Ten minutes in and I was getting desperate, so I went to the CDs again and put “Waiting for Superman” by Daughtry into the CD machine. As it started playing I sat with my forearms resting on my thighs, my legs slightly open, rubbing my hands together as I continued to watch and mentally trying to prepare myself, because my time was almost up.
I figured when the song finished I’d have to stand up and leave and that brought a lump to my throat. How would I be able to walk away from her? Fifteen minutes and she hadn’t even looked around at me. Dr. Owen showed up and said to her, “Your guest is leaving now, Chloe, but he’ll come back another day.”
He signaled for me to stand, but I couldn’t move. I had the hardest time complying with that. Shaking slightly, I was desperate to touch her and had to fight against that instinct. How I managed to walk away from her I have no idea, but I barely made it out of the room before I leaned against the wall and pressing my back to it, slumped down to the floor.
“Sorry, Gibson. I know that was very tough for you. Come with me, I have something to show you.” I followed him back to his office, feeling crushed. I had expected something to happen, but those kind of things only happened in the movies. This was real life and Chloe’s mental state was fragile. Once again, the doc got his laptop and I sat waiting for the upload. It was CCTV footage of Chloe and me. Chloe to the fore with her hands on her lap, me sitting behind her to the right of the screen. I couldn’t understand why he was playing it back to me. I’d been right there in the room with her and she hadn’t responded.
When he started the video, I wasn’t expecting anything from the debrief but as the first song played Chloe’s fingers flexed and pulsed in time to the music, and stopped when the music stopped. When I told her I loved her she closed her slowly eyes and that squeezed at my heart. But near the end when I played “Waiting for Superman,” silent tears rolled down her cheeks.
I was almost overcome with the emotional turbulence, but I sucked it up. I had been in the same room and thought there was nothing coming back from her, until I saw the footage. I swallowed uneasily and stared at the doc, fighting the turmoil in my head and my heart, because I figured if he saw any weakness in me now, it would slow things down and I definitely didn’t want that to happen.
Leaving the facility was fucking painful. I begged repeatedly for a room at the hospital, but they would have none of it. Chloe’s beautiful eyes on the screen, with those tears rolling down, burned in my brain. The psychiatrist had viewed it all really positively, and talked excitedly about her ‘remarkable progress.’ Frankly, six and a bit weeks and Chloe still there and not talking didn’t feel like progress from where I was sitting.
I didn’t get to see Chloe the following day and no real update from Cathy other than things were pretty much the same, then at about five in the morning I had a call asking me to go over there again.
Johnny was amazing and said everything he could think of to encourage me on the way back. The ache to see her again stung my heart, she had been crying the last time when I’d been in the room with her and I hadn’t even known. That screen image of her eyes and those tears of hers had been haunting me. I shook my head, trying for clarity because I had to be ready for whatever Dr. Owen wanted me to do next.
My heart felt heavy, like it was weighing down on my diaphragm and I couldn’t take in air. There’s no other description for it. The thought of going through what I had in that room with her again made me skittish. Visiting someone in a mental health facility wasn’t something I’d ever contemplated I’d have to do, never mind visit someone who was my life.
Blinking hard, I searched the intern’s face as I tried to assimilate the words I’d been waiting to hear.
“Chloe has started talking.”
I almost collapsed with relief. What did she say? My heart began to gallop, then took on an irregular beat as my breathing got shallower and faster.
“Over and over she has been asking to see you.” I was speechless. Staring silently, standing stock still in shock that this was the beginning of the end of Chloe’s horrible journey. Suddenly my thoughts caught up with my mouth.
“Well, what the fuck are we standing here talking about it for? Take me to her.” Patricia, the intern, turned her nose up a little and I realized that I had cussed and sounded aggressive. Actually, how I sounded was a true reflection of how I was feeling; that we were wasting time when I could have been there in front of Chloe already.
Apologizing quickly, I excused myself as a little overwhelmed by the news and she seemed to sag her shoulders, like she was relieved to hear my words. Taking me into Chloe’s room, I could feel my body responding to an adrenaline rush, every nerve ending on full alert, preparing for any shock I may encounter once I saw her.
When I slipped into the room, I stood with my back to the wall. Chloe was sitting on the edge of the bed in a tiny white tank top and blue pajama shorts, and the innocence on her face along with that little tank top made me think about the times I noticed her at Beltz Bar.
Patricia signaled for me to talk to her, so I cleared my throat and pushed myself off the wall, walked slow, to the bed, then knelt in front of her to give her eye contact. “Hello darlin’, I heard you wanted to see me. You have no idea how happy that makes me, because I’ve been waiting patiently for this day.” Chloe stared into my eyes and a tiny smile played on her lips. I was a wreck, but trying to sound soothing.
What I wanted to do was reach out and scoop her up in my arms, take her home and forget the world. But she had a way to go before I could do that. “Take your time, darlin’, whatever it takes, I’ll be waiting.” With my words, Chloe’s eyes welled and a single tear spilled down her cheek. Without thinking my finger caught it, brushing her cheek. Her hand caught mine and held it against her face.
“Hug me, Gibson.” Chloe’s tiny, croaky voice was like the sweetest song I’d ever heard.
Fuck the rules. Gently placing my hands around her shoulders, I leaned forward and hugged her. At first she was unresponsive, then all of a sudden her body leaned into mine and I felt her relax completely. I figured it was comforting, so I squeezed her a little tighter to my chest. I wasn’t expecting anything to come back at me, but her hand ran up the inside of my t-shirt and she turned her head to snuggle her face into my neck.
There was a monumental lump in my throat that I needed to clear before I could speak, so I swallowed several times and tried to keep my emotions in check. The last thing Chloe needed was me breaking down in front of her. When her other arm snaked up against my skin at the side of my body, I couldn’t stop myself from talking, “I got you, darlin’, It’s okay. I got you.”
Chloe began to cry and I thought I’d done something very wrong, but she was clinging tightly to me, her hands twisting against the material of my t-shirt. “Let it out, darlin’, I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.” I was rocking her back and forward and Patricia had moved behind Chloe so that I could see her. Giving me the thumbs-up sign, she slipped outside the door.
We must have stayed like that for close to an hour, but my legs had pins and needles from kneeling, so I broke away from the hug and stood up. Chloe’s red-rimmed eyes followed me from the floor to regain eye contact.
“I love you, Chloe. You need to try to get well so that I can take you home, darlin’.”
Chloe said nothing, but nodded and my heart almost exploded into a million pieces because of that little interaction. I had to leave her behind and go home again after that, but it was one time less until I could take her with me.
CHAPTER 24 - MY TAKE
Chloe
Vaguely aware of someone rubbing the front of my thigh, I opened my eyes to see this odd looking little man telling me I was okay. The man was Dr. Owen and like his name, I owed him for helping me keep my sanity after what happened to me. Talking in a low voice, he started explaining to me where I was, and he kept telling me I was safe in a gentle voice, like I was a frightened little child. That part registered with me, b
ut for the rest of the time he made noise.
At first, my mind was a blank about Kace and what he had done to me. My earliest conscious memories at the facility were seeing my mom’s worried face and the stiff looking intern in blue pajamas who kept talking to me as if I was replying. It never occurred to me that I wasn’t talking or doing anything else for that matter. Plus they kept feeding me. Why wasn’t I doing that?
To be honest, my mind was numb for a lot of the time. That was, until they started playing music. Then they brought some for me to choose. The CDs and player in front of me,—like something out of the 90’s—reminded me of times playing my guitar alone to one just like that my mom owned. Thumbing through the CDs most of my favorites were there: Daughtry, Bruno Mars, One Republic, Ed Sheeran, Maroon 5…the only one missing was M3rCy. Gibson.
Placing them on the table, I felt my heart speed up when the ‘Baptized’ album slid to the side. Picking it up, I turned it to look at the cover. It was a wilting flower, past its best and pretty much summing up my feelings about what might have happened to Gibson and me. Then I wondered if that’s why I was here? Did something bad happen between us?
After I started playing the CDs they seemed to be everywhere in my day. When the doctor used to take me to this room that smelt like a beauty salon massage room to do some weird communication stuff by staring into my eyes, my music came with me. While talking about things like Kace were painful for me, my music came comforted me. I didn’t know why he was talking to me about Kace. I wondered if he had something to do with me being here?
Those sessions started and ended with my favorite music but in the middle there was some heavy stuff going on, where he’d give me a bad thought. Then at the end of the session when I thought about it again, it didn’t have the same charge of shock as it did the first time he mentioned it. Turning the CD case, I searched the song list. “Waiting for Superman” drew my eye immediately. I placed the CD into the machine and lay back on my bed. Closing my eyes, I remembered being in the park and of Paul, or Gibson, talking to me. Warm feelings coursed through me. Hearing the song made my heart ache, but Gibson felt near when I heard it. So I played it again and again.
All I wanted to know is what happened to Gibson. Thinking about him helped me to think about all the wonderful things that had happened to me since I’d met him again. Memories of happy times, the way he protected me, held me and looked at me, gave me the inspiration to write.
Suddenly words and monologues and dialogues full of angst were all locked in my head…thoughts, feelings and emotions all cramming my brain so that I couldn’t think about anything else. A love story formed that needed to be put down, as the characters in my head gave their voices to the words that filled my head and gave me focus.
When they brought me a laptop, I wondered if I had asked them to…I didn’t remember asking that. At first I was scared to start writing, thinking that if anyone read it they would think the female was me and there were some pretty erotic things going on with my characters. Things Gibson and I had never tried. Georgie, my female protagonist, was like me in a way, because Gibson was a rock star and I am just an ordinary girl, but she and Ollie in my story had a very different path to mine.
There was already an ending in my head for a happy ever after for their story, but it didn’t seem so for me. Gibson was gone and I was somewhere safe because something had happened that I had no recollection of.
Listening to my music filled my heart with light and cleared my mind but when “Waiting for Superman” played I thought about Gibson and the lyrics he wrote, and figured that if he could do it that I should at least try. So… I wrote my book.
Every waking moment was used, except for the times when they took me for some kind of session with the doctor. My Mom came every day. Every day. I wondered where my dad had gone, but most of all, I worried about what happened to Gibson. As my story reached its conclusion my heart had a void again, but this time it was Gibson it was pining for. Pushing out of my chair, I automatically went to the song that made me feel close to him.
As soon as Chris Daughtry’s gravelly voice began to sing, I began to write Gibson’s name. Over and over until my wrist hurt then I stopped, wondering if everyone had known what I couldn’t see at the time. What Gibson didn’t want to see? Had I reached my expiry date like Tori warned me I would? Did he just cut me off? Why could I remember her and nothing else?
Once those questions were in my head, I couldn’t shake them out again. Eventually I had to ask, but all I could say was Gibson. Sitting on my bed, my mom cupped her hand to her mouth and inside my head I was screaming what’s wrong? Where is he? What happened? Suddenly my mom was ushered out the door and I was left on my own. She was in shock. Did he die?
During lunch, the urge to know what had happened to me was so strong that I blurted out Gibson’s name again. The voluntary aid who was feeding me with her visitor’s badge around her neck, gave me no response other than to leave the room.
Later that day I was sitting in the room, staring into the corner, I hadn’t realized I was until the doctor’s hand came into my line of sight. “Chloe, I have a new person I want you to see. He has come especially to see you. I am going to leave and come back in fifteen minutes, and he will leave again.”
Sitting and waiting for the person to speak seemed to take an age, then I had the shock of my life when I heard Gibson’s voice. There was no expectation about visitors, but my first thought was, thank god he’s alive. The elation of knowing that was quickly replaced by the sensation of my heart beating erratically in my chest and pulsing up into my mouth. Two more questions emerged, Why was he here? And did something happen that brought him here out of pity?
Gibson started my music and One Republic played “Something I Need.” That played once when we were in the car. It wasn’t the first track on the album, so he would have had to select that to play to me. How did I think of that? Was he telling me he still needed me? I loved the song choice and I especially loved the drumbeat, it always made me tap along.
Gibson had obviously come to tell me something and when the song finished, I kind of prepared myself for him to say he was busy and had to go on tour, so he wouldn’t be able to see me anymore…or similar words that let him off the hook as far as I was concerned.
“Hello darlin’, how’s my girl doing?” Gibson’s words filled me with relief and my throat constricted as a sob stuck there. I closed my eyes to help my mind absorb his use of, ‘my girl.’ Gibson didn’t stop talking for a few minutes, telling me about living with my mom and dad and I thought he must be making it all up and was just saying the first thing that came into his mind. My head couldn’t compute my parents and Gibson in the same room, never mind living in the same house.
I heard shuffling behind me, the CD player snapped shut, then “Waiting for Superman” began to play and I wondered why he was wasting his time. Wondering why he wasn’t hugging me, if I really was still his girl. I really needed a hug and by the sound of his voice, he needed one too. A tear rolled down my face, but I couldn’t bring myself to move or to look at him.
Gibson cleared his throat and there was the clipped sound of footsteps advancing before I heard the door open and close softly. Dr. Owen’s voice interrupted the silence.
“Your guest is leaving now, Chloe, but he’ll come back another day.”
In my head I was screaming. No! There had been no hug goodbye, just footsteps retreating and then the swish of the door opening and the soft click of it closing again.
The finality of the door closing made me feel anxious. I had no idea when Gibson would come back or even if he would. Lying awake for most of the night, I had only one thing on my mind, the image of Gibson smiling at me as he sang just for me with twenty odd thousand people out in the stadium watching his every move. I realized I could remember vividly to a certain point. I was sick.
All during the following day I had a knot in my stomach and an expectation that he may come back at any moment. W
hen darkness fell and the staff changed shift to the evening team, I wouldn’t accept that he wasn’t coming. Refusing to lie down, I sat on my bed and in my head I kept saying I want to see Gibson…I need to see Gibson… eventually the sound came out of my mouth. I need Gibson, I need Gibson. No one was there and I repeated myself over and over.
A male nurse I’d never seen before entered the room and stood with his arms folded by the door. “Okay, Chloe. We hear you. Someone is trying to call Gibson now. It’s very early in the morning.” As soon as he said they were contacting him, I stopped speaking.
Gibson arrived sounding breathless and when he slipped into the room, he leaned against the wall. My pulse throbbed in my neck with my fast heartbeat at his presence and I continued to stare ahead. Knowing he was here was enough…then it wasn’t. Clearing his throat, he pushed himself off of the wall then knelt in front of me, smiling a half smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. They looked nervously into mine. Gibson hesitated for a moment. I wasn’t used to this timid side of the alpha male I fell in love with.
“Hello, darlin’, I heard you wanted to see me. You have no idea how happy that makes me, because I’ve been waiting patiently for this day.”
My heart squeezed tightly and pumped hard and it felt like warm blood was being injected into me. Like I was coming to life and I think I smiled.
Gibson’s voice was very soft as he watched me intently, “Take your time, darlin’, whatever it takes, I’ll be waiting.” When I heard him say that, a tear fell from my eye and Gibson’s hand made contact with my cheek to catch it. As soon as he touched me I didn’t want him to let me go, so I clapped his hand against my face.
Finding my small gruff voice again, I demanded, “Hug me, Gibson.”
Without hesitation, Gibson gave me what I needed, but I couldn’t move. I was scared and holding my breath. Partly with the effect of his touch and the rest I couldn’t understand. Once I got used to the feel of him, it felt so good I never wanted him to let me go.
Trusting Gibson (Last Score Book 2) Page 21