Page 17 of Fall for Me

Chelsea

Despite my slippery escape, or maybe because of it, the hospital agreed I was well enough to leave the next day. Cass was there when the doctor told us, and before I could say anything, my phone dinged. I picked it up to see in the few seconds since the doctor left Cass had sent a group text inviting every single living member of the Kelly clan to my room to help pack me up.

“We’ll take care of everything,” Cass assured me, squeezing my hand.

“I’m not completely useless,” I said, my voice coming a bit too tight. I was irritated she’d sent that text without telling me. Why couldn’t it be just me and her?

She pulled my blankets up, tucking them around my hips. “I know you’re not. But you need to take it easy for the next while—doctor’s orders. Just worry about getting dressed for now.” Then she breezed out, saying “I’m going to go get some boxes from the car.”

I sighed, leaning my head back against the pillow, conjuring the same image I’d been returning to since coming back to the hospital yesterday: a patch of grass overlooking the quince. A man, standing next to me, his mouth turned up in the slightest smile. This memory, less than 24 hours old, had become my happy place. A place no one could find me. Where no one stared at my face with shock or pity. A place I could breathe.

In my mind, I felt a rough hand taking mine… then my phone dinged again.

I blinked, the image disappearing, replaced by the dull walls of the hospital room, the buzz and beep of machines. The murmur of voices in the hallway.

I picked up my phone.

MIA:I ran into your brother. He said you’re getting out today?!?!

My stomach twisted. Mia was my best friend. Sort of. She was the person I’d hung out with the most in the past year, mostly because we shared the same interest, singular: partying our problems away. I’d been avoiding Mia, telling her the hospital wanted me to keep my visitors to a minimum. That my family had claimed first dibs. It wasn’t even really a lie, but they wouldn’t have stopped me from having a friend visit.

But I’d been avoiding Mia. I didn’t know how to face her. Though I called her my best friend, she wasn’t really. I didn’t have close friends.

You just need to let people in, Cass said, like it was so easy.

Mia was sweet, but she was part of the life I was living before. A life I knew I couldn’t go back to now, not even if I wanted to.

Not when I looked the way I did.

Voices trailed in from outside. Cass had left the door open, though the curtain next to my bed was drawn, blocking anyone coming in from view. But I picked out Eli, Dad, and maybe Jude’s voice too through the cacophony of noise outside my room.

I set the phone down. Mia would have to wait.

As the boisterous voices of my family grew louder, a thick layer of dread closed over me like a sodden blanket. Today would be filled with people. Yes, they were people I loved, but that only made me feel more guilty for wanting them to stay away. Because once again I’d be sitting there like a useless lump while they buzzed around me doing all the things, not trusting me to do anything myself.

The fact that I did need some help now only made things worse.

Guilt, ever-present guilt, washed over me. I knew I was being ungrateful. But with everyone bringing me things they thought I’d need—toiletries, books, magazines, flowers—ugh, the flowers—it would take us all afternoon to get out of here. Then at home they’d all want to get me settled in…

I felt my anxiety rising as the voices grew louder. What I wouldn’t do to run away once more. To settle down on the grass on that ridge; or maybe, in the hammock I’d seen on Seamus’s porch. To close my eyes with the sounds of the breeze sifting through the leaves of the trees. Or the soft low clucks of the chickens pecking at their food.

Instead, I was going back to my apartment, where even though I lived alone, I knew I wouldn’t get to be alone.

Then I remembered what I was supposed to be doing: getting dressed. Maybe I could hide in the bathroom; extend my solitude here just a few minutes more.

My feet had just hit the floor when I heard the patter of little feet on the linoleum floor.

“Aunty Chessy?”

My heart lifted.

If there was one person here it felt like I’d actually be glad to see—who looked up to me instead of acting like I needed help—it was my nephew Jack, Jude’s four-and-a-half-year-old son. It felt like he was the only person in this family who didn’t think they knew better than me about how I should live my life. Pathetic, really, that in this family it was my dead Mom and a four-year-old who I was closest with.

“Jack! Over here, sweetie.” I grinned widely for the first time since I’d woken up as the curtain danced around, Jack searching for the opening. But my face ached at the shift in muscles.

That’s when I remembered.

“Wait!” I exclaimed, just as Jack pulled back the curtain.

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