Recovery | On Hiatus

Chapter 30

Chapter 30

GOOD DREAMS WERE never one of my strong suits. Not since Hayden and I stopped being friends and my life started to spiral out of control, the incident with Darrin and Victoria included.

      Hayden and I had been on good terms for a good three weeks now. I'd spent the most of it hauled up at my parents house with my devil of a brother, but being able to share some of the truth with Hayden—the truth that didn't involve me admitting Darrin's name—felt good. It was like a weight was gradually lifting from my chest, and although each story I told Hayden of my abuse made him angry, he seemed as relieved to hear some truth as I was to tell it.

It was now the weekend, and my subconscious was trying it's hardest to screw things up by reminding me of just how bad I had left things with Hayden in the past.

"That's not fair."

"How is it not fair?" Hayden argued, still smashing the male doll's face into the girl's.

"I wanted him to be my girl's boyfriend. Not your girl's." I waved the doll in the air for emphasis.

Hayden huffed. "Why can't he be with this one?" He lifted his doll in the air, finally pulling her face from the others'. "You have other guy dolls too, Red."

I was too embarrassed to admit that it wasn't about what doll it was. I really just wanted my doll to be with any of them that he had. After all, the doll was the closet I was going to get to my nine-year-old crush. "Because they're my dolls."

"Fine." He dropped both dolls in front of him on the floor. "I didn't want to play with dolls anyway. I wanted to play video games, remember? It was your turn to pick."

I giggled. Hayden was always asking to play with my dolls, using the excuse that he was doing me a favor since he knew I didn't like video games. The problem was, I loved playing video games with him, and he knew it just as well as I did. "You love playing dolls with me and you know it."

"I do not."

"Do too."

"Do not!"

"Do too—"

We were silenced by a heavy knock at the front door. I'd never heard anybody knock so loudly, and it startled me enough for the doll to slip from my tiny fingers. Hayden and I shared a look before we raced to the top of the stairs on our knees, trying our hardest to be secretive as Camille answered the front door. Two men stood in blue uniforms, one with his thumbs hooked in his belt and the other with them down at his side. The tension in the room suddenly felt so thick you couldn't cut it with a knife if you tried.

"Are those police officers?" I asked Hayden, not bothering to look over at him as I asked.

"Yeah," he answered, leaning as close to the rail as he could get without falling through. "I think so."

I couldn't make out what the two men were saying, but whatever it was made Camille drop to her knees with a pained wail. One of the men tried to step forward and help her, but stepped back as she swatted at them and shouted, "Go away! Leave! God, just leave!"

I saw Hayden sit back out of the corner of my eye and switched my attention to him, only to see silent tears streaming down his cheeks. His hands were shaking, and his quivering lip made my heart drop to my stomach. Every time I'd ever seen Hayden cry, he'd always tried his best to hide it. He said he needed to be tough for his mom and I, and he'd stuck with it. Until now. "Hayden?" I whispered.