Everything Has Changed

Chapter Eighteen: Health

I wanted to post the picture on the side :) there's another one in the next chapter. To whoever sent them, thank you very much

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Chapter Eighteen: Health

I ditched school for three days by forcing myself to puke, but I guess Caleb told my Dad something about Danny and now my Dad is forcing me to go to school.

Now it's Thursday morning and I have to get out of bed, but I've slept maybe an hour a night.

The look of pain on his face flashes in my mind and I feel a pang in my heart.

I hate myself.

I hate myself for not loving him. I hate myself for having to tell him that I'm not in love with him.

"Get out of bed!" Dad shouts.

I shove the covers off of my body and drag myself to the shower.

As I stand there in the hot spray, I think about the time I had that nightmare about my Mom drowning me in the tub, almost as if it was yesterday.

"I don't get it." I whisper, staring at my bandaids.

"Get what?" He mutters.

"How she got to be like that?" I mumble. "She taught me how to bake cookies. She played with me at the beach. She was there for me through everything, even you leaving, so I don't understand how such a loving, caring mother can go from that to trying to kill me in the living room because I dropped my water glass."

Tears slide down my face and I can feel his eyes on me.

"Alcohol is a mean substance." He whispers.

"I'm never going to drink." I mutter, taking a deep breath. I start shaking my head. "I never want to. It's just a drink. There's no point. I don't want to drink and I don't want to be around drunk people. I hate everyone that smokes or does drugs or drinks. That shit can ruin people. It took my Mom away from me, and now she's somewhere, drunk off her ass, and I'm here, having nightmares about her drowning me in the bath tub."

I bury my hand in my hands and try my hardest not to cry.

I hear him moving and then he's pulling me to my feet and wrapping me into the tightest, warmest hug of my life.

And I can't help it. Everything has been so bubbled up for so long and I never felt safe enough to just let it all out.

And the next thing I know, I'm sobbing, my arms loosely around Danny's waist, and I'm crying so hard that I can barely breathe.

I feel his hand running up and down my back, his chin resting on top of my head. All of my tears drip onto his shirt and he doesn't seem to care.

"Grace," he whispers while I'm crying. "One day you're going to marry somebody and you're going to be in your bedroom down the hall, and your husband is going to be reading your four year old a bedtime story." He pulls away and takes my face in his hands. "It's not going to be like this forever. You're going to be happy. You're going to be the best Mom in the entire world, and I'm going to be the cool uncle, and your husband is going to be my best friend." He swallows. "And everything is going to be okay. For now, it's hard, and you can't sleep, but everything is going to be alright, okay?"

I nod, sniffling.

"When you calm down, we're going to go back to bed, and-"

"I'm not going back to bed."