Page 73 of Expressionate
Iopen my eyes, and, for a moment, I fear that I'm blind. Everything is white, but nothing is identifiable. There’s just a bright light, shining directly into my eyes. Then, my vision clears, and the white ceiling above me comes into view. The light is the sun spilling in through the window. The sounds of beeping and feet shuffling along tiled floors are like slow whispers trying to reach me while I hover just beneath the surface of a pool of water. Water...why does that remind me of something bad? Something...my eyes open wider when I realize where I am. A hospital. A figure lingers in my peripheralvision.
"Love?" I blink, and Trisha's face movescloser.
I open my mouth on a croak. "Trish?"
Trish turns away. “She's awake!" I don't know who she calls to, but as soon as she’s alerted someone, she's back. Her hands reach out, one arm wrapped and white against the dark navy color of her t-shirt. How long have I been out? Who brought her clothes? Another figure fills thedoorway.
"Hey, how're you feeling?" she asks, propping her hip on the bed closer tome.
I try to sit up, and she helps by reaching down and pressing a button to move the hospital bed to a more comfortable position. "I should be asking you that," I say. I flinch at the stinging pain in my throat. It feels like I've swallowed gallons of salt and every particle is etched into the skin of my esophagus. "Whathappened?"
She frowns, sucking in a breath, and I realize who the person is as they move closer. "You apparently fell asleep in the bathtub," Anne says through pinched lips. It's clear by her stiff posture and her icy glare that she is irritated with being here. I don't know why she’s here in the firstplace.
“Where’s Dad?” I ask. If Anne’s here for me, then it’s only because he is too. Unless…I shoot a glance at Trish, who watches me with focus, avoiding her mother’spresence.
Anne sniffs with her answers. “He had more important things to do than to deal with his idiot daughter. That is a mother’sjob.”
I watch the small ticks in her face – the throb of her pulse in her forehead, the little curling of her lips as she looks down at my hospital gown, and the whitening of her knuckles as she squeezes her purse to her chest and moves across the room to the window. I don’t bother to tell her that she’s not my mother. But the more curious question is – why does she think that I fell asleep in thebathtub?
I glance down at my lap, my hands shaking. Maybe when Anne is gone, I should finally come clean? I should tell Trish. My stomach churns at the thought of how she might react, how weak she might think of me, how she might tell me that I was right. I take a deep breath, preparing to ask Anne to leave when Tax steps into the room and all of the air in my lungs evaporates, leaving nothing but a bone-deep tension lingering in the space between us as his eyes meet mine. Heknows. I can tell by the sharp darkness circling in his angry, ocean eyes. My heart thuds against my ribcage. Embarrassingly enough, the monitor picks up speed in response. All eyes move to it and when my heart doubles once again, galloping in my chest, their eyes collectively turn to myface.
"I-I—" I glance to Trisha, avoiding the steel gaze lingering on my reddening skin from the doorway. "I'm okay?" I choke out, trying, desperately to seem normal despite the riotingmonitor.
Trish turns her head and looks over her shoulder. When she sees Tax, her body stiffens, and she slowly turns back to me. "Your, um, boyfriend found you," she says, rising fully to her feet. "I'll let you guys..." Trish looks to Anne and nods to the door. Anne merely huffs and leaves without furthercomment.
"Trish." I reach for her hand and try to talk despite the pain in my throat. "What—" I look at her – the bruises and the darkness I can see in the back of her eyes. "How—" I lick dry lips. "Areyouokay?"
Trish presses her hand against mine and smiles. I hate it. Her lips are curved up ever so slightly, but there is no expression in her eyes – no life. "The doctors said I was good to go home," she replies. "I was discharged a little while after you came in, and mom went and grabbed me some clothes. But we can talk more later,okay?
"I'm okay, Love. I'm worried about you now. I've been here since you came in. I can stay if you want, but I was about to go back – I’m staying at a hotel.” A shadow crosses her face. She lowers her voice. “I can’t go back to the house rightnow.”
I nod. "It’s okay.” I squeeze her hand. “Go, get somerest.”
"Okay," Trish says. "Then I'll be back. I loveyou."
"I love you, too," I say as she pulls her hand from my grip and moves towards the door. She nods to Tax on her way out. The snick of the door latching behind her echoes throughout the coldroom.
I can't meet hiseyes.
I don't know how long we stay like that – me, sitting upright in the hospital bed, and him standing by the door, watching me. It could have been minutes, but it feels like hours, days, years of waiting for him to approach me. To say something. Danny’s words roll around in my head. I’m worthless. I’m a whore. Tax will never understand the way Danny could. I force myself away from my thoughts, the slight burning in my throat and the ache of my chest reminding me of what I almost did. When Tax does finally take that step forward, I almost flinch at how loud the ricochet of sound from his shoe on the tiled floor rebounds around theroom.
I have to say something – knowing he’s the one that found me, thinking about the last time we saw each other – what we did. I can’t just sit here and saynothing.
“I didn’t do it for you,” he says before I can even think of something suitable. The hoarseness of his tone is like a string – pulling my head up and his blue eyes catch my gaze. The pain reflected there is dark, holding me captive. “I didn’t lie for you,” herepeats.
It hits me. “You told them I fell asleep in thebathtub.”
He nods. “They thought you were trying to kill yourself – I told them you regularly took sleeping pills and sometimes you forgot if you took them ornot.”
“That’s not what happened,” Isay.
Tax’s anger fills up the room like a balloon. Squeezing against me even as I lie across the room from him. “I know.” Those two words are so powerful, they punch me right in mychest.
“Then…” I fist my hands in the cold sheets. “Why did youlie?”
“Because I didn’t want it to be true.” His eyes catch fire, burning into me. "I lied forme."
“She shouldn’t have believed you,” Isay.
