Fate's Return (Twisted Fate, Book 2)

Chapter Twenty-Five

They looked tired and their faces were etched with concern.

I lowered my eyelids to slits before they could realize I had woken. Pretending to be oblivious was probably the only way to get answers. If only I could ask them to speak up so that I could hear more than every other word they were saying.

"...Concussion, bruises.... She should... go home in a day or two," the doctor stated without emotion. I couldn't read his face with his back turned to me, but unless he was responsible for deciding the 'day or two' meant going home, his stout body and graying hair was insignificant. If he called the shots? Well, I'd jump through hoops. I hated hospitals.

From the relief on my parents' faces, hoops wouldn't be necessary. At least not from the doctor. My parents, though? Yeah, I probably wouldn't be allowed to go anywhere for a while. Like, until I turned thirty, or until I turned eighteen and could fight them for my freedom. I was pretty much screwed until I left for college and lived outside of their house, not that that mattered right now.

Where was Mike?

What had happened?

How was I breathing?

My eyes grew heavy again as sleep demanded my attention. The doctor walked out of the room and the last thing I saw was my father taking my mother's hand in his while she leaned over to rest her head on his shoulder, ignoring the table between them.

His words floated over me like a whispered dream. "Shh, Honey, it's okay. Everything is going to be okay."

Funny, but I thought parents weren't supposed to lie.

Nothing felt like it was going to be okay, and that didn't even stem from the injuries I apparently hadn't suffered.

*****

The doctors tested me for everything they could think of—half of which I think were made up—before letting me go. The only thing I wasn't told to do was stand on my head and quack like a duck, but I'm sure once the concussion healed, it was an order waiting to be issued. The consensus was all the same: I couldn't have walked away from a sign falling on me, something that would have paralyzed a grown man three times my size, with a concussion—a few bumps and bruises. Just one more test to make sure I was alright.

Twenty tests and two days later—four if my sleepy-sleepy time counted—and I was allowed to go home. My room, my not-white walls, my sheets. No disinfectant smell to make me feel high, no beeping monitors to keep me awake, and absolutely no tests or over-personal doctors touching and asking things that were best left in my diary. I mean, really? They all learned this in anatomy—even the nurses: my heart is in my chest and not my ass, and no, I do not need help using the potty!

Brenan and Suzie visited me once a day with flowers and presents, sneaking in candy I was forbidden from eating, which of course made it taste better. They never stayed long. Mike kept his promise and one or all of 'my boys' were always present. The Lange boys. Who knew they were so sweet?

The side of me that loved to indulge in guilty pleasures loved it, but the logical side of me wished they weren't. Having them there complicated everything. Just when I had set my crush for Mike aside, determining that I wanted to like Brenan, he pulled me right back in. Now, as if that had been bad enough, feelings for Gabe started twirling through my veins like little tiny ribbons to tie me in knots. Mike, Brenan, and Gabe—in order of occurrence. The only thing I knew for sure was my platonic feelings for Raffy, the brother I never had or wanted, but loved all the same.

Maybe it was the concussion confusing things? At least coming home gave me distance and time to figure out what I wanted. But all I wanted was the last thing that anyone was willing to give me: the chance to lose myself in the quiet. I'd only been home for an hour and already Suzie had dragged me from bed and down to the kitchen where we sat across from my parents at the table like some weird sitcom featuring Us vs. Them: A Teenager's View on Parents.

"I don't think a party is the best thing for Alyssa right now," my mother explained for the third time.

"She can't go through the rest of high school without a decent birthday party," Suzie countered, red in the face and frantic, almost as though the world ending tomorrow would be fine as long as it didn't cancel our party.

"Honey, Suzie's right."

Everyone turned to my father in surprise. Never before had it been Us vs. My Mother. She was always the one to convince my dad of things for me: take the training wheels off my bike, letting me walk to school alone, getting a job. All but fighting, which I had had to convince them both of. It was like a tiny little miracle happening in my kitchen, one that none of us seemed willing to believe.

"Excuse me?" Yikes. That was frosty, aimed at my father rather than me or Suzie.

"Honey, she's fine! The doctors said—"

"—that she is lucky," she said between clenched teeth, her eyes flaring and then narrowing into laser-like pricks of anger. "Are you saying you want me to push that luck? With our only child's life?"

"Don't be dramatic, Mom." I rolled my eyes. "Nobody died! It's just a party, which I would like to take just a moment to remind you was your idea."

"Really?" She looked at me and I wished I'd kept my mouth shut. "Nobody died?" She snorted and then stood, gathering everyone's half-finished drinks as if they were empty with jerky movements. "You almost died, Alyssa. Again."

She looked like a juggler now with so many full glasses in her arms, though the comedy of the picture was drowned by the gravity of the conversation. What could I say? What could anyone do? In this moment, nobody could diffuse the tension inside of my mother, which had coiled like a ticking bomb for a year, waiting for something to trigger an explosion.

"Honey—" My father stood and reached out his hand to her. It was a calming motion I'd seen her step into a thousand times.

But not today.

"No!" she yelled and threw her arms out to the side.

Everyone jumped except for my mother, who stared down to the floor as the glasses she'd gathered crashed, shattering. Shards ricocheted in every direction, sending Scruffy whimpering out of the room while I jumped from my seat to huddle against the wall with Suzie.

"Alyssa, you and Suzie go upstairs, okay?"

"But, Dad—"

"Go." He glanced over his shoulder and then back to my mother, pointing to a bloody trail leaking down her cheek from a shallow cut just under her eye. "Suzie, take Aly to her room, please."

Suzie, the girl who questioned everything and the only one of my friends who my dad didn't frighten, nodded her consent and grabbed my arm. Was she going to force me to go? She yanked. I guess that would be a yes.

I followed, but only because I didn't think my mom seeing Suzie whack me down on my ass would help. Any other day, like if I wasn't weak from a hospital stay or shocked by my mother's insanity, Suzie would be the one begging for me to let her up from the floor. But I was breathless when we reached the top of the stairs, and thankful I'd chosen not to resist.

"Wow!" Suzie said and flopped down belly-first onto the bed.

I paused and looked at the covers I'd been waiting to lose myself under. "Comfy?"

"Huh?" She looked around and smiled, completely clueless. "Yeah."

Giving in to having to wait, I sighed and sat in my chair, rolling until my back hit the desk and I could lift my feet to rest on the bed, forming a bridge with my legs. I closed my eyes and tilted my head back. Why was my mom being a helicopter? Since when was my dad the family mediator?