Chapter thirty eight
Ryleigh looked up at the clock hanging over the reception desk on the wall for the countless time. Only eight o'clock yet his eyes were heavy lidded with sleep but his mind continued to race. It seemed no one else would sleep either despite Gelsey's promise to wake them up if she received any news.
Ryleigh sat in the corner with his elbows resting on his knees, his head buried into his hands once more. At least he couldn't hear the girls' quiet sniffles anymore. Gelsey was the only other person to sit in the same row of chairs up against the wall. Skinner, Mel, Keira and Ivy were all siting along the adjoining wall. Ivy and Keira each laid their heads on Skinner's lap as he soothingly ran his fingers through their hair. Mel sat a few chairs away from them with her legs crossed out in front of her. She sat on the tip of her chair, leaned back so she could rest the back of her head on the wall. Her eyes were slipped closed but Ryleigh knew better than to think that she was sleeping. Out of the few days Ryleigh befriended the group, he figured Mel was the kind of dark humored girl that held any sort of sad emotion in. So when she closed her eyes, it was to keep everyone else from seeing the tears that swelled under their lids.
Genevieve sat on the wall across from them, dazedly staring into the air at nothing in particular. Her cheeks were a blotchy red like her sister's, but the tears had long since dried up.
Ryleigh peeked through his fingers again to look at the clock. Eight o'seven....
"I'm going to the vending machine. Anyone need anything?" Mel stood from her seat but didn't meet anyone else's eyes.
"I think we're all good. Thanks Melissa." Gelsey forced a tired smile at the redhead. Although Mel had said she was going to the vending machine, it was clear by the slightly green parlor in her face that she felt just as sick as the rest of them did. She just needed to stretch her cramped legs and relieve the pressure behind her eyes from holding her tears back.
Eight ten....
Ryleigh ran his hands down his face and settled for glaring at the reception desk lady who was chewing her pink bubble gum loudly. With an inaudible groan, Ryleigh switched his gaze back down to the floor. To count the number of tiles... again.
"Gelsey...?" despite only asking for the camp founder, the doctor that stepped through the door was instantly surrounded by six other people.
"How is she?" Gelsey nervously squeezed her hands together.
"Anika is stable for now. She did have some brain swelling along with a concussion from the laceration on the back of her skull. A few broken and badly bruised ribs along with other bruising on her limbs. I also noticed an older looking bruise on her back?"
Gelsey nodded sadly. "Yes, she fell on her back on a stream bed."
The doctor nodded once with a frown pulling his lips down. For an older gentleman, he was still intimidating in his sea green scrubs standing a few inches taller than Ryleigh's six two stature.
"We gave her medication to reduce the swelling and pain, but we had to put her in a temporary coma so her brain can heal a bit more. Chances are, by tomorrow afternoon she'll be awake again."
"She won't have... you know, mental issues will she?" Keira asked with an anxious wobble to her voice.
"Not as far as we can tell. Her brain is functioning perfectly fine at the moment. Of course, she will be kept under close watch all night into tomorrow."Â A collective sigh of relief bounced between the group.
"But for now, I will let two people in to see her. I don't want to overwhelm her. Anika should be able to hear still so if you would like to talk to her and assure her that she'll be fine, that might help her healing process."
"Thank you." Gelsey shook the doctor's hand before he disappeared through the door again.
"Go talk to her Ryleigh." Ivy rubbed his arm once, giving him an encouraging nod before she continued to walk past him back to her seat.
"Let us know how she is, okay man?" Skinner squeezed Ryleigh's shoulder before he went back to his seat as well.
"Don't say anything stupid, got it?" Keira cracked a smile to lighten the mood.
"Okay." The corner of Ryleigh's lip twitched up in a smile.
"Say hi to her for us." Mel gave him a casual smirk before she walked past also.
"I figured we could wait a little longer before I take them back to Silver lake." Genevieve spoke with her twin. Gelsey glanced over at Ryleigh and made a decision.
"That's sounds fine. I'm staying the night. Ryleigh, would you like to stay too?"
"If I could."
"Alright then. I'll take everyone else back. Call me after you see her." Genevieve pulled her sister into a hug before lightly pushing her towards the door leading to the critical care unit.
"Come on Ryleigh." Gelsey placed a hand on his back as they walked down the hall and stopped outside a glass door. The whole wall was made of glass so anyone passing by could see the girl tucked under the blankets.
A thick white bandage was wrapped around her head and a few dark splashes of blues and purples coated her arms that lay above the covers by her sides. Most of the color had returned to her face by then.
"Gelsey, the doctor would like to speak with you in private." a nurse with blue scrubs kindly approached them.
"Okay." Gelsey nodded at the nurse before turning to face Ryleigh. "Why don't you go in. I'll be back shortly."
Ryleigh couldn't think of anything to say so he gave a nod and reached for the door handle. The cold metal burned his skin and reminded him just how cold Anika had felt out in the rain. The first thing he would do was make sure she had some of her warmth back.
Closing the door behind him silently, he closed the distance between him and Anika's bed in three long strides. His hand hovered over her own and he had to take a deep breath and tell himself that she was going to be fine.
His fingertips brushed against her warmer skin and a wave of relief flooded through him. He picked up her hand gently and stroked the smooth skin for a few minutes.
"Hey, Nick." he breathed out hating how loud his voice sounded against the soft beeping coming from the monitor on the other side of the bed.
"Mind if I sit?" he asked her and pulled the closest chair to the bedside without ever letting go of her hand.
"Well too bad. I'm sitting now." he gave a short chuckle and felt his chest loosen a little.
"So the doctor said you're in a coma and you need your rest but he said that you might be able to hear me. I hope you can." he bent forward to lean his head on the sheets next to their interlocked hands.
"The doc said talking might help you calm down and heal faster. I know you're crazy, but being stuck in your head is a whole new level for you." he lightly teased and gave a deep chuckle at his own joke.
"And right about now you'd probably try to slap me upside the head. Speaking about heads, I can assure you that yours is still intact. Just a little swelling and a concussion but you'll live." Ryleigh skimmed the back of her hand with his lips.
"How come we didn't decided to go get the food together and talk before rather than when we were going to return the trays after?" he asked with a sigh. "If I had been with you maybe those insane girls wouldn't have done what they did."
"So you two were going to talk?" Ryleigh jumped slightly when Gelsey spoke from where she was leaning against the closed door.
"Didn't mean to scare you." she offered him a small smile before she returned her eyes back to Anika.
"Yeah. We were going to talk later tonight. But now it's probably be tomorrow if sh- you still feel up to it." he laid his head back down beside Anika.
"That'll be good. You guys can keep each other company. Though I'm not sure if I'll be able to convince the girl's and Skinner to stay back at the camp. They'll want to see you as soon as you awake." Gelsey laughed lightly and sat in a chair across the room.
"So we'll make it quick." Ryleigh chuckled and brushed his nose across her wrist. "Or we'll wait a little longer."
"Why don't you start now?" Gelsey cautiously pushed.
"But what if she can't hear me?" Ryleigh peered up at Gelsey across the room.
The blond lady shrugged a shoulder. "Then you'll just be doing a practice run."
Ryleigh took a minute to collect his thoughts and stared at Anika's face. "I guess that sounds good. But after this you have to rest, okay?" he watched her face for any sign of agreement and sighed lowly when it remained blank.
"I don't really know where to start, so... just bare with me." he took a deep breath and as he played with her fingers, Ryleigh started the story of his past.
"I guess starting at the beginning would make sense. Actually, I don't really know anything before I was five I guess. Fast forward a few years and I can tell you that my mom left my dad, me and my sister. I don't remember her much, but apparently my sister, Callie looked just like her. At least that's what my dad used to say on the nights he was actually sober." Ryleigh laughed bitterly.
"At first it wasn't so bad. But I came home from school- I was a nine year old kid in fourth grade- I walked home from school and opened the door and what do you know? He slapped her just as I walked in. I think that was the day that I started hating my father.
"Callie didn't even cry. She was probably the most emotionally strong four year old on the planet then. Not even a whimper came out of the kid. She shouldn't have had to go through that. He was a rotten piece of shit to me but I really thought he would be better to her. She was his daughter and he... he just slapped her around.
"Fast forward another six years and many more skipped days of school, and we're nearly out on the streets. Dad's still stumbling through the door, blowing any money that we had left on booze. He blamed us. Callie, oh man Callie wanted to do gymnastics so bad like the other girls in her fourth grade class but I'd take her down to the park instead. They had this pull up bar she'd used to swing her whole body around for hours. She's got this curly light brown hair and it was always the hardest to get even the smallest of snarls out." Ryleigh chuckled softly at the memory of his younger sister.
"She was smarter then any other kid I knew and I'm so thankful that she doesn't remember any of the crap our dad did to her. To us. All she knew was that I'd take her out in the middle of the night to our grandmother's house. She was my mother's mother and she'd take care of us for the night sometimes.
"But she couldn't take care of us all of the time. She couldn't support both me and my sister everyday so I started looking for a job. My grandma, she hated that her fifteen year old grandson was trying to take care of himself and his sister but she couldn't do anything about it.
"If she told the police that her son in law was abusing her grandchildren they would separate Callie and I and send us off to a foster home since she wouldn't be able to support us either. So I tried looking for a job anywhere. Stores, lawn care you name it. No one wanted a young kid though." Ryleigh hesitated and blew out a breath.
"So one night I'm walking back to the house from my grandmother's- Callie and I are just staying there to sleep now- and I see the usual drug dealers on the corner. I know it was stupid but I was so desperate Anika. I'll say it right now I've never done drugs at all to this day. Just so you know. not a drag or shot or anything. I just dealt for the other dealers. I became the go to guy in school for all the junkies. And it paid well enough. We had food now and some extra money for my grandmother. It was good for the next two and a half years.
"But I knew I couldn't make it last forever. Word spread to the wrong ears and the next thing I know I'm being arrested in the middle of a math lesson. I'm given a choice to go to a juvenile prison or spend the summer at Camp Silver Lake.
"I can't be away from Callie for that long so of course I choose to come to this camp. I know they're set for a while but Callie's only ten. She doesn't need to feel pressured to take on the world just yet. So I planned on just doing my time here and getting back home to her. I never even thought about how to treat you because I was so worried about having my father go after her. So I was a jerk and said things I knew I shouldn't have. And you forgave me for some unknown reason..." he chuckled and gave her hand a soft squeeze.
"That leads us to the present pretty much."
"I'm sure she understands now." Gelsey said and Ryleigh nodded, feeling his eyes drift closed.
"What I don't understand is how you can have any type of past similar to mine. You smile and laugh with the girls too much." he mumbled just before he gave up the fight and feel asleep with his hand still locked with Anika's at the end of his nose on the bed.