope for Missy Diaz yet.
The driver pulled up to the entrance of the hospital and I turned to Missy, giving her hand a squeeze. “Ready?”
> She tilted her chin up, a look of determination on her face. “Let’s go.”
Armed with larger than life bouquets, we avoided the flashing bulbs, heading toward the sliding doors. Some gangly, strung out looking guy was grinning big in front of the crowd, talking about Mia. He was updating the press, letting them know that she was conscious but under close watch with no visitors except for family. I felt anger catch fire in my veins when I realized this was the ‘friend’ who found her. The ‘friend’ who had no problem selling her out if the price was right.
“Another time, Leila," Missy said, picking up on my desire to pummel him. "Right now, let’s check on Mia.”
For once, me and Missy agreed on something.
As soon as we breezed to the waiting room area disinfectant and the odorless smell of sick washed over me.
There was one nurse behind the desk and I could tell she was no joke. Built like a mountain, with eyes like jagged rocks and arms like boulders, she looked dead at us and smirked like we weren’t getting what we wanted before we even got it out.
“Good afternoon,” Missy said warmly, disregarding the woman’s demeanor.
The nurse grunted. I gave her an uneasy smile as my eyes dropped to her badge. Nurse Deadwood. Of course that was her name.
“We’d like to visit a patient. Her name is Mia-”
“You and every other Tom, Dick, and Harry with a camera,” Nurse Deadwood interrupted with a snort. “If you ain’t related to the girl, you can march right back on out of here and join your pals.”
“How much?”
Nurse Deadwood narrowed her beady eyes. “They’ve already been raining twenties around here like this is a strip club. You can leave or I can call security.”
“How about a thousand dollars?” Missy countered smoothly.
All those zeroes made my eyebrows jump but I yanked them back down before the nurse glanced at me, sure this was some sort of ruse.
“That’s a lot of money for a photographer to be throwing around.”
I almost corrected her, but I had a feeling that if she knew what company we worked for the price would double. Nurse Deadwood looked around and when she was satisfied no one was watching she gave Missy a nod. The envelope was pulled covertly from Missy's clutch and handed it over. It was way too bulky to hold a check.
I gulped. She’d just forked over 1k in cash and the nurse didn’t even bat an eye. I wondered what kind of haul she got when she had celebrity patients in the hospital.
She typed in our names and printed out our visitor badges. Her face scrunched when I said mine but she shrugged her shoulder like I couldn’t be that Leila Montgomery.
She slid the badges across the counter with two sausage sized fingers. “One person at a time. The other can wait out here.”
We put some distance between us and the warden, pressing the adhesive to our chests.
I almost asked Missy if she usually carried around that kind of cash for these types of situations, but the first rule of Fight Club is you don’t talk about Fight Club. Besides, the means didn’t matter. We were gonna see Mia. That was priceless.
Missy fumbled through her clutch and pulled out a small container of hand sanitizer. “I have a feeling she’d want to see your face before mine. If she wants to see mine at all.”
I wheeled toward the secured entrance, eyeing Nurse Deadwood. She gave me a strange look before she hit the button that sent the doors swinging outward.
“Leila?”
I stopped just inside, turning back toward Missy’s voice.
She gave me a rueful smile. “Tell her I’m sorry.”
****
I couldn’t even recognize her.
Mia’s cheeks were drawn, gaunt like her skin was pulled too tightly over bone. Her eyes were down, staring at the hands bound beneath the restraints, but I could still see the swollen bags beneath. Her dyed blond hair looked fluorescent against her pale skin. The hospital gown clung to her frame. Swallowing her.
I tapped hesitantly on the open door. “Mia?”
She didn’t even look up. “I told you I’m not hungry. Isn’t it enough that you have me strapped to this bed like an animal?”
I moved into the room until I was in full view. “I’m not a nurse.”
She slowly tilted her chin up, those same swollen blue eyes from earlier widening with recognition. “You!” She looked to her left where the nurse call string dangled just out of reach. “I don’t want you here. This doesn’t have anything to do with you. Scott was supposed to keep you people out.”
I remembered the guy at the entrance, smiling for the camera and milking his five minutes of fame. A part of me wanted to reveal him for the asshole he really was, but she already felt cornered. The last thing I needed to do was out one of her friends as a fake.
“I’m not here as a rep of Whitmore and Creighton.”
“Oh really?” she scoffed, looking like herself when she arched her eyebrow and gave me her best ‘bitch please’ face. “Why are you here?”
“Because I meant what I said at the meeting,” I answered, crossing the divide and dropping my bouquet on the side table. “I’m here to help."
Surprise flashed in her eyes but she erased it with an eye roll. “I don’t need your help.”
The fact that she’d been found in a pool of vomit surrounded by empty pill bottles and was strapped to the bed The Exorcist style begged to differ, but I knew she wasn’t gonna welcome me with open arms. She’d been living in denial for too long.
“You mind if I sit?”
“Do I have a choice?”
"Not really." I gave her a smile and lowered myself into the armchair beside her bed. The plush, roomy thing seemed out of place in a hospital. Just like the wet bar and fridge and the glossy LCD TV tuned to Teen Mom. I could tell her mattress actually looked like a mattress instead of the uncomfortable pallet thing they usually have in hospitals. And she had fluffy pillows. And a duvet. A. Duvet.
She was glaring at the screen, but when she thought I wasn’t looking, she stole peeks at me.
“Pretty sure this is the nicest hospital room I’ve ever been in.” She didn’t respond other than shifting her eyes back to the TV and keeping them there. “Not that I’ve been to a lot of hospitals or anything, so I don’t have much to compare it to. The few that I’ve been to...” I shuddered. “Death was a kindness compared to holing up in there.”
A vein in her temple twitched at the sound of the word death and I bit my lip, scolding myself for my choice of words. But it was in line with the pseudo reverse psychology thing I was about to try to get the truth out of her.
“I guess what I’m trying to say is that I get why a person would want to get admitted here. This has to be like, The Ritz of hospitals. Michelin star food in the cafeteria-”
“You think I want to be here? That I’m happy to be tied down to this bed because my room is nice?”
“Then why are you here, Mia?”
“I took a couple of pills,” she said nonchalantly. “Something to take the edge off. I guess I had a bad reaction.”
“Just a few?”
“Yes. Like three or four—”
“—Bottles?” I finished for her, sliding to the edge of my seat. “You weren’t trying to take the edge off. You were trying to not feel the edge or anything else, ever again.”
She looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about. You tried to kill yourself.”
Kill. Another trigger word. I watched as it rippled over her, turning her face ashen like she’d just witnessed something terrible.
“You’re wrong.”
"Am I?"
I could see the same fight she’d broadcast at the meeting as she sat up as best she could, squared her shoulders and looked me dead in the face. “Yes. I haven’t been getting a lot of sleep lately so I took more than I realized.”
I took her in slowly
, hard to keep my disbelief in check. She didn’t really believe that, right? It just sounded like a talking point she was told to repeat until it stuck.
“I didn’t come here to upset you. I came because you looked like you needed someone," I said gingerly. "A friend. To know you’re not alone.”
“I have a friend,” Mia said acidly. “He’s the one that found me and brought me here. He was supposed to be keeping people like you out.”
I bit back the desire to set the record straight and let her know that her so-called friend was outside giving a press conference.
“You’re just here to save face," she continued tersely. "If they found out I was a Whitmore and Creighton client and was admitted to the hospital on a 48 hour psychiatric hold, it makes the company look bad.”
It was harder to swallow the hurt that came with that accusation. This had nothing to do with damage control. I was there because I was worried about her. It was obvious she had trust issues and she didn’t know me well enough to know better. I had to fix that.
“Let’s start over,” I said, rising to my feet. “I’m Leila.”
She let out a groan. “I swear if I was closer to that string I’d put us both out of our misery.”
“I was born in the country, but I grew up in the city. Now when I go back to the country with the rolling hills and nothingness I can’t believe I lived there without driving myself insane.”
“Are you being serious right now?” she sneered.
“When I decided I wanted to work in public relations, I set my sights on Whitmore and Creighton," I pressed on. "If you want to be the best, no one else comes close. And then I met Jacob Whitmore.”
She wriggled to the left, inching closer to that string. She eyed me pointedly, clearly trying to let me know that was my warning.
I ignored it.
“I’ve never met anyone like him. I’ve never felt the way he makes me feel. I’ve never felt so....vulnerable." I crossed my arms. “Before him, there were only three things I couldn’t live without. My parents, my best friend, and coffee. Now there’s four.” I looked at her, watching as her features softened. “What can’t you live without, Mia?”