Lean on Me

by Candy Crum

  Tears ran down her mother’s cheeks as their eyes locked. “Briana, you can’t have this baby. Please, you’re too young. You’ll regret it the rest of your life.”

  Bri shook her head and smiled. “No, Mom. If I give up this baby – by any means – I’ll regret that for the rest of my life. Even if I hated and had no desire to take part in the circumstances that led up to this baby, he or she is still all of the best parts of me. How can I abandon that? Don’t make me do this. I’ll never forgive you and I’ll never forgive myself. I’ll always wonder what could have been and it will destroy me.”

  “I just don’t think you understand just how hard your life is about to become if you keep that baby,” her mother said, voice quivering a little as she spoke. Something about the way Ellen chose her words sent chills down Bri’s spine. She wasn’t exactly sure what to make of them.

  Shaking it off, Bri smiled again. “Yes I do, and that’s okay. I don’t care if the world hates me. It’s not their life. It’s mine. Everything will be just fine.”

  Her mother squeezed her hand once. “You should rest. You’ve been through a lot today. We are going to go get some coffee and think about everything.”

  Bri nodded, the motion immediately regrettable. Her throat was beginning to feel a little better, though she was incredibly thirsty. Talking so much had both helped and hurt. “Can I get these off now?” Bri asked, referring to her restraints.

  “Yes. Sorry about that,” Doctor Conway said. “You pulled out three IVs and punched two of the nurses. We had no choice. Sedation wasn’t a great option because of the baby’s slowed heart rate and you were already unconscious anyway.”

  “I am so sorry,” Bri said. She felt terrible for having hurt the people that had only tried to help her.

  “It’s quite normal in victims of violent crimes.” Doctor Conway released her of the restraints. “I’d like for you to get some more rest. I’m going to give you a pain medication that will help prevent breakthrough pain as well as allow you to sleep. Until the baby’s heart rate comes back up, we will have to be pickier than normal with your pain meds.”

  Bri nodded. She didn’t like the idea of being loaded up on drugs, especially while pregnant, but she didn’t want to feel the pain of all of her broken bones and she trusted the doctors to care for both of them. The words of the paramedic came back to her. That fighting and straining could hurt her and hurt the baby. Rest seemed best for now. “Thank you, Doctor.”

  Hours passed before Bri woke again. Her sleep seemed dreamless, and for that she was grateful. Her ribs screamed at her when she tried to sit. She needed to go to the bathroom, but knew it was impossible to go alone. Within moments, a nurse was in her room, responding to her call. By the time the nurse helped her out, Matt was sitting in a bedside chair, smiling at her.

  “Aren’t you just so cute in your ball gown,” he said, giving her a wink. He stood and came to her unoccupied side to help the nurse get her back into bed. Bri slowly sat on the edge of the bed, taking a moment to adjust to the pain. Matt placed his hands on her shoulders to stabilize and support her. “I’ve got her from here,” he said softly to the nurse.

  “Okay,” the nurse responded, smiling. “If you need anything else, call me. I’m going to change your trash while I’m in here.” She walked across the room and began the task of switching bags.

  “You don’t have help me, ya know,” Bri told Matt, still sitting upright. “I really hoped you wouldn’t find out. I didn’t want you to see me like this.”

  Matt moved his hands from her shoulders to gently hold her face. He tilted her head upward and he looked into the eye that was open. “I don’t care how bruised, how broken, or how immobile you are now or will ever be in the future. You’re beautiful. Don’t let that asshole tear you down from the pedestal you belong on.” He placed a soft kiss on her forehead.

  Out of her periphery, Bri saw the nurse stop at his words, placing a hand over her chest as a smile crossed her face. She was clearly moved by his words, as was Bri. No one had ever spoken to her like that, though he was always sweet and gentle with her.

  “Well, that was awfully sweet for a barbarian like yourself,” Bri joked.

  Matt shrugged. “I have my moments. Actually I wanted to get you in a headlock and screw up your hair – though I don’t think it’s possible to get it more amazing than it is right now. But I figured there’d be some rule against abusing the patients.” He winked and helped her lie down before taking the seat next to her bed that he’d previously been occupying. Bri raised the head of her bed so she could sit at a wide angle, allowing her to sit and speak comfortably, but not so tightly as to squeeze her broken ribs.

  “Can I get anything else for you?” the nurse asked, still smiling.

  “Some ice chips maybe?” Bri said. “My throat is still a little sore.”

  The nurse nodded. “Not a problem.”

  Matt stood as the nurse made her way out the door. “I’ll go grab them from her so she doesn’t have to come back in.”

  “Thank you,” Bri said. “I hate asking them for anything. I know they’ve got other patients who need more than I do.”

  Matt laughed. “Wow. Woman, do you realize you’re more than likely one of the more serious patients on the floor? Most of these people probably have shortness of breath or respiratory infections of some kind.”

  Bri shrugged, immediately regretting the action. “Still, I feel bad.” Matt shook his head at his friend and smiled before turning to leave the room. “Oh! Sorry, but could you see how my parents are doing? They were out there getting coffee somewhere.”

  “Sure, no problem.”

  Bri slowly reached for the call light/TV remote control and turned on the flat screen hanging from her wall. She began flipping through channels until she found something that made her happy. It was a rerun of The Vampire Diaries. She nestled in as comfortably as she could before placing the remote at her side and watching.

  Twenty minutes or so passed before Matt came back. “Did you have to wait for the ice to freeze?” Bri asked, forcing a pained half-smile. Her face felt more swollen all the time, though she imagined if it actually was, the nurses would have noticed. She imagined it was just her pain tolerance lowering, possibly the pain medication wearing off.

  Matt didn’t smile as he walked over to the bed, handing her a small Styrofoam cup with a plastic spoon. He looked behind him to the large closet in the room with double doors meant for patients to store their personal items. He opened it and his eyes momentarily closed before he reached inside.

  “What? What’s wrong?” Bri asked. She watched as he pulled an envelope from the closet. He brought it over and sat it next to her on the bed. “What’s wrong? It’s just an envelope.”

  He sighed. “It’s not just an envelope. It’s your envelope.”

  “Why was it in the closet?”

  Matt lightly shook his head as he tore it open, studying the contents. Bri’s heart began to speed up as she saw a flash of color of what was inside. Money.

  “That’s for ordering food while I’m stuck in here. They work all the time and know hospital food sucks,” she said, trying to stop the tears from escaping her eyes. Even saying it, she didn’t believe it. “Where’s my phone?” she asked, wanting to call her parents.

  Matt sighed again as he pulled her phone from his pocket. “The nurses had it in a bag of your belongings that you came in with. It survived the attack, thanks to the case. But you’re wasting your time, Bri. I tried to make a call from it. It’s been disconnected.”

  Her jaw dropped open as a harsh breath escaped her. “What? What’s going on?”

  Matt quickly put the money back in the envelope, having counted one hundred dollars, and sat it on the bedside table. He took a seat at Bri’s side and gently held her injured hand. “When I asked the nurses where I could possibly find your parents, the charge nurse stepped forward. I knew right then when they turned to her to answer my questions that it wasn’t good.
She said that she overheard them discussing what to do. That your mom was insistent that she wouldn’t raise another baby and that you needed to learn your lesson. She told me your parents slipped the money into the cabinet and told the charge nurse to inform me if I came in. They knew I would.”

  Bri shook her head, ignoring the physical pain for her emotional pain and confusion. “What are you saying, Matt?”

  His eyes momentarily closed again as he searched for the words. “They gave you that money to give you a start on your own. They’ve kicked you out of the house, Bri. They shut off your phone, too. I called my sister and she drove by and saw a couple of boxes sat out on the curb. She recognized a few of your things piled on top. I’m so sorry. I’m honestly shocked. I knew they were cold, but this…”

  “That’s what she meant by saying that I had no idea how hard that my life was about to become if I decided to have this baby. Matt. What am I going to do?” she asked, staring off at nothing in particular. She began rubbing her sore abdomen, not caring about the pain, just wanting to feel close to her baby. She was in shock. She thought her parents would hate her, punish her, ban her from anything remotely pleasurable, but she never imagined this.

  “You’re going to focus on getting better. When you get out, you can come stay a few days with me, as long as you need.”

  “Matt – I can’t stay with you. If your mother finds out that I’m pregnant she will think it’s yours. She’ll kill you.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe not. My mom loves you. She loves me, too. The real kind, not that fake crap your parents tried to push off to their friends to look like great parents.”

  Bri was silent for a few minutes as so many thoughts flooded her mind that she found herself not thinking about anything at all. Her pain was back tenfold and she knew it was partly because she’d lost concentration on it with the news and partly because she’d been sitting a long while and now her body was tense with stress. Not to mention the meds had more than likely worn off.

  “I need to sleep. I can’t handle this right now. My body is starting to hurt again and my head feels like it’s going to explode.”

  Matt reached out and pushed the call light. “She’s in a lot of pain. Is it time for her to have meds yet?” he asked when the nurse answered.

  “Of course, we will be right in,” she answered.

  “I’ll leave so you can get some rest,” Matt said, gently stroking the back of her hand.

  “No, please. I hate to ask, but I just can’t bear being alone right now.”

  He gave a soft smile and nodded, pulling the padded chair next to her bed closer. Matt sat down next to her and held her hand. He leaned over to kiss the sensitive back, just along her knuckles. “I’m not going anywhere, babe.”

  Chapter 5

  A week passed before Bri was to be released, and she’d still heard no word from her parents. She’d tried calling them on their home phone as well as their cells and each one had been disconnected – changed numbers, she imagined. Matt was true to his word and stayed with her all that first night and had even come back each night after, always making sure that she was taken care of and had someone to talk to. The nurses looked the other way and ignored the policy about after-hours visitors due to Bri’s excessive situation.

  Matt took a couple of his mother’s maternity books and brought them in for her to look through. Bri looked through names, - thousands of them over the course of her weeklong stay, -and what she could expect while pregnant. She was excited about some of it, like feeling the baby kick and not having a period, but she was mostly worried about the more serious things that could happen like gestational diabetes and other conditions that formed later in the pregnancy.

  Regardless of all the bad that could come she didn’t mind anything she had to endure, including the dreaded stretch marks that women complain about. Instead, she only cared that she carried the baby successfully, and that he or she would be incredibly healthy, and that she’d be able to find a way to provide anything that was needed.

  “Hey, you ready to go?” Matt asked, stepping into her room.

  She nodded. “Definitely. Let’s get out of here.”

  Bri had already gotten dressed in some clothes that Matt’s sister had loaned her and was ready to leave. “My parents should be at work. I’d like to go over there.”

  Matt’s previously happy expression fell a little. “Are you sure you want to do that to yourself? After everything they’ve done?”

  “Of course! It’s only been a week. Surely they haven’t gotten rid of all of my things. Besides – they owe me. If I was eighteen I wouldn’t give a damn. But I’m not. And it was their stupid dream of me being their all-American dream daughter that pushed me to date some pig like Mike instead of someone nicer.”

  “Like me?” Matt asked with a wink.

  “Maybe nice like you, but perhaps a little cuter.” She smiled when his brow rose, giving her an incredulous look. He knew he was attractive but he didn’t let it get to him. Bri knew it too – though she’d never admit it. He’d been like a brother to her the majority of her life.

  “Ha-ha. Still what happens if it’s all gone?” he asked.

  She stood, tucking the envelope with the money in her back pocket. “Then I guess I have to come up with a plan B. Will you take me?”

  Matt sighed as he thought about it for a moment. He knew her parents had gone to a lot of trouble to keep her away from them. If she was caught breaking into the house, they might go so far as to have her arrested. This wasn’t an ideal situation. In the end, he agreed, deciding that if she was going down for breaking into her own house that he was going with her.

  The cool evening air hit Bri hard as she stepped outside the hospital doors. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed the scent of fresh air. She smiled, ignoring the pain along the swelling down the side of her face. Slowly, she let Matt lead her to his truck parked at the end of the sidewalk. When he helped her inside, she saw several pillows in the seat which Matt used to help prop her in a comfortable position. Though it was only a small gesture, it spoke volumes to her, especially now when the world seemed to be turning its back on her.

  As they approached the house, Matt slowed down; looking around to make sure no one was home. The driveway was empty and the house was completely dark, though it wouldn’t be for long. Matt parked a block away from the house, preparing to do this alone. When Bri opened her door, he quickly made his way around to stand directly in front of her.

  Matt smiled softly, one hand on the open door and another on the door frame, blocking her path. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Uh getting ready to break into my house. What are you doing?”

  He shook his head. “No. No you’re not. You’re going to stay right here. I can do this alone. You and I have been pretty inseparable our entire lives. I’m pretty sure I know how to navigate that house.”

  Bri tried again to scoot her way from the truck, only this time she was stopped by his gentle hands on her hips, holding her in place. “I’m going, Matt. I have to do this for myself.”

  He sighed. “You are incredibly stubborn, you know that?”

  She gave a light shrug. “Call it what you want; I have to do this.”

  Giving another incredulous shake of his head, he helped her out of the truck. “You do know that I could do this much faster with Hop-Along-Holly safe in the truck, right?”

  She laughed. “Sure, but where’s the danger in that?”

  Her motivation pushed her to move a little faster than he’d expected, both surprising and worrying him. Instead of walking straight up to the house, they cut through a backyard a few houses down, going in through the back. When they came to her family’s large fence, Matt climbed over, unlatching it from the inside and letting Bri through. As they reached the back door, Bri used her key to try to enter, only to find out that it wouldn’t budge.

  She heard a heavy sigh behind her and turned to see Matt shaking his head in both
anger and disbelief. “I hate to say this, because it’s total shit, but did you really think that would work?”

  Bri straightened herself. “Ya know, I can deal without the commentary, but thank you. I was hopeful, okay?”

  He stepped forward. “Move your mommy panties out of the way. I’ve got this.” He knelt down and pulled a couple of tools from his jacket.

  “Oh you’re cute. Very cute.” She rolled her eyes from behind him.

  “’Bout damn time. I’ve been trying to get you to realize that.” She could hear the smile in his voice.

  “Ugh. So are you really picking the lock? Where did you learn to do that and where did you produce that little handy case from?”

  “You talk too much, Hop-Along,” Matt said. She huffed, not liking his new nickname for her. “Yes, I’m picking the lock. I taught myself to do it when I was, like, ten. I wanted to be convincing and authentic when playing cops and robbers.”

  Bri started to say something about him joking, but, thinking about it, she realized he was very serious. He always did things like that. He enjoyed taking the simple things in life and perfecting them and making them his own. She knew he more than likely played epic games of realistic cops and robbers where he literally broke into their house and tried to steal things before his friend brought him to justice.

  “And you have no idea how many times I’ve been called by drunken friends. I’ve also gotten calls from my parents, who locked themselves out when I conveniently didn’t have my keys on me because they left while I went for a run. So I bought a kit and kept it in the truck ever since.” There was a click and he turned the knob, popping the door open. “You’re welcome.”

  He stood and turned, holding his hand out flat, as if he were waiting for money. She looked at him incredulously. “No?” he asked. “Well if you can’t pay money, I’ll take other things.”

  She rolled her eyes again as she shoved past him, gently pushing him into the open door frame. The sound of his laughter filled the room and she hoped no one had heard it.