Page 28 of Two Wrongs

I miss them. Every day the reality that they are never coming back sinks in a bit more. I’ve been on my own since I turned eighteen. My mom’s younger sister stayed with me for a few months, but the moment I was legally an adult she went back to her normal life. Since she left, I managed the loneliness by clinging to Liam, but I couldn’t use him to fix my life.

“Liam?” I ask again.

“I heard you,” he snaps. “So is that it? Are you breaking up with me?”

“What? No! I said it would be hard, but we can make it work. Or, I don’t know—“

“I could come with you? Is that what you were going to say? I should abandon my dad and go to college with you. What am I supposed to do when I get there?”

This conversation is not going the way I thought it would. “I know you put off going to school when everything happened.” I gulp, saying this is still so hard. “When my parents died. You can go now.”

He sneers. “Thanks so much for your permission. I gave up my football scholarship for you, remember? I can’t just get that back.”

I shake my head. “I never asked you to do that. I never would have asked you to do that.”

“You didn’t have to. You and I are meant to be together. I don’t need to waste time and money getting some fancy degree so I can take over my dad’s business when it’s time. What is a degree going to do for you?”

“Don’t you want more? I don’t want to struggle like my parents did,” I tell him.

“You never learned how to appreciate what really matters. Your parents loved each other, and they had enough to support a family. Why can’t you learn to be happy here?”

“I can. It isn’t that you’re not enough for me. Please don’t take it that way.” A panic like I only experienced the night the police showed up at my front door slams into me.

“I want to marry you now, not in four years. Haven’t you learned how short life is? Let me be your family, be mine, and show me that I made the right decision staying here for you.”

* * *

I loved Liam.In my head I spun that moment until the story I told myself was the most romantic thing I could have ever imagined. Five years later I see some things more clearly than I did at eighteen. I loved him, but it was my fear of being alone and losing him that drove me to say yes. Not only that, but Liam’s issues with his mother leaving is probably what made him ask me in the first place.

Right after my graduation, while my classmates were surrounded by their families, I stood in the crowd alone. The plan was to get into Liam’s old clunker, and drive a couple of miles away to Grant Fork, the nearest decent sized city, and elope. We were checking into a hotel and going to the court house first thing in the morning. After Liam proposed, I’d had some second thoughts. Going to college and growing up were normal things I needed to do.

Yet, the loneliness I felt in the middle of the crowd shook me. It sunk so deep I feared I’d carry it around with me forever. Then I saw him standing off to the side holding a bouquet of yellow and white roses. “I know these are supposed to mean friendship, but they’re your favorite, so I didn’t want to bring you red ones,” he said sheepishly.

Suddenly I didn’t feel alone anymore. I took his hand, and tried not to look back. Maybe we were doomed from the beginning.

“Wren, are you listening to me?” Griffin breaks through my walk down memory lane.

“I’ll stay, for now. I’ll help you convince him to go to treatment, but that’s it. I’ve given up everything for him once. I can’t do it again. I know he turned down his scholarship for me, and I’ve tried everyday to make sure he didn’t regret that decision. But I’ve sacrificed for him too, and he broke me.”

I turn to walk away but look over my shoulder before I leave the room. “I’ll help you as much as I can. There’s a part of me that will always love him, but I have to try and love myself more. Once you get him into the facility, I’m gone. You Hale men might be the worst thing to ever happen to me.”

12

Griffin

A doctor comes into the waiting room, and looks around. He’s probably looking for Wren, but she stepped out about twenty minutes ago. I’m not even sure she’s coming back, and I honestly can’t blame her.

The doctor leads me through a maze of hallways, all heavily scented with antiseptic. He knocks on a door halfway down the hall and opens without waiting for a response. Liam is propped up in the bed, wires crisscross his body and a steady pattern of beeps from the heart monitor. I stand out of the way while the doctor completes his examination.

He doesn’t say much, just writes some things down on his tablet, and tells both of us to push the button if we need a nurse.

“Great bedside manner,” I mutter to myself.

“I can’t wait to get out of here,” Liam says.

I pull up the chair near the bed and settle in next to him. “I’m afraid that’s not going to be for a while.”

He starts to struggle with his blanket like he’s going to get out of bed. “I’m not going to rehab.”

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