Exit Wound (3 page)

“I don’t know.” I looked toward the window again and separated myself from Everett so I could shut it, lock it, and close the curtains.

“We need to be careful,” I whispered, wrapping my arms around myself in a feeble attempt to comfort myself.

“We are being careful. And technically speaking, there’s no reason to hide anymore.”

“Whatever you say. I don’t want to be in the tabloids in the morning, though. I’m still—”

“I know.” Sighing, we both thought to ourselves,
I’m still a secret.

After the sighting at the graduation, I knew that everyone would have figured out mine and Ben’s connection by now. It was bound to be all over Twitter and most likely TMZ. I had been a secret kept under wraps for a very good reason—and now that I had been caught locking lips with a band member, well, things wouldn’t go over so well for either of us. I didn’t want any more trouble, so I decided to kick Everett out of my room. It was the best for the both of us, given our history whenever we were alone.

“You should get some sleep,” I said. “We’ve got a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”

He agreed, and I could tell he was resisting the urge to kiss me goodnight, and then he left, shutting my door behind him. I
wanted
him to kiss me goodnight, yet I wanted nothing more than to stay a secret even if only for another day.

While I was getting ready for bed, my phone buzzed. A text message from an anonymous number:

Anonymous: Be careful, little B.

Underneath the caption was a photo—one of Everett and me obviously kissing, his hand on my backside. I hadn’t even noticed how low his hand had gotten—though in the picture, it was obvious we were hot for one another. Now I had to think: why did I need to be careful, and who was sending me this anonymous warning?

Anonymous: Goodnight, B.

“Yeah, sleep tight, and don’t let the bedbugs bite,” I muttered, shutting off my phone for the night. By this time tomorrow, I’d be in a different city in a different state, and I could only hope that everything that was bothering me would leave when I left state lines.

One could only hope.

CHAPTER TWO

The clock on my nightstand indicated it was 3AM. I hadn’t been able to sleep at all. It wasn’t the noise outside my window, nor was it the aching thought of my missing mother that was lingering inside my head that kept me awake. Instead it was the text message and the photo evidence of Everett and me kissing that accompanied it. The words kept replaying over and over in my head. I had deleted the messages around midnight—though somehow, the words continued to echo in my head.

I sat up, aching to feel something other than what I was feeling then. I had always fought against the instinctual urge to become my mother, and tonight I was done fighting it. I knew what I wanted, and I knew where to get it. I crept quietly into the kitchen, and the only sound that filled the darkness of the box-sized apartment was the soft humming of four boys sleeping in the living room.

Ben was splayed across the couch, Rian and Everett were curled up on the love seat, and Grayson had bravely taken the floor. I tiptoed quietly went to the place where the very thing I wanted was hidden.

In the upper right cabinet, down in the very back, there was a bottle of liquor my mother drank on rare occasions. All her other liquors were in the front—although, the one in the back was by far the strongest. I needed the strength.

I thought back to the first time I saw mother drink. I was eight years old, and Ben was sixteen. He had his first girlfriend, and our mother had caught them in the throes of teenage passion. Now that I think of it, that situation had triggered her to drink in the first place. She had opened a bottle of wine that she had been saving for Christmas dinner, and I had watched her drink the entire thing.

“Frances, never do this to yourself,” she had said to me the next morning. “What have I told you about drinking?”

It seemed like she was saying it to me right then. There she was in her white nightdress, her hair a matted mess.

“Mom?” I whispered, and she shook her head. She placed her hands around mine, as if she was trying to grab the bottle (which I brought closer to me), and she giggled in this deranged way that often made me fear for her sanity. She looked at me with wild, bloodshot eyes.

“What do you think you’re doing with that, little girl?” she asked, tightening her grip on my hands.

“I’m gonna do what you always do.” I opened the twist top cap and held the bottle by the neck.

“You’re far too young—it’ll kill you,” she said, sounding concerned. Her grip tightened further.

“If it’ll kill me, then why aren’t
you
dead yet?”

She ignited with a burning rage when I said this, which led to her yelling, shaking me vigorously.

“You. Will. Not. Speak. To. Me. That. Way!”

I dropped the bottle, which shattered, and everything was happening at accelerating speeds. The lights suddenly were on, and Ben was trying to hold back my mother, who had already slapped me. I barely felt a thing. Everett was guarding me from my mother, and when my mother grabbed a piece of the broken bottle and held it against her pale wrist, Grayson was on the phone with the EMT at once.

I don’t know how he did it, but Ben calmed her down to nothing but chest-heaving sobs. When the EMTs arrived, one of them examined my face while the others tended to my mother. My injuries were nothing a little ice couldn’t fix. My mother, on the other hand, was in worse shape than I could imagine.

“Ma’am, do you know where you are?”

My mother looked around frantically, shaking her head like a frightened child.

“Do you know who these people are?”

She looked to Everett, Grayson, and Rian and shook her head. She looked at me with a blank expression, shaking her head again. She then looked at my brother, caressed his face and said, “This is my husband.”

I tried to hide my tears while Ben had to explain that this wasn’t true.

“Mom, I’m…I’m your son. I’m your son, Benjamin.” After my mother had been properly sedated, she was put on a gurney, and then they wrapped her up in a blanket for a one-way ride to Bellevue.

“Will someone stay with Bea?” Ben asked, putting on his coat.

“I’m coming with you,” I stated. He looked at me once, and that was all it took for him to realize that, as much as he hated it, I needed to be there too. Despite him trying to avoid the truth, the truth was that I knew more about mother’s drinking than he did now. He had been gone for six years, and it had been a long while since I was shielded from our mother’s deadly vices.

“Fine, grab a coat and some shoes.”

***

My first taste of hospital coffee wasn’t my preferred chai latte, but it was strong, and I needed that. I kept thinking of Mackynsie, the text messages, and even my mother. Why was her memory so bad? Why was she so violent? Even though this was something she did often, it still didn’t make sense.

I wanted to curl up into a ball so I could disappear. Ben tried to comfort me—although, nothing really could. I was numb inside, and there was no hope left to make me feel whole again.

After what could have easily been hours, a young doctor approached us with a clipboard in his hands.

“Are you here for Jacqueline Morrison?” he asked.

Ben nodded and stood up.

“I believe your mother, Jacqueline, has developed a form of dementia. I need to ask a few questions before I go any further with her treatment.”

Ben looked to me then to the doctor. “Go ahead, Doc.” He shifted his stance as if preparing for something that would hurt. I tried to pretend that the tar black coffee I was sipping was really a mocha latte from some place other than a hospital.

“Does your mother drink?”

“Yes,” Ben answered.

“How often does she drink?”

Ben shrugged, and it dawned on the both of us that he didn’t know anymore.

The doctor went on, and Ben didn’t know the answers to any of the questions.

“She drinks every day,” I said, barely looking up.

The doctor looked to me with concern. “You are?”

“Frances, her daughter.”

He started directing the questions toward me.

“How much alcohol does your mother consume daily?”

“On a good day, a little less than half a bottle.” Silence filled the room; no one wanted to ask how much she drank on a bad day or what constituted a good day.

“With the information you two gave me, my professional opinion is that your mother has what is called ‘Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome. ’”

Ben asked what it meant.

“It’s a form of dementia brought on by excessive substance or alcohol abuse,” the doctor explained. He folded his arms over his chest with the clipboard hugging tightly to him. “It’s treatable, but I don’t know what all has been lost or all of what will be returned. I suggest she immediately go into a rehab facility for treatment.”

He handed Ben a few pamphlets for places that could treat our mom and wished us good luck. Ben looked at me, his eyes filled to the brim with despair. When we got home to the mess we had found ourselves in, I couldn’t cry anymore. There was nothing left to cry about. I was numb, it was breaking on dawn, and the only thing I wanted was sleep.

Ben hung up his coat on the rack. I stood still until he clamped his hand against my shoulder.

“Get some sleep, Frances. I’ll wake you up when it’s time to go. Just go get some rest. You'll need it.”

With a tired expression, I gave him a nod and dragged myself back to my room. I barely kicked off my shoes and collapsed onto my bed, falling asleep instantly.

It wasn’t until I heard the noises of movement and the scent of food being cooked in the kitchen that I woke up. I didn’t leave my bed until Ben knocked on my door and opened it a crack.

“Breakfast is ready.” he told me. I was sluggish, and I knew that eating something that wasn’t frozen or pre-packaged would do me some good.

I walked into the kitchen where the boys were all helping to make breakfast. Once I sat down, I was handed a plate with bacon, eggs, roasted potatoes, and a side of sausage. I was halfway through all of it when my brother set a glass of orange juice next to me.

“I’m glad to know you still have an appetite, Frances,” he said, and the boys laughed.

“Yeah, we were afraid you’d become one of those girls who only cared about being thin,” Rian said.

“And what if I had?”

He stood silent and let me go on to eat my food.

When I was done eating, I decided to take a shower and style my hair because once I was on the road, showering would become a privilege, and my hair wouldn’t be as controlled as it was now.

When I was showered and dressed to my liking and my hair was tamed, the boys were already loading the van outside. Ben took my luggage out for me, and after I finished putting on my makeup, I took one last look at the place. The off-white walls that were dingy with time, the very few framed photos that hung from the wall, my room—it was all so distant already. I was leaving, and I wouldn’t be back for six weeks.

I wondered if it was possible to change in six short weeks. I thought that maybe it was, despite what I thought. I knew I was just going to have to find out like anyone else who went on a great adventure. And in my opinion, this was going to be a
damn
good adventure.

***

Arriving at the practice studio, I was surprised to see that everyone was already hard at work. I stifled a yawn, trying to find my place in all the organized chaos. Ben pressed a kiss to my cheek then headed up to the main stage to prepare for practice. As each boy passed me, they waved and smiled at me. I leaned against the snack table and found myself conversing with a guy who had a triple nose piercing.

“I’m Dan,” he said when he passed by me to get some food from the snack table. He later told me he was the guitarist for the band that was going to be opening for Eden Sank during the first leg of the tour. His bandmates were breaking down their set so my brother’s band could go on, and as they came down from the stage, I got to meet them all. They seemed pretty nice despite all the metal in their faces.

Once Eden Sank went on stage, they played harmoniously. Everything was in sync, and when they came down for a lunch break, while Rian and Grayson were skateboarding in the spacious studio and trying to race one another, I could see someone familiar talking to Everett on stage. He had the same profile and wardrobe choices—the only difference was his hair. It was up in a man-bun, messy, yet well contained. Ben was next to me at the snack table, piling food onto his plate, when I nudged him.

“You can’t have my food,” he said instantly. I smacked his arm and nodded toward the stage.

“Who is the kid with the man-bun talking to Everett?” I asked, and he nearly snorted.

“That’s our summer intern. He goes by Splinter. I can’t remember his actual name.” My heart started pounding in my chest.

“What’s his last name? Do you know?”

“Nightingale,” Ben said, and I had to fight the urge to pass out cold. “Why? Do you know him or something? I know you two went to Rosewood together, but—”

“Yeah, I know him.”

The way Everett was talking with Splinter, I knew they were getting along.

“Do you not like him or something? Is he secretly an ass? Does he have weird fetishes?”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just—” I looked to the stage again, and this time, they were both looking at me. I could tell I was the subject of conversation, and it didn’t help that they were both pointing toward me. I finally gave in to my weak knees and foggy mind and fell to the ground. Everything around me faded to black.

***

I gradually came to on a velvety soft couch in what appeared to be the green room, and I had bottles of water, juice, and a plate of cookies near my face when I woke up.

“You passed out. The medic said it’s a lack of food and a boatload of stress. What do medics know, right?”

I recognized the voice, and when my vision cleared, I looked toward the voice, and there he was: Splinter Nightingale.

“What are you doing here?” I asked him.

“I’m here because I got a cool summer job. What are you doing here?” He held a cookie in front of my face, and since it was an Oreo, I took it eagerly.

“I’m the band leader’s sister.”

“I know.” He smirked. “I just wanted to see if you would come up with some lame excuse.”

“Since when do I ever have lame responses?”

He patted his knees and stood. “I was told to watch you until you wake up, and you’re awake. I guess my job is done here.” He dusted off his knees and looked to me again. “Oh, and we’ll be working together throughout the summer, so I hope you can put any high school-ish feelings behind you.”

I grabbed his wrist; it was warm and bigger than I had realized. “Wait, I have something I need to say.”