Beautiful Illusion (16 page)

I gave Annie a big hug as soon as I saw her. She looked even cuter up close with her new look, and when I squeezed her, I could feel her large, fleshy mounds smashing against my chest. “I’m so proud of you, Sis. What are you going to do now that you’re finished with high school?”

She smiled and beamed a nervous glance to our parents. “I haven’t decided yet. I think I want to take a year off before I head to college, but I need to talk to Mom and Dad first.”

I stared at her new hairstyle, and she had done her makeup which is something I rarely ever saw on her. She looked good—really good. “How about I take you out tonight to celebrate?”

“I was planning on making a graduation dinner for Annie tonight,” Mom said.

“It’s okay Mom,” I assured. “I can swing by the house and pick her up after dinner.”

“Sure, I’d love to,” Annie blurted, not giving our parents any more chance to protest.

“Okay, cool. I’m going to head out.” I gave Annie another hug, then subsequent hugs went to Mom and Dad.

I caught a glimpse of the hot redhead from earlier out the corner of my eye, but she was being flanked by what appeared to be a super-dad. He was wearing a pair of white tennis shoes with tall white socks that extended up to his calves. His khaki shorts matched perfectly with the obnoxious socks and plain white tee. I wouldn’t have even tried to approach if it wasn’t for the fact that he was wearing a Seahawks hat.

I walked casually towards the pair, and right when I was about to pass, I paused and looked curiously at the man. “Oh, you’re a Seahawks fan are you?”

The man threw me a sharp glare. “Yeah, what’s it to you?”

“One of my favorite teams.” I smiled and tilted my glasses off of my eyes. “Was hoping that I could get a spot with them in the next couple years.”

“Holy shit,” the man laughed. “You’re the fuckin’ Wrecker.” He held out his hand for a shake.

I was in.

“That would be me,” I said and patted the man on the shoulder as I shook his hand. “And if I ever make it to the Seahawks, I’ll make sure to bring you and all the fans home a championship trophy.”

“Would you believe this, Patricia? It’s UCLA’s star running back. You’ve heard of him, right?”

The cute redhead nodded. She had a sexy innocence to her, and I liked it.

“Oh, this must be your daughter? I just came here for my sister’s graduation.”

“Yep, happiest Dad in the world.”

“Well.” I turned my attention to Patricia. “You’ve certainly raised a beautiful daughter sir. Congratulations on the graduation.’ I shook Patricia’s hand. “You two have a great day.”

“You too,” they said in unison.

“Go out and wreck ‘em,” the guy growled comically.

I turned to walk away, and after a few paces I made a faux impression that I had forgot something, then slowly twisted my body around and walked back towards the girl and her super-dad.

“Excuse me, sir,” I said to the man. “I hope you don’t mind, but um…” I turned to Patricia. “Any chance I can get your number? I’d love to take you out to dinner sometime.” I turned back towards the man. “If your father doesn’t mind, of course.”

Patricia’s eyes fluttered open, and her lips parted slightly. She looked at her dad, seeking approval, and he gave a slight nod while his mouth was set in a hard line. “Yeah sure. I’d love to,” she said.

I pulled out my iPhone and handed it to her so she could key in her contact details.

“Now, I don’t want you thinking that you’re going to do anything wild with my daughter. I’ve heard stories of how you are off the field, and I’ll have none of it. Patricia is a sophisticated, young lady.”

“Of course, sir,” I affirmed. “Just dinner with Mitch Ryker. I’ll leave The Wrecker on the football field.”

“Alright, good.”

Patricia returned the phone to my hand, and I gave her a sneaky wink. “See you.”

“See you,” she replied.

“And see you as well, Mr. Sizemore.”

“Good man,” he said. “I like a guy who pays attention to detail.”

Sometimes it was all too easy.

“
A
nnie
, wake up!” my mom said wildly, flipping on the lights in my room and shocking me out of a deep slumber. “Mitch is in the hospital!”

I struggled to adjust to the sudden brightness and rubbed the back of my hand against my stinging eyes. “What do you mean ‘he’s in the hospital’?” I asked, unable to hold in my yawn.

“There’s been an accident. He’s in the ICU.”

“What?” My mind was still a bit hazy from being whisked out of my blissful dream. I had been sitting calmly on the edge of a beach, dipping my toes in the warm ocean water while a tanned sex-god gently massaged my shoulders. Now I was back in my claustrophobic, tiny bedroom, being told that my stepbrother was in trouble.

“Get up and put some clothes on. We need to get over to LA Memorial as soon as possible.”

I shuffled my feet out of the bed, and suddenly the severity of the situation was starting to settle in. “There was an accident?”

“Just get dressed. We’ll talk in the car on our way over.” Mom rushed out of the room, and I heard her feet patter quickly down the stairs.

“What the hell have you gotten yourself into, Mitch Ryker?” I muttered to myself as I stood up, stretched my tired arms, and headed over to my messy closet.

It was unusual to hear about Mitch getting into any kind of trouble. He was generally a well-behaved guy and kept himself out of harm’s way. He was a member of the high school football team and loved to play, though half the time he was seated on the bench. His grades were decent, and our parents had just bought him his first car for bumping them up a notch that semester. I couldn’t remember the last time Mitch had done anything that was particularly bad or would have caused our parents any sort of concern.

I slipped on a pair of jeans and threw a cardigan sweater over my pajama top. When I glanced in the mirror, I felt like I looked horrible without any makeup and my stringy blond hair defined the term ‘bed head’. The clock on my dresser said 1:13am. I had only gotten about three hours of sleep, and my feet were dragging.

“Hurry up, Annie!” my mom yelled again.

I threw my hairbrush in my purse and started for the door. I could give myself a mini-makeover on the way to the hospital.

Mom was holding the foyer door open when I arrived downstairs, and I could hear the Subaru in the driveway already running. She locked up the house as quickly as possible, and soon we were speeding down the highway.

“What exactly happened, Mom?”

“They said that Mitch was hit by a drunk driver when he was on his way home from his girlfriend’s house.”

“But he’s going to be alright, right?”

“Annie, don’t you understand what ICU is?? He’s in critical condition. The doctors are fighting to keep him alive.”

I was stunned. These kind of things weren’t a normal occurrence for my family, so I really hadn’t had much experience with the ideas of “critical condition” and death. It all didn’t seem real. Especially for Mitch. He was the last person I’d ever expect to get himself in that type of situation—not that it was his fault or anything.

“I knew we shouldn’t have bought him that car...” Mom lightly slammed her hand on the steering wheel, and I could see the slightest bit of tears starting to trickle down her face. “We should’ve just waited until he was older.”

“He’s 18 already mom…”

“He might be 18, but he’ll always be my baby.”

My Mom loved Mitch like he was her real son. I was only 2 years old when Mom got remarried, and Mitch was 4, so our family had spent the last 14 years together. It really didn’t feel like he was my stepbrother. He was the lone sibling that I grew up with, so having him around was the only thing I really knew.

I reached my hand out and wiped the stream of tears off of my mom’s face. “He’ll be okay, Mom. He’s strong…”

My Mom nodded slowly, and I could only hope that I was telling her the truth.

We parked in the visitor area of the hospital, and I had to jog to keep up with my mom’s furious walking pace. Her eyes were wide, and her demeanor was frantic as she walked through the Emergency Room doors.

“Mitch Ryker,” she huffed to the lady behind the reception desk.

“Your name? And what’s your relation to the patient?” the lady asked.

“Kim Ryker. I’m his mother, damnit. Where is he?”

I had never heard my mother curse, so it rattled me a bit. I placed my hand on her shoulder to calm her down. “Mom…”

“Ma’am, please have a seat,” the receptionist said as she began typing into her computer. “Give me one moment, please.”

My mom reluctantly turned and sat in the front row of the visitor seating, crossing her legs impatiently. Her top leg was bouncing up and down nervously, and her anxiousness was beginning to spread to me.

The hospital was cold, and the somber faces of the other people in the waiting section were unsettling. I was biting on my fingernails when a handsome, mid-40s man in a white lab coat walked through a pair of sliding doors that lead to a restricted area. “Kim Ryker?” he called out.

My mom bolted out of her chair and rushed over to the man.

“Hi Kim.” The doctor made an effort at a half-smile, but the look of concern was clearly etched on his face. He reached out his hand for a handshake. “I’m Doctor Wallace. We’re sorry to have kept you waiting. It’s hospital policy that we talk directly to the patient before allowing any visitation in these extreme cases.”

“Extreme cases?” I asked.

The doctor turned to me and smiled. “And who is this young lady?”

“I’m his sister.”

“Okay.” The doctor nodded and turned back to my mom, dismissing me entirely. “Mitch is in a very severe state right now. We’ve done everything that we can at this point, but he’s undergone a severe amount of trauma. If he manages to live, his life will never be the same.”

Mom’s face was a state of shock, but she just nodded as the doctor continued.

“He has damage to his head, broken ribs, a fractured leg and arm, internal bleeding… He was pretty beat up when he arrived.”

“Can we see him?” Mom asked.

“Yes, of course. But I just want to warn you that it may be painful to see him in the state that he’s in right now. It’s not a pretty sight.”

My Mom nodded again, and the doctor turned back towards the restricted doors, motioning for us to follow. The smell of medicine and sickness filled my lungs as we followed him past the doors, and I immediately wanted to run away. The sound of sensors was echoing in the background, and the overall feeling of the hospital was cold and scary. It didn’t seem real.

We followed him through several twists and turns in the hospital and eventually arrived to an elevator which took us up several floors. After walking down another hallway, we eventually arrived to room 41. I’ll never forget that number, and thought it was strange that even several floors up his room would have a number that was only two digits.

The doctor pushed open the door and motioned with his hand that we could enter. “Try not to disturb him too much. He’s hanging on for his life right now and is on a lot of drugs. He needs his rest. Just press the nursing button on the wall if you need anything.”

We both walked cautiously into the room, and what I saw absolutely shocked me. Mitch was lying passively in the hospital bed with tubes running out of his arms and nose. His entire face was covered with bandages, save for a small slit where his eyes were, and rest of his body was bandaged as well. He was unrecognizable. A large pool of blood had formed on the bandage around his forehead. By all appearances, I would have thought he was dead, but in the background the slow beeps echoed on his heart monitor, indicating that there was life still inside of him.

Mom immediately started crying as she moved over to his side and grabbed his hand. “Oh my god, Mitch.”

I settled beside Mom, put an arm around her shoulders and slowly began to cry as well. I had tried to hold back, but the tears broke free anyway. I had never seen anyone in such a terrible condition, and to think that it was my stepbrother broke my heart.

I thought that the doctor had left for good, but suddenly he stepped back into the room and navigated to the other side of Mitch’s bed. He checked Mitch’s vitals on the computer screen and the motioned his hand towards Mitch’s head. “The driver hit him at an angle but almost head-on. It’s not clear if he was wearing a seatbelt, but his head definitely hit the windshield. He’s got a skull fracture here.”

He lifted a sheet that was covering Mitch and then pointed towards his upper torso. “His car was crushed, and looks like the steering wheel jammed straight up into his ribs. Pretty severe organ damage. He’s lucky that his lungs didn’t collapse. Some spinal damage as well.”

The door of the room swung open again, and Dad appeared out of nowhere, holding his suit jacket in his arms and sweat pouring down from his brow. “Oh fuck, Kim. Oh fuck!” he said. He threw his jacket on the chair, and Mom stood up to meet him halfway for a hug. Mom sobbed into dad’s shoulders. “I rushed over here as fast as I could just as soon as I got your text. I’m sorry I didn’t pick up when you called. You know they don’t allow phones in the mine.”

Dad was the chief operator of a small mineral mining company that was about an hour and a half outside of Los Angeles. The operation continued for 24 hours a day, so he was often away at undesirable hours.

Frank treated me like I was his real daughter, and I loved him to death. Sometimes he could be a real strict asshole, but I knew it was because he was overprotective—unlike my real Dad, who basically skipped town as soon as he found out Mom was pregnant. Mom told me that if I ever wanted to track him down I could, but Frank was as good a father as any, and I wasn’t sure if I’d ever really want someone who could hurt me and my Mom the way my real Dad had.

Frank pulled out of Mom’s embrace and turned his attention to Mitch. “Holy shit,” he said as he placed his palm gently on Mitch’s bandaged forehead. He shook his head from side to side as he lifted Mitch’s palms in his hands. “I can’t believe some bastard hit you. Hang in there buddy, and we’ll get him back. I promise you that.”

“Be careful not to dislodge his IV,” Dr. Wallace warned, pointing towards the tubes in Mitch’s arm.

“He’s going to live, right?” Dad asked with wide eyes.

The doctor tilted his eyes away briefly and inhaled a bit of air. “Hard to say, but it doesn’t look good. If he does live, it’s going to be a hard road ahead of him.”

“What about football? Mitch loves football.”

The doctor shook his head and gave an apologetic frown. “Sir, I don’t think you understand the severity of his injuries. If Mitch lives, he’ll never set foot on another football field again. In all likelihood, he’ll be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.”

Dad’s lips started to twitch, then he began sobbing loudly, tears running furiously down his face. “No… No…” he wailed. “Hang in there Mitch. You’re a trooper. Don’t die on me, baby boy.”

My eyes were growing puffy as tears rolled down my face, fueled further by my mom and dad’s emotional response. I had never seen them upset like that before, and the whole situation was breaking my heart.

The doctor left the room again, and we all took our positions in separate seats surrounding Mitch’s bed. It was the most stressful situation of my whole life, and I wasn’t prepared for it at only 16 years old. Mitch and I grew up together. We shared the same toys together. We went to the same school together. And now I was losing him?

Ever since Mitch hit high school, we hadn’t been as close as we had before. I went my own separate way, chasing the occasional crush and focusing on my studies to become a personal therapist. Mitch was busy playing football or spending time with his girlfriend.

His girlfriend, Sam, seemed like a nice girl. They had been together a little over seven months when Mitch had his accident, so they were already somewhat serious. She wasn’t going to be prom queen or anything spectacular like that, but there wasn’t anything spectacular about me or Mitch either. We were average teens going about our average lives.

All of a sudden, the heart monitor in Mitch’s room went from a normal one beep every second or so to two consecutive beeps every second. We all looked up from our chairs, concern etched on Mom and Dad’s face. Mitch’s body rustled a bit in his bed, and then suddenly his head shifted robotically.

Dad jumped up from his chair and grabbed Mitch’s hand. “Calm down buddy. Hang in there buddy. It’s going to be okay.”

The heart monitor sped up quickly, beeping rapidly…
Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep,
and then it suddenly it went flat—a single, deafening ring that filled the entire room. Mitch’s head stopped shaking, and his bed was still.

My mouth was agape, and I had no idea what to think or what to do. I wanted to hide in a hole somewhere and pretend that nothing was happening. It was too much for me to bear.

Mom ran towards the nursing button that was on the wall and started pressing it violently. “Help!” she screamed. “Help us please!”