Underneath It All (19 page)

Chapter XXI

Senseless

All the holiday spirit had been temporarily reversed and I was in a state of total exhaustion.

I went back home the next day to get a few hours of sleep and when I came back, all my family were by my Mom’s bed. She was cold, extremely sweaty, and gasping for breath. Her eyes were closed, but she was clearly in pain and suffering. I rushed to her bedside and took her cold hand, and said, “Mom, I’m here with you now, and I promise you, I am not going to leave your side. I’ll stay right here with you.” She didn’t respond.

We melded together in a blur of nurses and doctors and respiratory therapists, cardiologists, of bad coffee and sleepless nights.

It was that time of the year again, the time of year I loathed for the very first time. Most of the people were out in droves, rushing to their stores of choice to get the greatest deals. People hung lights in the windows, stockings hung in the living room, and gifts were under the tree, while we were staying in the hospital looking after Mom.

It was a week before Christmas break and everyone else was excited for the holidays. The smell of hot chocolate and peppermint permeated the air. People were putting aside their differences. Families were reuniting. If only that was the case for us. Christmas was in the air, and I wanted to shove my fist down the next person’s throat who wished me a Merry Christmas.

Spending seventeen hours in a hospital waiting room was seriously making me want to commit myself to the psych ward. I was two minutes away from banging my head against the wall my head was resting on. I was pretty sure it wouldn’t help the raging migraine starting to creep through my head. I rubbed my temples and yawned tiredly. I was almost two days without sleep and sitting curled up in a chair wasn’t helping me any.

This week before Christmas vacation was the hardest I had ever lived through. It was the fact that waking up every morning became more painful than anything. Everything seemed to go by slow.

Dad refused to leave Mom’s bedside for more than twenty minutes, just long enough to eat.

The hospital door creaked open and Tats poked her head through.

“Hi,” she said softly, two cups of coffee resting in her hands.

“Gats.” Apple smiled as she came from behind the door followed by Raven.

“Hey there, bitches.” I plastered on a fake smile.

“How’s she doing?” asked Raven.

“She hasn’t woken up,” I whispered, my voice hoarse from not daring to talk these past few hours. “Mom had a stroke and she hasn’t woken up, guys.” I cried and turned to take my mother’s hand in mine. “She should have woken up by now.”

“Shh, hey, calm down, Agata.” Tats soothed, placing the cups of coffee down on a small table and walked over to me, wrapping her arms around me and resting my head on her shoulder. “She’s going to be okay.”

Raven and Apple pulled me into a tight hug and whispered soothing words into my ears, rubbing my back with the palms of their hands. The hospital door opened again, and I pulled away from them when I saw Dad entering the room.

He walked in with a bag of food in his hand. “Want some food?” His voice was cold.

“Thanks, Dad. We’re fine. We were just about to go down to the cafeteria.”

“If you’re tired you should go home, Agata, or go back to your dorm,” Dad said in his lifeless tone.

He had been giving me the cold shoulder lately. We hadn’t had the chance to talk about the argument.

Dad reclaimed his seat beside Mom’s bed. He’d promised her that he would still be there holding her hand when she woke up and he wasn’t going to go back on that promise.

We went outside and saw Reeve sleeping, with some other family waiting for news of a loved one.

He never left my side except for university duty.

His sleeping face was so cute, all squished up against his arm, a little drool coming from the corner of his mouth. He was making it difficult to not love him.

“Gats, as much as we want to stay, we still have class today. We’ll drop by again tomorrow,” Tats said, patting my shoulder.

“Thanks for coming guys. I really appreciate it.”

“Dean will make up for our loss,” Apple teased and looked over at Reeve’s direction. “It’s a good thing he’s here for you. We couldn’t thank him enough for that.”

“But…but…it is still taboo,” Raven rolled her eyes playfully then she turned serious. “I just hate it when people talk trash about you.”

I held her hand. “I don’t care what they say—”

They cut me off and continued the sentence with a line from Bleeding Love by Leona Lewis.

They sure knew how to keep my spirit up.

“Guys seriously, thank you.”

“We’re always here for you, Gats,” Tats said, and they engulfed me in a large embrace.

They bade goodbye and walked off.

I walked over to Reeve and considered taking off the earphones, but they seemed to help him sleep so I just let the sound go on.

He shifted uncomfortably and rested the back of his knees on the chair’s armrest. He leaned into the wall trying to get comfortable. He twisted and shifted again, still not comfortable. He shifted again and almost fell out of his chair. I silently laughed at him.

He yawned, stretched out a bit, and unconsciously wiped some drool off of his mouth. He looked up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, then saw me staring at him.

“Hello, sunshine.” He smiled.

“Hey.” I smiled back, trying not to get weak-kneed at his sleepy voice.

“Was I snoring?” he asked, looking worried.

“You weren’t snoring.”

“Good,” he sighed.

“Just drooling a little.” His face fell and I tried not to blush as I said it.

“I don’t drool.” He self-consciously rubbed his face.

“You do,” I continued to tease.

“No way.” He looked at me.

“You drool in your sleep.” I deadpanned.

We both fell silent for a moment before he burst out laughing. It was definitely the best sound I’d ever heard, a deep chuckle that was slower because of his sleepiness. It was contagious, so I giggled too, forgetting about the whole “Mom hasn’t woken up yet, Dad’s cold treatment, and Mikael’s AWOL” shit.

***

Reeve and I went home that afternoon to take a shower and maybe, just maybe, take a nice nap in my soft bed.

“Ho, ho, freakin’ ho.” Waiving his bottle of Bacardi in the air, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Mik narrowed his bloodshot eyes in my direction as I opened the door. “Where have you been, sister? Have you been out whoring around with your boyfriend or am I right?”

“Go back to your dorm and sleep it off, Mik. I also need some rest.” Turning my back on him, I decided the best course of action was to ignore him. Dealing with him would have been very stressful.

I was stressed for most of the school year, especially due to thesis requirements and thinking about the future, all the while I was pretending to be okay.

We went inside the house and the dining room remained quiet until the door swung open.

“Oh stop looking at me like that Gattie Hattie. I was just having fun.” Swaying on his feet, Mik spotted a vacant seat and stumbled into it. “What’s up?” he slurred. The words came out of his mouth the second Reeve appeared in front of him. “Hey, tell your Frodo Douche Baggins half-brother he’ll pay for what he did to my sister,” he said and took a drink of his rum.

Reeve just shrugged him off and walked off to the living area. I was looking at them from the kitchen where I was preparing some food for the both us.

“Hey…hey,” Mik followed him. “Who do you think you are, huh? You are no longer my dean. Your father expelled us remember?”

I rushed over and stood between them. “Mik, I’m tired of your drunk bullshit! Why don’t you just rest, okay? The expulsion didn’t push through. Reeve didn’t allow it to happen.”

“Agata, it’s better to drink and talk stupid, than to drink water and be full of shit.”

“You need to apologize to him.”

Letting out a frustrated groan, Mik ran his hand through his hair as he set the bottle of Bacardi on the center table.

“No.” His mouth frowned a little, clearly not fazed by the dark look Reeve was sending him.

“There’s no need, Agata,” Reeve said.

I vehemently shook my head; before I could take a step toward the kitchen, Mik grasped painfully onto my arm and he yanked me back.

“Where are you going, sister? We’re still talking here, right?” His drunken words jumbled to a steady shrill. He was too drunk to speak in a clear sentence.

“You’re drunk and being an asshole!”

“Let her go, Mik,” said Reeve.

His grip tightened. “All of you are the same! Whose side are you on, Agata? We were supposed to be in this togeth—”

Reeve knocked him out with one blow.

“What the?” My mouth fell open. “What the hell did you
do?
” I dropped to my knees beside Mikael before shaking him lightly. “Mik!” I shrieked.

“Agata, I didn’t mean for it to happen.” Reeve’s hands dropped to his pocket, a surprised expression crossing his features.

“He’s my brother, you asshat!”

“Look, you wanted him to sleep, I put him to sleep.” Reeve joked at the situation but a flash of panic crossed his face. “I’m sorry.”

I let out a growl in frustration, biting down on my bottom lip and rolled my eyes at him. “Let’s put him to bed.”

Mik’s soft snores began to float across his room. I sighed. My brother may be the biggest pain in the ass on earth but I love him. We are twins after all, connected in a special way.

I found Reeve lingering inside my bedroom. I carefully shut my door and leaned against it.

“I can’t remember inviting you inside my room.” I glared at him though there was no force behind it.

“I invited myself in.” He turned around to face me. “So this is your bedroom?” He scanned my room for a few brief moments. He walked up to the large cork board on my wall and gawked at all the random pictures.

“So you just take pictures of random things?” Reeve asked.

“That is my memory wall. Those pictures were taken over the years.”

I smiled sadly as my gaze traveled over the one with my mom posing with the researchers at Bradford’s Alzheimer’s Association. There was another picture of her and Dad on the lake looking happy with her winged fish. A picture of Mikael hugging his guitar while he slept. There was a random snapshot of Tats, Raven, and Apple holding up beer cans on a rooftop of a building. Looking at the pictures brought a slight smile to my face.

“I didn’t expect you’d be a No Direction fan,” he said. That yanked me back from my trance. He was looking at the wall where posters of my favorite bands and artists were plastered.

“That is none of your business.” I ran toward the wall and pressed my back against it to cover the face collage. Fuck. He shouldn’t see that. “Out! Now! How could you do that to my brother, you…” I stammered. He decreased the distance between us as he walked toward me. “Get out of my room, Reeve.”

“I had hoped you’d be more hospitable, though.” He pouted his bottom lip out in mock sadness.

“W-w-wait…is that me?” he asked, pointing at the face collage which looked like a puzzled page from a magazine.

“No!” I quickly covered it with my hands.

He even leaned forward and looked at the collage intently while I put my hands over where his eyes landed.

Reeve kept smiling at me like an idiot. I tried desperately to stay calm and not look like some obsessive stalker.

He shoved my hands away and grabbed the collage gingerly off the wall, giving it a prolonged look. “You keep a picture of me on your wall?”

I could feel the blood rush to my face as he teased me about it.

“No! Of course not! I made that collage long before I met you.” I blushed profusely.

“Are you stalking me?” He teased me even more.

“Excuse me! I am too beautiful to be a stalker.”

He laughed and it was quite annoying. Suddenly he stopped laughing. I was slightly unnerved by his unwavering stare.

I stared back at him, becoming moderately angry due to so much humiliation, when he raised an arm and caged me against the wall. He just cocked his head to one side, watching me intently.

“You are fantasizing on me.” A sweet smile graced his lips and he chuckled slightly.

“I’m not!” I protested but couldn’t help but laugh with him.

When our laughter ceased I told him, “Thank you for being here with me.”

“No need to thank me.” He caressed my cheek and kissed my nose. “It’s the least I could do for you. How I wish I could take away all your pain,” he whispered, holding me with both his hands on my waist.