Where the Ivy Hides (3 page)

Chapter 3

I want to be the girl Jaci liked to play dress up with and gossip about the girls at school. The grunge girls, the skank cheerleaders, and every other wanna-be in between.

I want to be the home-body Reese told himself I was. The girl he dragged to his parents at Thanksgiving and church on Easter.

I want to be the broken beautiful girl who only needs love and acceptance to grow into the healed beautiful woman, Ryker believed me to be.

But I’m not. I’m none of those girls and I never will be.

I’m an unwanted adopted child with a history of substance abuse, cutting, Bipolar and Narcissistic behavioral disorders, two minor drug charges, and last but not least, suicide.

I’m untrustworthy. Selfish. Annoying. I’m a compulsive liar. Severely untrusting. And I’m fake as fuck.

So fake that sometimes I just wish people would see the truth. Get the hating me part over with and get straight to the just leaving part. That’s all anyone would do anyway if they knew the truth.

Alas, I am here.

Ryker hasn’t spoken to me in over six months.

After fighting with him for over a month about the whole virginity thing, he finally left. And within twelve hours, I’d ingested more pills, snorted more coke, and had more shots of tequila than I’d ever had before. The next morning, I woke up sore and naked in a stranger’s bed, with no recollection of anything that occurred after my fight with Ryker. Two and two equals I’m pretty fucking sure I consensually had sex for the first time in my life. And it wasn’t with Ryker.

And at least every other day since, has mimicked the first. Jaci and Reese hardly have anything to do with me anymore. Reese still tries, but Jaci stopped months ago. I’ve somehow situated myself in an artsy crowd. The kids of the upper class, if you will. The ones who have opted for a year of travel instead of straight off to college.

I mostly crash on Delilah’s couch. She has a three story beach house that is usually infiltrated with loners like me. I belong here as much as Karen, the washed up, homeless, ex-socialite, and Nicolai, the fifteen-year-old high school drop-out, who plays a harmonica like no body’s business on the beach for extra money. Delilah is a not-so starving artist, with clueless rich parents. Last summer I traveled, smoked, shopped, and snorted, my way across Ireland, Italy, and Spain and I guess Delilah must have liked my fake ass compliments and total BFF façade, because she’s kept me around ever since. Paying my way and keeping me high enough to be just pliant enough to not give a fuck that my body is being photographed or painted for whoever’s pleasure…hers, her dad’s, her dad’s friends. For the most part, I’m usually only used for my nude modeling job description; which involves just lying there in my birthday suit draped in sheer, see through sashes and clothes her father or her father's photog and painter friends choose. But most of the time, the dirty deed is done wearing nothing at all.

For some reason, every time, and I haven't figured out why, but during every session, as the camera flash pulses in sync with the drugs in my veins as well as the bass spilling from the speakers, I always pretend it's Ryker behind the lens or canvas. I guess it's probably just more abandonment issues. I digress, I know.

But it’s in rare moments like this that I find my heaven.

And I think, when I die... this is where I want to end up.

I’m well on my way to my norm on a rainy, fall night on the beach along the back of Delilah's house when
he
happens again. And just like every time he happens, my world alters.

My wet clothes are glued to my body as I flop down onto the ground and lie flat on my back making sand angels. My short hair is wet with sand matted all in it, but I don’t give a fuck.

It’s like it always is when the moon is right and Delilah has the white wine and coke flowing…nothing can touch me.

Nothing but him.

“No, no, no…play that one. Karen’s favorite.”

The crowd around the camp fire gets loud with laughter and someone screams, “Pussy control? Her favorite song, is Pussy control, Ives.” Laughter echo’s the night again and if I cared enough to correct them and ask for Purple Rain, I’d probably forget.

“Whatever,” I mutter, trying to remember my earlier inner dialogue before deciding to concentrate on the stars and constellations above, this time, trying to remember which constellation was mine and Ry’s. Did he have the...? Yeah, he had the little dipper tattooed across his left rib cage representing me, and I had the big dipper inked in the exact same place. But I don’t think the constellation I’m studying is either dipper…maybe I’m looking at Pegasus. Maybe. I forget that the seasons change what stars I’m looking at.

And sadly, when he spoke to me the last time and said every time I missed him all I had to do was look up at night and see our stars…it was a lie. The stars change. Based on when you look and where you look from, they fucking change all the time. In all honesty, I’m probably looking at Cepheus, the most boring, non-relevant to me and Ryker, constellation.

You know what? Fuck constellations.

When I go to stand up, the ground under my feet tilts and I’m down on my hands and knees, laughing at the irony and crying for the same reason.

I ask the sky the same thing every night, “Why won’t you just let me go? Just please, let the shit in my veins take me across that shifty line in the sand! Can't my heavy eyes rest and never wake? Please, God. Fucking, please. I'm too tired.”

And in the next moment, I feel Ryker Killian’s strong arms surround me and I snuggle into his crisp button-up tailored dress shirt. I inhale and immediately, I’m fucking home.

The world doesn’t cease to exist until his words register that shred me apart.

“Can’t let ya go, baby girl. Can’t let it happen. Goddammit, why do ya have to be such a fuck up, and why are ya looking for me in the stars, Winter Ivy? Huh, love? Because, you’re fucked up. And this shit stops, right the fuck now. You want me to have you, fucking all of ya? Fine. I will.” His deep voice reverberates against my frail, cold body tucked against him.

I feel like I’m floating. And as long as Ryker keeps me clutched to his chest, he can carry me wherever. I don’t care.

“Please, don’t leave me, Ryker. I can’t live through it again, I won’t,” my words slur so bad, even I barely make them out.

“Then like I said, baby girl, you want me to have you, I will. And I wouldn't be lettin' ya go.” His voice chokes out right before my consciousness does.

When I wake, the pain I feel rivals any pain I’ve ever felt. Actually, I can’t ever remember hurting so fucking bad a day in my life. Box days included. Every muscle contracts to the point of agony, seizing my body. Every joint aches. My legs feel like ants are crawling and biting them underneath the skin, and my stomach cramps feel like hunger pain, but the thought of food sends bile splashing up the back of my throat.

“Where the fu…” These are the only words I can muster before the excruciating pain of what I can only imagine to be another seizure racks its way through me.

“Tsk, tsk, child. You can shut your mouth, young lady, and thank your lucky stars that self-important Irish prick of a boyfriend of yours got you to the most incompetent, yet in his defense, nearest hospital to where ever the hell you currently hail from. He said, San Destin? Really, Ivy?” Blythe’s tone is dripping with disgust and if I could think straight, or get fucking high enough to numb the pain, I’d tell her exactly where she can go and precisely how hard she can go fuck herself. But for now, as sober and in hell as I currently am, I’m forced to let it slide.

Especially when Ryker’s voice cracks through the still silence of the room moments later.

I hear a chair’s legs scuff linoleum at the same time I hear quiet accusations, and I’m unable to make out their words until a door slams and all I’m left with is the sound of Ryker’s exhausted sighs and apologies.

“Sorry. I tried like hell to keep her from coming. I even threatened to pay for you to file for emancipation, but that just sent her into hysterics…and you know, Blythe and hysterics." He's quiet for a long while before he continues, "I’m glad to have you back amongst the living. Even if you are going to fucking hate the hell out of me for the next few weeks.”

He won’t look at me. He’s either lying or hiding something when Ryker David Killian won’t look at me. But there isn’t a damn thing I can do or say about it because another round of convulsions has my teeth clenched so deep into my tongue, speaking, even days later will be a task.

It’s only been seventy-two hours, but God, it feels like seventy-two days. The pain. The nausea. Those two are the reasons I won’t make it out of this rehab bullshit alive.

And Ryker was right.

I fucking detest him.

Even though he’s done nothing but bend over backwards, bringing me food I can’t eat and flowers I can’t stand the smell of. He’s swathed me in new and freshly laundered down pillows and blankets.

Yet still, I fucking detest him.

I detest the smell of this hell. The cold showers that barely leak well water, the time spent here, even. I hate every minute that passes, and I remain within these four pale salmon walls. But more than anything, I hate the motherfucker responsible for me being here. HATE.

And every day, I cut below the belt, saying the meanest most hurtful things possible, hoping to hand him half the agony he has bestowed upon me. But every fucking next day, there he is…again, with hope in his eyes and a smile right beside it.

I hate him.

The meds they keep shoving down my throat don’t help, if anything they lull me to sleep during their bullshit idea of ‘counseling’ and ‘therapy’. God, I swear, between the meds and therapy, it’s no wonder I barely weigh eighty-seven pounds.

I can’t sleep. I damn sure can’t eat. Then again, I haven’t felt like I wasn’t sick for a lot longer than my shitty seventy-two-hour stent here.

So when my counselor asks me, “How long has it been since you’ve looked in the mirror, really looked and seen the real you looking back?”

My only answer is as brutal as it is truthful, “I’ve never…I can’t remember. Honestly. I can’t…”

Mr. Dawson is pretty cool. If people in their thirties and forties who look like a cop and are employed as substance abuse counselors can be cool.

“Honesty is all that I ask of you, Ivy. Now, I know days one and two are hard, can you tell me how you're doing on day three?”

I sound as childish as a school grade kid when I speak, “Day three is as bad, if not worse than days one and two. And speaking of the third day, isn’t seventy-two hours the longest you can ‘legally’ keep me here?”

His tone transforms from genuine to sarcasm…at least to me it does. “Do you know why you’re here?”

Through clenched teeth I mutter, “Yes, because you’re keeping me here illegally and against my will. That’s why, motherfucker.”

After flipping through a chart on his desk, his voice barks across the table as he adjusts his rimless glasses and begins to list my history, “At the age of ten, you were brought in to the Sacred Heart in Pensacola for cutting so deep you nicked your femoral artery. You were treated, but left without the knowledge of the doctors and nurses treating you. At thirteen, you were dropped off at the ER sliding doors, in the middle of a hypovolemic shock seizure caused by your cutting habits. You were treated, and again, left against medical advice in the wee hours of the night.”

He flips through more pages, “This type of occurrence is repeated twice more. Then, let’s see…” After looking through the file from front to back, he slides his glasses from his face and slowly sets them on top of the file before settling his serious eyes on mine.

“I see two drug charges, methamphetamines at the age sixteen, cocaine at the age seventeen. And those are just the charges I can find here in Florida. Now, to your earlier statement about me keeping you here, ‘illegally’, Ivy, would you like to explain the three suicide attempts that are also listed on your patient chart?”

I’m pissed that moments ago, I actually compared this shrink to a fucking human, a cool human, at that. I’m pissed that he’s blaming me for shit I really didn’t have any control over at the time. I’m also pissed because I don’t like how right he currently sounds and how wrong I do.