I know I should probably get back on them, but I am too determined to live without them. I don’t need pills to be able to live day to day, to stay sane. I’d done perfectly—well, not perfectly, but fine enough—before Liv waltzed in my life and coaxed me into taking those demon pills. And I’ll do just as perfect without them. I just need to pace my breathing and I’ll be fine, functional, working again.
When I have it all under control, I stand up and lean against the leather bag. I have to take more breaths and focus on one emotion, so I’m not blind-sided or overwhelmed by so many hitting me all at once. If I let that happen and don’t fight back, I’ll be a raging mess throughout the rest of the day, maybe even the week, depending on how bad it really is. One time it lasted a whole month. I still feel bad for all the fuckers who came into contact with me during that rough patch.
I’m halfway through my set of middle-section jabs when I hear the distinct sound of Rose entering the gym.
“Grey Nathaniel Wyler! How could you?”
Fuck, she is so goddamn dramatic. And I don’t even know what she’s talking about yet. She’ll be damned sure to catch me up on whatever has her little red ass absolutely fuming today.
“What? How could I what?” I sigh as I turn around.
She marches right up to me, head pulled back, so she can glare up at me like the little mad Chihuahua she is.
“You know what you did,” she accused through gritted teeth, jabbing a finger at my bare, sweaty chest.
I smack her hand away and scoff. “I’ve done a lot of stuff, might want to be more specific.” I rest my balled-up fists on my hips.
She’s red, practically an all-round tomato. “You put her in the fucking hospital! And based on what everyone’s been telling me, it practically isn’t the first fucking time!” she shouts, and my stomach drops.
“What are you talking about?” My voice comes out slightly high pitched, and I furrow my brows.
“Liv is in the hospital because of you! That’s what I’m fucking talking about.”
“Which hospital?” I ask, my voice firm. I am not fucking around right now, and I hope she sees it in my eyes at least.
She swallows and says, “Mercy Hospital, it’s at Coconut Grove—they won’t let you see her!” she shouts after me, because I’m already sprinting toward the front doors. Whatever else she has to say is irrelevant. My girl…my…fuck! The girl I am deeply, madly in love with is in the fucking hospital, and I need to get to her right fucking now. I can’t waste a second.
My heart is in my throat as I run the fastest I ever have in my entire life toward my car. Once inside, I jam the key in the ignition and deftly swing out of the parking spot, causing a series of horns after me, but I couldn’t give a shit; my girl…fuck, why do I keep doing that? I nervously run my hand over my hair until it is a ruffled mess, then switch to my main nervous tick and tug and twist my bottom lip. I taste blood and swallow that and my horrendous pride. I’ll put the pride thing aside, because in this moment, it feels like everything is on high-drive, set with one goal: get to her.
While I drive like I am in one of those horrible fucking Fast and Furious movies, I contemplate, how the hell is she in a hospital, and what for? I literally saw her a few hours ago. She was hurt, yes, beyond hurt…but she was okay. She was alive, right? Is she dying…? I shake my head and step harder on the pedal. There is no way in hell I am letting her die when she thinks I fucking hate her. The thought brings tears to my eyes, which only grows in count as I imagine why the fuck she is in a hospital.
Maybe she got in a car accident on her way home? Or she got…assaulted after she left the house? I mean, she was only wearing a towel, for God’s sake! Why didn’t I fucking walk her to her car or pick up my shattered self and drive her home? I should have made sure she got home safe, then broke her heart. But then, that still wouldn’t change another option, now would it? What if, maybe, I don’t know…she was so fucking heartbroken…maybe she tried to, you know, commit…ugh! I can’t even stomach the idea.
I pull over to the side of the road, fling open my door, and vomit up the bile at the thought. That sickening, fucking thought would forever haunt me until the day I die. Then I take a deep breath and keep driving.
I don’t think any more, so I won’t pass out from guilt.
When I finally arrive at the hospital, I quickly pull into a parking spot and run inside without bothering to lock the car. I’m too focused on getting to Liv. With every step I take, I feel my breath getting heavier and heavier. I won’t be able to live with myself if I could have stopped this, if she actually dies…Bile rises at my throat again, but this time I take a very deep breath and continue rushing into the hospital.
“Olivia Westerfield, I’m looking for Olivia Westerfield!” I say, rushing over to the main desk.
“Excuse me?” the young girl sitting behind a computer says, looking me up and down as if she’s about to call security.
I grind my teeth. Is this bitch deaf?
“I am looking for Olivia fucking Westerfield! Did you hear that?” I snap, my voice loud enough for an older guy in a rent-a-cop uniform across the room to glance at me.
“Please do not raise your voice at me,” she says as she slowly types on the dusty keyboard.
“What room is she in?” I bark, and she scoffs.
“Sir, I am just trying to help, no need to—hey, you can’t do that! Security!” she screams when I snatch the fucking keyboard for her and finish typing in Liv’s name, turning the monitor to me.
“Hey, you!” the rent-a-cop shouts after me.
Room 543, got it.
“You suck at your job,” I tell her and drop the keyboard on the desk. I round the table and run into the elevator just as the doors are shutting. I slip inside and tap the number five before the “cop” can get me. There is a young-ish male doctor in the far corner of the elevator, regarding me like a rogue mental patient. Maybe I’ll really be one, like my mental mother, in a few years if Liv isn’t okay.
When the elevator finally comes to a stop, I dash out, bumping into a group of doctors who make faces at me. I look around the maze of a floor, zig-zagging across every corridor in search of Liv. Finally, I face one of the corridors I haven’t gone down and find a few of her family and friends sitting solemnly outside of a room. I rush down the hall, bumping into nurses and a few trays, knocking them over and making enemies, but I don’t give a shit. I just keep running until I finally arrive.
“What the hell is he doing here? Mamá, dame mi martillo,” Charlotte, I believe her name is, says, glaring at me like she’s actually going to murder me as she pushes off the door, holding her palm out to her mother, the maid/grandma. (Mom, give me my hammer.)
“No hay necesidad de que,” I reassure her, holding up my hands in defense. (There’s no need for that.)
“Sí, jodidamente bien. Prepárate para tener tu cerebro en el suelo, imbécil!” She spits violently. (Yeah, fucking right. Prepare to have your brains on the floor, asshole!)
“What right do you think you have to be here?” Mason cuts her off, pushing me, but I allow it just this once because he’s angry. He has tears welled up in his eyes, and his hair is a mess, most likely from running his hands through it so much. “She’s here because of you!”
“How? W-what happened?” I ask, desperate to know.
They all seem to clam up.
“You don’t know?” Mateo chokes out, on the verge of crying himself.
I scoff and shrug like he’s lost his mind. “Of course, I don’t fucking know if I just asked you, dumbass!”
“You’re the dumbass for hurting her like this!” Mason pushes me again, but this time, I won’t let it slide.
“You’re lucky we’re already in the hospital, because it’ll save you a trip,” I grit through my teeth, towering over him.
He bares is teeth in a snarl and raises his puny fist, but his boyfriend pulls him away, whispering, “He isn’t worth it.”
“Deberí
a haber dejado a Lulu en ti cuando tuve la oportunidad! ¡Tendré su cabeza en un lucio, niño! ¡Le hiciste daño a mi chica!” Lana raises her beaded grandma purse at me, ready to whack my head off my body. (I should have let Lulu at you when I had the chance! I will have your head on a pike, little boy! You hurt my girl!)
But the door creaks open before that can happen.
And guess who exits the room, guess fucking who.
Nick.
When he sees me, his eyes go wide, and I glance behind him. I catch a sight of Liv lying in bed, hooked up to an IV, but before I can rush in, I’m on the floor with a split cheek and blood in my mouth.
I look at the blood on the floor, then up at the fucker standing over me, knuckles bloody and bruised.
Did he just…? Oh, hell fucking no!
I scramble to my feet and swing my fist across his cheek. He goes flying into the wall opposite me, and all hell breaks loose. Everyone tries to close in on me before I can get to him, but I’ve trained too hard to not be able to dodge an old woman, two gays, and a raging girl with a fucking hammer in her purse.
I tackle him into the plastic—didn’t know it ‘til he hit it—window and fall onto the ground with me on top. I punch him two times until I see his nose bleed and his eyes swell. My fist is grabbed, and I’m pushed off him. I scramble to my feet and try to lunge at him, but I’m thrown against the wall and pinned here by Mateo. The fucker is stronger than he looks.
“Calm down, Grey!” he yells, eyeing me to calm down, but I can’t—all I see is red.
“I’m not fucking finished with him!” I scream, writhing and kicking, but he won’t budge. Does he fucking bench weights or something?
“What is going on here?” another rent-a-cop barks as he jogs our way.
“He assaulted him!” Charlotte accuses, pointing a finger at me.
“Rat!” I snap.
“Asshole!” she snaps right back, sticking a tongue at me like a child. “Take his ass away!”
“No fucking way! Don’t fucking touch me!” I’m throwing my arms out over Mateo’s shoulder to clip this motherfucker, but Mateo pushes me against the wall.
“Stop before you’re arrested. Liv saved you once. I don’t think she’ll make that mistake twice! Stop fucking resisting for once and just go!”
I stare at him, dumbfounded. He’s never gotten this mad before. It’s almost scary, but very disturbing.
“I’ll keep you updated, just—just fucking go! Okay?” He steps back and throws me into the arms of the “officer.”
I bite down on my tongue and glare at the pretty golden boy bleeding and glaring right back at me. I’ll get my chance to finish whooping his ass another time. My eyes go to the cracked door of the room, and I feel my gut sink—I didn’t fucking get to see her. But then I glance at Mateo, and he nods. At least he’ll keep me updated, thus saving me from going absolutely insane.
***
Rent-a-cop hauled my ass outside and ordered I leave the premises before he called the people who can actually do shit on me. But fuck if I’m leaving Liv before finding out what the fuck happened. I stay outside and smoke through two whole fucking packs of cigarettes, the nerves buzzing beneath my skin like a hoard of bees ready to attack anything and everything.
But after three hours and making sure I was in the clear, I snuck back inside, past the bitchy nurse, and up to the room. It was locked this time and, from what I could tell from the sheer curtains on the inside, everyone was in there with her. I sat on the ground and snuck in another smoke before I could get caught and thrown outside into a cop car.
I planned on waiting there until they finally discharged her. Then I could get the questions I damn well deserved, especially since Mateo was a little bitch and didn’t keep me updated. I’ll kick his ass later too.
I must have waited for hours until my exhausted body fell under a sleep spell.
***
“Excuse me, sir? Sir? Are you lost?” a soft, annoying voice says, and I feel my shoulder being prodded by a sharp finger.
I snap my eyes open and rub them. “What time is it?”
“Um.” A pause. “One-ten a.m.,” she informs me.
“Shit.” They have to have released her by now. I stand and yawn, rubbing my sore neck from having it bent over for so long. I push past the chubby nurse and open the door, and this time, it’s unlocked, which I find kind of off-putting.
When the door opens, I feel my stomach drop.
The room’s empty.
Chapter Forty-Six
Liv
One week passes by painfully slow. It felt like honey taking its sweet ol’ time dripping onto the ground. My “suicide attempt” strengthened my mother’s strictness, but considering I am her only child, I allowed her to do whatever she pleased with me. I saw Dr. Drews every day for four hours instead of one. I was cut off from my phone and the outside world. She believed that by isolating me from basically everything, I would get better somehow. I guess she thought that if I didn’t have my phone, I wouldn’t be able to answer calls from jail and pick up my evil past. She was ultra pissed off with me when she found out that I had “wasted” five hundred dollars.
It will take me a long while before I get anything but a scowl from her.
Apparently, according to Mateo, Grey has been going insane the entire week. He’s been trying to reach out to me and has even gone as far as coming by the house, but my mother was always there at the door, ready to chew his head off and ready at the back before he could even reach for a rock to throw at my window. And for once, I allowed her to meddle because she was only trying to protect me. I should have listened to her from the beginning.
How could I have fallen in love with someone so cruel? What kind of person persistently tries to deepen another’s suffering and pain? He single-handedly ripped my heart out of my chest when he rejected me after us being together—which felt amazing and steamier than ever—I still meant absolutely nothing to him. He treated me like we were never actually in love. Like we never clicked and could never really stay away from each other. Like we’ve never been through obstacles and faced them together. Like every time we looked at each other, he didn’t try to hide a smile. Like we never fucking had feelings for each other, that made me blind to everything else.
I have never met a man so goddamn vicious and emotionless; it’s unbelievable I actually fell in love with him. And I honestly hope I never do again because I barely made it out of this alive. Do you honestly think I’ll be as lucky next time?
“Hey, snap out of it,” Julia says, snapping her fingers in front of my face.
“It’s just a dress, Liv. No need to spend all day thinking about what panties to wear with it,” Charlotte jokes, and the others laugh, causing me to blush.
“Sorry.” I clear my throat and sit up in the plush chair. I stare at the scandalous red dress that is way too short for my taste. I shake my head no. “Not the one.”
Jaimie pouts but nods and says, “I’ll go look for something better. Wait here.”
“We’ve been waiting here for two hours,” Julia groans, throwing her head back dramatically.
By here she means a dress boutique in the local mall. In a desperate attempt to cheer me up with the recent happenings, they convinced my stern mother to let me out for one day. They claimed that, if I’m out and get some air and do other positive things, I’ll eventually get better on my own without pills or counseling. They persuaded her to let me come here to shop and have “girl time,” but not so far to get her to let me stop taking my pills or my therapy sessions, but I never expected that to happen.
When my mother has an idea in her head, she will pursue it and never give up, which is one of her best traits: it means she sees things through no matter what. However, in this case, her new mission is to revert me back into the naïve little girl who listens to her mother without any backtalk. Let me tell you, she’s getting there each and every day that passes. I just don’t have it in me to see her be right again.
She was right about Grey, so I will happily revert to that girl—she never had to deal with heartbreak from a guy she thought she would die for because she loved him so damn much.
“I’m just gonna say it,” Charlotte pipes up after a few minutes of us watching Jaimie zig-zag across the store, picking up and checking out dresses like a mad fashionista chicken who’s lost her head. She turns to me with a pained look as she says, “I don’t think you should go to the party. It’ll only fuck you over some more. He will fuck you over some more. You know this, Olive Bunch.”
She’s talking about the reason I need a dress in the first place—David and Holly’s party.
“I promised them I’d go, and Holly texted me the other day saying how happy she was that I’m coming,” I explain to her for the hundredth time today. All day they’ve all been trying to persuade me not to go, because Grey will be there, and I need time away from him to properly heal. But I’ve told them a million times that I don’t care about him, and I’m only going because I consider David to be a friend. I won’t not go because of an asshole to whom I won’t give the time of day.
“Promises don’t mean shit,” Charlotte continues, her leg shaking in rage. “You shouldn’t go if he’s just gonna be there. He’s the reason you almost fucking overdosed! You almost killed yourself!”
“Charlotte, lower your voice,” I hiss, blushing as a woman glances at us.
“Fuck no,” she snaps. “I’m not letting you go.”
“Gotta agree with her on this one, Bam,” Julia agrees.
I take a deep breath and straighten one thing out. “I didn’t try to kill myself.”
“Then what do you call taking ten anti-depressants all at once?” she questions, and I swallow the lump in my throat.
“I just needed to quiet the noise a little,” I say, my voice small, tears pricking my eyes.
Charlotte takes a deep breath and rolls her eyes. “Well, it’ll get really fucking loud if you go to this party.”
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