Sweet Forty-Two (18 page)

“How the hell can you tell what his pupils do in this light?” I challenged.

“Because,” she smirked, “I can’t stop looking at them.”

I rolled mine. “Lissa, I don’t even know what the point of this conversation is anymore.”

“Georgia,” her voice lowered to a purr, “the first night he was in here with the band, I saw the looks you two were giving each other. I chalked it up to fresh meat, something new.”

“Romantic,” I murmured.

“Shut up. But, that night he played with just CJ on stage, when Willow Shaw came in after? You should have seen yourself. You let go, G. All the way.”

“It was music. What’s your point?” I looked up at her as my cheeks heated.

She took two fingers and ran them across the apple of my cheek. “It was
his
music. And, for Christ’s sake, you told me he tried to kiss you.”

I thought back to the night that he and CJ dominated E’s for an hour. And I forgot about my life for fifty-eight minutes of that time.

“It was a fluke. And he didn’t really try. It was just that tense, vibrating sort of pre-kiss moment.” I cleared my throat, ignoring my lips’ desperation to have his on them.

“A pre-kiss moment you bailed on.”

My shoulders sank as I pressed my head back into the wall. “I’ll just hurt him. It’s inevitable.”

Lissa grabbed my shoulders. “No, Georgia, it’s
not
.”

“Genetics are pretty cut and dry, Liss.”

She sighed, keeping her eyes closed as she swallowed hard. “You know that’s not one hundred percent.”

“Whatever. I’m not going to pursue something with someone who isn’t even sure how long he’s going to be here, who has a dead girlfriend that’s sending him mail, only to inform him he’ll lose me when the white rabbit drops his pocket watch down the hole in my brain and I go in after it.”

“You and that goddamn fairytale...” she trailed off in a whisper.

“It’s no fucking fairytale, Lissa. It’s just the sordid story of a lonely girl. And there’s no prince.”

Lissa dropped her arms from my body and stood back, knowing this was where the conversation ended. It’s where it always ended. She had nothing to say. No charts to disprove the course I was on. No scissors to cut the strings that were tied around my wrists generations ago.

Just a lonely girl.

And no prince.

I remained quiet for the rest of my shift. Head down when behind the bar, smile up when dealing with customers. Lissa didn’t try to smooth over our earlier conversation. Not that she had any apologizing to do, but she knew well enough to leave me alone for the rest of the evening.

When I got into my car, and onto the highway, I had about fifteen minutes to make a decision on which exit to take. Home, to my quiet and comfortable bed, or another twenty minutes north to anywhere but comfort. After a few minutes of indecision, I realized I couldn’t bail on her for the third night.

The staff at Breezy Pointe was beyond accommodating to our situation, and I felt bad when I didn’t use it as set up. Visiting hours were pretty strict and did not encompass three in the morning. But, given I’d be an orphan when she decided she couldn’t take it anymore, they’d always let me work on a schedule with them. Okay, maybe I wasn’t a minor anymore, as I was when I first came out here and started my twilight visits a few times a year, so
orphan
wasn’t a technical term.

Especially since half of the time I already felt like one.

There was a woman at the front desk I’d only seen a few times before, so it took me a few extra minutes to get back to my mother’s unit. As usual, Daniel was waiting to check me in and put my belongings behind the nurses’ station.

“She’s gonna be pissed,” he mumbled with a slight snicker.

“Did you just curse?” I gasped and dramatically put my hand to my chest.

He shook his head as we approached her door. “You just can’t take
no
for an answer, can you?”

Actually, I could. I’d heard that word for most of my life.
No, things can
’
t be normal. No,
you and Daddy can
’
t come with me to California. No, I can
’
t promise you this won
’
t happen to you, too.
Still, for Daniel, I laughed at his attempt at camaraderie.

“I told you not to come here,” my mother’s voice, graciously playful with a hint of discipline, rang from the other side of the door before I even entered.

“Mama,” I sighed, “you’re awake, so am I—what’s the big deal.”

“The big deal, young lady, is you don’t have a life.”

Amanda Hall seemed back to her old self, whatever that meant, and had been getting there over the course of the last several days. She sat on the edge of the bed. No wheelchair, a real smile, and making eye contact with me.

Daniel dutifully stood in the doorway as I walked over to the bed and took a seat next to my mother, laying my head on her shoulder. “You’re my life, Mom.”

“No, Georgia. You’re mine. I demand you go get one.” She nudged my shoulder. “Plus, I’m leaving here as soon as the administrative cats crawl into the office in a few hours.”

Out of habit, when she said something I hadn’t heard from her doctor first, my eyes flashed to Daniel, who refused, it seemed, to look at me.

“You don’t have to check with him, Georgia.” My mother caught me staring. “I checked myself in. I’m checking myself out.”

“No ... I know that. It’s just...”

“You’re scared that if I leave now, I’ll be back here in a few days, like I was last time.”

I nodded, peering up at her as if I were a small child again, and we were in my room for a bedtime story. Those usually had happy endings, though. “Last time you were only out for two weeks, Mom.”

“And it was several months before that.” She gave a firm nod, as if to signal the end of the discussion.

Only, it wasn’t. There was no end in sight to these discussions.

“Susan—”

She cut me off at the mention of her sister’s name. “I have a condo. I don’t need to stay with Susan, and I will not be staying with you. Also, I need to talk to you about a decision I’ve come to.”

Her words didn’t make me nervous, but Daniel taking a purposeful step toward me did. I looked at him for a few seconds, trying to determine the risk I was about to take simply by listening to her. His face was set like stone, though.

“Georgia,” my mother confidently brought my attention back to her, “I’ve decided to go forward with the ECT.”

“
What?
” I shouted, causing Daniel to take another step forward. My mother didn’t flinch. “No. Absolutely not.”

“Darling,” she put her hand on my leg, “that’s not a decision you get to make.”

I stood. “Oh, so
now
it’s not a decision I get to make, but you drilled into me for, like, five years that when it
was
my decision to make, it was to be a hard
no
every time? What the hell? What’s going on?”

I knew my ability to make medical decisions for my mother was only covered insofar as she was incapacitated. Once she left the confines of the hospital, she could do whatever she wanted. Including zapping the hell out of her brain.

“It’s my best chance against staying out of here for the long term. The medication and the talk therapy can only carry me so far, honey.”

“But, you—”

“I know what I’ve said in the past. Things have changed. I’m getting worse.”

“So you want to fry your brain to get better?” I stood, the vomit working its way up my insides, needing more room to settle, or else it was going to be all over my mom’s room.

She sighed. “Georgia, you know that’s not how the therapy works.”

“No,
Mom
, I don’t. You spent several years making
damn sure
that I knew the exact and horrific reasons you didn’t want that therapy. Now you’re asking me to forget it?”

“I’m asking you to think of the times where it works. This is the last solid option I’ve got. Come on, Alice, take a deep br—”

“Stop!” I cut her off with a garbled yell, prompting Daniel to put his hand on my back. “Don’t start with that bullshit now. You can’t calm me down by making me pretend, Mom. I’m not eight, and that was just a fucking story.”

Of a lonely girl. With no prince.

My mother’s face fell; her lifetime tactic with me no longer effective. She looked at Daniel, then at me, then got up and walked to the window, saying no more.

“Please get my things.” I looked at Daniel’s shoes as I spoke. Once they moved toward the door, so did I.

“Georgia, I want to encourage you to stay. Don’t leave like this.” Daniel’s movements were slow as he gathered my bag from behind the nurses’ desk.

Tears welled in my eyes and threatened to burst at any moment. Now wasn’t the time for discussion. I sniffed as I snatched my bag from his hands.

“Sorry,” I sniffed again, tears fleeing the pressure of my head, “I can’t. It’s just ... I can’t.”

Once in my car, I let myself cry for exactly ten seconds before cranking the engine and getting the hell out of there. I’d been so tired when I got there, having lived off of three, or so, hours of sleep a night for the last several days. But, now I was drained and vibrating with angry energy all at once. Worst of all, it was three-thirty in the morning and there was nowhere for me to go, except home. To my empty apartment.

To fill the deafening silence of my car for the next twenty minutes, I picked up my cell phone. It was still drinking time on the East Coast.

“Hello? G? Everything okay?” CJ was in a bar, that much was clear based on his needing to shout over the noise around him just to hear himself. No matter that I could hear him just fine.

The panic in his voice was certainly justified. I would never normally call during hook-up-o’clock. But, I had no one else to talk to who got it.

“I ... sorry to interrupt your night.” I kept my voice quiet so he couldn’t hear the trembling behind it.

“Give me a second to get outside. There,” he said after a few seconds of human static, “now I can hear you.”

“For God’s sake, CJ, it’s February. Get your ass back inside before you freeze!”

“I’m sober enough to listen now, G, and drunk enough not to care about the blizzard.”

Sadly enough, I understood him completely. Still, I vowed to make it quick.

“I ... she wants to do the shock therapy!” I didn’t mean to shout, but when you’re trying to speak through years of frustrated tears, yelling is the only way to hear your voice.

“Are you driving? G?” CJ was so loud, so intense; it was like he was next to me.

I nodded, because that’s what rational people do during a phone call, and then said, “Yes, I just left the hospital. She’s fine. She’s checking herself out tomorrow and informed me she wants the ECT.”

“Pull over.”

“What?”

“Pull the fuck over and talk to me. I’m getting in my car.”

“You’re too drunk to drive!” My heart raced, wondering what the hell he was thinking.

“I’m not too drunk to operate the heater. Just pull over, G, and talk to me. Tell me what happened.”

A few seconds later, I pulled over into the safe confines of a scenic overlook. I stayed in the car, though, because between the ocean breeze and the highway noise, I’d never be able to hear him.

“K. I’m off the road.”

“Can you start over?” Whatever alcohol accent he’d had when he answered the phone was gone.

I caught CJ up on everything with my mom right through my storming out of the facility like a pissed off teenager.

“Sounds like she’s going to do the ECT, then, right? You can’t stop her, can you?”

Tears streamed down my cheeks as I stared, unblinking, into the light traffic passing by me. “No, I can’t stop her.”

“Do you think she’s really going to go through with it?”

“I don’t know. She didn’t flinch at my reaction. Wasn’t affected by my emotions.”

“It
does
work for a lot of people, though, doesn’t it?” CJ’s words were softer and further apart as he asked.

“I guess! But, I was indoctrinated to believe otherwise. By her. Now she’s asking me to rearrange my ingrained belief system. Not just for some random patient. For her!” I slammed my hand against the steering wheel.

“Stop punching your steering wheel.”

I gasped. “Did you hear that?”

“No, but I’ve sat with you in your car a time or two when you’ve been pissed. If you’re not driving, then the dashboard gets the brunt of it. I’m sorry I’m not there, G. I have no idea what to say. What does Regan have to say?”

His question confused me, causing me to look around. “About what?”

“Your mom.”

“He doesn’t know.” My stomach dropped. “You haven’t told him anything, have you?”

“No. Calm down. I told you I wouldn’t tell. I just figured since you guys lived together, basically, he’d know by now.”

“What has he said about me?” The question sounded juvenile, but I was still trying to get a sense for how he viewed me. Rae Cavanaugh aside, I could never get a clear read on him. He was reserved, each layer I peeled off—intentionally or unintentionally—only served to create more questions than answers.

“We haven’t talked much. A text here and there. And, we’ve never talked about girls.”