From Once To Always | ✓completed

twenty-four

Bailey's Pov-

I've been sitting in this goddamn waiting room for hours and they won't tell me how Macy's doing, they won't even tell me if she is alive. It just brings back bad memories from being here. Almost everyone has arrived to wait for news on Macy. People haven't tried to talk to me, they know that I won't say anything. I haven't eaten or drank anything. Hell, I've barely moved from my position. I close my eyes, but they pop back open as memories flood through my head. I can't make them stop. I've got to get out of here.

I stand up abruptly, ignoring everyone's worried and curious glances, and I walk, almost run, out of the hospital's doors. I run my hand through my hair and pull on it, trying to get the thoughts to go away. They won't go away.

The last time I was in the hospital my little sister died. She was only twelve and she was the light of my life. My whole family knew it was coming. She had leukemia for years and it was just spreading and getting worse. There is nothing that could ever have prepared me for when she died.

Grief, after the initial shock of loss, cames in waves. When you're driving alone in your car, beating the crap out of a punching bag, or while you're getting ready for school. All of it just hits you all of a sudden. How you miss someone so much, your breath catches, your tears start to flow, and the sadness is so large that it hurts like physical pain. Worse. It hurts worse than physical pain.

For a little while, I didn't speak to Marcus or Nico, for fear of breaking down. I couldn't let them see me like that. I started drinking and smoking. My parents were lost without Adeline. I was too. She was like the glue that held our family together. And now that she was gone, we had no idea what to do.

I stayed locked up in my room. My parents engulfed themselves in their work. Today, they're never around. Not like I really care anyway because as soon as I could, I bought my own apartment using the money that I earned from racing and fighting. Then, randomly my father contacted me saying that I am a gang leader of his former gang. I was so clueless, but we met up again and talked about it. Ever since that, I've had the gang and I've gotten closer to Marcus and Nico. I still don't see my parents much. I also live in a gang house now.

I still miss my sister. I stopped visiting her grave for the fear of all the pain starting over again. I can't go through that again. I learned to deal with it, knowing that it's never going to go away. I hate hospitals. I can last maybe a few hours but I freak out and I get scared. Scared that, whoever I know that's in there, is going to die. That I'll never see them again. Harsh breaths are coming out of my mouth as I bend down to rest my hands on my knees.

Then, I run. I run to my car and get in, trying not to glance at the blood on my passenger seat. Macy's blood. I shake my head as I speed down the streets. I run the red lights all the way until I make it to the gang house, which is right next to Macy's house. I don't need to worry about Axel, or anyone else in the house because they're at the hospital. Where I am supposed to be. I barge in and walk to the kitchen. I grab a bottle of vodka and sit down on the couch. Time to drink away all of my worries.

Macy's Pov-

I hear beeping. That's all I hear. Beep. Beep. Beep. I feel like I am going crazy. I can't open my eyes but all I feel is pain. Pain, all around. Physical, most likely from all of the stab wounds and beatings. Mental too. Everything that has happened has brought up all of the painful memories again.

I recall how my body jarred with each blow, how the pain seared through my skin and took away every feeling of safety I ever had. My father put his all into each strike. His sinewy arm would recoil and snap back to my behind, the impact delivered by an object rather than his own hand. Maybe at first, I shed tears, I don't recall. Crying wasn't allowed. If I buckled he would tell me to stop, or he'd give me something to cry about.

He meant it too. And this is the man I loved most in the world, the one who bought me ice-cream and a teddy bear. He's the man who would lift me up on his shoulders or fling me around by an arm and a leg in the back yard while I grinned so much. I guess these things came from his own childhood, from alcoholic parents. I believe he did his best in his own way. He was my hero and my monster.

I wanted to forget. I tried, I really tried. It all came back though. All of it. The beatings. The rape. The helplessness that I felt. My mom's cries. It's all his fault too.

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