Chapter Four
I woke up with the sun beaming down on me, I rolled over and looked out the door of the tree house, Becca was sitting at a small table near the back door reading the paper.
"Good morning, sunshine!" I called from up in the tree house, she looked up and smiled.
I climbed down and pulled up a seat next to her, "So did you have fun last night?" I asked, she laughed "Well to tell you the truth I don't actually remember much after we split up"
That meant she didn't remember meeting Bradie, I considered telling her but I thought it would be better to see what was happening between us first.
We had breakfast and watched some TV until Becca was alright to drive home, "thanks for letting me stay, I think that was one of the best nights of my life" she said flashing her dazzling smile than laughing, I waved as she drove away.
***
Bradie's Point of view
When I woke up the next morning, everything that happened last night came flooding back to me, I got out of bed and went to get some breakfast,
"You're up early" I said to my step brother and also band member Andy,
"It's four in the afternoon actually" he said matter of factly, I looked at the clock on the lounge room wall, "well so it is" I replied in the same tone.
I walked over to the cupboard and got out the box of fruit loops, I put them in a bowl and went to get some milk, "there's none left" Andy said evil grinning, " well what am I suppose to do now" I asked annoyed, "you could use juice" he replied dead serious. I stopped and looked at him for a minute to see if he was joking and when I realized he wasn't I pulled out the carton of orange juice and poured some into my bowl, surprisingly it tasted alright.
"So who was that girl you ditched us for last night?" Andy asked glaring at me, "Just a friend I met at the music store a couple of days ago" I replied innocently, "it sure looked alot more than that" he said smiling at what he thought was a joke, "What ever " I said turning away.
I walked into my room and sat on my bed, I picked up my phone and considered if I should send Lucy a message, I thought for a while, defiantly not she would think I was a stalker.
I went on twitter and had 473 reply's, but I didn't really feel like sending out hundreds of messages saying 'ily too :D' so instead I tweeted 'had an awesome night last night seen so many of you great fans' I put my phone down and sat there thinking,
I knew Lucy had heard of short stack from her friend Becca, But had she really never seen a picture of us, I mean she could easily be some psycho, crazy stalker fan who has been plotting this for years or she could be a really nice girl, who could really like me for who I was and not what I am.
I picked up my phone and dialled Lucy's number; it took her three rings to answer,
"Hello" she said,
"Hey Lucy its Bradie" I said happily,
"Hey, how are you?"She asked, "I'm good, I was wondering if you wanted to do something tomorrow?" I waited for an answer,
"umm, sorry I can't tomorrow, but defiantly another time "she said apologetically, "That's okay, call me if you want to do something "I told her, "okay, bye "she replied and hung up.
***
Lucy's point of view
"Who was that?" I turned to my mum, "just a friend asking if I wanted to do something tomorrow" I told her, "What are you doing?"she asked in her fake happy voice, "you know what I'm doing tomorrow, I'm going to visit Ashley" she turned to face out the window, "you don't have too "she said quietly, I glared at her angrily "How could you say that, she's been in there for a year now and you've only ever visited her like ten times, She's your daughter but you act like she's some stranger, if anything making her stay there is making her worse" I turned and stomped back to my bedroom slamming my door shut behind me.
Some days I hated my mum and today was one of them, she thinks that because she has a new boyfriend, everything that happened in the past wasn't real, but there's no denying that our lives are pretty stuffed up and she can pretend all she wants but it won't change the fact that Ashley's in the hospital or that dad has left us and isn't coming back.
I sat on the floor in the middle of my room, I felt so bad saying no to Bradie, but tomorrow was really important to me and to Ashley, I couldn't just bail on her, I crawled over to my wardrobe door and tugged it open, I moved some shoes until I found the yellow and purple shoe box, I lifted the lid and looked inside at the photograph of me and Ashley when we were younger, I was holding Patrick when he was first born, a tear slipped from my eye and landed straight on top of Ashley's face, I slammed the lid back of the box and put it back into the cupboard.
I went to the front door and put on my shoes, when I opened the door a gust of wind nearly blew it shut back in my face, after I was about halfway down the street trickles of rain started running down my cheeks and my arms, I ran to a nearby bus stop and pulled my hood up over my head.
After sitting there for what felt like hours, something moving down the road caught my eye, I looked up and saw a figure hopping out of a car and another person hopped out of the passengers side and they both went around to the boot, After getting out some guitar and other music related things, one of them turned around and it all clicked.
I got up and started to walk towards them, the one who had gotten out of the passengers side looked up at me, he smiled, then followed me with his eyes as I walked around to Bradie "Bradie you have an admirer" he said smugly.
Bradie turned to face me "hey" he said surprised,
"You know her?" Shaun said looking at me, "I sure do, Shaun this is Lucy, Lucy this is Shaun." I smiled at him.
"Are you okay" Bradie asked suddenly taking in my appearance, he came and put his arm around me, I looked up at him "yer, I was just walking and it started to rain, I was at that bus stop and then I saw you guys" I looked back at Shaun and smiled.
"Um do you want to come inside" he asked, I was still looking at Shaun and I saw him shoot a look at Bradie, I turned to face Bradie, "No thank you, I have to go" I turned and walked away.
When I got home it was already dark and I went straight to my bathroom and had a shower, when I got out and walked into my bedroom I was startled to see Patrick sitting on the floor,
"Hey, Pat watcha doing?" I raised my eyebrow at him; He stood up and walked out.
I put on my pyjamas and climbed into my bed.
When my alarm went off the next morning it was still dark, I had a shower and pulled on a pair of jeans and my Paramore singlet and put my stuff in a backpack and hopped into my car, it was a three hour drive to the institute where Ashley was and I wanted to get there at the start of visiting hours.
I tried to visit Ashley as much as I could and usually went there once week, but it was a long drive along a quite bush road which freaked me out a little when it was still dark, but once I got there it was always worth it.
When I was about an hour away from the hospital, I stopped at a petrol station and went inside to get something to drink.
I walked towards the glowing fridge and stared at the assortment of brightly coloured drinks, I picked the only one that looked moderately healthy and went to pay for it, when I got to the counter there was no one there so I rang a little bell and waited.
I was standing next to a rack of magazines and glanced past them, but looked back quickly at one in particular, "Can I help you?" I turned towards the voice and there was a lady in her mid twenty's smiling friendly at me, "just this please" I said handing her my drink, I looked back at the magazines but couldn't find the picture again, but I had to have been imagining it because why would there be a picture of Bradie and his friend Shaun and his Brother Andy on the front of a glossy magazine.
When I got back in my car I put all the windows down and left them down until I reached the hospital, pulling into the car park I got a space right up near the front door and went into the reception.
They always had freezing cold air conditioning blaring throughout the hospital and I always made sure I brought a jumper; I also had a special bag I always brought with me that had a special section in the bottom that I could hide stuff in to sneak to Ashley.
The nurse in the reception checked my i.d then took me to Ashley's room, it was about the size of a regular bedroom and had white walls and white sheets, there was no wardrobe because she had to wear the clothes the hospital supplied her and she wasn't allowed to have anything else beside a chair.
She wasn't in her room so the nurse took me to the common room where there was a handful of other patients, but Ashley wasn't there either, as I turned around to look outside, I ran into Dr Andrew,
"How are you Lucy?"He said in his wise voice,
"I'm fine, how's Ashley going?"I asked '
"She's doing alot better, it's always a very tough time for someone after they try and take their own life but she is doing alot better, she's actually had a young man visiting her regularly this week" he said smiling,
I raised one of my eyebrows at him "really, I'll have to find out more about that" I said smiling "where is she?" I looked towards the door,
"I think she's under the tree in the middle of the oval" I thanked him, and went towards the door, I had to wait for a nurse to put in a code to open the door and when it finally opened I was hit by a rush of warm air.
I squinted into the glare and looked around for Ashley; I saw her sitting on a bench by herself under a giant tree.
She looked the same as last time I was here, which had been over a month, she still had waist length light brown hair, pale skin and giant green eyes, when she was born I had always been jealous of her everybody always commented on how beautiful she was, that was until last February.
It all happened so quickly, first I was leaving to go to school and next I was at home by myself for a week until mum finally explained what happened, after I had left for school Ashley had tried to kill herself but mum had come back home to get something she forgot and found her in her bedroom, she called the ambulance and they were able to save her.
And as a result she has to stay in an institution until a doctor says she is safe to be on her own.