BAYLOR
The last time I was in a hospital bed was for the exact same reason I'm in here now. The room was vacant and the only sound I heard was the machine beeping. It was too quiet. I didn't like the hushed tone all for the reason why my brain pulled those negative thoughts from the back of my mind.
I sighed. I ran my hands through my messy hair and my palms over my eyes. My nerves were shot. By the time I received a clear vision, I looked around my room. The sun had gone down behind the trees and the crickets outside my window began to chirp. It was peaceful, but too peaceful for my liking.
I breathed in the hospital air and looked at my wrist. It's a sight I remember: the bracelet with my personal information on my right wrist, and the bandage around my left.
I felt a few tears leak from my eyes. Therapy back in Boston didn't necessarily help me at all - I never listened to the counselor or to the people in the support groups. And once I proved to my mom that I hadn't cut myself in a few months time, she let me move to Shady Grove when I turned eighteen. Then I encountered Adalynne and fell too in love with her. I took advantage of her. My happiness was basically based off of her.
Losing Adalynne was like dealing with my dad. My dad used to call me a mistake, a disadvantage. I thought of those names until I fell in love with Adalynne, that night of our second date. She made me feel superior, an important person with a reason to be alive. Adalynne never made me feel negative about myself; she never failed to lift my spirits. She never failed to make me happy.
I should've listened to her story on this whole thing. Things would've been easier on the both of us. I would've been holding her in my arms last night instead of cutting myself if I would've seen it as no big deal. But I got angry too quick to even hear what she had to say. I got too hurt.
When she said her and Derek had kissed, I felt betrayed. I looked at Adalynne as if she were lying to me for the past seven months on how much she loves me. I let every word hit me like a bullet train.
"Worthless."
"Mistake."
"Disadvantage."
"Unwanted."
Every word my father had used on me was as if Adalynne meant them as well when I thought she kissed Derek herself. Adalynne wasn't that kind of person; not the kind of person I had fallen in love with. Adalynne was sensitive herself: very selfless, truly pure and magnificent.
The door opened and my eyes travelled to the incoming guest. Her heels clicked across the hardwood floor and her familiar scent followed with her.
"Hi sweetie," her white smile glistened.
"Hi Mom." I softly grinned and watched as she sat beside me on my bed. She placed her palm on my cheek and ran her thumb along the apple of my cheek. She looked at my gown and the bracelet and the bandage around my wrist. I watched her eyes water, and as she turned her head, she let the tears drip down her cheek. This was too familiar to her.
I clasped my hand around her arm and she turned her body to hug me. Her arms wrapped around my head and her digits played with my hair at the nape of my neck. She pecked the crown of my head.
"I'm sorry, Mom."
She sulked and sniffed. Her young features softened and her lips spread into a smile. She picked her legs onto the bed and let her heels drop to the floor. The covers were pushed back and she slid her lower limbs under. She pressed her hand into my back and she pulled my upper body closer to her. I laid my head on her chest and she ran her fingers up and down my back.
"I never dreamed of seeing you in this bed again. Seeing you like this breaks my heart," she cried. "You're my only baby." She kissed the side of my head again and she played with my hair.
"I'm not making you come home because I know you hate Boston, so I'm staying in Shady Grove for a few weeks while you do counseling."
Counseling? That did no help for me; I hated it. It done me no justice.
She noticed my silent response so she spoke again. "I'll pay for a psychiatrist. Anything to make you better."
I shook my head, disagreeing and hating the fact to sit in front of a doctor and explain my "problems" my mom thinks I have.
"Honestly Mom, I'm fine. Things just got to me an-"
"Darling, you can't base your happiness on someone else. That's not how it works."
I sighed. "But she makes me happy."
Her hand trailed up and down my side and then her digits massaged my shoulder blade. She kissed the crown of my head and pressed my head down onto her just so I could come closer to her.
"I know she does, darling. But you cannot live life on having someone being the source of your happiness."
I shook my head. "You don't understand - I'm happy about other things. I'm happy about being alive. Breathing. Living healthy. Being able to walk and write. Learning. Smelling. Tasting. Hearing. Feeling. Loving. Having good friends and you. Adalynne is someone I grew attached to, I know that. We both made each other happy."
She didn't speak for a minute or so. She just massaged my back for a while and then kissed me again.
"Baylor, you don't express your feelings very well. Your psychiatrist said so himself."
"Mom," I spoke a bit harshly than what I intended, "I'm not mentally ill."
"I know sweetie."
"I'm fine, just the way I am," I promised. "The last counselor I saw done me no justice. Boston was the death of me and when I left that place, I was relieved."
"Honey, what your dad done is completely understandable. He abused me, called me mean things. And you used to being attached to him like you're attached to Adalynne, don't you think it'll ruin you again?"
I huffed. "Adalynne isn't a monster like he was."
"I know that sweetie. It's just the relationship between you and Adalynne. I get it, you love each other. You grew attached to her. That's the kind of person you are - you grow attached to people so fast. I'm just trying to tell you that you shouldn't base your happiness on someone else because that leads you nowhere in life. You have to find other things that make you happy."
"I do, Mom. When I left Boston, I appreciated life and all of its necessities that came along with it once I came back home."
Silence settled and for a few minutes passing, I began to feel myself doze off. I felt loved and comforted and I haven't been held in my mom's loving arms since I was that abused child.
"I love the person you turned out to be. You and Adalynne do belong together because she brings out the best in you. And I always knew there was that amazing personality inside of your soul, it just had to take the right person to bring it out."
I pecked her cheek. "Thank you." That's exactly what I needed to hear to lift my spirits a little higher.
"How did you know about us breaking up?"
"Derek."
My mind went blank. What?
"Wait, what?"
"He is the one who saved you from nearly killing yourself the other night. If it wasn't for him, you wouldn't be here in my arms right now. You were so close to dying, Baylor. This is why I want you to see a counselor again."
Derek? Saving me? Exactly why? I'm still inevitably angry at him. He came between my girlfriend and me, and look where we've ended up: heartbroken and shamefully angry at each other. And how did he even get into my home anyway?
"Why?"
"You and Derek were once friends, believe it or not. You gave him hell, but he was still there for you, in the shadows when you weren't paying attention."
I creased my eyebrows together. "Mom, how do you even know everything?"
She quietly chuckled, "He keeps contact with me, son. You can't just shove him away when he didn't do anything to you. He was like my second son."
"Yes, he did. He -"
"Kissed Adalynne - yes, I know," she interrupted. "But it wasn't out of despite of your relationship with her. He done it because he needed to know if he still had feelings for Adalynne, so he had to kiss her. But he said he felt nothing because he hadn't fallen for the Adalynne that you had fallen in love with. He isn't selfish, Baylor. Yes, what he done was controllable, but he once had feelings for her, too. He knew the boundaries between you and Adalynne, and he respected that. He didn't want you to feel what he felt when he lost Adalynne to you."
I felt terrible. For one, I hurt the girl I love by blaming it on her for breaking us apart. And I got back at her for hurting me by saying she slept with him and basically calling her a whore.
Classy, Baylor, just classy.
What my mom and Adalynne had told me about Derek, hard to believe anything about that bastard, had me feeling different.
"Where is he?" I asked lowly.
"On his way to California," she answered.
"When is he coming back? I need to thank him. That's the most I could do." I sounded selfish, just as what Adalynne had called me.
"He isn't coming back for a few weeks," Mom replied.
"Dammit." I had to call him or something. And that would make it sound so childish to thank him over the phone.
"You want to call him?" my mother asked in her slight Boston accent.
I nodded my head, and she began to get up. I moved my head from her chest and she threw her long, tan legs around the side of the bed and waltzed to her purse. She retrieved her iPhone and began typing on it.
"It's dialing." I looked at the screen, and it read "Derek."
'I'm gonna step out,' my mom mouthed, and I nodded.
"Hello?" I tried to grasp the concept and wrap my mind around this whole scenario - I was talking to a frenemy over the phone, about to thank him and apologize to him.
"Hello?" he asked again.
"It's Baylor," I spoke into the phone and I heard movement. Perhaps he was waiting for me to go ahead with what I was going to say.
"Thank you, y'know, for saving me."
"I would've stayed around to see how you were doing, but I had a plane to catch and I was going to apologize f-"
I interrupted. "It's okay. I have a lot to say to Adalynne and to you. I'm sorry for treating you like shit. I didn't know how you felt about her, and I grew selfish and greedy. And I'm truly sorry for taking her away after the plane crash. That plan was completely selfish and -"
He chuckled, "It's okay, Baylor. I was pissed at you, Aiden, and Adalynne for the longest time. But I came to realize how happy she was when she looked at you, and how she wouldn't ever be the same after she lost herself. I was mad and envied you because I didn't want you being with her, but when she began tutoring me, nothing of her was the same except for her looks. But you got her now, and if you both make each other happy, then I don't see the point of you two breaking up. But look, I've gotta go. My plane is about to board."
I smiled. "Thank you."
Right after I said those two words, he hung up the call.
***
ADALYNNE
All day, I had been watching a season that I had left off from Pretty Little Liars. I tried to keep my mind off certain details of the conversation Baylor and I shared two days ago. I haven't heard from him since.
After I thought deeply about what he had told me, when he accused me of sleeping with Derek, I thought about how low he thought of me. It hurt to know that if he were trying to get back at me, he chose those words to stab a dagger in my chest.
I took a long, exaggerated breath to actually catch a breath of air. It felt like my lungs were shortening up their routine of gathering oxygen for my body. Yesterday, Jo had came over and asked about Baylor and me, and all I told her was that he needed time to think things through instead of telling her that I "slept with Derek." I only done that because I rather have their friendship kept (as well as Aiden's and Baylor's). I didn't want Aiden and Baylor's long-term, childhood-to-young adult friendship screwed up just by the action he took. So I lied about everything, and made myself look like the bad person.
I paused the episode I was on and stood from my bed. I slid on some shoes and walked to the living room. My brother was sitting on the couch, eating a bag of potato chips while watching TV.
"Can you do me a favor?" I asked the couch potato.
He nodded his head as he waited for me to ask the question.
"Can you take me to see Mom and Dad?"