Pieces of Summer (A stand-alone novel)(54)

She flips through channels too quickly, making it hard to even read the titles, and she blinks rapidly like she’s trying to stave off tears or something.

“Want me to channel surf?”

She shakes her head. “If you let it sit on a channel for too long, I’ll have to watch whatever show is on until it’s over. Not just the one show but the entire series. Series aren’t allowed. Not unless they’re complete. It’s only safe to watch a movie I’ve already seen.”

The f*ck does that mean?

“Mika, I—”

“I don’t want to share any more secrets tonight, Chase. Please don’t ask,” she says in a strained whisper.

She finally settles on a channel that is just starting to play Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and she exhales heavily as it begins while pushing the remote away. We sit in silence as she watches the TV and I watch her, trying to decipher the enigma she’s become.

I want to know what happened to her. I want to know why she’s so closed off about it. I want to know everything there is.

But she doesn’t want to talk, and it’s her past to reveal. Instead, I pull her closer until she slowly starts to relax against me, resting her head on my chest. The second the movie ends, her eyes flutter shut, and I sigh while kissing the top of her head and scooping her up.

She’s still in her T-shirt and panties because I really thought we would do a lot more before the night ended. Sex is now the last thing on my mind.

Carefully, I walk her up the stairs, thinking over the night and how rough it started out, before turning good… Now it’s ending all wrong. As soon as I lower her to the bed, she stirs and grabs my hand.

“Stay with me?” she asks quietly, not opening her eyes. “The way you used to.”

Letting go of her hand, I kick off my jeans. I never put a shirt back on, so I’m just in my boxers when I slip into bed beside her. She immediately wraps around me, almost lying on top of me, and I hug her to me before kissing her head.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you needed me,” I whisper, brushing my lips over her forehead.

She sighs while kissing my chest, but she doesn’t move other than that.

“I’m glad you weren’t. I would have become your darkness instead of your light.”

Even though I have no idea what that means, I don’t question her. Maybe Aidan can give me some answers if he’ll stop hating me long enough to let me ask questions.





Chapter 32


MIKA



“How the hell did she hurt herself?! You swore she wouldn’t have access to anything in here! The f*ck are you *s doing to her? This was supposed to make her better.”

“She broke a toothbrush and filed down the end to a sharp point. We’ll bump up security measures for her. Dr. Kravitz has to push her limits in order to find out what exactly they are. You need to remember your sister isn’t the same person. To help her, we have to study her.”

“You mean you have to f*cking hurt her. That’s what you mean. She has a motherf*cking brain injury. Stop treating her like she’s some psych patient and treat her like she’s incompetent instead!”

Aidan’s rant reaches my ears, and I stare at the ceiling as they continue to argue outside the door to my hospital room. My stomach aches, but my heart is what hurts the most.

Aidan thinks I’m unfixable. He thinks I’m incompetent. Maybe I was for the first three months when words were muddled and unclear, but as that faded, I began to realize the severity of my situation.

Incompetent? No. Fucking terrified of everything? Yes. It’s like having no filter on anything you feel. Everything is more intense… more severe. Each mistake is dire and consuming. Everything is worse. The part I need to hold me back and keep me rational is… gone. Just gone. And I don’t know how to get it back. But Dr. Kravitz swears he can retrain my brain. He promises I can be functional again without being sedated when something goes wrong.

A nurse is speaking again. “Everything that makes us a rational human being has been stripped from her. It’s what makes her so unique. It’s why so many leading professionals in their field have offered to help her pro-bono. Don’t you understand? Medicine can’t work. The suicidal tendencies it evokes is beyond extreme because the rational section of her mind is dormant. She’s an extraordinary case, and she has a team of the finest who are looking for the best solution to her problem. But in order to find an organic way to fix her, we have to find out what parts are broken and to what extent.”

“You mean you have to make her even worse before you even attempt to make her better. None of you f*cking care about her. I shouldn’t have ever agreed to leave her in that f*cking place. From a psych hospital to an emergency room. How is this f*cking helping?”

The voices drift off as I continue to stare at the ceiling, counting every dirty spot it has and growing increasingly agitated when I lose count. They should have given me a clean ceiling instead of a dirty one.

My heartrate climbs when I lose count for the third time, and the itch to find relief grows to be suffocating. Tears start falling from my eyes as my gaze traces the dirty spots again, counting frantically, but when I lose count once more, a frustrated scream tears through my lips as I fight the restraints holding my arms to the bed, feeling helpless and trapped.