Trying to stop thinking about who Mika was versus who Mika is isn’t an easy task. I shift the conversation again.
“How about you and Aidan? You two seem tight these days.”
Her look softens, and a small smile curves her lips. “We are tight. Aidan’s had my back for a while now. Maybe he’s had to have it too much, but I hope not.”
Cryptic. Vague. Annoying.
“I feel like I know less about you the more we speak rather than getting to know you better.”
Her smile drops again. “What happened to you after me? Before you left this place and found your own life?” she asks calmly, as though she’s proving a point.
The difference is, I’ve already told her about all my scars and it doesn’t faze me to tell her again.
“Dad fucked up and stole from a couple of rich summer guys. One happened to be a judge. I moved in with Blake, but went to check on Mom every day while I worked at Blake’s father’s shop with him. His dad was retired and rebuilt cars as a hobby. It was decent money and Blake and I slept in the apartment above the garage. Partying, working on cars, and saving up my money became a routine in between checking on my mom. Nothing much to tell.”
Her eyes drop to the counter for a second before she finally looks up at me again. The look there is flat, devoid of anything besides coldness.
“The last time I saw my mother we fought. She got… well, she got hooked on pills. My uncle made her a mess so he could steal from her, and we couldn’t make her better.” She takes a slow breath before adding, “My mother committed suicide in a holding cell the night she almost killed me.”
The blood in my veins turns to ice, and I stare at her in shock. Yeah, Jessica was a bitch, but she was never that far gone.
“In short, my life took a turn for a while,” she goes on when I can’t even form a single sentence in response. “College wasn’t possible. Can we just stop talking about it now?”
“How’d she almost kill you?” I ask before I can stop myself.
“She knocked me off a second-floor landing during one of her fits because I wanted to move out. End of discussion. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
She stands abruptly, and I look down at the pizza that I no longer feel like eating. It never occurred to me even once that her life would be less than perfect when I wasn’t in it.
She goes to drop down on the couch, and I move to join her, warily gauging her mood. When I sit down and wrap my arm around her shoulders, she tenses but doesn’t knock my hand away.
She flips through channels too quickly, making it hard to even read the titles, and she blinks rapidly like she’s trying to stave off tears or something.
“Want me to channel surf?”
She shakes her head. “If you let it sit on a channel for too long, I’ll have to watch whatever show is on until it’s over. Not just the one show but the entire series. Series aren’t allowed. Not unless they’re complete. It’s only safe to watch a movie I’ve already seen.”
The fuck does that mean?
“Mika, I—”
“I don’t want to share any more secrets tonight, Chase. Please don’t ask,” she says in a strained whisper.
She finally settles on a channel that is just starting to play Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and she exhales heavily as it begins while pushing the remote away. We sit in silence as she watches the TV and I watch her, trying to decipher the enigma she’s become.
I want to know what happened to her. I want to know why she’s so closed off about it. I want to know everything there is.
But she doesn’t want to talk, and it’s her past to reveal. Instead, I pull her closer until she slowly starts to relax against me, resting her head on my chest. The second the movie ends, her eyes flutter shut, and I sigh while kissing the top of her head and scooping her up.
She’s still in her T-shirt and panties because I really thought we would do a lot more before the night ended. Sex is now the last thing on my mind.
Carefully, I walk her up the stairs, thinking over the night and how rough it started out, before turning good… Now it’s ending all wrong. As soon as I lower her to the bed, she stirs and grabs my hand.
“Stay with me?” she asks quietly, not opening her eyes. “The way you used to.”
Letting go of her hand, I kick off my jeans. I never put a shirt back on, so I’m just in my boxers when I slip into bed beside her. She immediately wraps around me, almost lying on top of me, and I hug her to me before kissing her head.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you needed me,” I whisper, brushing my lips over her forehead.
She sighs while kissing my chest, but she doesn’t move other than that.
“I’m glad you weren’t. I would have become your darkness instead of your light.”
Even though I have no idea what that means, I don’t question her. Maybe Aidan can give me some answers if he’ll stop hating me long enough to let me ask questions.
Chapter 32
MIKA
“How the hell did she hurt herself?! You swore she wouldn’t have access to anything in here! The fuck are you assholes doing to her? This was supposed to make her better.”
“She broke a toothbrush and filed down the end to a sharp point. We’ll bump up security measures for her. Dr. Kravitz has to push her limits in order to find out what exactly they are. You need to remember your sister isn’t the same person. To help her, we have to study her.”
“You mean you have to fucking hurt her. That’s what you mean. She has a motherfucking brain injury. Stop treating her like she’s some psych patient and treat her like she’s incompetent instead!”
Aidan’s rant reaches my ears, and I stare at the ceiling as they continue to argue outside the door to my hospital room. My stomach aches, but my heart is what hurts the most.
Aidan thinks I’m unfixable. He thinks I’m incompetent. Maybe I was for the first three months when words were muddled and unclear, but as that faded, I began to realize the severity of my situation.
Incompetent? No. Fucking terrified of everything? Yes. It’s like having no filter on anything you feel. Everything is more intense… more severe. Each mistake is dire and consuming. Everything is worse. The part I need to hold me back and keep me rational is… gone. Just gone. And I don’t know how to get it back. But Dr. Kravitz swears he can retrain my brain. He promises I can be functional again without being sedated when something goes wrong.
A nurse is speaking again. “Everything that makes us a rational human being has been stripped from her. It’s what makes her so unique. It’s why so many leading professionals in their field have offered to help her pro-bono. Don’t you understand? Medicine can’t work. The suicidal tendencies it evokes is beyond extreme because the rational section of her mind is dormant. She’s an extraordinary case, and she has a team of the finest who are looking for the best solution to her problem. But in order to find an organic way to fix her, we have to find out what parts are broken and to what extent.”
“You mean you have to make her even worse before you even attempt to make her better. None of you fucking care about her. I shouldn’t have ever agreed to leave her in that fucking place. From a psych hospital to an emergency room. How is this fucking helping?”
The voices drift off as I continue to stare at the ceiling, counting every dirty spot it has and growing increasingly agitated when I lose count. They should have given me a clean ceiling instead of a dirty one.
My heartrate climbs when I lose count for the third time, and the itch to find relief grows to be suffocating. Tears start falling from my eyes as my gaze traces the dirty spots again, counting frantically, but when I lose count once more, a frustrated scream tears through my lips as I fight the restraints holding my arms to the bed, feeling helpless and trapped.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten… Is that one eleven or was it the one I counted for eight?
Another scream rips free as I struggle harder, wanting to get up and mark them off as I count them so I can stop losing count. My body shakes as more frustration wells inside me, almost manifesting in palpable knots.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight…
My body starts to convulse when I lose count again, and the monitor beside me goes wild as the door flings open.
“What’s happening to her?” someone demands, but I’m too busy trying to find my count again.
One, two, three, four, five…
“Her heartbeat is too fast. She’s seizing! I need—”
“Mika!”
I jerk awake, sucking in a painful breath as Chase shakes me gently, staring at me with wide, horrified eyes. “Mika,” he says softer as my heartbeat drums in my ears, matching its beat in my dream… In my memory.
Chase runs his hand along my cheek, brushing away the sweat-damp hair on my face, as I pant for air. I feel my heart slow down, catching up to the present instead of beating in the past.
“Fuck, baby. What the hell were you dreaming? You were screaming and counting.”
Chase hovers over me, searching my eyes for answers. Instead of giving him anything, I pull him down by the back of the neck and kiss him. Hard. Seeking relief in his touch is dangerous, but I need it, and I want him.