Strings (1 of 2)

Chapter 36 - Laptop and Stories

The car ride home from the hospital is almost unbearable with my splitting headache, but I know I deserve it. Either way, it is easier to let Jade yell and rant than to argue. She's right about it all, so I have leg to stand on in any argument.

Finally around 4, she drops me off at my house and I take a deep breath, staring at my parents' cars in the driveway. I didn't think they would be home this long. It's Friday, don't they have somewhere to go for the weekend?

Jade gives me a knowing sympathetic smile, no longer angry at me after yelling it all out. I thank her and get out of her car. As I reach the large black front door, I hear muted voices from inside arguing.

I roll my eyes and push open the door, hoping to avoid seeing them on my way upstairs to my much needed bed. The voices yell at each other from the office and I pause in the middle of the stairs to listen for a second.

"Fuck! Why would you leave the door unlocked?" my father's voice echoes through the walls.

"I told you, Frank! I didn't!" I hear my mother scream back.

"Anna wasn't working this week... Emily is never home..." His voice trails off as they seem to move further away.

I lean closer to try to hear what the problem is. It has to be more than a door being left unlocked, right? Did someone break in?

"Dean has a key too," my mother suggests and I feel my tears returning at the mention of his name. My father starts yelling about how he wouldn't come here unannounced as I run up the stairs. I don't want to hear anymore of this.

I close the door quietly behind me in the bathroom and start the shower. They probably won't hear it over the yelling.

I pull off yesterday's clothes and get in the shower, immediately scrubbing my entire body with the bar of soap to get rid of the hospital and old bar smell lingering on me. I wash my hair, the lavender scent filling the room trying to relax me to no avail.

After I get out and towel off, I go into my room and change into grey jogging pants and a comfortable old t-shirt from a concert I went to years ago, the band name now faded from washing it a hundred times.

I lay on my bed and watch the fan blades spin above me, trying to avoid the polaroid in peripheral vision. I distantly hear a soft knock on the door before it opens and closes again. I don't look to see who it is. I don't have to.

A clink of metal chimes beside me and then I feel the bed dip a little beside me.

I sigh and look over to Anna with a small smile, well I try to smile but it turns into a frown. She opens her arms and nods, smiling sadly at me with a knowing look. I don't think she could know everything that happened in the past 24 hours, but she knows I'm sad and that's enough.

As I crawl into her arms and cling to her tiny frame tightly, I feel tears return to my eyes and start falling down my cheeks.

"It's okay... Sshhhh... it will be okay," she hums to me softly, rubbing my back.

Something inside my head is telling me to tell her. If anyone, her. Maybe the reason I always fuck up when something happens is because I keep it inside?

I don't want to spiral again... alone.

The words flood out of me before I can think more about it. I tell her everything - well, not everything but enough so she understands what happened with Dean. I leave out the drugs... I can only handle so much disappointment in a day.

"You did the right thing." She reassures me when I'm done. "He needs to focus on his new responsibilities, despite what you two have." I nod and sniffle, drying the tears on my cheeks with the back of my hand.

"Do you think she got pregnant on purpose?" She asks in a whisper.

I burst out laughing. "Anna!" I fake scold her and she blushes.

"But yes, I do." I reply with a serious tone, meaning every word.

Her laughter joins mine as I reach for the sandwich she brought me and take a big mouthful before telling her all about my first week of work.

---

I spend Saturday and Sunday lounging around the house, working on the short story I put a pause on when I met Nathan in the café last month.

I realized Saturday morning how distorted the last month of my life has gotten. I stopped enjoying being alone with my stories and books. I stopped writing - the thing that means the most to me. The thing that I am moving in two and a half months to pursue at NYU.

I don't know why I let so many things - and people - sidetrack me from my goals.

I dive back into the characters and write more than half the story, unable to look up from the computer screen long enough to hold any conversations with my parents or Anna that they try and fail to have with me. I reluctantly stop for food and washroom breaks only, not wanting to break the stream of inspiration I feel from the new lack of distractions in my life.

It's just me again.

Me and my laptop and my stories.

I know I will have to go back to work tomorrow and leave the house. I'm excited to go back. I like my hostess job there. But part of me is worried Jake will mention Dean, or that he will show up again. I don't think he will after our talk, but there is always a chance. They are friends after all.

Do I want him to visit?

Maybe...

...No.

I need to move forward. I don't want to see him for awhile. Not until I am stable and have moved on. Clearly three years wasn't long enough last time...

I have had my phone off since they gave it back to me at the hospital dead. It's charged and sitting in my room, but I'm not ready to check it and return to reality.

It's hard enough imagining what awaits me on there. Did Nathan text or call? Did I want him to? I don't want to see the truth that he didn't and that I did.

So I throw myself into writing and give it my all.

I let it be my therapy. My way to healthily escape my boy troubles and everything that awaits me when I return to normal tomorrow.

For now I just want to be the girl with the laptop and the stories.

Author's Note:

Here is a shorter-ish chapter to show some of her aftermath of the hospital ordeal and how she is moving forward. I think her character development has already been a lot since the socially awkward girl who had a panic attack in chapter 2, but way more to come!

What do you want to see next in the story?! Comment or DM me to let me know! (It may just make it in the book) ;)

Thank you for reading! Next chapter we will be moving on to a little bit happier themes...

Have a great weekend!