Fast and Furious (Fan Fiction)

Chapter 24

I was back to being the Mercy that went through the motions of life without actually living or feeling. I was back to rooming with Brian and Callum in their three bedroom apartment with a missing TV remote. They still wouldn't make eye contact with me, and if they did, they didn't try to hide the sympathy that emitted from their pained gazes. 

I felt like a charity case. My appetite had been depleting and I was back to being bone a skin. Dom and Letty were getting on beautifully and Mia was glowing in all her mother to be glory. I didn't belong, and nobody was going to go out of their way to make me feel as if I did this time and I wasn't going t take that to heart, that's what I had wanted after all. An existence with no strings and no danger of dragging others down with me when I fell from this hell I had been given in place of grace. 

My nights had been marred with nightmares of Shaw, of my mom, my dad and my beautiful but dead siblings, yet another reason I was grateful Brian and Callum were seldom home, their was only so much pity I could stomach before snapping.  

As for Ace, it had been 5 days since that night, and I  hadn't seen him since. Mr.Morello had given me a week off to nurse myself back to health. I couldn't help but scoff when he relayed this message to me over the phone. Nurse myself back to health, as if that had ever been a possibility. The scars I had acquired that night had been deep set and the ones I had worked  so hard to keep shut from all those years ago had also strewn open. 

It didn't' take a genius to understand it was going to take a miracle for me to be the old Mercy, to be the happy unguarded Mercy. And I had made it a mission to make sure no one around me got their hopes up in term of getting that Mercy.   I was polite to the Toretto's, to the family at Morello's and Callum, but that's all I could give them. Polite. Civil. Guarded. 

I was pulled out of my zone out session as the front door was pushed open and a tired Callum shuffled his way in, throwing his phone and keys on the coffee table as he did. 

"Hey babe," he muttered, making way over to the fridge. It was 6:30 in the morning. He poured himself milk and made a point of filling a glass for me also and pushing it towards me. My stomach instantly rolled at the thought of having to stomach the milk and I pulled back hesitantly, a move Callum did not miss. 

"Mercy," he started slowly, his voice almost a whisper.  A quiet sigh left my lips and my nose stung. It wasn't that I didn't like food. I loved it. Used to eat every chance I got when I was younger, when I was happier. There was no explanation for why my appetite had depleted me the weeks following Shaw's visit. I wasn't trying to hurt myself, or gain people's attention. Food had just lost its appeal, and it was proving to be more of hassle to eat and keep down than not. 

"You can't go on like this girl, " he went on, his voice rising a little. "I know you're hurting, but what you're doing , it's hurting everyone else." I stiffened. He was going to play that card. He thought I was doing this on purpose, like I had control over the way my stomach rolled and pushed back the food  I needed to get back the little strength I had.   "So please, eat. Make our lives a little easier babe. There's only so much we can take."  

A pained breath left me and my shoulder sagged as the last words left his mouth. Make their lives easier. There's only so much we can take. I brought up a shaky hand to push my hair back before meeting meeting his leveled gaze with a vacant one of my own. Make their lives easier. As if I wasn't already trying to do that. As if I hadn't tried that that night, when I had willed myself to drown in that tub full cold water and blood. I bit my lip from saying it out loud, and moved my still shaking hand to the glass of milk, the tremors getting worse and the turning of my stomach more intense. 

I laid my hand flat on the countertop , a pained breath leaving me as cold sweat made its way down my back. I hadn't even realized it had gotten this bad.  Just do it Mercy, drink it and get him off your back. But I couldn't bring myself to do it, fear of heaving the milk back up and being left with a throat on fire and cramps that stretched my stab wound kept me frozen.