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After I finished with the officer who asked me a million and one questions, some I could answer, and some I couldn’t, I was exhausted, and I wanted to go home. But it didn’t sound like that would be happening until the following day, which made my mood even more sour.
Another thing that didn’t help was knowing that I had been unconscious a few minutes from the seizure, but even longer because I’d hit my head. It was the exact thing I was worried about as the scene had been playing out, and fear gripped my body in its tight hold.
When the policeman was taking down what I could recall, he’d also brought in the nurse who had found me out cold on the hard ground, clothes in a disarray, and my hair a mess. Trina was a friend of mine and we worked together a lot. I was glad she’d come along because it sounded like she must have scared Dr. Lawson off when he heard her coming since Trina didn’t see him.
As I recounted the events and she’d heard that it was him, her face showed sympathy, but the weird part was it also had a knowing look as if she wasn’t surprised to hear it had been him. Gyth must have caught that too because he asked her about it before the officer even caught on.
Trina had gone on to explain that she and some others had noticed his, what she called infatuation, with me, and how he wouldn’t ever leave me alone. Knowing that people noticed and I hadn’t told anyone, made me feel stupid. This was one thing Officer Miller had homed in on and asked me about.
It was bad enough explaining everything, but watching Gyth, Alley, and Jurnee’s faces killed me because I knew they were upset that I hadn’t at least come to them.
By the time that all had been hashed out, there was also a visit from one of the board directors. They also would be going over the story, and Dr. Lawson could very well lose his job. I didn’t care about him, despised him to the full degree, but I was a little nervous about how he would handle it.
I laid there with Gyth on one side of me, Alley on the other drifting off to sleep slowly. Everyone else had left so I could rest, and Braxton and Jurnee needed to go pick up Embry from Jurnee’s parents’ house. And although Jurnee wanted to stay, we’d talked her into going to get some sleep too. My bestie wasn’t too far from having her baby boy, and she needed it. Kace also took off to take care of some stuff at work since they had all rushed out.
Just before my body fully came to rest, I heard the door, and my eyes popped open. My brother Landon came flying into the room.
“Sis, are you all right, what the hell happened?” he asked as he came to stand right next to where Alley sat by my bedside.
The emotions of the day and incident played me like a fiddle, my strings strung tight, and I exploded.
“Oh, nice of you to freaking grace me with your presence, Mr. High and Mighty! My family and friends have been here for hours, but you, Lord knows you were probably at the office with Dad and your other fancy employees, and Mom was probably at some charity function at the country club. You don’t care about me, so run along back to where you belong.”
Even as the words were leaving my mouth, my heart was telling me I was being a bitch. But they just kept flying out, no control over them at all, as so many feelings plagued me at once.
Before I could pull them back and apologize for what I said to my brother, and the only blood family I was close to, an explosion I didn’t see coming erupted.
Alley’s chair flew back as she abruptly got out of it, one hand clenched and the other up, as her shaky finger pointed at me. My jaw dropped, shock etching my face, which mirrored Gyth and Landon’s too.
“You may be my best friend, and in the hospital, but even as much as I love you I have to say that was some utter bullshit you just let slip past those pretty lips of yours. You of all people know the pressure your uppity class parents put on Landon, and as much as I wished he’d have broken free of them long ago, it is still hard for him. He loves you, always has. So don’t you lay there and take the crap that happened today, or any other day for that matter, out on him. He came, he is here, and he didn’t deserve that from you.”
By the time she was done with her tirade, she was huffing and puffing. Sucking in a breath, her body slowly started to calm and her amazing blue eyes that got a little turbulent amid her speech softened again. But then they registered surprise and a look of dawning came over her, as though she realized what she’d just done. Alley used to be this fierce when it came to Landon, but that had been a long time ago.
And with that, she turned and walked out of the room.
My brother's eyes followed her, and then he turned back to me. He looked puzzled, sad, regretful, and so many other things all at once.
“I’m so sorry, Landon, I didn’t mean to take everything out on you.”
“What just happened?” he asked. Then he turned back to the door once more that Alley had just exited, a look of longing on his handsome features.
That was the million-dollar question. One day I was going to get to the bottom of the Alley, Landon saga.
I’d been set free.
As much as Gyth and both my girls fussed over not driving me home from the hospital, I’d told them Landon would be chauffeuring me to the house. When he’d come back the next morning to apologize, his eyes were filled with sadness and he asked if I would let him take me home. There was no way I could say no and I didn’t want to.
He was my big brother, my savior for so many years as I struggled through my seizures and the melancholy brought on by our parents’ disapproval of me. If I hadn’t had him in my corner growing up, I don’t know what I would have done.
And I had been freaking awful to him.
My parents were nowhere to be seen because I wasn't important enough for them to stop whatever they were doing and race to be at my side. So when Landon walked into the room, much later than everyone else, I’d lashed out. Alley was right, what I said to him wasn’t fair. I needed to say sorry to him and our drive home alone was as good of a time as any.
So we talked, hugged, and promised to spend more time together. Honestly, he may be at a lot of the important events, or holidays, but he didn’t come to the house much, and I’m sure that had to do with Alley. He did, however, walk me inside after bringing me home from the hospital.
We said our goodbyes and as he was headed to the door, Alley walked into the living room. Landon must have heard her bare feet padding along the wooden floor because he turned and with his hand on the doorknob, looked directly at her. The anguish in his eyes almost killed me, but his words were like an arrow through my heart when he spoke to her.
“Thank you for what you said at the hospital, I know it took a lot for you to defend me as you did. I may not be your favorite person these days and haven’t been for a long time, but I remember a time when I was.”
