Forget Me Not | ✓

43 | Probation

43
Breaking Dawn  [Pt.2]
P r o b a t i o n

"You are my sunshine,
My only sunshine
You make me happy
When skies are gray
You'll never know, dear
How much I love you,"

THE MACHINES ON either side of Maxine's hospital bed beeped and hummed irritatingly as Adele sat by her bedside and hummed the quaint little tune.

"Please don't take
my sunshine away."

As soon as she woke up, Max would be going home today. After eight days in the hospital, both her and her mother were looking forward to getting her back home. Adele already packed all of her things.

Bella would awaken from her Transition tomorrow , much to everyone's delight. When Adele had told her daughter, in the most simplest of ways, about what happened to her Aunty Bella, the little girl's reply was heartwarming.

"Does that mean she's an angel like you, mommy?" While Max was very young, she wasn't oblivious to their enhanced abilities or beauty. She just didn't understand it yet.

As Adele sat in the grim silence of the private room, she absentmindedly wondered what that would make Paul. She had a few specific words in mind but none of them were suited for children. Hell, even some adults would cringe.

Max inquired about her father's whereabouts every day to see when he would visit her. He never did. Until today. There was a soft rapping on the door and Adele turned to see him standing uncomfortably in the doorway. He was dressed in jeans and a white cotton T-Shirt and held a stuffed ladybug in his large hand.

"She is asleep." Adele did not meet his eyes.

Seeing his little girl in that bed, an IV in her arm, a moniter on her finger, and wires leading to patches on her chest under her gown, bile crawled up his throat. He had to pry his eyes away from the sight.   "Can we talk?"

She didn't feel like there was anything worth discussing at this point. He left her. He chose his pack over his sickly daughter. But she couldn't resist his sad, contrite eyes, and begrudgingly stood. "Not in here."

She led him out of the room and around the corner to a secluded place where no one could eavesdrop in. As soon as she turned to face him her arms crossed, he began to apologize. "Adele, I am so sorry. I-... words can't describe how horrible I feel about you, Max, all of it."

"You should feel horrible." You should feel like shit.

"I'm so sorry, Adele–"

"–Words will not mend anything you have broken, Paul." She used his first name and let it run cold off of her tongue. He blanched. She almost never used it in the first place.

"How can I make it up to you? How can I make this right?" He expected her to say that he could not, that what he did could not be forgiven or forgotten, but what she said, what she did next, was even worse, in its own way.

She laughed. It was cold and hollow and it scared him. "You did hurt me, Paul. But I got over it."

It doesn't seem like it. He frowned. "You make it seem like I have no impact in your life..."

"Please. Paul, I have experienced things that you could never even imagine, things that scar you for your entire life. So don't you dare make this about yourself when it is so much more than that. It is not about you and it's is not about me. I realized that soon after you left." She sighed and pursed her lips as she thought of her daughter in the hospital bed and her son at home. "It is about Max and Asa."