I trace the lines of Ian's tattoos and watch his lips twitch and form a smile as he sleeps. His long lashes brush the top of his cheeks and his messy hair is falling in his face instead of being perfectly styled as usual. He looks so peaceful and happy.
It's hard to believe that just seven months or so ago Fieldan was describing this boy to me like he was this scary, tattooed, silent loner. In all reality though, Ian is the sweetest, kindest, most selfless person I know and I can't believe that he chose me. That he let me in. That it's me that gets to see the hidden sides of him, that gets to hear his laugh, that gets to see the vulnerable parts of him.
When my fingers start to lightly trace the patterns on his wrist, his hand flips over and his fingers entwine with mine. He's looking at me with sleepy eyes and I return his cheesy smile.
"Hey." With my free hand, I pull the sheets around me tighter, which is pointless after last night - it's not like there's anything Ian hasn't seen at this point.
"Hey." He releases my hand and puts his arm around my shoulder, pulling me closer to him so that my head is now on his chest and the blanket I had wrapped tightly around me fell loose. When I look up at his face, I'm met with a smirk.
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This time, Ian's fingers are tracing imaginary lines and circles on my skin and we both try to get our breathing to go back to normal. "Why did we spend so much time laying in this bed watching Netflix when we could have been doing this?"
"Shut up." I roll my eyes and slap his chest as he laughs before going silent again. I glance over at the clock and see that it's 4:35 a.m. Fieldan is staying with Nate this weekend and Ian's dad had a business trip out of town, so Fieldan's mom went with him, leaving Ian and I the house to ourselves all weekend.
"Are you going to visit your mom tomorrow?" Ian's mom got out of isolation last week and when he went to visit her, he said that she was quiet and withdrawn, which made him second guess his choice even more so than before. However, the doctors had said that her abnormal mood was due to her adjusting to the new meds they had prescribed her, and promised she would be back to her old self soon. None of that really eased Ian's mind though.
"I was planning on it. Why?"
"Can I come?"I've only visited his mom a few times, but I really like her and enjoy visiting her. Plus, I really like seeing Ian with his mom, it's like another side of him - the happiest version of him.
"She might not be...adjusted to the medication." Ian is always hesitant about bringing me to see his mom, in case she has an episode. The first time I met her was the only time I ever saw any evidence of her illness, but I think he still worries about people seeing her in that state, even though he knows I won't judge.
"I know."
"Okay, yeah. That'd actually be great." He kisses the top of my head, something that had become one of my favorite things lately. "I want to ask you something."
"Okay, what?" I tilt my head so that I can see his face.
"Do you think I should try out for the baseball team?"
"Yes!" I sit up and clap my hands together, earning an amused expression from my boyfriend.
"I wasn't expecting you to get excited about it."
"I just think it's a great idea. You're so good, and the team would be lucky to have you. Plus, I know how much you love and miss it, so I think it's a great idea." I think back to all the times that we've gone to the batting cages or even just tossed a baseball back and forth, it's obvious that he misses playing the sport.
"You really think so?" He sits up and pushes my hair behind my ear.
"I really do."
"Good thing Drew doesn't hate me anymore." I laugh at that because he has a point. If Drew still hated Ian as much as he did weeks ago, there's no way he would let Ian on the team. As captain and the best player our school has, he would get his way, no matter how good Ian is. I'm hopeful though that Drew is over being petty and will see Ian for the player and asset to the team that he is.
"Yeah, good thing."
"What about you, have you thought about Harper's offer anymore?"
While I'm happy that Ian is going to get to play the sport he loves again, the thought of me doing the same makes me sick. As badly as I want to tell Harper yes and compete again, I would be going back on everything I've put myself through this last year if I re joined the team. I have to pay for everything that I caused, and this is how I'm doing it - by taking away things that make me happy, things that were part of my old life. I have to stick to that or it will have all been for nothing.
"I can't cheer again." I pull at a stray string on the sheet draped across my legs.
"Why not?" He places his hand on top of mine, causing me to drop the string and look at him.
As far as Ian knows, I quit cheering because I missed too much school and was out during the end of the season last year. I didn't tell him that I chose not to be a part of the team this year, but because Harper asks me to re join every chance she gets, he knows that I've always had a spot waiting for me.
I don't want to get in to this right now, I don't want to ruin the happiness that I've felt for the past forty eight hours yet. So, I put on a fake smile and clear my head of all things negative. "Because, if I'm a cheerleader, I won't have any time to watch your games." I lean in and kiss him, hoping that he'll forget or drop the topic.
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I'm so glad that the weather is getting warmer, I've missed riding on the back of Ian's bike. After breakfast we got dressed and headed out to visit Ian's mom. I could tell that he was nervous about seeing her, even if he wasn't saying so. I wasn't with him last week when he went to see her, but when he came over to my house afterwards, the look on his face had told me everything I needed to know before he even said the words.
Just like the first time I ever rode his bike and met his mom, I put my hands up as we drove along the highway - this time though, I wasn't afraid or falling off or crashing. It's been a great weekend, no stress, no sadness taking over my mind, no feeling unwanted in my own home - just happiness.
When we park in Pleasant Hill's parking lot I hand Ian my helmet and when he turns back towards me, I take his hand and give him a smile that I hope comes off as supportive before we go to sign ourselves in with Lou at the front desk.
As we're walking down the hall to Susan's room, I can feel my phone vibrating in my back pocket. I check the caller I.D and see that it's my mom before hitting decline and following Ian into his mom's room. When we walk in she's sitting in a chair next to the window reading a book. Once she hears the door close behind us, she looks up and for a second I think that this visit is going to be like last week, but then a smile breaks across her face and she sits her book aside before getting up.
"Hey, little lion." It's like I can see the tension roll off of Ian as his mom greets him. He lets out a sigh of relief before engulfing her in a hug so tight that she has to tell him she can't breathe. My phone starts to vibrate again and I turn it off just as Susan notices that I'm there, "Annie, hello, it's so good to see you again." She steps away from Ian and wraps me in a hug as well.
We all three took seats in the sitting area and as far as I could tell, Susan seemed to be doing just fine on her new medication.
"Mom, how do you feel?"
"Ian, I feel fine. Stop worrying so much, you'll get grey hairs." She gets up from her seat and walks over to the small cabinet area and pulls out a tray of cookies. I take one and thank her as she sits back down.
"I just want to know that you're okay, I know you're on new meds and the doctors said there could be some side effects."
"Well, I haven't experienced any yet." She turns her attention towards me, "Annie, lets talk about something other than medications and how I'm feeling."
I know that Ian is worried and I understand why, but I can't help but laugh along with his mom. She's exactly as she always has been, upbeat and cracking jokes. I start to tell her about school, and eventually Ian gives up on talking about medications and health, instead telling his mom about his thoughts on joining the baseball team.
Just like me, his mom reacted by clapping and telling him how happy she is for him. For the next few hours we talk about numerous topics, laugh, and finish off the tray of cookies. I hadn't realized how late it had gotten until a nurse came in to collect Susan for dinner and to give her her medication.
We say goodbye and I promise to visit again soon. Lou waves us goodbye and we step out into the fading sunlight. "I know you just ate your weight in chocolate chip cookies, but do you want to grab some food before we head back?"
At the mention of food, my stomach makes a growling noise, to which Ian rolls his eyes. "I don't know how it's possible that you're always hungry." He tosses me my helmet, "Hop on, there's this dinner just down the road that I used to eat at all the time with my dad."
At the dinner I turn my phone back on as we wait for our food and see that I have four missed calls from my mom and three from my dad. Neither of them left a voicemail or sent a text, so I figure that whatever it was, it couldn't have been that important and they must have resolved it themselves since they hadn't tried to call in hours.
Later, when I pull my car in to the driveway after reluctantly leaving Ian and the amazing weekend we had back at his house, I notice my mom's car in the driveway and the lights on throughout the house.
When I walk through the front door I expect to see my mom curled up on the couch with a book in her hands, just like old times. I don't know why I expect anything to be like old times anymore, maybe because I had just spent almost three days being totally and completely happy and so I want to hold on to this feeling for as long as possible.
However, it doesn't last much longer. My mom isn't sitting on the couch reading a book. Instead, she is passed out on the couch with a bottle of wine in her hand and another sitting empty on the coffee table. I drop my bag and run over to her only to stop once I see the picture of River that she is hugging.
I fall to the floor.
How could I have forgotten?
Today is River's birthday. I vaguely remember my mom mentioning to me last week that we were all going to go to the cemetery today with balloons, I was in a rush to get to school because I had overslept and she told me as I hurried out the door.
I feel like I'm falling, drowning, suffocating.
That's why they were calling me, that's why my mom is passed out drunk right now - because it's River's birthday and he isn't here to celebrate with us. I forgot, not just to meet with my parents today, but I had forgotten that today was even his birthday.
I pull myself off the floor and drape a blanket over my mom. I throw the empty wine bottle in the trash, moving through the motions like I'm sleepwalking. When I finally make it up to my room, I can't stand the nagging and screaming happening in my head. I can't stand the lump in my throat, the tears in my eyes, or the ache in my heart.
I don't know what to do. I don't know how to cope with this.
After everything I've done - ripping my brother away from us and causing my family to fall apart - now I'm to blame for my mom drinking away her pain. How long has that been going on? What other damage have I caused?
Before I know it, I'm in my bathroom staring at a razor that in the back of my mind, I know won't fix anything. I've tried everything else though. I gave up my social life, my popularity, my friends, cheerleading. I've stood under scalding hot water until my skin hurt to touch afterwards and I've dug my nails into my palms so deeply at times that I draw blood.
I have a few other ideas left, but this one seems to be the most effective. I know that I shouldn't, that it will leave scars that will lead to questions, but I don't know what else to do. I just want to go back to thirty minutes ago when I was happy - so blissfully happy.
I want to relive my weekend with Ian over and over again, never thinking of these dark thoughts again. I want to smile and laugh and hold his hand. I want to feel like I'm weightless and everything is okay.
And then I realize something.
There's a much more effective way to punish myself. There's one way to guarantee that I won't be happy or smile again. There's one thing, one person, that makes me feel alive and good.
Without him, I'm nothing but darkness, just as it should be.
I feel a little calmer once I have a plan, a way to fix this, but my head is still pounding and my heart is still breaking all over again. I reach into my medicine cabinet and take one of the sleeping pills I was prescribed after the accident.
I fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow and I see a little boy's face smiling at me from the backseat of my car as soon as my eyes close.
"Happy birthday, Riv."