Slowly lifting my head, I find her staring at me. “You’re the savage.”
Her eyes widen, her head drawing back like I’ve slapped her. “Pardon me?”
“Zero respects given, ma’am, you are the savage,” I tell her, embracing the shot of adrenaline fueling my veins. “You come into an emergency waiting room full of people and publicly degrade your daughter for everyone to hear. Then you continue to berate her to a stranger you’ve never met. Your mother might’ve taught you please and thank you, but she didn’t teach you how to love another human. You. Are. The. Savage.”
The room around us has gone dead silent. It had quieted when she was speaking to Bryn earlier, like people had started to listen, but not everyone had caught on. Now a pin could drop and we’d hear it.
She gapes at me, mouth slackened, blinking rapidly. Then shrill laughter spews from her twisted lips. “Let me guess. You’re a blue-collar worker. The type of man who thinks love conquers all. Let me tell you something—”
“Ain’t nothin’ wrong with a blue-collar worker, lady!” a man in the other aisle of chairs interrupts.
A woman across from him, turned around to watch what’s happening, adds, “Or a man who loves love.”
Emboldened by my fellow waiting room people, I rise to my feet. “Maybe she tore that dress up because she doesn’t want to be anything like you. And who could blame her? You sound like a disgusting, despicable human who doesn’t deserve a second of that woman’s time or the kindness she showed you by keeping hermouth shut.”
“That’s right, you tell her, honey!” Another woman cheers. “It was horrible what she said.”
Bryn’s mom looks around, growing more uncomfortable in her chair with each new voice that rallies against her. When another voice chimes in with agreement, she jumps to her feet, clutching a purse that probably costs more than I make in a month to her chest.
“I will get security if you keep on like this!” she threatens.
But I don’t care. I don’t plan on staying, because frankly, I can’t tolerate being in the same room as this woman.
Taking a step forward, towards her, I continue, “I do think love conquers all, and you should probably hope it does before you lose your daughter. I’d wager a guess that’s the only reason she’s still around.”
“Security,” she cries out, eyes wide, but she’s five seconds too late to convince me of real fear. “This man is being aggressive!”
Lifting my hands up in surrender as shouts in my defense are heard around the room, I sidestep the woman and look at the security guard behind the desk. He’s a guy who I’ve seen before when dropping patients off, and he doesn’t look convinced of anything, clearly having heard everything. “I was just leaving.”
I’m not going to breathe the same air as that rotten piece of shit. Which could be a problem in the future, I’m aware, but that’s for a future version of myself to worry about. For now, I know if she continued, I’d say more than I should.
Texting Bryn when I get outside to tell her where I am, I pace back and forth along the sidewalk, needing some of this anger to dissipate.
My dad can be a dick with his yelling about how I’m a disappointment because I wouldn’t follow in his shoes and I left mybrothers to become something other than a rancher, which I had no interest in being. But what I just witnessed? I have no words for. There isn’t a bone in my body that understands how a parent could treat their child like that.
Bryn warned me, though. She made the comment that they treated her like a doll. Something to dress up and play with, and that was exactly what it seemed like. As though her mother was actually a child, trying to boss her doll around and make her do what she wanted.
And it dawns on me. We might have totally different experiences with our parents, but they turn into assholes when they don’t get their way. Our stories are similar.
I just ran further than she did.
It’s twenty-five minutes before Bryn is coming out the doors, arms wrapped around herself, swimming in my hoodie. I’m halfway down the walkway when I see her, and she comes towards me at a quick clip. With the sun well over the horizon now, I’ve started to sweat, but she looks like she’s freezing.
“Walk,” she mutters as she blows right by me.
With a final glance at the doors to ensure neither of her parents are following her out, I turn and trail behind her, grabbing her by the hand to pull her in the direction of the truck since I dropped her off at the front doors all those hours ago.
She grips my hand with a force I’ve never felt from her before, and I want to pull her into my arms and hold her, unable to imagine what she must be going through right now. Instead, I force my feet to keep moving, and when old Betty comes into view, she pulls ahead of me, her shorter legs double timing one of my strides to quicken our pace.
I follow her all the way to the passenger side, and when we get there, she slumps face first against the door, her forehead hittingthe frame. “I don’t even know where to start.”
“How about with some sleep?” I suggest gently, running my thumb over the back of her hand. “You didn’t get a lot, maybe it would help with…everything.” Processing.
Her head turns so her cheek is smushed against the truck, her eyes sliding as far as they can to peer at me. Reaching up with my free hand, I tuck her hair back out of her face, and she releases a heavy sigh as she turns to put her back to Betty.
“I thought she was dead,” she confesses, her eyes on the ground. “When they didn’t update us for so long, I thought she must be dead. I thought maybe she’d even died in the ambulance on the way here. God, I thought she was dead in the kitchen.”
The tears I watched her shed all night begin again. Only in the presence of her parents did they dry.
