Pieces of Summer

Aidan’s jaw clenches, and that murderous look flings back to me.

“Two weeks? It’s amazing she hasn’t snapped before now. What if we hadn’t been here?” he yells.

My neck cracks to the side as I work hard to rein in my temper.

“Hunter told me what’s going on. I didn’t fucking know. Now I do. It won’t happen again,” I say calmly, trying to remember that killing him would be a bad way to stay on Mika’s good side, and I want to be here when she wakes up without her kicking me out.

“You don’t get it, do you?” he asks, stepping forward. Hunter puts a hand on his chest again, as though he’s prepared to restrain him. “You are her biggest damn weakness. You’re the reason she came back. That motherfucking bowling alley is bullshit. She just wanted to relive her best days, and I don’t give a damn what she says. That’s the real truth. You! All because of you.”

I swallow against the knot in my throat as tears fill up in his eyes. He looks exhausted and drained, as though the world is suddenly collapsing on his shoulders.

“I failed her once. Never again. I’ll never let this happen again,” he says on a choked sob, then clears his throat.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Hunter groans.

Aidan cuts his eyes to him. “Yes it was. I told Mika to deal with Mom. I wanted to move out as badly as she did, but it was too much fucking drama for me. I was always letting Mika do the dirty work while I sat back and chilled. I’m the one who told her to tell Mom we were leaving that night. I knew there’d be a fight. I knew it would be ugly. I just… I never fucking expected…” His words trail off, and he seals his lips when the strain of the guilt makes him fight to keep his tone.

He clears his throat again and wipes at his eyes. No one says a word.

Finally, he looks over at the hospital, staring vacantly at the busy entrance of the ER before speaking again.

“I failed her more than once. I sent her to that fucking sadistic son of a bitch. He pushed her limits daily, intentionally hit her triggers. It was psychological torture disguised as therapy. And Mika wouldn’t leave because she didn’t want to be a burden on me. Three years. She stayed in there for three fucking years, endured all that pain daily just to keep me from having to be saddled with her.”

He drops back and slides down the car as his tears start falling, and I watch as he sobs into his hands. I’ve never seen someone break down so thoroughly, and I end up having to sit back down as I watch, feeling nothing but guilty.

I lost Mika because I gave her up. I pushed her away to make her life better. And she went through this alone. I only wanted her life to be free and happy. I never… I never thought her life would be worse.

“They had to sedate her and restrain her to the bed all the time because she’d lose it,” he whispers through the strain. “They’d push her limits, and she’d lose it. She stayed in hell because I put her there, and she didn’t want to be a problem for me.”

Everything… This all feels like my fucking fault.

“She’d have never been able to be with you,” Hunter tells me randomly, causing me to snap my head up. I feel something wet slide down my face, and I realize it’s a stray tear.

I wipe it away and clear my throat.

“Their mother was on some pills their uncle hooked her up with, and she was drinking on top of that. She refused to let them leave. Mika would have been in that hallway and in front of that bannister no matter what went down between you two,” he says on a sigh. “This isn’t on anyone standing out here right now, so both of you stop trying to claim the guilt.”

I never said anything, but apparently guilt is written on my face.

“You need to go,” Aidan says quietly, looking up at me.

“I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying. I realize I have to make some changes, but—”

He snorts loudly, almost snarling, and he glares up at me.

“Some changes? You’d have to make lifestyle changes galore. You think you know what to do? There’s literally a whole fucking book on Mika. Yeah. That sadistic son of a bitch wrote a book on her case. Mika unknowingly signed a waver to get the free treatment from him and his legion of sociopaths. They can’t use her last name, but so fucking what. He had a bestseller from her pain during those three years of trials. The bastard even took credit for the success she’s had since her ‘recovery,’ if that’s what you want to call it.”

Hunter walks away, and I continue staring at Aidan.

“He was praised by the psychological community for his success,” Aidan goes on, angrily spitting out the last word. “I had to get a court order to halt his therapy. I went through hell to get her out of there and find her a real psychiatrist. Mika can’t have drugs because the side effects always induce possible suicidal tendencies. With an irrational brain during agitation, it makes the side effects more severe. Everything has to be organic. She can’t even schedule fucking appointments to see a shrink, so imagine how hard it was to find one who would allow her to just show up at random.”

Blake blows out a breath as he lowers himself to the ground. Standing isn’t easy for any of us at this point. Everything feels heavy and intimidating. Mika… Mika is a survivor like I never knew, and I spent my life thinking she was better off.

“She can’t drive longer than fifteen minutes, because she ends up driving until she runs out of gas, going around in circles. She can’t work a puzzle because she gets frustrated too quickly if a piece that should fit doesn’t line up properly. She can’t read directions because they don’t make sense to her. She can’t cook, and she loved it. She can’t… She can’t ever have kids either. Her life is all about survival and getting better one day at a time. It’s not just a few changes you have to make. See?”

I start to speak, but he cuts me off.

“You love her. I get it,” he says angrily. “She was the one who got away and all that. But tell me you can quit your shop, because you can’t have a regular work schedule around her. She’ll expect you to go in at exactly the same time. You won’t get sick days. Tell me you can function without an alarm clock, or eat at random times, or never watch a new TV series, or screen movies that don’t have cliffhanger endings, or even plan out a vacation. She can’t fly—planes have flight times. She can’t go on a cruise—boats have port times. She can’t plan anything.”