Where the Ivy Hides (6 page)

Paul, Reese's father, nods before quietly speaking, "They said the extent of his injuries will slowly reveal itself as the swelling goes down. After 24 hours, if he still doesn't have any bleeds and we make it through the night without any emergency surgeries, we'll know more. Until then, it's any one's guess." He turns Rachel towards him before saying something I can't hear.

I turn towards the bay windows of the hospital to give them some privacy and spot Delilah walking back and forth in front of the ER sliding doors swishing open and closed with every pass as she pulls drag after drag from her cigarette, barking at someone on her cell phone.

I politely tell Paul, no thank you when he offers me some coffee before excusing myself when I see Delilah shove her phone in her over-sized hobo bag and head through the double sliding doors.

She's pissy for answers, but after I fill her in on what I know, the pissiness quickly transforms into sorrow.

Delilah really doesn’t know Jaci, but she and Reese had a short fling after school a while back. I was in rehab, but still remained semi-close. When it dawns on me that she's here for me, I pocket that and hold it dear to my heart. I wouldn't have pegged Delilah for a softy, but hey, smaller things have surprised me.

She fingers a long gold screw-cap vial hanging from her key rings and. I look to the side and quickly nod. "Go 'head."

I light a cigarette and when I turn back from slipping my lighter back into my bag, she has the wand practically under my nose, and I put my hand up, "I'm fine, and I'm an addict and all that shit, too. But thanks anyway, bitch."

"Delilah Foster, get that shit out of me Ivy's face, before I question me mum's teachin' about why men don't slap women unless we're bloody fucking. Understood?"

She slips the vial into her purse. "No, nothing you say is understood, I can't understand a bloody wanking thing ya say, but don't worry, I do get the gist. How's Sherry holding up?" She looks genuinely upset aside from her forced lighthearted words.

"As good as can be expected, I guess." He smiles sadly at me and reaches for my hands.

Once his hands are clasped with mine, he glances at Delilah before turning his attention towards me, "I told her we'd go to her apartment, her mum needs us to gather her toiletries and some dress. A pink one?"

I nod, knowing which pink dress he's asking about, but still digesting what it is I'm about to do. "Delilah, you wanna come, or-"

She jumps up from the bench she just sat down on, "No. It's cool. I'm gonna go. I gotta pick up Nic at ten, his gig at Baby's is over and he's still car-less, so...I'll probably see you in the next few..."

She looks at me, ashamed, but I nod again. Because it's just too awkward of a situation to do anything else, really.

Chapter 6

Each day that passes feels like a paused breath, a slow step forward in an endless line of many. One of my best friends died and the other is missing her funeral...because he's in a coma, in a hospital, hundreds of miles away.

I pause, breathe, and pause again.

Ryker has me tucked to him on a church pew towards the front, and through the tears falling, I see Blythe attempt to slide into the pew before he looks directly at her and jerks his head, 'no.' I don't see Blythe again, not during the ceremony or the burial that follows. All I really see is Ryker, because every time I turn around or move to leave, there he is. There he always is.

In the months that follow, it doesn’t take long for me to teach myself Reese's business end of the shop.

And thankfully, at Reese's father's insistence, Paul comes in to help me out with the business aspect of things in the evenings after Lucky Pipes closes.

Even more surprisingly, Delilah started working every Saturday for me so I could continue my painting classes.

It's hard, and everyone is pushed to their limits, but dammit, other than forward and without any new news from the doctors about Reese, I don't see any other options, so forward we go.

I just pause.

Then breathe.

And move forward.

One day at a time.

Delilah also comes in almost every day during the week and much more now than before. She says coming to work at the stupid bike store must be growing on her. On Wednesdays and Friday's, she's usually loaded down with to-go food bags and new dark acrylic paints that I'm supposed to be using to pour my pain out across a canvas.

And I will, one day. It's just a little hard to talk chatty, wine chugging, soccer mom's into painting anything else besides Fleur de lis and crosses on shitty chevron backgrounds.

When she comes barreling her way through the shops glass front door, loaded down with Chili's to-go bags, I'm excited to see she hasn't forgotten how much I love lunch, precisely at the current time.

"Hey, bitchacho's, eleven o'clock. Straight up. On time." She sets the bags down on the desk then turns around, her eyes land on mine. Squinting she smirks, "Hell, I gotta do my part to feed this kid you're freaking carrying. God knows without me, Ryker would let the two of you starve."

Ninety percent of the time, I ignore whatever falls out of Delilah's mouth, and ninety-nine percent of that time, I'm caught off guard by whatever it is she's saying. So it takes longer to process the importance of her words. It had to filter through bullshit central first, for Christ's sake.

I've mowed through the Cobb salad, half an order of fries, and I'm biting into my Big Mouth burger when the bite lodges it's self in my throat.

I croak, "Fucking wait. Wha-What?" Just as Ryker steps in from the side bay.

"Delilah." He nods before leaning over and brushing his lips across my big-mouthed stuffed cheek, " Ivy, me, love." Then he stands back to his full height, grabs a stool and a to-go box and sits down beside me behind my desk.

"Ya girlies cuttin' out early today, ay? It's Friday. Maybe drinks and a movie?"

I watch in morbid fascination, and it's almost as if I'm not really even there. It's like a damn out of body experience.

The days and weeks prior click into place until the timeline in my mind resembles a period of more than two months.

Holy. Shit.

The funeral...I thought the stress of the funeral, Reese, the shop... I just assumed I would start again next month, or the next, once the stress wore off.

It's the damn memory of the fucking antibiotics I was taking the week before the accident that sends the controlled chaos in my mind into full frontal, heavy metal jacket, mad max kinda chaos, and all I can manage to do is stare.

Shit.

Shit. Fuck. Damn. Hell.

I'm fucking pregnant. At twenty-one years old, I've lost one, possibly two, best friends and somehow, even sober, I still winded up the one thing, I never wanted to be...fucking pregnant.

I can't even pinpoint when it happened, my day to day life has been so fucking hectic. I couldn't pinpoint it, if my life depended on it.

"Ivy? Bloody hell, Delilah, did ya forget to tell ‘em no onions? Hon, here." He gathers my to-go boxes, rattling off some Irish jibber when Delilah bursts out laughing.

I do what I do best, I bolt. I don't even know where I'm headed, I just start walking. I walk through the glass front door, down the few steps, across the parking lot, and turn left when I get to Third Street. And I just keep fucking walking.

I don't want a kid. I've never wanted a kid. Never. When the girls in elementary school wanted to play house and dress their babies, diapering their little plastic wet asses, I passed. I was out. I didn't want it.

I went outside. I found Reese and we went to the woods, dammit. Fuck kids. All of them, the little ones, the middle ones, and the bratty know-it-all older ones. No.

I cannot be pregnant.

I just can't.

I don't know the first thing about parenting, for fucks sake, I don't even have any parents! How can I know?

I hear his feet slow from a jog to steps before I feel his big hands circle the tops of my arms and I stop where I stand a few blocks down from Lucky Pipes. I know three things right now, and three things only...

I'm fucking pregnant.

I'm scared to fucking death.

And I can't fucking drag another breath into my lungs until he tells me he will fix this. Because, dammit, I know I may say I don't like being the one who always needs to be fixed, but right now, I do. I like it when Ryker’s there to put my pieces back together.

No. Scratch that. I love it. He makes me whole.

"I know we're young, hon, and I know that I always said I wanted a little Lad one day...but ya know, just yesterday, I was thinking how bad ass it'd be to have me a lassie, strong and quick witted like her mum, but patient too like her ol pops. Ya know?"

I almost fall apart where I stand, when I blurt the fourth thing I know, "Ryker, I can't raise this baby. I just can't."

His smile may slightly waver, but it's gone too fast to tell and his calm accepting smile stays steady when he chokes out, "Even if I had to let her go so I could catch her mum, I'd be proud that I got to call her mine for the short time she was in your belly. There's other ways, Ivy. Let's focus on the other ways. Maybe they'll let ya pick out her parents, ay?"

And just like that, I'm back together.

I'm fixed.

I'm whole.

Without speaking a word I step up on my tiptoes then turn in his arms until I can tightly link my arms around his neck.

He leans his face down to mine and softly kisses my tear-soaked eyes. "Please, don’t cry, love. We'll be okay, you'll see."

It doesn't take long to get used to something that scares the living shit out of you when you're happy. And when you're in love.

I'm not one to flash my small successes, but I gotta be honest when I say how surprised I am that there wasn't at least one suicide attempt in the twenty-four hours that followed the positive pregnancy test. And I was sober?

Yeah, I was surprised.

Ryker makes it easy to find contentment and success in the small things. He usually also rattles on about a whole other list of Irish jibber and tall tales he heard his grandpa always say, but the contentment and success in small things is really the only one that rings true. To me, anyways.

It's my birthday and it's unseasonably warm. I'm dressed in my norm, tight black leggings paired with an oversized t-shirt and some slip-ons. When I see Delilah's black civic pull up in the parking lot. I gather my bags, slinging them over my shoulder and head out the door, telling Paul, "Let Ry know I left with Del, and I'll be home by midnight. Night, Paul."

I step out into the humid night and smile as I breathe in. I pause for a second.

Then I step forward, off the last step and slide into Delilah's car seconds later.

"Sup, mami!" She turns down The Weekend blaring
'I can't feel my face when I'm with you'
, and starts throwing shit from the passenger seat to the back.

I laugh at her, "Not much. Damn girl, can't you afford a maid, relatively easy, for this kinda square footage? "

She cuts her eyes at me, "Fuck you. If you weren't so scared I'd try..." Her bitch look strengthens, "and succeed at fucking your hot AS FUCK Irish boyfriend, I wouldn't be sleeping in my bitch ass car!"

Her traffic weaving skills get less aggressive as we hit the interstate headed towards my place of employment, Le Painting with a Twist. Our conversation continues its ta-te-ta until she whips into a handicapped parking spot.

After I get out and I grab my bag, I crawl her ass about it for the hundredth time, "Go park over there, you know Kim will fucking kill you if she sees you parking here!"

Kim's the boss, and she's cool...she's just, well, the boss.

It doesn’t take long for the class to fill, and while everyone finds their own best friends to stand beside, me and my best friend make our way around the tables, checking the supplies, and still talking shit to each other about her living arrangements.

"Delilah, your parents own every art studio south of the state line and every paint gallery and museum in south Florida. Fuck it, buy yourself a Painting with a Twist, THIS Painting with a Twist, and I'll live there with you. Be your lesbian life partner, and split whatever child support we could get from Ryker for this kid with you, if you did that. Don't try to play on my heart strings, sweet tits, because I don't have any."

I wiggle my fingers at her, gesturing for the extra brushes in her hand.

She blinks a few times before handing them to me. "Here. Hold these. I gotta go potty," she says.

See...like I said, I ignore ninety percent of what she says, I can't afford not to.

Of course, it's another fucking faux distressed wood background with three letters representing initials, or God knows what, that I'm having to teach. But it's cool, I still get lost in the strokes of the brush. As long as it glides, I can paint anything.

It's well past nine thirty and most of the stragglers have moseyed from the building and into the parking lot when it dawns on me...shit. I haven't seen Delilah. Did she leave while I was painting? It wouldn't be out of the ordinary for someone, or a lot of someone's to walk out of my class and it go unnoticed while I'm painting.

After the rest of my brushes are tucked into their specific pockets and my paints are stowed, I gather my bags and head towards the bathroom at the back of the class studio. Before I make it half way through the class, Kim passes through from her office and flips off half the studios lights, asking, "You and Del heading out?"

I’m not sure why, but uneasiness settles in the pit of my stomach causing me t
o
stop dead in my tracks and I tilt my head to the side for a second.

I pause.

And I breathe.

Then I step forward, once, twice...and on the twentieth step, my hand clasps around the door knob and turns.

It only takes one step back for me to realize I’m looking at my best friend sprawled out across the bathroom floor with her pale yellow dress hiked up over her head, lying in a pool of foam and bile dripping from her mouth, as she hemorrhaged from her eyes and ears around her last few breaths.