Chapter Forty-Four
It was half past three in the morning when Lorna was startled awake from a rather deep slumber. She jolted up due to the sensation of sweat hitting her body from the fabric of the clothing that clung to her skin. The sweaty feeling quickly came as a shock to her—it hadn't even been hot in the room, she observed, how the hell was she sweating in a pair of thinly-sewn pieces of fabric that only covered her thighs and upper arms? She shook her head at herself—leave it to her to wake up in the middle of a freezing winter night covered in her own damn sweat.
The deafening sound of loud breathing—bordering on snoring—instantly pulled Lorna's attention from her sweaty body onto where it could possibly be originating from. It was an eerie, familiar, sound. One she remembered echoing through the walls of her mother's hospital room all those several months earlier. No wonder she was jolted awake from her sleep in a cold sweat. That sound had the capability of haunting her no matter what time of day or night it happened to be. She hurriedly removed herself from the bed to put as much distance between herself and that god-awful noise that bled through her ears.
However, the farther she walked from the bed the louder it rang through them. She reached her hands up to cover over both of her ears and tiptoed her way out of her girlfriend's bedroom. A light, appearing to come from the kitchen, shined dimly through the hallway that separated her from the bedroom. She followed the shadow of the light, which led her out past the living room and into the kitchen. Rather the empty kitchen. There was a small light above the sink that had clearly been what was projecting through the hallway she had just walked the path of.
Her eyes deterred towards the window that sat on the wall near the circular table. There, brightly-lit in the sky, was a full moon. Rapidly, Lorna's brown eyes were mesmerized by it. Its light lit up the entirely pitched-black sky, making all of the millions of stars easily visible to the naked eye. She couldn't resist the smile that fought for a place on her face. It was a beautiful display that took up the night sky. Brought back memories of the nights she found her mother sitting on their front porch when she had trouble sleeping from the effects of the numerous different medications she was forced to take for the cancer.
Despite the pain that Mrs. Morello happened to be in at the time, each night Lorna walked out to join her on the porch, she smiled at her daughter and assured her that everything would be all right. Assured her that no matter what was to come of her that when she looked up at the night sky and saw the twinkling of all of the stars that that was her way of reaching out to her to let her know she was okay.
So, now, as she stood in the school nurses' kitchen and peered her brown eyes through the window at all the beautifully shinning stars and moon, Lorna was instantly washed with a feeling of warmth through her entire body. The smile on her face only widened slightly. She walked closer so that she could place her hands onto the pane of the window. Her mother was blatantly speaking to her from the grave, she came to realize. Maybe she'd tried reaching out to her before but Lorna hadn't been in a receptive frame of mind like she happened to be in currently. Her heart craved for her mother's presence—not just from the stars shining through the window that she peered her eyes out of now. She wanted nothing more than for her mom to physically appear before her. No matter how farfetched that sounded.
Footsteps caught the attention of Lorna's ears. For a split second, before she turned to them, she thought her desire had come true. That those footsteps belonged to Mrs. Morello and when she'd turn around, she'd see her standing right behind her with that beautiful smile of hers that always so easily lit up the room she occupied. However, not surprisingly, when Lorna did turn around, it wasn't her mother who stood behind her but Mrs. Reznikov.
Standing in the archway of her kitchen, her housecoat tied around her nightgown and nearly touching the ground from how long it was, Mrs. Reznikov looked in at Lorna with a sympathetic expression melded on her face. She knew she heard someone walking about the house and was slightly taken aback to see the young teen standing in her kitchen, her face pressed up against the window. She entered further into the room and quickly got to work at preparing a fresh kettle of tea.
Sure, it might have been nearing four am but that didn't mean Red wasn't not going to fix herself a cup of tea. It was apparent to her that Lorna was having trouble sleeping, anyway, so that certainly called for a late night cup of tea. She grabbed the kettle from its designated spot on the counter, bringing it over to the sink to fill with a sufficient volume of water, before replacing it onto the base where she switched the switch to turn it on.
While the water heated, she went to the cabinet to take out two ceramic mugs and brought them back to the kettle to set them down right beside it. Her blue eyes found their way onto Lorna once more and she waved a hand at her to gain her attention. When Lorna's eyes were staring into her own, she pointed at the table—nonverbally offering for her to have a seat at it. She watched closely as the brunette apprehensively complied, reluctantly pushing herself away from the window.
The kettle beeped interjecting their wordless interaction. Red removed it from the electric base, pouring the hot water into both cups and set the now empty vessel into the strainer side of the sink to air it out. For her own mug, she placed a bag of plain black tea into it to steep for a few minutes. Her head turned towards Lorna, "What kind of tea do you want? I have black tea, peppermint, apple cinnamon or blueberry lemon."
Silence was finally broken by nurse Reznikov's query. Lorna popped her head up to return her gaze. She craned her neck slightly, her mind processing all the flavors that were listed off. There were so many of them; she hadn't realized tea came in so many versatile flavors like the ones Red had mentioned.
"Hmm. That's a lot of choices. Um, I'll try the apple cinnamon," was the choice she settled on making. One she remembered her mom favoring quite often. The warm aroma would seep in through the crack of the front door when she would walk down from her bedroom in the middle of the night.
Red nodded intuitively, taking out a box of the very flavor that Lorna decided on and removing a tea bag from it. The packaging was neatly taken off of the teabag before it was put into the water of the mug that she'd chosen for Lorna. She carried both mugs over to the table with her, setting one on the surface in front of the spot she was going to sit in and the other placed on the table in front of the brunette.
Sitting down across from Lorna, Red picked up her mug and graciously took a sip of her tea. Her eyes pondered on the younger girl with an oozing curiosity. "What're ya doing up this late, honey? Are you okay?"
Mirroring Mrs. Reznikov, Lorna grabbed her own mug and carefully brought it to her lips. The aroma immediately soaked up through her nostrils and instantly overpowered her with a strong sense of comfort. She recalled the vision of her mother sitting on their rocking wicker chair on the front porch, her cup of apple cinnamon tea cradled in her hands, blue eyes peering out into the starry night. Her luscious red lips curled into her infamous smile that remained on her face even through the treacherous pain of chemotherapy that her body was drenched in for the last few years of her life.
"I heard a weird sound when I woke up. I guess it scared me, I don't know," Lorna shrugged her shoulders, looking down into the mug that was cradled between her hands. She let her lips clutch around the rim of it, sipping slowly as to not burn her tongue upon contact. The warmth of the tea could be felt all the way down, soothing her esophagus and throat immensely. "Thanks for tea, it's real good."
Red smiled warmly and reached a hand over to place atop Lorna's. She patted it comfortingly. As her eyes searched the teen over rather methodically, in true nurse-like-fashion that she always did when in her office at the school, they observed the faint amount of trepidation that Lorna probably was hoping to keep hidden. Of course that observation immediately kicked her maternal instincts into full gear.
"A weird sound, huh? What was it you heard? Perhaps just the house settling?" She retained her stare over Lorna's face, watching to see if her expression gave any clues away as to how she was feeling or what was possibly going on in that head of hers.
Feeling Red's eyes on her caused Lorna's body to quickly tense up. Her hands became rather rigid as they set down the mug. She swallowed thickly, deterring her stare away from the middle-aged woman. It was clear from the way Red had been staring at her that she was trying to read her like Nicky always so easily had done. "Uh, nothing, it really doesn't matter now."
Shaking her head, Red moved her hand from Lorna's and instead placed it gently onto one of her pale cheeks. "It does matter. You're clearly still bothered by whatever sound ya heard. Why don't ya just tell me what ya heard? It's okay, Lorna, I'm not gonna judge you for it," her thick accented voice gently reassured the young teen.
"It was just loud breathing I heard and it scared me a little, it's real dumb."
Saying it out loud made it sound even stupider than it did in her head, Lorna acknowledged solemnly. She refused to return Mrs. Reznikov's stare and instead bowed her head down towards the wooden surface of the table. Was she just a complete idiot for being frightened over the measly sound of someone's lungs pumping air from them? Of course, her mind agreed, of course she was exactly that. Only an idiot would fear such an innately innocent noise.
Hearing the explanation only caused a plethora of concern to meld its way onto Red's face. Setting her teacup aside, she framed her other hand on Lorna's left cheek so that both of them were now cradled in her hands. Her blue eyes searched Lorna's face precisely, trying to comprehend what exactly she was afraid of with the clarification of the sound that she heard was. "It's not dumb to be scared of any type of sound. Now what about this loud breathing scared you so much? I'm sure it was probably just Nicky's snoring—regardless of what she says, I've heard her snore many times when going to check on her in the night."
Lorna gulped uncomfortably when snoring slipped from between Mrs. Reznikov's teeth. She felt childish to be brought to near tears from something so simple—something so harmless, normal. Who the hell was fucking scared to death of the sound of another's snoring? Only a child would fear something as natural as a snore, she mentally berated herself. When her eyes blurred from a build-up of tears edging their way from beneath their lids, she balled her hands into maddened fists.
Leave it to reality to set in and tear down her walls in a matter of seconds. She picked up her cup of tea off of the table and sipped it a few times before putting it back. Her eyes deterred back onto Mrs. Reznikov, who sat on the other side of the table watching her rather attentively. Casually, she lifted a hand up to cover one of her temples. Rubbing it coarsely with the palm of said hand. "I told ya it was a dumb reason to be scared," she muttered, bouncing a shoulder slightly.
"There's no such thing as a dumb reason to be scared of something," Red gently pointed out. Maternal instincts running high, she reached a hand across the wooden surface to cover softly over Lorna's that was resting on the tabletop. She patted the tips of her fingers comfortingly against the knuckles of the brunette teen's hand.
Despite Lorna's attempts to cover up her emotions, Red easily was able to see through to the pain seemingly hidden behind her eyes. The sight naturally pulled on her heartstrings. She loathed to see any of the people she cared about so blatantly hurting. A breath was brought into her lungs by the inhalation of air through her nose. "Do you want to discuss what scared you so much from hearing the loud breathing?" She tried asking the question a second time, hoping for some sort of reciprocation.
To answer that query truthfully would mean revealing the passing of her mother to yet another person. A topic she had decided was off limits for the rest of that day, she mentally recalled. However, with the time technically being very early the next morning, that would easily negate the fact. Sighing, she placed her head on the surface of the table and let the darkness of the wood satiate her vision for a few passing moments. Her mind took that time to figure out how to proceed.
Nails tapped against the edge of the table. "My mom," was her mumbled response, the words muffled by the wood her mouth rested overtop of. She couldn't get herself to elaborate any further; those two words were already too much, she frustratedly thought.
Craning her head, the older woman arched two eyebrows over very concerned lightly-colored eyes. Her hands cupped around both of her ears as she strained to make out exactly what Lorna had said. "What was that, honey?" She moved her hand to place atop Lorna's brown waves, combing her fingers soothingly through the thick hair that cascaded along her upper back.
"My mom." Lorna repeated, though her voice still muffled from the wood. Her face remained in its position so that her mouth was hidden by the surface of the table below.
Red sighed, still unable to understand what was coming from her mouth. She took both of her hands, carefully placing them on either side of the brunette's face and cautiously lifted it from the table so that their eyes were peering directly into one another's. There was a noticeable sadness oozing from the brown ones that stared back at her. She felt the pang in her chest slightly grow a little heavier. Her hands grasped softly around both of Lorna's cheeks. "Okay, now, please repeat what you said. I couldn't understand what you were saying with your face buried in the table, Lorna."
An irritated groan made its way out from her windpipe. As if she hadn't already repeated herself once, now Mrs. Reznikov was requesting for her to do so a second time. "My mom." There was a curtness to her tone that time. The more times she let the simple word slip from her mouth, the more upset it made her. She bit down roughly on her tongue and hardly even flinched at the sensation of blood mixing in with her saliva from the harsh contact between her teeth and tongue.
"Your mom? What about your mom?"
Sympathy instantly took up form on Red's face to finally make sense of what the young girl was stating. She brushed her fingers gently along her cheeks when she mentally noted the exasperation that trickled from Lorna's eyes. Though she had been made aware of Lorna's current predicament of being put in the foster system and temporarily living with a state chosen family, the news of her mother hadn't yet been shared with her. So, hearing Lorna mention her mom, Mrs. Reznikov tilted her head with an intense volume of curiosity coming from her blue eyes.
A throbbing ache molded between her temples. Lorna immediately removed herself from underneath the middle-aged woman's grasp and jolted out of her seat. There was a conspicuous rage gradually boiling beneath her veins. She found herself pacing rather swiftly around the kitchen. Her hands reformed themselves into fists at her sides as her pace fastened with each second that went by. The actions didn't do much to ease her emotions, and in fact all it really appeared to do was strengthen the aching on her forehead.
Red watched with worried eyes as the petite teen walked back and forth around the room. Getting up from her chair, she grabbed the empty mugs and carefully brought them over to place into the sink. Afterwards, she cautiously came up behind the blatantly distressed Lorna and encircled her arms slowly around her back, pulling her in for a soothing embrace. "What's the matter? What happened with your mom? Come on, sweetheart, out with it. You'll feel better to talk about it than keeping it inside," she softly encouraged, combing her fingers delicately through brown waves of hair.
"No," Lorna shook her head out of refusal. "No."
Despite the mental anguish of swallowing down every last emotion that seemed to eat at her, she refused to allow herself to confide in anyone over her mother's death. The rage intensified. She wanted nothing more than to go back to the day before anyone ever found out about her little secret—or secrets, rather. The day before Nicky drove her to the Morello household and witnessed her father's drunken fit. The day before she was fucking whisked away by that god-damned CPS lady. If those two things never would have happened, Lorna was sure her mother's death would have never been found out about by her school counselor and Nicky.
"I know," Red muttered, stroking a hand tenderly through thick strands of Lorna's hair. Her eyes softly peered down into the other's. They quickly observed the obvious pain that was so desperately trying to stay hidden.
She shook her head sadly, knowing all too well how mentally tasking it was too keep one's emotions from displaying. "I know," her voice repeated, this time with one of her hands framing soothingly around a pale cheek. "It's not the most pleasurable thing in the world to talk about the things that hurt us. Believe me I know that. But that's the only way we heal, Lorna, is by opening up about the pain. Whatever that pain may be. It's not easy to do but the more you do it the easier it becomes."
Brown eyes skeptically peering up at the middle-aged Russian, Lorna swallowed a rather large wad of saliva that built up inside of her mouth. There was a slight moistness in the pits of her eyelids that, when she blinked, a stickiness could easily be felt. She bit down on her bottom lip as if that alone would magically suck back the tears that lined the bottoms of her eyes.
On one hand, she wanted to give in out of exhaustion and fatigue from all the mental gymnastics going on in her head. However, on the other hand, the idea of giving in meant she was too weak to handle the pain on her own and would therefore be burdening those she loved with it. And that would only lead her to feeling an unrelenting amount of guilt. Guilt that would only make her need for control that much stronger. Control which would then turn into frequent trips to the bathroom each day at school. Frequent bathroom trips would more than likely turn into incessant bullying from Annalisa, no doubt. Which would lead to Nicky eventually finding out and again, the vicious cycle would continue.
Having Lorna's face still framed in her hands, Mrs. Reznikov returned her gaze with a highly worried one. The closer she observed her expression, the easier it was for her to notice the slight tears that appeared ready to fall at any given second. One of her hands she allowed to move up underneath Lorna's eye and used the tips of her fingers to gently stroke away the tears, "You want to talk about it, I can see it in your eyes. Something happened to your mom? What is it?"
"What I want is for my life to be fucking normal again."
It wasn't hard for Red's ears to pick up on the anger that so clearly emanated from the younger girl's voice. Though her voice was of a hushed tone, and slightly quivered from said anger, Red heard it, nonetheless. Her arms tightened around Lorna, pulling her closer so that her head was tucked between her chin and neck. She bent down just enough for her lips to press a comforting kiss atop the brunette's head. "What's not normal right now?" Of course, after the question exited her mouth, Red acknowledged what an obvious answer that would have.
Lorna threw up her hands, her eyes widened as they stared directly ahead of her at Red—staring at her as if she had three heads for asking such an inquiry. "Nothing," she cried out, eyes filled with vexation as they looked bewilderedly at the school nurse. "Nothing," her voice repeated, louder and drawn out. "Nothing in my life is fucking normal. I fucking hate the stupid foster family I'm forced to stay with, my stupid dad's in the stupid hospital and I just want it all to go away. I hate everything."
"Oh, Lorna, that won't last forever. Things will get better for you, honey, I promise."
"Better? How the fuck are things gonna get better? How would ya even know that? You can't promise that. I'd rather…" Lorna trailed off when she realized what she was about to let slip out from her mouth. She quickly released herself from Red's arms, too angry to allow herself any form of comfort. Her eyes shifted around the room in the search for something sharp. The wooden knife holder on the counter caught her attention and immediately she found her feet moving her in that direction. She yearned to have one of them in her hands, however, with Red watching her, she refrained from acting on the urge.
Red walked up behind her, placing a comforting hand on her back and rubbing it softly. "You're right, I can't promise it'll get better. But what I can promise is that I'll be here for you. Whatever I can do to help you, please tell me."
Turning around, Lorna folded her arms defensively over her chest and looked the older woman over meticulously. Despite the sincerity that poured out from her voice, she felt a strong bout of skepticism towards her. Trusting anyone was gradually turning into a chore. Maybe it was only her mind playing tricks on her, trying to turn her against everyone so that all she had was herself and her self-hatred. Maybe on some twisted level that was exactly what she wanted was to be all on her own so that she could indulge in all the self-destructive behaviors she so desired without anyone being able to stop her.
The sound of footsteps rapidly brought both sets of eyes away from each other and in direction of where the noise seemed to originate from. Standing in the archway of the kitchen was a half-awake Nicky, her red hair an even bigger mess than it usually was—clearly alerting those who looked at her that she had literally just rolled herself out of bed seconds before walking into the room. She reached her hands up to rub at her eyes, hoping to clear her vision from the sleep that still thickened around her eyelids.
Not quite realizing the time, Nicky blindly made her way over to the coffee maker to start preparing a fresh pot of it. Yet, before she could even remove the filter to replace it with a new one, the clearing of a throat quickly halted her task. Her eyes followed in direction of the sound and landed on her surrogate mother. The disapproving look on Red's face caused her shoulders to recoil upwards in a subtle shrug. "Can't a girl make coffee at this ungodly hour?"
"Well, seeing as it's the middle of the night I don't think coffee is a good idea right now," Red gently pointed out when she noticed the disheveled redhead was standing over the coffee machine, clearly ready to fix a pot of coffee. Her eyes darted towards the digital clock on the stove that showed it was not even four in the morning.
Squinting her eyes at the statement, Nicky shifted them onto the stove clock as well and merely choked on her own saliva when she saw the time. Being woken by the sound of Red and Lorna's voices carrying through the walls she had rightfully assumed it was proper morning rather than middle of the night morning. She set the coffee pot back underneath the filter drip and made her way over to the sink to splash her face with cold water. Something needed to get the sleep out of her damn eyes.
Feeling slightly more awake now that her face had been doused in freezing infected water, Nicky turned around so that her back was leaning against the rim of the counter and peered between both her girlfriend and maternal figure. Lines creased on her forehead out of interest for what the two could have possibly been discussing at such a random hour in the middle of the night. Her eyes squinted once more as they peered intently over Lorna, trying to read her body language.
"Why are ya both out here this late? I woke up to your voices and just assumed it was morning."
Moving her eyes from Nicky over to the petite brunette, Red contemplated what to respond with. She inhaled a sharp breath of air, placing a comforting hand on Lorna's shoulder before returning her gaze onto her surrogate daughter. The same girl who cared more for Lorna's well-being than her own sometimes, she quickly came to acknowledge that fact. It was certainly something she admired between the pair of them, despite also hoping her Nicky knew it was important to look after herself as well.
"I came out here when I heard Miss Lorna over there walking her little feet around the kitchen. We were sitting at the table drinking tea just a few minutes ago, weren't we?"
Gulping uncomfortably, the brunette shifted her feet back and forth where she stood. The palms of her hand suddenly grew rather sweaty as she looked up at Mrs. Reznikov. It was quite obvious from the expression melded upon her face that she was waiting on a response to confirm the comment she made. Lorna swallowed air and slightly fixed her focus on the redhead who was a few feet away from them. The air she just swallowed came right back out of her through a forced gust pushed up by the contraction of her lungs.
Eyes observing Nicky, she watched as her hands ran through the thick mess of curls that spilled down from her scalp along her shoulders and mid-back. Even in the wee hours of the morning Nicky was the most beautiful soul to ever grace the planet, Lorna psychologically accredited. Her lungs filled with air once more and the clearing of a throat deemed her that it was best she finally allow herself to voice some sort of confirmation to the Russian woman's earlier comment.
"Yeah," was the only word that Lorna could get to escape from between her teeth.
She felt her shoulders recoil and the moonlight shining in from the window caught her focus yet again. If only her mother were truly there in her physical form, the thought ran through her mind.
Mrs. Morello's death was certainly the ultimate reason for the current situation she had been put in. A realization that only intensified the guilt that already seemed to be claiming her mind. Rather, it was that damn cancer's fault for all that occurred over the past several months. A bitter taste took up space in her mouth. There wasn't a word she loathed more than that fucking cancer. Cancer should be banned from all the infinite dictionaries, Lorna begrudgingly thought.
Nicky folded her arms over her chest while searching her eyes attentively over her girlfriend's physique. It didn't take long for her to come to the conclusion that something was clearly amiss. "Hmm. Are you okay, Lorna?" She hadn't even heard the girl maneuver her way out of the bed when she had and felt a pang form within her chest. Her thoughts wandered on whether or not their promiscuous activities were possibly the reason Lorna looked as pale as a ghost right there while she stood staring emotionless into what appeared to be the abyss.
Before the brunette could even open her mouth to say anything, Red held up a hand in Nicky's direction—bringing it upon herself to respond to the query. "That's what I was just here trying to get to the bottom of," she slowly started off, resting a hand on the rim of the countertop beside her. Her eyes shifted onto Lorna and she shook her head in synchronicity. "But Lorna's a very stubborn girl and knows how to talk her way in circles. So we have yet to answer that question, isn't that right?"
Sucking in her lower lip, Lorna sensed a pooling of saliva hit the bottom of her mouth right beneath her tongue. She swallowed it away and kicked her foot exasperatedly against the tiled floor under it. "Am I okay?" The words repeated aloud; if she hadn't been so exhausted and mentally fatigued, she'd have laughed at the absurdity of such a question. However, she refrained and instead rolled her neck from one shoulder to the other. "I don't know what the hell I am anymore. But okay? Probably not."
