by L. P. Maxa
“He was your best friend, you seemed so happy together.” My mom’s face crumbled, tears streaming down her cheeks. “We didn’t know you weren’t happy. We didn’t know you were struggling. How would we?”
“You could’ve asked me.” I could have told them too. I could have opened my mouth and shared my feelings and my struggles with my parents. I knew they loved me. So why hadn’t I? Perhaps I too afraid that they would brush my concerns under the proverbial rug. Really, I thought it was after years of conditioning, years of life with Nate, I was afraid to live without my jailer.
My mom grabbed my hands, holding them against her cheeks and sobbing that she was sorry, that what happened to me was all her fault, that she was a terrible mother. This happened to me, yet she was making me feel guilty for being angry at her lack of involvement in my life. She was a parent. How she didn’t see Nate was unstable was beyond me.
Everything except how I felt about Jeremy was completely messed up. As always, I hated that my mom was hurting. I hugged her, and told her that everything would be okay, that I was safe. Once again, I was taking care of someone else’s needs ahead of my own. I had to work on not doing that.
I got her calmed down and convinced her to go find me something to eat that wasn’t hospital food. She left the room, still wiping tears from her swollen eyes.
The second the door closed, Jeremy asked, “You okay?” He came over and perched on the side of my bed, cupping my bruised cheek. I was covered in bruises. Some I could explain and some I couldn’t. I remembered everything, but as a whole, not in its component parts.
“I knew you were awake.” I shook my head. “Who could sleep through that?” My mom and I were long overdue for that talk. She’d left me and Nate alone, not wanting to step in and be a parent.
“I pretty much went off on my mom about the same shit too.” He climbed further in, wrapping his arm around my shoulders. “Rough day for parents, huh?”
“Well they’ve coasted for the last twelve years, so I don’t feel too bad for them.” I rested my head against his shoulder, feeling exhausted all over again after that “discussion” with my mom. Today had been a really long day, and I was ready for it to be over. “Can we sleep now? For real?”
He kissed the top of my head, settling us in deeper under the thin covers. “Dream of me and all the adventures we’re going to have as soon as I can spring you from this hospital.”
“Deal.”
I’d almost drifted off, my limbs and eyelids feeling heavy, when Jeremy’s whisper danced across the silence. “I love you, wild one.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Jeremy
Savy was out of the hospital and riding shotgun in my car. It’d been four weeks since everything had gone to shit with my brother. She’d refused to press charges on the stipulation that Nathan be sent to an inpatient facility for no less than one year. She told my mom she loved him, and she wanted him to find peace. My mother agreed immediately. After that Savy, told the cops she wouldn’t press charges, and she refused to testify against him. Without her as a witness, the DA wasn’t going to pursue the case. Savy had once again saved my brother.
Mom was contrite and apologetic. All our parents were. They saw how wrong they’d been to leave Savy and Nathan on their own, letting them deal with adult problems when they were children. There was irreparable damage done, but the future no longer looked so bleak.
Savy was moving into her dorm room at Emerson next week and was going to start seeing a therapist once a week. She needed to get over her trauma, and she needed to explore why she allowed herself to get so lost that Nathan became her whole world.
I was getting my own place near Northeastern with a couple of my buddies from the track team. Savy and I were still entirely in love. I was looking forward to the coming school year with my girl. We’d be away from our parents, and away from Nathan. We’d both be free to be exactly who we wanted. If Savy wanted to rush a sorority and party her nights away, then I’d be right by her side cheering her on. I still wanted her to do what made her happy. I hoped I’d always be one of those things.
We were too young to talk about forever, but that didn’t mean that I didn’t think about it, didn’t wish for it. Savy had spent her whole life tied to a guy, I figured she deserved all the freedom she could handle before she tied herself to another one.
She forgave our parents, she forgave Nathan, and, I hoped, with the help of the therapist, she’d eventually forgive herself. That was the big one. The most important. Even after Nathan had attacked her, she still took some of the blame. She told me we’d hurt him too big, that she’d led him on too long. I told her she was wrong. She didn’t lead him on, she loved him the only way she could. She loved him and kept the rest of us safe. We didn’t deserve her, not my mom, and not her parents. I hoped she’d be able to work through that. I hated that she didn’t see she did nothing wrong.
I promised her I’d spend all our days together making it up to her for my complicity in allowing her to shoulder everything Nathan. She had no business being responsible for him, and that was on all of us. The adults most of all, but I knew my brother was always on the edge and had no control. I should’ve pushed our mother to make sure he got the mental health care he needed.
Today was one of the days I was doing something for her peace of mind.
Savy wanted to go visit Nathan before we moved away. She wanted to see for herself that he was okay. I supposed a love like the one she cultivated for my brother had an enduring loyalty. Loving him shaped her into the selfless wild beauty that she was today, and for that, I was grateful.
“You ready?” We were parked in front of his facility, sitting quietly side by side and holding hands.
“No.” She squeezed my fingers. “I’m nervous.”
“Tell me what’s making you feel that way.” I wanted to know all her emotions, always. No holding back, not after the things we’d endured.
“I’m nervous that he won’t look like himself, that he won’t sound the same. I’m scared he’ll be so medicated he can’t function, and he won’t even recognize me.” She was staring out the window, her eyes searching the big brick building looming beside us.
My dad never wanted to medicate Nathan because he had the same fears as Savy was having now. “Our dad used to say the exact same thing.”
“He did?”
“Yeah, he did.” It didn’t shock me that she wouldn’t recall that. She and Nathan were so young when he died. But maybe somewhere, in the back of her mind, she remembered. Maybe her fears were my dad’s fears, coming from a repressed memory and haunting her thoughts in the present. “There are only two options here, baby. We go in and visit Nathan, or we don’t. The decision is up to you.”
She nodded, a resolved look settling across her pretty face. She opened her car door, stepped out, and then reached for my hand as we walked up the front steps. We had to be buzzed inside, then we had to leave all our belongings with the front desk nurse.
Everything smelled clean, but not like a hospital. It was more…fresh. The first floor windows were open, letting in the late summer air. There were bars on them. A reminder of where we were and who was housed here, but the place didn’t scream mental hospital.
We passed a game room with a big screen TV. There were some patients hanging out. A few of them were laughing over a ping pong table. With every step we took, I could feel Savy’s grip start to relax. This wasn’t a hospital where nightmares were made. This was a facility were people went to get help, to get better.
“He’s right through there, he’s really taken to the library, seems to make him feel the most at home.” The nurse pointed through a set of double French doors to a room with floor to ceiling bookshelves.
“How has he been doing?” I knew my mom had been up here a few times to visit, and she’d put me on his medical forms so the doctors and staff could speak to me about him. I also knew that Savy wasn’t quite ready to face him yet. She was hiding behind me
, her fingers twisting in my shirt.
The nurse smiled. Her hands clasped in front of her. “It was a rough start, as you can imagine. Diagnosis was difficult.” That didn’t surprise me, none of the doctors he saw as a child could pinpoint a diagnosis either. “He’s participating in therapy, and he’s engaging with some of the other patients. It seems that we’ve had some luck with a few different medications.”
I could feel Savy stiffen at the mention of medicating Nathan. “How many meds are we talking?”
“Three. But low dose, and all are proven to work well together.” The nurse was still smiling, like it was a permanent fixture on her face. “His doctor is in today if you’d like to speak with him. Your mother said you might.”
I nodded, reaching behind me and taking Savy’s hand. “I’ll come find you before we leave, thank you.” After the nurse left, I pulled Savy around my body and away from the French doors. “He’s participating and engaging, and he likes to hang in the library. That doesn’t sound scary, that sounds hopeful.” I took her face in my hands, kissing her lips lightly. “Let’s go see him, okay?”
She bit at her lower lip, but nodded in agreement. “Yeah, okay.”
Nathan was sitting in a leather wing back chair, a large hardback open in his lap. He was leaning to the side, his leg thrown over one arm. He looked relaxed, calm, and comfortable. The doors squeaked as I opened them wider, causing him to glance up from the pages he was focused on. His gaze moved from me to Savy, then back again.
Savy held her hand up in a small wave, and he cocked his head to the side. “Jeremy.”
I stepped forward, my hands clasped behind my back, surprised that he wanted to talk to me first. “Hey man, you look—”
“Please leave.”
Well. That was more like it. I couldn’t say I blamed him. I was in love with the girl of his dreams. But he said please, and I’d take that as a win. I nodded and turned back to Savy. “If you want me to stay, then tell him that. If you’re okay speaking to him alone, I’ll be right outside those doors. The choice is yours, baby. I’ll do whatever you need me to do.”
Her attention moved from me to Nathan, who was still sitting in the chair and was once again reading as he waited for me to leave. “I think I’m okay. You can go.” She smiled tightly. “Just outside the doors, right?”
I nodded, reaching out to squeeze her hand, not ready to push my luck by kissing her in front of a still becoming stabilized Nathan. “Promise.” I looked past her to my brother. “It’s really nice to see you Nathan. You look great.”
I knew one day I’d be able to speak to my brother again. One day we’d bury the hurt between us. Today not being that day didn’t bother me. I cared more about Savy’s healing than I did my own, or even Nathan’s. She needed this time with him, she needed to see that he was okay, and that she didn’t break him.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Savy
I was alone with Nate for the first time since he’d tried to rape me. That was difficult to say, even in my head. I’d been meeting with a therapist weekly. Someone to help me understand and work through my conflicting and warring emotions when it came to what happened between Nate, Jeremy, and me. I stepped forward, my shoes quiet against the hardwood floors. The library looked different from the rest of the facility. Ugh. I hated that word, but hospital didn’t seem right either.
Nate sat up straighter, putting both his feet on the ground and closing the book in his lap. I glanced down, noticing it was a biography about Nathaniel Hawthorne. “I’m sorry, Sav.” His gaze met mine, and I let out the breath I’d been holding. He was back, the boy I’d grown up with. I could see the emotion in his eyes, the love and the apology. “I hurt you, and I’ll never forgive myself.”
I sat in the chair opposite his, my hands in my lap. “I forgive you.” And I did. That was the first thing I said to my therapist. She asked me why I forgave him, why I thought he deserved my forgiveness. I told her that I’d loved him for too long to stop now. She said that I could love him and not forgive him at the same time. We agreed to disagree. Nate was part of me, woven into every memory I could recall, both good and bad.
“I could see myself scaring you, but I couldn’t stop.” He shook his head slowly, like he was more or less speaking to himself. “The only person who could pull me back inside myself was lying under me, crying.”
I didn’t want to relive those moments, I wanted to be in the here and now. “How are you feeling?”
He sighed, leaning back into his chair again. “The pills make me feel a little weird, like everything is softer, but I feel okay.” His head turned to the large windows between the bookshelves. “I’ll be here for a long time, and that’s hard to think about.” He sounded sad, which was an emotion he didn’t normally give off.
“Would it be okay if I come to visit you again?” I could never leave him in here to heal all alone. The last four weeks were the longest I’d been away from him since the day we met. I wanted to offer to write to him, to email, but I was still wary, still a little afraid that he’d take it as leading him on. There needed to be some boundaries between us, they were long overdue.
He looked back over at me, a small smile on his handsome face. “I’d like that, Sav.” His gaze cut to the French doors. “You can bring Jeremy if you want.”
I nodded, my heart swelling at the hidden meaning behind his words. “Okay, I’m sure he’d be happy to see you again soon.”
Nate was still angry. He hadn’t forgiven his brother. But he wanted to see him, even if he refused to admit it out loud. To me, that spoke volumes. Maybe this place, maybe the medications, would work and Nate could learn to be his own salvation. Like I had. I wanted that for him, more than anything. I wanted my best friend to be happy and healthy, to have a life full of love and adventure. “I miss you, Nate.”
He leaned forward, slowly reaching for my hand, like he was giving me time to tell him no. I wasn’t scared he would hurt me. I could see in his eyes he only wanted to comfort me. “I miss you too, Sav, constantly. I messed up really big this time. I need to be here.”
I got to my feet, squeezing his hand before letting go. “I’ll see you soon.”
“Yeah, see you soon.” He smiled at me, then reopened his book.
Epilogue
Jeremy
Eight Months Later
Spring semester was coming to a close, and summer vacation was within reach. Savy and I already decided that we weren’t going back home for the break. It was still too fresh being where everything went down. Savy continued seeing her therapist who agreed that there was no reason to put ourselves in a position to feel worse. We were making progress, and in time, going back to our parents’ houses would feel okay. I didn’t know how long it would take, but when we talked about it, Savy and I agreed, we’d return to our parents’ homes when it wouldn’t be a big deal anymore.
I’d planned the perfect summer. Savy didn’t know it yet, but we were taking a road trip, driving from Boston to the California coast, staying at all kind of places in between. I’d promised her adventures like she’d dreamed about, and I intended to deliver.
“There’s my wild one,” I shouted. The minute she walked into the party at my apartment, I held out my arms, welcoming her onto my lap. “I hate it when you stay at your place.” I kissed her delicious lips while my hands roamed over her bare thighs.
She pulled back smiling. “I get that, but you know how I crave my freedom.” She winked, letting me know she was playing.
We’d come a long way, and recently she’d turned a corner in her recovery. Therapy was hard work, but she was committed, strong, resilient, and focused on her health. If anyone knew how important mental well-being was, it was Savannah Nightingale.
“Come with me. I feel the need to have you to myself.” I helped her off my lap, ignoring her protests. I took her hand, leading her away from her fan club. Turned out Savy was a social butterfly, and all my friends had taken to her instantly.
&n
bsp; She started to giggle when I pulled her down the hall into my bedroom. We lived minutes away from each other, and the nights she stayed at her dorm were absolute torture. I liked falling asleep inside her and waking up to her bright eyes. “Sneaking away from your own party to make out?”
I picked her up, loving the way her long legs wrapped around my waist. “Who said I wanted to make out?” I placed open mouth kisses on her neck. “I plan on fucking you senseless, baby.” I fell onto the bed on my back with her settling astride my hips. “I missed you last night.”
Her palm rested over my heart, her smile lighting up my dimly lit room. “I missed you too.”
“You did?” I rubbed my hands on her thighs, then up to the hem of her shirt, pulling it off and tossing it to the floor. “Well, I have the perfect solution.”
She laughed lightly. “Oh yeah? Let me guess. Having my perfectly good dorm room go to waste. My parents would love that.”
Savy’s relationship with her parents was getting better. Her therapist insisted on a few sessions with her mom and dad present, and one where my mom was in attendance. Savy needed to know that no one blamed her, that the adults in her life were truly sorry for the role they played in everything that went down. Or, actually, the lack of the roles which they should’ve played.
“How about we get rid of your dorm room altogether, I kick out my roommates, and you move in here with me in the fall.” I’d been thinking about it a lot, and nothing would make me happier than having her here with me. We were young, but we were in love. We’d survived so much together, and we were working hard on healing. We deserved this.
She narrowed her eyes, her bottom lip between her teeth. “Now why would I want to move in here with you?” She glanced over her shoulder, taking in my room. “You leave food and plates all over the place.”