Before I could even open my eyes I knew that I was in a hospital. The smell gave it away. I wasn’t in a gown or anything though, I was still in my shorts, top, and ripped up cardigan. I looked around myself to inspect my appearance. I had a couple of faint scratches on my arms, but other than that it seemed like there wasn’t much damage done. No blood had gotten onto my clothes, and for that I was thankful. I was running out of nice clothes and I couldn’t afford any more for a while.

I shook my head and tried to get my thoughts back on track. I looked around the room and I was all alone.

Well, that’s a slap to the face.

Nobody was there for me – not Adam, not Natalie, not Austin, and especially not my sister. I wondered if they even knew that I was here. Who had brought me here? I remembered the fight, but I remember being knocked unconscious by a beer bottle, and then nothing else until now. I looked to my left and saw two figures standing by the window, making hand gestures that told me that they were arguing over something. I looked a bit closer to the figures that were outlined from behind the cloth curtains, and I knew exactly who it was. Adam and Jane.

I wondered what they were fighting about. Was it about me? Was it about their past? I was afraid to find out the answer to that question, so when Adam walked into my room with a frustrated look and an uneasy sigh, I decided that wasn’t going to ask him anything about it. He looked up to me as he ran his hands over his bald head and groaned. His eyes went wide and he quickly wiped at them before blinking.

Was he crying?

“Oh, hey, you’re awake,” he said and gave me a small smile. It seemed genuine, but something was preventing him from being truly happy to see me awake.

“Yeah,” I mumbled. I looked away for a moment and then back over to Adam. “When can I leave?” I asked.

“Oh, uh…I’ll go tell them you’re awake.” He got up and left again.

It took an awfully long time for him to tell somebody that I was awake, and when he finally did return, two police officers followed in after him.

“Hello, Adelina, we were just wondering if you would be interested in pressing charges? If not then we’ll just leave you to your recovery. If you are then-“

“Oh, no, thank you,” I said quickly. Even though I probably should have done something to Anouk for the way she hit me in the head with a beer bottle, but I decided that it would just be an unnecessary amount of stress that would be piling on to my life.

The officers left and I felt suddenly uncomfortable. I wanted to get away from all of this – the hospital, Jane, Alan, even Adam and Natalie and Austin…everyone. Adam, Natalie and Austin did nothing wrong, but I just really wished that I could be alone. I was so used to living on my own and fending for myself, that now being surrounded by so many people and not having any money or any place to retreat to was starting to overwhelm my sense of sanity. I could feel myself slowly going insane from the crazy amounts of drama that had been so suddenly induced into my life.

“Where’s my purse?” I asked with my eyes closed. I needed to get my cell phone so that I could call someone. Someone that I really didn’t want to talk to, but I knew that it was the only place that I could go where I could feel truly alone.

Adam reached over to the generic chair that was sitting beside the bed and grabbed my purse that was hanging over the armrest. He placed it on my lap and I immediately dug through the pockets until I found my cell phone. I slid my finger across the screen and hesitantly searched for my father’s name.

“Um…could you give me a minute?” I asked Adam. He seemed confused, but still let the room, anyway. I watched as he took a seat in one of the four chairs that were sitting just across the hall from the door to my room. Everything felt so tense and I hated it. I needed to get out.

“Hello?” His voice was cheery and hopeful. This was the first time I had called him in years. Sure, I saw him at Jane’s pregnancy party a week or so ago, but we only spoke for a brief period of time before I made sure to escape. “Adelina?” he asked for me when I didn’t reply for a minute or two.

“Uh, yeah, hey, Dad.” I let out a shaky breath. I hated that I had to resort to calling my father after I was the one who had left him behind all those years ago. Deep down I did miss him, a lot, but I hated to admit to that after what he had put my mother through during my early teen-years. Their arguments were still fresh in my mind and I could still feel the way Jane’s body shook against mine as we hid in the closet while my parent’s yells shook the house and broke apart our once picture-perfect family. But I could still also remember the way my dad would tuck me in at night when I was younger. He would kiss my forehead, tell me he loved me, and then sing me whatever song I wanted to hear. He would hold me when I cried and he was always there for me.

I felt myself choking up as I tried to spit the words out. I could feel the hot tears running down my cheeks as I thought about how pathetic my entire life had been. I was twenty-four years old and now calling my father to ask if I could live at home again because I had failed on my own.

“D-Dad? Can I…I don’t have a place to go,” I sobbed into the phone. “Ugh, I’m so pathetic,” I chuckled a bit to try and let him know that I knew that I was sobbing like a child.

“Ohhh…Lina, what’s wrong? What happened? I thought you were living with your sister?”

Only my father called me Lina, and he only used the name when I felt sad. It helped a lot, actually. I was so used to being called Addie, Ad, Ads, or Adelina that when he called me Lina – something that I wasn’t used to hearing – it made me feel like I was somebody else for a moment. Like maybe things weren’t so bad and I had the chance to make myself better. I could be somebody else – somebody better.

“I fucked up, Dad. I fucked everything up,” I mumbled. I didn’t know if it would be awkward for him to hear me cursing so freely, but I was an adult now and I wasn’t about to filter who I was.

“How long do you need to stay?” he asked.

I sighed and tried to think about the date. I should be returning to work in a week now, so a month would be enough time for me to save enough money for a down-payment on an apartment for myself. Maybe I could even get one in Los Angeles so it could be closer to where I would actually be working. “About a month,” I finally answered.

He sighed a bit, but I could feel the smile and the eagerness. He was acting like it was a burden to him just to humor me – he knew that I hated it when he was too vulnerable when it came to our relationship – or lack thereof. “You can stay here, Lina. When will you be coming?”

“Today,” I answered quickly. “In about an hour, maybe? I’m at the hospital right now and when I get-“

“Are you okay?!” he interrupted.

“Yes, I’m fine,” I sighed.

“Okay…” he seemed unconvinced. “I guess I’ll see you in an hour then?”

“Yeah,” I breathed out. “Bye.”

I hung up the phone and waved my arm in the air to get Adam’s attention. He walked back into the room, this time he didn’t even attempt to offer me a smile. I watched the way he looked so sad and shocked, and in that moment, I fully understood what he was feeling. He wasn’t over Jane, and talking/arguing with her in the hall just made his heart hurt even more than it did. I was there to temporarily fill the void in his chest – I gave him attention that he wanted, and in all honesty, he did the same for me. Adam was a good friend to me, and he was fun to go out with and yeah, we had amazing sex, but this couldn’t last. Not when we were both in love with other people.

It’s not like you guys could get the people you love anyway, my conscious told me. And it was true. Adam loved Jane. Jane was with Alan. I loved Alan. Alan was with Jane. In order for either of us to be happy, Jane and Alan needed to break up. But that obviously wasn’t possible.

“I’m going to stay at my dad’s house for a while,” I said. Adam didn’t respond. It was almost as if he expected it for some reason. Or maybe he just wanted it.

The doctor came in, finally, and walked up to me and immediately began to poke and pry at my head. It was tender where she touched, and I winced at the sting, but she continued on with her prodding, anyway. She didn’t even say hello to me.

“You just had a small cut from the glass of the beer bottle. No pierces got inside. The wound isn’t deep and should heal us on its own. Just make sure you keep it clean and be careful while you’re brushing or styling your hair. Put some Neosporin on it throughout the day so it doesn’t dry up too much. Head wounds take a long time to heal, no matter how small, so give it time. If it starts to puss or turns yellowish in color on the spot of the cut, come back in because it might be infected. But you should be fine,” she shrugged. “And the bruises on your neck will heal in a few weeks, but there was no damage done there. You’re free to leave whenever you wish after you sign the papers at the front.”

She lingered for a brief second, waiting for me to ask her any questions. When she saw that I was silent, she nodded once to me, then once to Adam, and left the room.

It only took a total of ten minutes to leave the room and sign out.

We walked through the automatic doors of the hospital entrance and immediately heard the screaming and yelling that was happening in front of us in the parking lot. Natalie was right up in Anouk’s face while everybody else was standing around, trying to calm them down. Phil, Aaron, Alan, Jane, Austin, Tino, Jennifer, and Amanda were all standing there. Happiness washed over me for a brief second when I realized that I wasn’t completely alone. But when Amanda and Jennifer spotted me walking up, their faces crinkled in disgust and I realized that I was alone because most of those people were there for Anouk, and not me. One of those people included my very own sister.

Austin was trying to pull Natalie away, but every time he touched her she cringed and swatted him away. Austin apparently knew better than to try and get involved. But Phil was holding back Anouk with all of his force. I was surprised that Natalie wasn’t wailing on her already. We got a bit closer and I could hear what they were yelling now.

“You don’t know anything, Anouk! All you know are the lies that Jane feeds you. Adam hasn’t done shit and neither has Addie! Stay out of everybody’s business for once!” Natalie yelled. Even while she was angry and yelling her eyes still had a natural twinkle – passion, maybe?

Anouk scoffed. “Whatever,” she said, finally giving up on the situation. “Let’s just go,” she mumbled as she turned her head over to Phil. Phil nodded and let go of her. He reached one hand into his pocket to pull out his keys while Anouk began to follow him. Before she could turn around completely, though, she lunged back over to Natalie. Natalie was waiting though, almost as if she knew it was going to happen. Anouk stretched her arms out, trying to scratch or grab Natalie to start the fight, but all Natalie had to do was barely hit her in the face – right on her nose – and she immediately began to cry and whimper. She backed away while Natalie jumped at her, knocking her down onto the pavement.

Natalie pulled Anouk’s extensions out of her hair with an audible tearing sound. The clips of the extensions obviously pulled out some hair as Natalie tugged on them. I honestly didn’t even know that Anouk wore extensions.

“This is all your fault!” Jane shouted at me as tears were streaming down her face. “Look what you’ve fucking done! Everything was fine until you got here!”

Natalie and Anouk were rolling around and pulling at each other’s hair as Phil, Austin, Tino, and Amanda tried to get them to stop. Jennifer, Alan, and Aaron stared at me and waited for me to say something. I didn’t have anything to say, though. She was right, but I wasn’t going to say that out loud. I still didn’t know why they all hated me, but I knew that they did have reason to.

My eyes involuntarily switched over to look at Alan. He was staring at me with sadness and longing. I knew that it was longing, because it was the same look that was in my eyes every day that I looked in the mirror. It was longing for him. Longing for something that I couldn’t have. I kept my eyes open for a bit too long and they began to burn. Small tears trickled from my eyes and I groaned at how much of a cry-baby I had been lately. I guess heartbreak would do that to you.

I turned around and quickly walked toward the other side of the parking lot so I could find some privacy and hopefully call my dad to come pick me up. Adam began to follow me, but I waved him away. “I need to be alone,” I said without fully turning to look at him.

I made my way to the other side of the hospital and began to slowly pace back and forth. What had my life turned into? I was always the school-oriented one. I was always reading, or working, or studying – this wasn’t me. I didn’t go to parties. I didn’t get in nasty fights that landed me in the hospital.

My knees buckled beneath me and I collapsed onto the hard concrete, feeling the bumps and dirt scrape my knees as I made contact with the ground. I groaned at the feeling, but remained on my knees and just stared up at the sky. I didn’t even realize that it was morning now – it looked early still, maybe about seven. We had to of left the party at around three in the morning, because we were there for a while before I had my run-in with Anouk. No wonder everybody was so irritable – they had probably gone without sleeping and some of them were probably still drunk.

“Addie.”

I looked back in front of me and saw Alan standing there with tears staining his cheeks. He quickly wiped them away and leaned over to help me up. “Addie, are you okay?”

I wanted to tell him that in his arms, everything was okay. I wanted to kiss him and cry in his arms and just let him hold me. But instead, I pushed myself away from him and looked down at my red knees. They weren’t scratched or bloody, but they were raw. I rubbed them off and tried to just ignore Alan, but when he repeated himself I knew that I had to reply.

“What are you doing here, Alan?” I asked.

Alan sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “No matter what I try to tell myself, and no matter how hard I try…I just…I just can’t stay away from you, Addie.”

My heart flipped and began to beat faster. But it slowed down quickly when I reminded myself that he didn’t love me anymore. And that no matter what happened, he couldn’t be mine.

“Addie,” Alan paused. “I’m sorry for all of this. I know I’m fucking with your head and fucking everything up, but I just can’t stop myself from wanting you…from loving you. Addie, I still love you. I didn’t want to say it out loud because of this whole situation, but Addie, I do love you. I can’t deny it any longer. Or keep it in any longer.”

I stared at him for a long time after he stopped talking. I just looked right into his eyes and just looked at all of the hurt and love and just everything that was swarming his eyes as his thoughts continued to race. I wanted to say it back, I wanted him to know that I loved him more than anything, but I couldn’t open my mouth to say the words. I was afraid of Jane hearing me say it.

Alan didn’t like this, however, and decided that instead of one of us saying something, he needed to show something. He leaned forward and held his breath. He wanted to kiss me. Better yet, he wanted me to kiss him so I could show him that I loved him, too. I knew I shouldn’t have done it, but I had to. My body wasn’t allowing me to just stand there any longer. I grabbed both sides of his face and pulled his lips to mine.

The contact made me cry right away – all of my feelings of love, lust, want, longing, guilty, hatred, confusion, anger…all of it washed over me as Alan’s lips moved with mine. He reached up to stroke the side of my face as the kiss slowed down a bit, but his actions were interrupted.

A loud, croaking gasp sounded from behind us, right where the corner of the hospital was. I gently pulled away from Alan, but before I could let go of his face or turn to look at who was behind us, Alan continued his motions with his hands. Instead of lovingly reaching for my face, though, he pushed my should back, dramatically, causing me to stumble away from him.

“What the fuck!” he shouted, obviously so the person who saw us kissing could hear. He looked over to the person with worry and anger, and when he looked back over to me there was sadness and heartbreak. I was confused, to say the least, but when Alan stepped away from me and rudely wiped his lips, I knew who was standing at the corner of the building.

I turned around and saw Jane standing there with her hand over her mouth and her eyes beginning to fill with tears.

Alan took another step away from me and placed his hands up as if he was innocent in this situation. As if he was the victim here. As if I was the only one who wanted the kiss.

“A-Alan…?” I choked out as he began to walk towards Jane. “Alan…what…” I couldn’t speak anymore. Alan was throwing me under the bus. Alan had just told me that he loved me and now…now…

“Fuck you, Adelina! Get the fuck out of the life and stay the fuck away from my boyfriend. If I would have known you were such a slut I wouldn’t have invited you to live with me, now stay the fuck away from us, all of us.”

She turned around to storm off, not even waiting for Alan to meet her side. Alan paused for a moment and looked at me.

“Addie…”

“No, Alan,” I said as I shook my head. “Fuck off.”

Alan sighed and then opened his mouth to speak again, but I cut him off.

“Stay the fuck away from me and never talk to me again,” I said quietly. It hurt to say, but it needed to be done.

Alan just sighed and turned to run after Jane, calling her name as he did so.

I just stared at the corner of the building and waited. I waited to see if Alan maybe caught up to Jane and told her the truth. That maybe Alan would come running back around that building and run into my arms and stay there for once. But after a few minutes, I realized that he wasn’t coming. I sighed and shook my wishful thinking away from me before pulling out my cell phone to call my dad.

-

We swung by Austin’s place but nobody was there yet to let me in. I let myself in through the back door and gathered my things before heading back out to my dad who was waiting in the car. After arriving at his house, he helped me carry the couple of bags that I had into the garage where there was a small house basically made up.

“When did you remodel?” I asked as I looked around the garage. Dry-wall had been put up so the garage door was covered now. Carpet lined the ground and the walls were painted with a nice light grey color. It had a small bathroom and everything.

“Nance and I used to rent this place out when we needed extra money for her medical bills,” he said softly. “But now that the bills are paid and Nance is gone…it just kind of sits here.”

I felt bad for making my dad think of Nancy, but I quickly pushed those thoughts away when I remembered that she was the woman who had broke my family apart. “You should rent it out again. It might be nice to have a little bit of company.”

“I have Oscar,” my dad said happily. “He’s my cat,” he explained.

“What? You have a cat?” I asked, happily. “I’ll...uh…have to meet him later,” I said in a calmer voice. I wanted to stay angry at my dad, I really did, but it was so hard.

“Nancy always wished that one of you girls would move in here and pay rent so she could get to know you more,” my dad said as I continued to inspect the garage. “Too bad she’s not here now.”

“Dad, I’m only staying for a month, maybe two.”

“I know,” he said. “I know. I’m just glad to have you here is all.”

Deep down I was kind of glad to be there, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of sadness and heartbreak. The events that occurred a few hours earlier began to replay in my mind and I felt my legs weaken. Before I could collapse onto the floor and succumb to the sobs, my father steadied me and looked deeply into my eyes with worry etched into his wrinkles. His gray hair was slicked back and his blue eyes were darkened with sadness as he watched the tears pour from my eyes.

“This is like the tenth time I’ve cried today,” I said softly as I looked away. I pulled myself away from him and took a seat at the edge of the bed that was sticking out from the wall beside us.

“Why?”

It was too soon to spill my guts to my dad. I couldn’t tell him everything that had happened because then I’d only prove myself to be a hyprocrite. All of these years I had hated my father for the way he left us for another woman, but now I couldn’t hate him as much because I was doing much worse than he did. At least he was able to be happy and follow his heart. And at least my mother forgave him quickly – or at least, that’s what she told us.

Would Jane ever forgive me for what she had saw? Probably. But if she found out the rest of what I’d done – how I had been in love with Alan and slept with him on multiple accounts while they were still together, surely she’d never forgive me for that. Especially since she was about to give birth to his child.

“What did you just say?” my dad furrowed his eyebrows and stared at me.

I stared back, unsure of what he was talking about. “I didn’t say anything,” I said.

“Yes, you did. Something about your sister never forgiving you,” he said. “I don’t think you meant to say it, but… What did you do? Lina, you can tell me. I’m your father and I promise not to judge you.”

“Dad…I just…I don’t want to say it out loud,” I muttered as I looked down at my twiddling thumbs. I could feel a headache starting to form near the scrape on my head – a mixture of the pain from the wound, the hangover that was starting to ache in my bones, and the harsh reality that my life was broken. “I should have never come back here, Dad. I clearly belong in London.”

“Don’t say that,” my father replied quickly. “Now, I don’t know what happened – I don’t even have a clue, but I can tell you that running away from it is not going to do anything. It will stay in your mind and your heart forever, and those are things that you can’t run from. Trust me, I know.

“Leaving you girls behind was the worst decision I ever made. I thought that I could escape from the problems I was having with your mother, but they were always there. The hurt never left me.”

“But you followed your heart, Dad,” I said.

He smiled a bit. “But sometimes it’s not all about following your heart, sweetie. Sometimes you just have to do what is right. And the right thing was to stay and help raise my children, but I didn’t do that and I’ve been paying for that for years now. I was happy for a while with Nance, but even that had to end when she became ill. Now I’m all alone and it’s like it’s God’s way of telling me that I could have been surrounded with my children if I would have done something different – done something right.”

“Don’t talk like that. Nance was great to you, and although I can’t really say that I like her because I blame her for you leaving us, I know that you loved her and she made you happy. You shouldn’t regret the time you spent with her.”

“You’re right,” he sighed, “I guess I just regret not trying a bit harder with you girls. Jane never lost complete contact with me since she was so young and hardly knew what was happening…but you…I wish I could have had more of a relationship with you. Maybe we can try to have one, now.”

I couldn’t help but smile at my father’s words. Even though I had been angry at him for all of these years, he was still my father and I couldn’t deny that the idea of having him back in my life did make me feel happy.

“Now, I’ll go start on some lunch for us. I’ll call for you when it’s done,” he said. He placed a comforting hand on my shoulder for a split second before awkwardly pulling it away and then retreating up the stairs, leaving me to my thoughts.

I collapsed back on the bed and ran my fingers through my hair, careful not to hit my wound in the process. I knew that a shower and a change of clothes would be nice, but I just couldn’t bring myself my change my clothes for some reason. As crazy as I sounded, I felt like as soon as I changed my clothes or showered, Alan would really be gone from my life. This was the last day that I was going to speak to Alan, assuming he would listen to my request to stay away from me.

I thought that following my heart was the right thing to do, but going behind Jane’s back was not fair to her. And now I had hurt her and in return, hurt myself and Alan. But for some reason I felt like the right thing to do wasn’t to stay away.

I sat up quickly and decided that I would shower and change my clothes. Because I had something that I needed to do. I had to do the right thing…for everyone.

Notes

WOWOWOW so what do you guys think? The cat is out of the bag, now! Well, it's peeking its head out at least ahah.

What do you think Jane is going to do about this? Why do you think Anouk decided to attack Addie? What do you think Addie is going to do? And what do you think about Addie's dad?

Thanks for all of your lovely comments! Love you all xoxo