Beautifully Broken (13 page)

Hannah dried her tears and
slid into the bed next to me. We held each other for a long time. I knew that I
had lost Gray forever. I couldn’t lose her too. I held her closer, not wanting
to let go. The doctor came in a little while later. He explained to me that I
had a severe hemorrhage caused by taking too many of the pink pills at once. I
hung my head in embarrassment. I just wanted to go home, curl up in my bed, and
die.

“Now, you can’t go home just
yet. You lost quite a bit of blood and we had to give you a transfusion. You’re
pretty lucky, your friend here just happens to have the same blood type.” He
winked at Hannah and she smiled. “So looks like you will be with us for at
least a few more nights. Are you in any pain?”

He kept checking my monitors
and IV drip, and I wondered if he was even listening to me. “Actually, I am.” I
sighed.

“Okay well I will send the
nurse back in with some pain medicine. No need to worry though, we have the
bleeding under control. As long as you do okay through the night you should be
good to go the day after tomorrow.”

I gave him a halfhearted
grin and replied with a, ‘sounds good’ and a ‘thank you,’ and then he was gone.
I looked at the big black clock on the wall, surprised that it was already 8:00
at night. Man, I must have been out for quite awhile. I continued to watch
Hannah pace across the room, while thoughts of Gray ran through my head. I had
betrayed the one guy that swore he would
always
be there for me. We could have had a
family. I broke what was left of us and I knew the repercussions were going to
be catastrophic.

“Hey Han?” I waited for her
to stop her absent-minded pacing before I continued. When she came to a
complete stop I finished. “What would you say to moving into a small house or
apartment with me, near campus?”

Her mouth fell open wide in
shock. “Are you serious? But, you love your house.” I could see that she was
thinking about my parents.

“Truth be told, I have been
thinking about it a lot lately. I mean I can’t keep living in the past. My
parents are gone. Living in their house isn’t going to bring them back and I
guess now, that Gray won’t want anything to do with me when he gets home, I
just figured I need to start
living
my life and stop avoiding it.”

“Bennett I’m
so
glad
you are finally realizing that. You deserve to live your life and be happy.
Your parents would be so proud of you.”

I placed my hand on top of
hers. “Will you help me put it up for sale and pack it up?”

A squeeze of my hand was all
I needed to know; my best friend would
always
be there for me. The nurse knocked quietly on my
door about thirty minutes later. “I’m sorry it took me so long sweetheart. We
just had another ambulance come in. I’m just going to push this medicine into
your IV drip. You should start feeling a little drowsy, but it’s going to help
with the pain. There we go, all done. Now just lay back and try to relax. You
need to rest. I’ll be back to check on you in about an hour.”

“Thank you.” My head already
started feeling fuzzy and the pain slipped away. Hannah kissed the top of my
head and said she would be back in a bit. As the door clicked closed, so did my
eyes.

I woke in a panic, thinking
I had missed Raylon coming back to visit me. I clicked the overhead light on
and quickly scanned the room. Our eyes instantly met and I could feel the
intensity deep down.

“Hi.” I whispered.

“Hey there pretty girl. How
are you feeling?” He walked over and perched himself on the side of my bed.

“I’m feeling okay.” I
glanced around the room trying to avoid any eye contact with him, before I
asked my next question. “Raylon? Do you know why I’m here?” I didn’t want to
know the answer.

He bowed his head. “Yeah, my
buddy Theo is one of the guys who brought you in.”

I remembered a loud manly
voice declaring to me that he was Theo before everything went black. “He’s
never going to speak to me again.”

“Is that such a bad thing?”
Raylon took my hand in his. His hands were like catcher’s mitts compared to my
small ‘child-like’ hands.

“I guess not. I just thought
I meant so much more to him. I’m just letting you know. I don’t want you to
think I am ready for something that I’m not.” I felt stupid for even assuming a
relationship was something he would want.

His long fingers tucked my
hair behind my ear before he grabbed my face in between them. “I’ll wait as
long as I need to.” He smiled and then his lips were gently pressed against
mine. I tried to fight the emotions that were starting to bubble to the
surface, but I gave in instead.

His lips were soft and
gentle and I wanted so much more. I pulled away trying not to offend him. My
body was standing on edge just looking into his cavernous eyes. “Can we just
take this slow?”

“Whatever you want to do
Bennett. You lead and I will follow.” He smirked.

I picked up my phone at
least a dozen times, before settling myself back onto the couch. I had already
been home for week now, and there had been no word from Gray. Text or
otherwise. I was forced to take the rest of the week off of school. The doctor
made Hannah swear she wouldn’t let me go back, until next Monday. But, knowing
that she was at school all day, and I was stuck here, sucked. I was going stir
crazy, with nothing to do.

Everyday, I woke up wishing
him through my front door. I knew I didn’t deserve for him to come see me, but
I needed him. I knew it was a long shot that he would answer, but I had to hear
his voice. I let out a loud huff when Hannah cleared her throat, from her
position against the wall.

“Just call him already,
Bennett. You know you’re going to anyway.” She walked to me with her arms
crossed over her chest.

“I can’t Han. He told you
himself, to basically let me die. Who says that?”

Her hand landed on my knee.
“Bennett, he had just found out that you got rid of a piece of him, that was
growing inside of you. I’m not saying it’s okay by any means but he was
hurting.”

I hung my head in defeat, “I
know Han and I have regretted it every day since.”

“Call him.” She was pushing
my phone into my hand.

Hannah slipped out of the
room as I sat staring blankly at the screen. “What the Hell.” I clicked on his
name and held my breath as it began to ring. Adrenaline was shooting through my
body and I felt as though I was going to pass out. After the third ring, I came
to the realization that he wasn’t going to answer. His voice mail clicked on
and I relished in the fact that I could hear his voice.

“You’ve reached Gray Weston,
please leave me a message after the tone and I’ll get back to you.”

I clicked the end call
button before it beeped. I threw my phone on the couch and wrapped myself into
a ball. A faint ringing broke into my sleep a little while later. I flung
myself into a sitting position and started rummaging through the couch
cushions. it was too late. I pulled the phone from between two of the cushions
and my breath hitched into my chest when I saw it flash a missed call from him.
I wanted to cry.

“Hannah?” There was no
answer, so I yelled louder with blatant disregard for the time. “HANNAH?”

Her tired form was next to
me seconds later. “Bennett, are you okay? What’s going on?” She was rubbing the
sleep from her eyes anticipating my answer.

“Look.” I thrust the phone
into her open hand. “He called me back.”

Confusion settled across her
face, “Okay. So, call
him
back.”

“I can’t”

“Um, why not? He obviously
wants to talk to you or he wouldn’t have called you back.”

I let out a sigh, “What if
he didn’t mean to call me back?” I knew how stupid I sounded but she took it
upon herself to inform me of it anyway.

“Do you realize how fucking
stupid you sound right now? I mean, I love you Bennett but I seriously think
you have brain damage. I’m going back to bed. Goodnight.”

I watched her leave the
living room in utter shock. “Fine, I’ll call him back.” I said it loud enough
so she would know I wasn’t stupid. “Bitch,” I mumbled under my breath.

“I heard that.” She shouted
back before I heard the slamming of my bedroom door.

My finger slid across his
name and I couldn’t stop my hands from trembling. I wasn’t exactly sure what I
was going to say to him, but I didn’t have a second longer to think about it.

“Hello?”

He sounded groggy and I
instantly hated myself for not checking the time first.  “Gray?”

“Yeah.” His voice went from
groggy to angry in less than a second.

“I just saw that you
called.” Really? That’s the best I could come up with?

“I was just returning your
call Bennett. I didn’t know if something was wrong.” Yup. Pure hatred.

I ran my hand back through
my hair. Time to put on my big girl panties and just admit it, I needed to hear
his voice. “I…Um, I just wanted to hear your voice.” I sucked in a big breath
listening and waiting.

There was a long pause and I
checked the screen twice to make sure he hadn’t hung up, when he finally spoke.
“I...I’m…I’m sorry Bennett, I can’t do this.”

Just like that our
conversation was over. I blew out an angry breath, hating myself for even
thinking that he would want to talk to me. I should have known better than to
think otherwise. It had only been a week for crying out loud. Maybe he just
needed more time. I was back to sleep in no time, with visions of Gray invading
my dream. When I woke the next morning, I had come to the decision that I
needed to move on. If Gray and I were ever going to heal, I needed to let him
go. So that’s exactly what I did.

My family’s house sold three
weeks later. A loving young couple and their daughter bought it and paid full
asking price. That was unheard of in this economy. I was sad to see it go, but
a bigger part of me was glad to move on. I weaved through the hundreds of boxes
cluttered through out the house to find Hannah.

“Hannah?  You in here?”
My voiced bounced off of the walls.

“I’m in the kitchen.”

I made my way down the hall
from the entryway and into the expansive kitchen. I found her packing the last
of our dishes in bubble wrap. I ran my fingers along the marble countertops,
while making my way over to Hannah. I was going to miss this place more than I
had anticipated. I closed my eyes and watched as my mom stood making
Thanksgiving dinner. I could smell the abundance of spices floating through the
air. I smiled at the memory. When I opened my eyes, I stood staring out into
the back yard. My eyes began to mist up when I caught sight of the old wooden tree
house. “Our” wooden tree house. My heart ached and yearned for a simpler time.

“Han I’ll be back in a
minute.” I shouted over my shoulder as I made my way to the sliding glass door.
My heart dropped into my stomach once my foot hit the grass. The crisp fall air
whipped around my body sending shivers down my spine. I hurried over to the tree
house and ducked inside. I could feel winter just around the corner. It was
only noon and the temperature had significantly dropped over the last hour. As
quick as I had entered, I turned around. I was overcome by too many emotions,
ones that I wasn’t willing to deal with at the moment.

I backed up to take in one
last look when his mother caught my eye. She was standing on her back porch,
looking down onto my side of the yard. I took in her expression out of the
corner of my eye before turning on my heel and heading back into the house. She
never said a word and I was thankful for that.