What She Left Us (10 page)

“Courtney?”
A familiar voice rang through the hospital corridor and she looked up. It was
Darren in his EMT uniform. Of course they’d run into him there. She quickly
turned her head to see if Jenna was on her way out.

“Oh,
hey Darren.” While she was happy to see him, she also felt sort of mad, and then
she realized she didn't have a right to be mad at him. After all, it was Jenna
who had split up with him, not the other way around.

“How
are you?” He reached over for a hug, and again, she felt a twinge of something,
maybe anger, but she wanted to hug him, so she did. She had missed him so much.
He had been like such a brother to her. She had loved him so much too. He was
family. He was going to be family. Before her sister had gone and broken up the
engagement. Courtney felt a lump form in her throat.

“Wow,
I’ve missed you kiddo,” he said. “What’re you doing here?”

“Jenna
and I–”

“Jenna’s
here?”

“Yeah,
in the bathroom.”

“Oh
man, I should probably go.” Darren looked to his left and then to the right, and
ran his fingers through his wavy hair. It was as if he were looking for cover,
looking for a way out.

“But,
no, wait. She’ll want to see you,” Courtney said.

“I
know, but not now. It’s not a good place, or good timing. I know I need to call
her. Tell her I’ll call her, will you? And I know I owe you a call too. Miss
you, kiddo. Why are you here anyway?”

“The
test. We had to come for that test for the disease Mom died from. I know Jenna
told you. She wanted you to come,” she accused. “You wouldn’t come.”

His
radio beeped and he picked it up and listened. It was an ER call. “Hey listen,
I’ve got to run.” He kissed her quickly on her cheek and gave her another hug.
“Give Jenna my love.” And just like that, he turned and ran down the corridor,
shouting some code into his radio.

The
door to the ladies’ room whooshed open and Jenna came out, pulling her ponytail
tight. She saw Courtney watching Darren run down the corridor, saw the look on
Courtney’s face, the look of someone who had no idea what just happened, and
she almost didn’t want to ask what had transpired minutes before between her
ex-fiancé and her little sister.

With
Darren no longer in view, the two girls stood there quietly. Finally, Jenna
asked, “What’d he say?”

“He
told me to give you his love. And that he would call you.”

By
the time Sunday rolled around, Courtney was more than ready to make the two-hour
drive back to school. A trip to their mother’s house turned out to be too
emotional for the girls, and they agreed they would attempt to tackle the rest
of the clean-up in a month, over Thanksgiving break. The task seemed so enormous,
neither of them wanted to address it. They both thought it would take a lot of
wine, and some seriously loud music to help with the process of unloading so
many intimate and important memories.

Jenna
promised to call Courtney as soon as she heard anything from Dr. Rhetler and
Courtney said she’d do the same if she got news as well, and then with a long
drawn-out hug, Courtney got on the road to head back to school. Thoughts of
Mitch kept her motivated on the drive, along with a CD he had made for her, which
she kept on auto-play. Before she knew it, she was pulling into the parking lot
of her dorm building.

She
was surprised at how anxious she felt to get back to school to see Mitch, and
she didn’t want to admit how much she had missed him over the break. They’d
done plenty of flirty texting and he’d called her twice, which really surprised
her. She didn’t think guys made actual phone calls anymore.

As
she pulled into the parking lot and parked her car, she checked her phone.
There was a text from Jenna that said, “Txt me when u get to school so I know
ur there.” And there was one from Mitch that said, “COME 2 MY RM.”

Courtney
smiled. She replied to Jenna’s text: “I’m here. Luv u.”

Then
she clicked onto Mitch’s message and typed: “Just parked, be up in a sec.”

She
resisted the urge to add a smiley face emoticon even though she was smiling so
hard her cheeks ached at the thought of seeing him. And she had that jittery
feeling in her stomach that proved there was something serious happening here.

She
couldn’t wait to see him.

When
they brought the baby home from the hospital, things didn’t seem much different
than before she was in the hospital except that Courtney didn’t cry like she used
to. Jenna still couldn’t go near her or hold her or play with her. She had
other friends who had little sisters and brothers and they were allowed to hold
and play with them. Jenna didn’t understand why she even had a little sister
when she couldn’t even be around her. All she was allowed to do was do things
for her mother to help with the baby and that was just plain old boring.

“Jenna,
could you please bring me a diaper for Courtney,” or “Jenna, could you get me a
fresh cloth so I can clean up the spit-up” was all she ever heard from her
mother.

It
got old.

Her
mother stopped paying attention to her. There was never any time to do anything
together anymore because the stupid baby still needed all the attention. Jenna
didn’t understand why Courtney was in the hospital for all that time because
she still needed a ton of help from her Mommy. The baby didn’t cry as much, and
she didn’t flip around and shake like she used to before she went into the
hospital, but her mom kept holding her all of the time.

“Mommy,
will you play dollies with me?” Jenna asked one quiet afternoon when Courtney
was asleep in her arms.

“Honey,
I’m busy. Can’t you see that Courtney is sleeping?”

“Put
her in her crib and play dollies with me!” Jenna demanded.

“Go
get your dollies and play on the floor by me. I can pretend that Courtney is my
dolly and you can play with your dolly. It’ll be fun,” her Mommy said.

“No!
That’s stupid! You can’t play dollies with a real baby! That doesn’t make
sense! I hate that baby! I wish you never had her. Why can’t you take her back
to the hospital? She does nothing. I can’t ever play with her or touch her. You
won’t let me do anything with her. She is the most boringest thing in the whole
entire world!”

“Jenna
Maeve Haddonfield! Courtney is your sister! You are to love her and not talk
about her like she is someone who you can just send back! Do you understand
that?!” 

Jenna
watched as her mother’s face changed from the nice Mommy she knew into some
sort of monster person’s face. It turned kind of red and splotchy and then some
tears came out. She hardly ever saw her mommy cry and that scared her. She only
cried the one time the ambulance came and only for a little bit. Jenna must
have said a really bad thing.

“Do
you know how much your sister hurts? How much pain she has been through? She is
finally feeling better, and all she wants is her mommy. Honey, she needs to be
held and loved. I would do the same for you if you hurt this bad. I held you too,
just like this, when you were this tiny,” her mommy continued to cry, and so
Jenna started to whimper.

Her
mom patted the spot on the couch next to her. “Come up here.” Jenna tentatively
crawled up onto the couch. “Look at this sleeping baby. Look at your sister.”
Jenna peeked up at her. What she saw was a teeny little baby. She saw the baby
who had taken her mommy away from her. But then her mommy tucked her arm around
her and pulled her into her body, as close as she could. “You are Mommy’s baby
too. But you’re also a big girl. I love you so much. So, so much. You’re both
my baby girls. You’re both sisters. Court-Court just needs a bit more of me now.
She’ll get a little bit bigger soon, and then you’ll be able to play with her.
I promise. You’ll be the best of friends. I always wanted a sister. I never had
one. I’m so happy you have a sister. You’re so lucky. You don’t know how lucky
you are. Someday… someday I promise you, you will realize that you will have a
best friend for the rest of your life because you have a sister.”

Jenna
looked up at her mom and saw that she had stopped crying but her eyes were
still heavy with leftover tears. She felt terrible for the horrible things she
had said. She didn’t quite understand everything her mommy said but she knew it
was really important stuff and that she better start being good.

She
looked down at the little ball of baby. Her sister. She better start getting
used to the fact that she was going to be around and that she was going to have
to share her with her parents. She was going to have to start liking her some
way or another.

Jenna’s
mom squeezed her tightly, and kissed the top of her head. Courtney kept her
eyes closed but she pursed her little lips and opened her mouth into the shape
of a big O, and even though all she ever did was sleep, she yawned as if she
was still tired and stretched her scrawny arms. Then the edges of her mouth
curled up into the slightest bit of a smile. Jenna knew it was a smile.

Maybe,
just maybe she could find a way to like her.

Courtney
took the stairs up the six flights to her floor thinking a bit of sweat would
produce a healthy glow to her skin. She could feel the excitement building. She
couldn’t remember feeling this way about a guy ever, but then again, there had
only been two, and her track record with those guys hadn’t qualified as much.

There
had been James, he had been what she had considered her first ‘love’ but
looking back, that had actually been a joke. He was the guy who took her to
prom and then took everything from her. Laughable now really, when she thought
about it. What a waste of… everything.

Then
there had been the summer fling, the guy at the gym, who went by the name Trev.
Not even Trevor. They had gone out a total of six times, and the second to last
time had ended when she thought they had had something, and she was ready to
take it to the next level. He had taken her out to a nice dinner, bought her
the requisite flowers, at least she thought they were requisite. He charmed
her, really charmed her. Charmed the pants right off her. Afterward, she felt used.
It had been awkward, uncomfortable.

She
had thought at least he would have asked her to stay, but instead, he got up,
showered (he actually showered!), and made up some lame excuse about having to
get up really early and would it be okay if he took her home.

In
his defense (why was she defending him?), he did ask her out again, and in her
stupidity (why was she so stupid?) she did go out with him again, but when he
suggested they go back to his place after a lame and uncomfortable date at a
bar for a drink and appetizers (not even a full dinner this time), she asked
him to take her home. That was the end of that.

The
next time she saw him at the gym, he was working his triceps by a blonde and
using the same lines he had used on her.

So,
with those being the only experiences in her life as something she might have
even remotely considered relationships, Courtney hiked up the last few stairs
anticipating that things with Mitch would be different.

She
opened the heavy door to her dorm floor and the loud noise struck her
immediately, but amazingly, it felt like the closest thing to home. Music
blasted from rooms, kids bantered back and forth, a couple students passed her.

“Hey
Courtney, welcome back!” Remy said as he tossed a football to Brent.

“Hi,
and hey, you know no football in the hall!” Courtney yelled back.

“Oops!
Sorry!” Remy caught the ball that Brent threw back to him, and then joking, he
yelled down the hall, “Hey everyone, RA alert! She’s back! Put your bongs
away!”

“Nice
Remy.” And then Courtney said, “Don’t you have a report or something to get
to?”

“Or
something.” He tucked the football under his arm.

Courtney
dropped her suitcase in front of her door and pulled out her keys. A couple
more students rushed behind her and said, “Hey Court!”

She
said over her shoulder, “Hey guys” even though she had no idea which students greeted
her.

“Need
help with that?” Mitch brushed up against her, pressing into her body, and
pressed his lips gently on the back of her neck. “How are you?”

Courtney’s
knees went weak and Mitch’s arms slipped around her waist.

“Whoa
there, you okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,”
her breath caught in her throat. You surprised me, that’s all.”

“Here,
give me your keys.” He whispered into her ear. The hall was empty now, which
was good because Courtney didn’t need any of the other students seeing the two
of them like this. She moved to the side, but looked up at Mitch. He kept his
arm around her, which was also good because she seriously felt as if she might
fall over from his touch.

“It’s
good to see you. I’ve wanted to see you,” he said. “This texting is bullshit. It
was a long time to be away from you.”

He
opened the door, let go of her for just a second, and tossed her suitcase into
the room. She followed him in, he closed the door, and locked it.