Broken Girl(46)

“You better not come out! Do you hear me Rosalie? If you don’t want a whipping, you keep your whoring little ass in your room . . . Rosalie!”



Sweat pushed across my skin as I tossed and turned in my bed. A sea of raging fear and hate swelled through my body. The vivid memories of my childhood buried deep flooded every recess of my mind and turned my heart causing it to thunder in my chest. Words I hated to hear, memories I kept buried until my mind was weak enough to let them out. I heard my name being called, at the moment between sleep and restlessly becoming conscious.

‘Rose, promise me you’ll get out.’ My eyes flew open and I was frozen in my bed not knowing where I was. Seconds passed, clearing the way for my mind to catch up and I realized I wasn’t seven years old.

“Sybil!” I hollered before I threw back my covers and stumbled out of bed.

I knew she was still in the hospital and I was in our apartment, alone. I looked at the clock next to my bed it was ten in the morning. I can’t believe I slept so long. I checked my phone, fifteen text messages, all from Shane, and one voicemail from the hospital. My head still spinning from the nightmare, my heart dropped into my stomach as it swirled causing me to want to throw-up. I dragged my finger across the message from the hospital and pushed the phone against my ear.

Please, please let it be she miraculously woke up. Please tell me she’s going to be fine. I droned in my head over and over again before the message began to play.

“Hi, Miss Newton, ummm, this is Kate, I’m the early a.m. nurse assigned to Miss. St. James . . . ahhh, Sybil. It’s policy of the hospital to only call blood relatives about patients, but . . . umm, I know you were with Sybil when she was first brought in. There’s been a change in her status and, well, I think you oughta come down as soon as possible. Oh, and, you never got this call. Please drive safely.”

Then there was nothing. No sound, no words, absolutely nothing, no indication of what Sybil’s status could be. Whether she was awake and okay or the other way things could go. I didn’t waste time calling the hospital back. All I had time to do was throw on a pair of sweats, an old Jimi Hendrix T-shirt Sybil had given me when we first met and ran out the door.





FOR NOT BEING a God-fearing person, or someone who puts much weight into prayer, I got into my car and prayed the entire way to the hospital . . . out loud. I begged, bartered, and even made deals with God that I never had before. I even told him that I’d pull Brie and Crystal under my wing and help them find their way to him if he made sure Sybil was going to be okay.

When I pulled into one of the parking spots near the entry of the hospital, I saw Shane. He was standing in front of the sliding doors with his phone pinned against his ear and everything that happened yesterday flooded over me. Seeing him there, busted open the wound I bandaged last night when I left with Briggs. It was so much easier when I didn’t see him, when I visualized my life being separated from his. My phone continued to ring in my purse. I watched Shane as he paced back and forth. I knew he was calling me.

If I answered my phone, I’d have to listen to his excuses for not telling me about his girlfriend, and if I let it ring, his voice would be saved in my voicemail so I could hear his sorry excuses later, I let it go to voicemail. I didn’t waste the time I could have with Sybil trying to make him okay with his choices. A deep breath filled my lungs as I grabbed my purse and pushed my way out of the car. Shane was like poison that pearled on my bottom lip, waiting for the moment he could roll into my system and wreak havoc on my heart. I wasn’t about to be that girl. I had plans, ideas that didn’t involve falling in love. That was right, Shane tagged my heart, filled it with love and shattered it with lies. He made me lose my way and feel things for a man I never gave my body to.

I’m stronger than what appears in front of me. I chanted in my mind. Words I found solace in when growing up got rough.

“Rose! Please, talk to me. I’ve been trying to call you,” Shane said as he came toward me.

“I know I have a shit load of missed calls from you.”

“Please . . . I . . . ahhh, I wanted to be here for you. Beyond what happened yesterday, I wanted to get to you first, before you went upstairs.”

Shane grabbed me, pulling me back away from the sliding doors. I twisted my arm from his grip. I didn’t have time for this shit. I needed to get up to Sybil.

“Look, Shane, we’re nothing more than friends and that’s all. Nothing more, nothing less, now if you don’t mind I got a call to come down here for Sybil.” I started for the doors.

He caught me around the arm and pulled me in front of him his words were sharp and clear as they tumbled across my skin.

“I know, I was the one who asked the nurse to call you. This isn’t about you and me, it’s about Sybil. She had a rough night. A very rough night.” His eyes pierced mine, his lips quivered as he spoke in the same tone that echoed through all the moments I ached for someone to ask me to forgive them.

“What are you talking about, Shane. What happened to Sybil?”

My heart felt like it was going to crash down into my stomach. My whole life I’ve lived through bad news. I knew the cold rippling chill that ran across my skin as I processed what he was trying to say. I pushed him back, his eyes narrowed before he looked away to hide his expression breaking.

“I’m sorry, Rose,” he said as he shook his head back and forth.