I Needed You

6

My eyes fluttered open, and laying flat down on a surface caused my eyes to be staring straight into the light.

I groaned out loud, bringing my hand to my eyes to shade them from the lights.

I had no energy to sit up, no energy to move, no energy to speak. I had no recollection of where I was or how I got here, only that I was in the hotel waiting for Sam and Colby’s return.

“Oh you’re awake,” A singsong voice echoed throughout the room, a very, very familiar woman I thought I’d never see again was now leaning over me.

“I didn’t want them hurting you,” She mumbled, noting the bandages sloppily tossed across my leg, “What’d they do to you?”

“Huh?” I squinted at her, noticing that the figure was blurry, along with everything else in the room.

She chuckled darkly, and if it wasn’t for the fuzzy feeling consuming my brain I would have questioned her.

“Good night,” She whispered, and she covered my eyes with an object, soft like a cloth.

I blinked open my eyes sometime later, the light still in my eyes though I was used to it now.

“What the fuck,” I slurred my words.  I could tell that based on the sound of my voice I was not in the right state of mind.

“Oh you’re awake,” I glanced over to see Alex approaching me, flicking at the IV bag in my arm.

“I don’t need drugs,” I reached for the tube going into my forearm, but she stopped me.

“You’re unwell,” She frowned at me, her voice gentle though I couldn’t get out of her grip.

She flipped a knob on the machine before letting my wrist go.

“Don’t fight this,” She whispered, lighting a cigarette and bringing it to her mouth.  I didn’t know what she was talking about, nor did I want to know.

“Where is everyone?” I mumbled.

“If they love you like they say they do they’ll find you,” She said to me, her voice calm, gentle.

“Colby loves me,” I blurted out, “He told me,”

I don’t remember the last time he told me he loved me, but he meant it when he did.  I could feel it.

“No he doesn’t,” She said when my jaw slacked, “He told me,”

“Yes he does,” I my tongue felt like it was getting hard to move around.  I tried my best to swallow, but even that was getting difficult, “He brought me this,”

I could tell I was getting hard to understand because she looked confused.  I brought my cordless hand up to my neck, tapping at the cold metal that felt so familiar but at the same time foreign.

Everything felt foreign.  Nothing was familiar.

“Where am I?” I asked, but she didn’t answer. Instead Alex danced about the room, rather gracefully for someone who does stiff dances on Tiktok.

“If they loved you they’d never let you leave.  In fact, if they loved you they would have got you a more secure hotel room, or they would have taken you with them.  They didn’t want you with them,” She pointed out the obvious, humming as she went about.

“You’re wrong,” I murmured, “I chose to stay back,”

“They looked really happy to see you stay, yeah?” She asked, spinning and facing me with an excited smile, holding her cigarette between her two fingers.

“What am I doing here?” I tried to get a better look at my current environment, but the lighting situation made it difficult.

“You’re with me, now, Taylor,” Alex promised.

“I want to go home,” I whined, “They want me,”

“They don’t want you.  Your family left, your friends are long gone. There’s nothing left but me,” She added quietly.

“Fuck you,” I seemed to be getting to her, annoyance hinted in her eyes.

“First things first.  Don’t swear,” She pointed her finger at me, making me feel like a child.

“Shut the fuck up, you aren’t my parents,” I chuckled for no reason, letting my eyes go as far behind my head as I could for fun.

“I warned you,” I looked back down to see her taking the cigarette and pushing the tip into my arm.

I began to pull my arm away, but she brought it back and held it with her other hand, twisting it doen into my arm.

“Stop it,” I mumbled, twisting my arm to try and get away from the heat she was bringing into my arm.

“If Colby loved you like he said he does then he wouldn’t let this happen to you,” She mumbled, her voice deep in concentration.

“Let me go!” I cried out, trying harder to speak as my tongue became hard to do things with and my body started to feel fuzzy and difficult to function.

“If Colby loved you he’d be here now,” She repeated, her voice becoming more stern as she dug the cigarette further into my arm.

The scent of burning skin filled my nostrils, adding to the pain my arm was in.  

“If anyone loved you they’d be here for you,” She whispered, a victorious smirk on her face.

“Please stop,” I whined, trying my best to move away and get my voice to be something more than a struggle.

“Only love can stop this,” She promised, “But you don’t have love,”

“I do have love,” I mumbled, “I love. I love. I love I love. Stop.”

“But you don’t.  You don’t love me,” She sounded really sad to speak to me in such a tone.

“I don’t love you,” I agreed, causing her to dig the cigarette further into my arm.  I didn’t want to look, I didn’t want to see my skin that would be a different color from the burn, red that caused the pain and black from the stain of the tobacco that was becoming ash as it touched my arm.

“Do you want me to stop?” Alex asked, pausing from twisting the cigarette as she asked the question before continuing.

“Yes! Yes, please. Please stop,” I used my open hand to wipe away the tears that were escaping from my eyes and going down my cheek.

“Then tell me you love me,” She demanded, and when I tried to speak but couldn’t, her voice raised, “SAY IT!”

“I love you.  I love you I love you I love you now stop,” I sobbed, covering my mouth with my unaffected hand.

“There,” She tossed the cigarette, now only a butt, to the side of the table I was on, “Now was that so hard?”

Speaking was no longer an opiton, I simply couldn’t form words.

“Now if Colby loved you that wouldn’t have happened.  But I love you, so I stopped it,”