She heard Chris before she saw him push open the door, and when he saw her bleeding, with the pieces of the mirror around her, he gave her a sympathetic stare. He’d known she was dealing with something, something big, but she was too scared to let anyone in. It was going to end if it was the last thing he did. He rushed to his sister and took her injured hand in his.
“What the hell were you thinking,” he demanded, wrapping her bloodied hand in a washcloth.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. She just wanted to be gone. She didn’t want this anymore. She wasn’t living.
“God, we’re going to have to get you to a hospital. Come on.” He pulled her out of the bathroom.
“I don’t want to,” she said, pulling away from him.
“Shay Marie Lawson, you are fucking going to the damn hospital if I have to pick you up and put you in that car myself!” It was very rare that he yelled, especially at her, but he’d had enough. He couldn’t bear to see his sister like that anymore. She wasn’t just hurting herself anymore, she was hurting everyone who cared about her.
“I said, I’m fine! Just leave me alone.”
“What has gotten into you? Why are you so intent on ruining your life?”
“I’m not ruining my life,” Shay denied, but she knew she was.
“Then what do you call it, baby girl? I’ve tried so hard to give you the space and time you’ve needed to deal with whatever made you this way, but Shay, I can’t anymore. I hate seeing you this way. I’m your brother, and you used to tell me everything, so why won’t you tell me this?” Chris asked, letting all his emotions come out.
“Stop, okay. Just stop. I’m fine. I can handle anything I’m dealing with on my own, not that there’s anything to deal with,” she snapped at her brother. “Now just please leave me alone.”
“I’ve had enough. Let’s go,” Chris said as he picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder. The washcloth nearly fell from her hand.
Shay smacked his back with her uninjured hand. She wasn’t a child, and she didn’t need people to take care of her. She could handle it by herself.
“Put me down!” Shay shouted as Chris took the first step down the stairs. When he arrived in the kitchen and set her down, she came face-to-face with all her friends. They stared in shock at the bloody washcloth that was wrapped around her wrist. She felt the pain. It stung, but compared to the pain she felt inside, it was nothing. She could deal with the pain that hurt her on the outside.
“What happened?” David asked, rushing to Shay. When he tried to touch her, she stepped away.
“Stop. Just don’t touch me. I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine, damn it. Where the hell are my keys?” Chris was searching frantically.
“I don’t need to go to the hospital, Ry. I can take care of myself. Just leave me alone.”
“I’m not going to leave you alone! You’re going whether you like it or not. Do I need to call Mom and Dad to tell them what you did?”
Shay said nothing. The last thing she needed or wanted was for her parents to come home and hover. She was causing her parents all sorts of pain, and she couldn’t bear to cause them one more ounce.
“Fine, I’ll go,” she said calmly, taking her keys out of her pocket and handing them to Chris.
“That’s what I thought.”
“We’ll come with you,” David offered.
“No,” Shay insisted. She was glad her friends cared, but she couldn’t deal with them right now.
“I’m going to go out and start up the car. Don’t be long,” Chris warned her.
“Why won’t you let me come? Or them?” David asked her, nodding his head at her friends.
“Because it’s nothing. I’ll be fine David,” she assured him.
“Why are you pushing me away? The Shay I knew would have been welcoming with open arms.” She could hear the heartbreaking emotion in his voice.
“I’m sorry, David, I just can’t. You’re better off without me,” she told him before running out the door.
“Why are you hurting yourself this way,” Chris asked as they waited in the hospital room for her discharge papers. They’d given her an x-ray, which told them that her hand was fractured, and on top of that she had to have stitches and a hard cast for the next six weeks at least.
“I don’t know. Maybe I’ve just had enough,” Shay said.
“Had enough of what?”
“Life.” Her voice was barely audible.
“Are you ever going to let me in? I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what is going on. You don’t think we’ve noticed your change. The way you don’t smile anymore, the way you wear darker and baggier clothes, the way you stay away from people as much as you possibly can, you flinch when someone touches you, and I don’t know how to help you. You’re my baby sister.” Chris spoke with tears pricking his eyes as he framed Shay’s face in his hands. “I just want you to talk to me. I want to be here for you, in the way that I’ve always been. Don’t push me away.”
“Ry, I ...” Shay started but was interrupted by the doctor.
“You’re free to go Shay. Take it easy,” he said.
“Does she have any prescriptions,” Chris asked.
“Yes. It’s all in those papers the nurse gave you earlier. If you take it easy, and avoid hitting anymore mirrors, or walls, then you should be fine.” The doctor’s tone was mocking.
“She won’t be hitting anything else, I can attest to that,” Chris replied.
“Have a good night,” the doctor told them before he left the room.
“Come on, let’s get you home,” he said, putting a protective arm around her shoulder.
***
Brice stood outside of Shay’s house. It had been so long since he’d seen her. He needed to make sure she was okay. She freaked out on him, and then was silent the whole way home. She didn’t even say goodbye when she got off the bike. She just left him without a word.
He couldn’t put together why she’d been closed off to him. All he wanted was to be her friend, to make her laugh, to comfort her when she was down.
Ringing the doorbell, he began to get nervous. The last time he’d been here Chris told him Shay wasn’t home, but he knew better than that. When the door opened, David looked at him in disgust.
“What the hell do you want now?” David asked harshly.
“Where’s Shay?”
“She’s not here.”
“Do you know where she is, or when she’ll be back?” Brice asked, trying to be nice. The only thing he wanted was to pull David outside and give him the beat down of his lifetime. He felt a sting of jealousy rush through him, knowing what David had shared with Shay. He had no right to feel the way he did. It was wrong, but he couldn’t help it.
“I have no idea when she’ll be back, she’s at the hospital,” David told him.
“Hospital! What happened? Is she hurt? She’s going to be alright, isn’t she?” Brice asked, unable to stop the words from overflowing.
“We don’t know all the details, but when her brother brought her downstairs, her hand was wrapped in a bloody towel. If I had to guess, I’d say she probably punched something. It looked really bad though,” David told him. “They’re probably going to be a while.”
“I’ll wait for her, and don’t bother telling me not to,” Brice said, pushing past David and into the house. Chelsea, Maxie, and Heather all stared at him as he entered. David vanished out the door.
“Why are you here?” Heather got up from her chair and walked over to him.
Brice already didn’t like her, and he couldn’t understand why Shay was friends with her. She was stuck up, rude, and she reminded Brice so much of Marissa.
“I’m here because Shay is my friend, and I’ve come to check on her,” Brice informed her. “Not that it’s your business.”
“God, you are an even bigger idiot than I thought. You should just give up, she doesn’t like you, and she and David will find their way back to eac
h other, and soon you’ll just be in the past.” Heather spoke with confidence.
No matter what she said to him though, Brice would never give up. Shay was his friend, and he cared about her. He wasn’t going anywhere.
“You don’t scare me. You can hate me, you can tell me to leave her alone; hell you can even tell me that I’m nothing but a loser. The thing is, I don’t care what you think about me. I don’t give a damn how much you don’t like me. The only person whose opinion matters to me is Shay’s. She’s my friend and I’m hers, and that’s not going to change unless she says the words,” Brice commented.
“She’ll say the words, I know she will. Guys like you come and go, but guys like David are always there. You’ll never be able to make her happy. You’re a lowlife,” Heather accused. She couldn’t describe the hatred she had for him. Why couldn’t he just leave Shay alone? Why couldn’t he just let her reconcile with David? They were the ones who needed to be together, not her and Brice.
“She’s right, you know,” Chelsea cut in. “David and Shay belong together. You’re just wasting your time.”
“You know what? You guys know nothing about her. I bet I can tell you more about her from the week I spent with her than you could tell me from all the years you’ve known her. Do you know what she said to me? That you guys hated her. She feels like an outsider when it comes to you, and she didn’t want to be around that. You make her feel like she should be guilty for who she is. She needed you to just be her friends, but rather than do that, you made her feel like a broken toy that needed to be fixed. The difference between us,” Brice paused, gesturing between him and them multiple times, “is that I don’t care who she is. I don’t want her to change for me. I just want her, whatever way she is.”
“That’s not true. We don’t treat her like a broken toy; we love her,” Maxie said.
“You have a hell of a way of showing it,” Brice chided.
“You don’t’ know what you’re talking about,” Heather shouted in his face.
Brice backed away. “Maybe if you were a better friend, she wouldn’t spend so much time avoiding you.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve been a better friend to her than she’s been to me in the past few months.”
“That’s bull. Did you ever think that maybe underneath all her changes that she was going through something? Did that ever once cross your mind? Did you ever think that maybe she just needed her best friend?”
Heather’s silence gave Brice the only answer he needed. The truth was, he’d only been her friend for about a week, and he was still a better friend to her then any of them were.
“Do you think we’re that horrible of friends,” Chelsea asked, breaking the silence. She sounded so small.
“It’s not my business,” Brice whispered.
“Whatever. You’re such a moron. Stay away from her,” Heather said.
“I don’t think you have the right to tell him to stay away from me.” A voice from behind them said. They turned around to see Shay and Chris standing in the doorway. She had a cast on her hand that wasn’t there before.
“Shay, I’m going to clean up your bathroom, and then you need to go upstairs and rest,” Chris said as he vanished.
“What the hell is your problem, Heather?” Shay yelled at her, moving closer to them.
“You belong with David. Not this lowlife pig who probably wants to just get in your pants.”
“You know nothing about Brice. He and I are just friends, not that it’s your damn business. David and I will never be together again. Get that through your thick skull. I don’t love David, I’ll never love him. So stop trying to push me to be with him,” she said. Everyone stared at her in shock.
“But you belong together,” Heather whispered.
“Except we don’t,” Shay whispered. Turning to Brice, she asked, “What are you doing here?”
“I needed to see you. We need to talk,” he stated.
Feeling the eyes on her, Shay just nodded. She couldn’t run away from him anymore; he didn’t deserve that. And right now, she felt like he was the only friend she had. “Come on.”
“Why have you been avoiding me,” Brice asked as they sat on her bed. Chris had already finished cleaning up the bathroom.
“I was embarrassed,” Shay admitted, not able to look at him.
“For what?”
“You were messing around, and I just ran away. I- I’m –” Shay started.
“Hey, don’t do that. Don’t feel embarrassed. Listen, I care about you, and if I pushed you too far, I’m really sorry. I never wanted that. I know that you have a hard time with being touched, for whatever reason that is. I should have known better,” Brice apologized.
“It’s not you Brice, there are just some things that... I just… I –” she stuttered.
Rather than say another word, Brice just put his arms around her to comfort her.
“Brice, I don’t want to lose you as a friend. You’re the only one who doesn’t look at me with pity. I know I freaked out, and I know that you have every reason to walk away, but please don’t leave me,” Shay begged, surprised by her own words. She thought that maybe it was the medication she was on, but if it was she was glad because everything she’d said had been the truth.
“I’m not going anywhere, but your brother said that you need to get some rest, so how about you do that, and I’ll come by later?”
“Please don’t go,” she whispered.
“You want me to stay?” he asked, surprised.
“Yes,” she whispered, right before the darkness hit her and she slipped into unconsciousness.
***
Brice stared at Shay while she slept. She’d been sleeping for three hours now. He found the sight of her asleep fascinating. With all her behavior, the way she hated being touched, the clothes she wore, Brice knew that somewhere deep inside, she held a secret, one that she probably never shared with anyone.
His heart broke for her. He wasn’t sure why to be honest, maybe it was the fact that he cared about her in a way that he’d never cared for another girl before.
It was all so wrong, and he had no right to feel this way, but he couldn’t help it. He was all sorts of wrong for her. She needed someone like David, and as much as that twisted a knife in his pounding heart, he knew it was true.
The fact was that no matter how hard he tried, he knew he’d never have the strength to stay away. God knows he’d tried. The two weeks apart from her, he tried staying away. He figured it would be better that way, but he constantly found himself missing her.
He didn’t want this, he never wanted to feel anything for anyone but he was in too deep. It was only a few weeks since meeting her and he was already in too deep. The girl that lay on that bed was suffering, and the only thing he wanted to do was take it all away. Hell, he’d take it all for her if it meant her happiness.
A soft knock interrupted his musing. The door opened and Chris stepped inside.
“Thank you for staying with her,” he said to Brice, plopping down on the futon in her room.
“She begged me not to leave, and I couldn’t leave her like that,” Brice admitted.
“You care about her,” Chris observed with a smile.
“I do. A lot. Maybe even more than I should,” Brice said the words before he could stop himself.
“Don’t listen to them. Her friends, I mean. Heather, Chelsea and Maxie, they’re the center of their own universe. I could never understand one bit why Shay was friends with them. She isn’t anything like them. As for David, he’s a good guy, he’s just jealous of you.”
“We’re just friends,” Brice tried to explain, but Chris wasn’t buying it.
“You can keep saying that all you want, but it’s so much more than that. I see the way the two of you look at each other, and she laughs when she’s with you. It’s something she hasn’t done in a long time. I see something in her that I don’t really see when you’re not around. I see the ol
d Shay fighting her way back,” Chris said in a bittersweet voice. “I wish she could just talk to me about what she’s dealing with.”
“She’s an amazing person. I didn’t know the old Shay, but I know this one and she’ll talk when she’s ready. You can’t push someone to talk about something they feel they need to deal with on their own.” Brice spoke from experience.
“I know, but that’s my baby sister right there, and I don’t want her to suffer any longer. Brice, take care of her. Don’t you go and hurt her,” Chris warned.
“I’d never hurt her. Not intentionally.”
“I’m glad she has you. She won’t talk to the rest of us, but maybe she’ll talk to you,” Chris said. “Here, will you give these to her when she wakes up?” Chris held out his hand and put some pills in Brice’s hand.
“Of course,” Brice said as Chris left the room to give them space.
“I didn’t think he’d ever leave,” Shay said, sitting up.
“You’re awake,” Brice said, surprised. “Why did you pretend to be asleep?”
“My brother would have hovered. He’s worried about me,” Shay said in a flat voice.
“Do you blame him?” Brice challenged. Then he handed her the pills that Chris had given him to give to her, “Your brother told me to give you these when you woke up.”
“Thanks,” she said before answering his question. “I guess not. I was stupid. I keep screwing up. Maybe I’m just a big screw-up.” She didn’t want this anymore. She felt like everything she did was a terrible mistake. She acted without thinking; she was becoming reckless.
“Hey, you’re not a screw-up, Shay. It’s okay to feel afraid, and it’s okay to lose yourself. You do have people here for you, you know. You don’t have to face any of what you’re going through alone.”
“Everyone that I love and care about, Brice, they treat me like I’m a broken car that can be fixed. It’s like they can take me to a shop and get me a new engine, and I’ll run just fine. But they can’t fix me; I’m not a car. I’m a person,” Shay said, feeling the anxiety of everything finally catching up with her. Everything she said was true. Chris, her parents, her best friends, hell, even David treated her like she could be fixed, and the truth was, she couldn’t be fixed.
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