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She looks at me curiously. “What does that mean?”
Laughing more, I pat her knee. “Nevermind. Let’s not worry about it right now.”
In fact, being outside the apartment is already further easing my worries about our food stamps. Fresh air really is awesome.
And I really do believe that things are going to be okay.
|| 4 || Landon
I’m not even going to lie: after Liv and Rae disappeared into the elevator, I went home and dug around in my bathroom to see if I could find anything resembling bath bubbles.
I ended up finding a mostly empty bottle in the cabinet beneath my sink, and I silently thanked my past self for not purging that small area of Amanda’s stuff when I kicked her out. She was wasteful and threw out a lot of things like that before they were really empty, so who knows how the bottle was even still around, but I was happy about it. I used every last drop.
It’s been almost an hour since then, and I feel better than I did. Not awesome or good or even happy, but better; my charming neighbors managed to warm me, this hot bath even more so. The strictly male parts of my brain have bitched and moaned about the bubbles several times, but the rest of me just doesn’t give a shit. My day kicked off with a really good visit with Lolly and work went well for about three hours, and then the call from Quiet Springs came and my spirits hit the ground.
They called because Lolly had done a complete one-eighty since I saw her this morning. But she didn’t only snap into a foul mood—she went ballistic. No one even really knows why; Greg said right after her lunch got delivered to her room, she just exploded without warning. She flung her tray and everything on it onto the floor, shoved the wheeled cart into her small entertainment center so hard it cracked the TV screen, then starting throwing things at Greg and got him pretty good with a picture frame. She went even crazier when other staff members were called in to help, and she tried to dodge them and run out of her room, but there was tea on the floor from when she upended her lunch. She slipped, banged her head on the end of her bed, and broke a hip.
Even though I rushed to the hospital she was taken to, I wasn’t allowed to see her right away. The nurses monitored her, took care of her hip, then monitored her some more, and by the time I got taken back to see her, she was knocked out. I didn’t even get to talk to her.
I had no idea what to do, or what to even think. I was so shocked any of it had happened that I was just…there. I wanted to ask questions, but I didn’t know what to ask other than,‘Is she going to be okay?’and,‘Will it take a long time for her to recover?’I was worried, but dimly, somehow, like I couldn’t process any of it properly.
And I didn’t want to leave her side, but she wasn’t even awake, and I felt like I was in the way because nurses were checking all kinds of stuff around her and the room. Right about the time I decided I was going to stick around anyway, the doctor said it wouldn’t do any good because Lolly would be out for a while. So after I quadruple-checked that she was stable, I made more than one person promise to call me when she gets ready for a visitor, and I left.
The stress of it all really hit me as I was walking out of the hospital. I couldn’t seem to get to my car quickly enough, but I couldn’t manage a run, either. I told myself I should try to calm down because I’ve known for forever that Lolly will only get worse as time goes on, but that didn’t help. I just began to feel sick. She had seriously hurt herself—and she hurt Greg, too, and made a big mess of her room, and she’ll have to stay in the hospital for several days….
The only thing that kept me from speeding home was the unsettling idea of everything flying by. But when I finally arrived, I jumped out of my car and hurried indoors to catch the elevator to the third floor. It’s not often that I care that I live on the top floor, but right then, I felt like the ride took more than just ten seconds. I stood there with my hands over my eyes, feeling increasingly queasy and unsettled, and as soon as the elevator opened, I rushed forward with serious impatience.
I felt terrible that it was Liv-Andria I ran into.
I mean, I wouldn’t havenotcared if it’d been someone else, but…I don’t know…she’s not exactly short, but she’s a lot thinner than I am. There are four units on each floor, and she and Rae are the most delicate tenants on ours. I wouldn’t have felt as bad if I’d banged into the hefty, 6’4” dude who lives across from me, or the equally hefty woman with the equally tall teenage son who live across from the girls. Now I’m thinking about it, I’ll check again later that Liv isn’t hurt. She told me she was okay, but I might’ve bruised her somewhere.
Even with our encounter starting out like that, though, I appreciated the distraction from my thoughts. She and Rae are so cute and nice.
And oh, God, I can’t believe Rae’s fingers look like they do. I didn’t want to bring it up in front of her, but I’m certain her mom is responsible for that, which is just disgusting. It’s hard to wrap my head around how vices can matter more to people than their children.
But Rae really is a sweetheart, and although her aunt is reserved, I can tell she has a good heart, too. I’m glad they’re around, and I hope they’ll be at Abby’s party—damn, I wish I had remembered to mention it to them.
My bathwater is cold before too much longer, so I get out. After I call the bar to catch Bill up on the situation with my grandma, I text Robbie to update him, too. Then I pop open a beer.
While I drink it, I think some more about Lolly.
The way she’s going has always made me deeply sad, but she and Pop taught me to look on the bright side of things. Count my blessings. Remember there are people out there who have it worse than I do.
So I make a mental list of the good parts of her current situation. For one, she didn’t appear to have any brain damage from hitting her head. For two, the doctor said her hip surgery went well. For three, Quiet Springs said this kind of thing just happens sometimes with residents and, even with Greg’s small injury, there’s nothing to be concerned about legally nor in the way of Lolly getting kicked out of the place.
And, truly, there are people out there who are less fortunate than I. There are people who were abandoned by their parentsandgrandparents. There are people out there with traditional families but whose grandmas aren’t kick-ass like mine, and others whose grandmas aren’t alive anymore—hell, I don’t even have Pop anymore, so I know how lucky I am to still have Lolly. And she’s in good hands, even though she’s going to be in pain for a while.
I hold up my beer, say to no one but myself, “To cheering up, because things can always be worse than they are,” and finish it off.
As I’m tossing the empty bottle into the trash can, my nose starts itching, so I rub at it with my shoulder. I stop short when something occurs to me, and then I laugh out loud.
That bubble bath made me smell damn good.
I’m curious for a moment about what Liv’s bubble baths makehersmell like. Then I push that thought away to wonder instead if she and Rae had a good time at the park.
Annie. That’s what Rae called her.‘Annie always says fresh air is good when you’re having a bad day.’
And now I’m wondering, all too late, if that meant they were going through something shitty back there, too.
