Girl in a Hoodie: Where the Future Lies

Chapter 38

Riley's POV:

A couple of minutes later, the door reopens and James slowly walks back over to me, making sure to close the door shut behind him. I roll my eyes, looking downwards to find Elouise had finally managed to fall asleep but I maintain my ways of soothing her anyway. 

"Have you thought about everything now?" I ask him, a bitter tone detailing the hoarseness in my voice. He sighs and I can just about feel his eyes looking at me but I don't fix my gaze on him, instead I just carry on talking since he doesn't seem to have an answer. "If you're rethinking everything now because you've seen my dad, then that's absolutely fine. Tell me now and then I know what I'm doing for the next years of my life. I'm sure I'll be able to cope alone, no big deal."

"Ri, please stop with the sarcasm. I'm not leaving you-"

"Then what the hell did you need to go and think about? My dad's not stable enough yet and you know that. Yet you chose to leave me alone with him as if what he did to me the first time that happened wasn't enough," I respond.

"I know. I just... needed to think." I turn my head to look at him, his eyes drawing to meet mine in the meanwhile as I notice the torment written across his face.

"To think?" I scoff. "I just had a whole row with my dad and you're here telling me that you needed to think?"

"I just-"

"Oh, no. Don't worry, I get it. Trust me. I need to think all the time. You think this is easy for me? Do you? Because I have tried to be the best daughter I could ever possibly be my entire life! I didn't want to be a disappointment even though I knew I already was, James! My dad had his first daughter separated from him by my mother's choice and I was the remainder. No one wanted my six month old self because I was born around the time everything started going wrong. My dad became unwell at the time my mum had given birth to me. He couldn't cope with being part of a proper family and so half of it was torn away from us. He didn't want me and yet I still tried obsessively to make the effort."

I watch with my eyes narrow as James walks over to me, attempting to hold one of my hands but I instantly jerk away from him. I don't want either one of his sympathy or his empathy. All I need is his love and understanding. It's not fair that I tell him absolutely everything but he repays me with nothing. He's supposed to trust me and yet I've come across as a disappointment to him just as much.

"And now look. No one would ever wish this upon their child but here we are and Dad hates me for it. So yeah, I have things to think about," I say bitterly. "But at least I still know what my priorities are and how to set them straight."

"Ri..." he sighs as I bite my lip by a fracture. "Your dad loves you."

"Yes. He loves me. But do either you or him like me at this current moment?"

"Of course I do."

"Then why can't you ever just tell me the truth, James...? You keep things from me on a daily basis but then have the audacity to tell me not to do the same to you." I pause as a pain ripples through my head and everything around me begins to get fuzzy but I'm still able to hear James's next words.

"I try not to, Riles. Really, I do. I just..." He looks up at me from where his eyes had been preclusively watching over Ellie but when he does, he notices me gulp and blink several times before his hand finds its way to being placed lightly on my arm.

"Ri, what's wrong, babe? Are you okay?"

"Bowl."

"What?"

"I'm going to be sick. Pass me the bowl," I tell him forcibly, gesturing my one hand that wasn't holding Ellie close to me all over the place until I eventually find a plastic bowl in my palms from where it had been deposited on top of the counter by the bed. I let everything out, the smell of vomit filling the room as I hold my hair back and James had found his way on the edge of the bed so as to worm his arm around me, rubbing my back momentarily. I take a couple of tissues he had lent me to wipe the excess from off of my mouth whilst sniffing, Ellie beginning to cry all over again due to the several movements I had made to discomfort her.

"You okay now?" James asks me softly.

"I'm fine."

"You're obviously not, Riley," he pushes. I sigh and place the back of my palm on my forehead before removing it after a couple of monotonous seconds as the warmth seems to hit against the inside of my knuckles, causing me to sniff briefly.

"I have a temperature."

"Do you want me to get a nurse?"

"No," I answer frantically. "It's fine. I'm not done talking to you." 

He frowns and exhales at the same time, relaxing back down in his seat as he had begun to get up with the specific look of dread on his face like the ones when you know you're in trouble with your parents. Although, to be fair, he is a bit more relaxed than that, seeing as it's just me and not some authority figure or anyone significant like that. 

"Just take Ellie. I don't want anything bad happening to her when she's so healthy. Not all babies are like that when they're first born," I tell him, carefully placing her small body in his arms as he stands back up, rocking her side-to-side and hushes a bunch of sounds whilst he looks down at her small frame.  I watch him intently, simultaneously playing around with the small cross on my necklace which, somewhere along the way, gets me to look down at it and read through the steeled calligraphy. J & R Forever.

"I'm sorry, Ri," James says suddenly. Pulling out of my trance, I look up at him but keep my fingers curled around the fragment of silver, both of us looking directly at each other. "I'm sorry that I can't be more open with you but it's because I don't now how to."

"What?"

"I can't express my inner feelings to people using words. I can only do is physically and not verbally," he sighs.

"But you're talking to me right now, Jay."

"This isn't what I'm feeling. This is just a logical explanation," he tells me so I nod, his words apparent in my mind. "I know what I want to say but when I try to speak it, it always comes out differently, and it's usually by me shouting or being physical towards people and that's why I don't open up to you as much as you do with me. I don't want to risk hurting you which is why I shy away from telling you things."

"I thought it was because you don't trust me," I say quietly, for him to shake his head in response.

"It's not that I don't trust you. I trust you with my life, Ri," he chuckles, making me smile lightly. "It's just that I don't want you to suffer because of something I do. I've made you suffer one too many times already. I can't risk hurting you."

"Okay. I get it," I abbreviate. "Do you understand how scared I was telling you about my personal life for the first time?"

"No?"

"I was terrified. And reluctant because I'm scared of the past repeating itself. I've explained everything to you about everything I've had to go through but you still owe me an explanation. So I'm here to listen whenever you're ready."

"Thanks, Riles. And I'd kiss you right now but you just threw up and I don't really feel up to spreading an illness around the hospital," he smirks.

"About that... I really don't feel good. Maybe you should get a nurse," I tell him. 

He nods and then prudently lowers Ellie back into the provided cot before walking out of the room and I watch his figure walk down the corridor until reaching vanishing point.

A/N: The standard of this chapter is poor but I'm kind of at a loss and just feel like getting something out. Apologies.