This chapter is written from Santana's, Lily's, and Brittany's perspectives. I hope you guys enjoy! [:
Ten. Fix You
"When you feel so tired but you cannot sleep.
Stuck in reverse."
- Fix You, Coldplay
Brittany, with Lily and JJ closely on her heels, appears as main door to the ped's floor opens. She looks over at me mouthing the words "explain" and "legs". It takes me a moment before I realize what she has meant by this. I give her a small nod and smile in respond to signal I've understood.
"Hey Mami." Lily says with a small smile that mirrored my own.
"It's nice to see you, Dr. Lopez." JJ greets me, grinning almost from ear to ear.
"It's nice to see you too, JJ. I'm sorry had to be under these circumstances but it's still nice all the same." I smile sympathetically.
"So what room is JJ's brother in Ma?" Lily ask curiously, I can tell by the look on JJ's face it is as if Lily had read her mind and that she was thankful she didn't have to ask herself.
"He's in room 1311, but I'd like to talk to JJ for a minute before she sees him alright, JJ?" I give JJ a reassuring look as a look of panic crosses her face.
"Uh, sure." She replies hesitantly before looking over at Rory for a moment who smiles slightly back at JJ.
I motion to JJ to follow me to the smaller waiting room off the main lobby. As we enter the room I can't help but feel bad for her, she looks so helpless, the little color I do remember her having when I met her has now drained from her face and slight shiny lines from tear streams run down her face.
"Is everything alright with Cam, Dr. Lopez?" JJ says nervously as she takes a seat in one of the uncomfortable padded waiting room chairs.
I can't help but sigh slightly as I take the seat next to her, putting on my brave face because I knew this was going to be emotional for her.
"This is going to be hard for you to hear but I'm going to need you to look at the big picture here for me, ok?" I give her an encouraging smile hoping for even the slightest response.
"Okay." JJ's voice is faint as she nods her head slightly.
As I begin to speak I notice tears are beginning to form in JJ's eyes. "Your brother is alive, but his lifestyle is going to be a lot different when he gets out of the hospital. He's lost the use of his legs because there wasn't any blood reaching his spinal cord so he will have to use a wheelchair. I'm telling you this now before you see him so you can prepare yourself."
I pause for a moment's break to let the information sink in. "He's only coming out of anaesthesia now so he's going to be confused and it's highly likely he'll be emotional. I just wanted you to know this now so you wouldn't go in there without being prepared. It's going to be hard but just trust your limits."
JJ runs her fingers back through her bangs before wiping the tears from her eyes. "Thank you." She sniffs. "Thank you for saving him. I understand what you meant about the big picture now." She chuckles sadly.
"You're welcome but no thanks are need. I'm glad I could help." I place a hand on her shoulder for support. I know the feeling of what it is like to possibly lose a sibling, I know that fear she's felt because it's only the beginning of the chain of events that happen after. Thankfully I had managed to break that chain.
"You ready?" I ask, knowing that it wasn't going to do any good for her to see her brother if she wasn't ready.
She takes a deep breath before speaking, "I'm ready."
I decide to let Lily walk JJ to Cam's room as it was only across the hall from the nurses' station where Brittany and I were standing rather than taking her myself. Thankfully at this hour at night the ninety eight percent of the ped's staff were asleep in on-call rooms or at home in their own beds.
"Do you think I should have gone with them?" I ask leaning back against the counter next to my wife.
"No, I think you made the right call on that one, San." She replies as she continues to read my expression; clearly looking for any presence of Snix or whoever the heck I had become the last few weeks. "It wasn't an aortic tear after all?"
"No, it was an aortic dissection. I was talking to Maggie after we moved him into recovery while you were getting the girls from my office, turns out Cam fell down the stairs at their house not remember they were there because hadn't gotten used to the layout of the house. That happened yesterday. The fall along with his sickle cell anemia caused the dissection." I reply even though she hadn't asked for the specifics.
"Well I guess its good then that Lily convinced us to go out to dinner. Otherwise you wouldn't have been there." Brittany says before taking my hand; always the optimistic one.
"Speaking of Lily is it only me but does she have that look in her eye that I haven't seen since before the whole Casey debacle?" I look down the hall at Lily who is standing in the doorway of Cam's room. "She's known JJ for how long? A week?"
"And this is coming from the woman who proceeded to kiss me less than a minute after she finally got the nerve to admit she liked me while she was completely wasted. We'd known each other since we were kids and it took forever for you admit it." Brittany chuckles; I clearly remember not being able to clearly remember how I had put my drunk ass self in that situation but one kiss from Brittany had sobered me up pretty damn good.
"Well, it worked didn't it." I say with slight arrogance as I swat at her playfully.
"Yes, it did work but I cease to see your point here Santana." I look back at her to see her eyebrow raised slightly.
"My point is that she's known this girl for less than a week. She's seventeen years old, Britt, that doesn't mean she'll learn from her mistakes. I don't want to have to put her back together again. Our daughter is too young to be broken that way once, and I sure as hell don't want it to happen twice." The tone of my voice has changed; now trying to express the seriousness of my concern.
"Hey," Brittany leans up off the counter and stands in front of me, cupping my cheek in her warm hand. "Its okay, Lily is going back to the old Lily we know and love and that is what matters, right?" She gives me a small smile.
"You do have a point." I say sheepishly.
"Of course, I do." She giggles just like she always does. "She may be a teenager but she's one of the most amazing teenagers I know. She's got to make her own decisions. She's growing up and we've got to let her. Lily isn't afraid to do what she wants and wears her heart on her sleeve like you do while saying whatever she thinks like me and cares like crazy about her siblings just like I did with Ash. She's becoming the person we raised her to be, San."
It is only after Brittany has finished speaking I realize that there are tears rolling down my cheeks. "Thanks for making me cry, Britt-Britt." I say sarcastically before wiping the tears from my eyes.
"You love me for it." She smirks before pulling me in for a hug, wrapping her arms around my waist.
It was true; it was something I couldn't simply deny. "That I do, Britt. That I do."
The awkwardness between JJ and I that had existed on the walk from Ma's office to the main lobby of the ped's floor had since disappeared. I was currently in Cam's room, sitting at the uncomfortable plastic chair at the foot of his bed while JJ sat in the slightly more comfy padded chair on the side of the room, next to the heart monitor.
After coming out of anaesthesia Cam had reacted better than expected to the news he had lost the use of his legs. He was calm but as I had watched from the doorway I could see the disappointment in his eyes. He had told their parents to go take a nap in an on call room or go home, he actually to JJ the same thing but she had refused to leave his side. Cam had drifted off to sleep around fifteen minutes ago.
"He looks so peaceful. I'm kind of jealous." JJ breaks the silence that has been existing in the room since Cam fell asleep.
I can't help but give her a look of confusion. "About?"
"It's not what you're thinking, I just meant about the sleep thing. I feel so tired as if I'm fighting sleep, yet I can manage to fall asleep." She laughs faintly.
"I can go, if you want, so that you can sleep and not feel awkward." I can't help but chuckle a little.
"No, no, that's okay. I have a feeling that I wouldn't be able to sleep anyhow." JJ smiles faintly, appearing almost forced.
"Can I propose an idea then?" I ask hesitantly.
"Well, considering your track record, I say go for it." The forced smile that had disappeared for merely a second is replaced with a genuine smile.
"What about I ask Ma to get you a cot and we can set it up in here and you can lie down. We can talk until you fall asleep. Sound like a deal?"
"You, you are a genius."
"Well what are friends for anyhow?" I say with a smirk.
"What about you?"
"After you fall asleep?" I ask, receiving a small nod from Jess. "I've got siblings of my own to check up on, my parents are off tomorrow so I'd say they'll stay until morning rounds considering my Ma tends to check on her patients more often then most."
JJ smirks back at me. "Well in that case, we have a deal."
Scrambling around the supply closet down the hall from my office was not on my list of things to do before checking on my patients yet I found myself doing it any how. Lily had asked for a cot to go in Cam's room for JJ who had refused to leave her brother alone.
"Oh, there you are," I say tom myself as I eye a sensible looking cot poking out from behind a shelf full of syringes. "Hiding away from me are you?" I begin to pull on the cot hoping it won't be too difficult to move. "This definitely was not the smartest place to put this."
"I'd have to agree with you on that one." A somewhat familiar voice coming from the doorway causes me to drop the cot, consequently knocking over a large box of syringes.
"Artie, you scared me!" I say as I turn around.
"Sorry about that." She says with a slight chuckle before swiftly rolling into the room,
"Uhm, can I get you something or," I say awkwardly.
"No, no I just wanted to apologize." Artie's voice has become so quiet it could almost be considered a whisper. I can hear the hesitation in her tone. "I had no right to snap at you like that. I was being extremely irrational. I'm sorry, Dr. Lopez."
"I know what it's like to be on the other side of things, you don't need to apologize. I understand. It's Santana by the way Artie. My friends get to call me by my first name." I give him a small smile hoping it will make him feel a little better about getting in my face.
"Friends, huh?" He says curiously. "How come I didn't think of that?" Artie smiles; giving me the impression that we had officially become friends.
Due to the awkwardness that had been filling room dissipating it is only now I notice that the cot is squishing my foot. "Now that we're friends, can I ask you a favour?"
"Sure."
"Uh, can you help me get this cot off my foot?" I ask, realizing I must've sounded like five year old.
Artie begins to laugh, "Not a problem, Santana, not a problem."
"That better?" I ask with a laugh as JJ takes a seat on the cot.
"Yes, thank you, where have you and your great ideas been all my life?" JJ laughs as she kicks off her shoes before swinging her feet up onto the cot.
"Around." I give her a slight smirk. "You do know that you have to lie back in order to sleep, right?" I say as I realized she hasn't lid back yet.
"That is a very good point." JJ pulls the covers up over herself before lying down on her back, looking up at the ceiling.
"So what's your brother like I've never seen him at school before? I didn't ask before because I didn't want to get you upset again." I say with a smile.
"Thank you for that, definitely a smart move on your part." She laughs. "Cam doesn't go to our school."
"Oh." is the only word in my vocabulary that seems to come out of my mouth in response.
"He's way too smart for high school. He goes to the Columbia University."
"Really? I never would have thought he was older than you. He only looks to be my brother, Tommy's age at the most and he's turned fifteen in November." I say with surprise ringing in my voice.
"My brother's, uhm, his birthday was last week. So that makes him 16 now." She says with a smile.
"Are you serious?" I look at her with my face expressing complete shock.
"Completely, my brother's what ye common folk would call a genius." JJ chuckles. "They realized when he was 10 and had found that he had found my cousin's grade eleven trigonometry books and had taught himself the entire book during summer vacation at our family's beach house."
"That is one of most amazing things I've ever heard." I can't help but be amazed.
"He's supposed to be in tenth grade but as I said he's a freshman at Columbia, pre-med actually." I can sense the tiredness in voice.
"That is really cool, how about you? What do you want to do after leaving the dreaded but secretly loved high school?"
"Uhm, not sure. I'm leaning towards being a scrub nurse like my Mom but if I had to pick any job I could haven in the entire world I'd have to say I'd want to be a genetic research to find the cure to Tay Sachs."
"Wow that seems like something that would be really rewarding." I smile.
"How about you? I'm sure that you've got something interesting you want to do after high school?"
"I'm still not a hundred percent sure because I haven't got my acceptance letter yet but I applied for pre-med at NYU. If I get in I'll probably try and get into Columbia like my Ma for med school." I chuckle. "It sounds quite a tad bit ambitious I know, but I kind of picked up a few of my Mom's type A personality traits, and that is definitely is one of them."
I sit there waiting for JJ to respond for around a minute before realizing that she had fallen asleep. "Well I guess she was that tired after all" I think to myself.
I sit there simply watching the blanket rapped around her rise and fall slightly with her breathing, unable to bring myself to leave without getting the answer to her earlier question off my chest. JJ may not be awake to hear me but I've got to get it out, I've got to tell her, because she'll hear it someday any how.
"You asked me what my most embarrassing moment was and I vetoed the question, but eventually gave in and of course got interrupted. All I got out was that I had been dating Casey, who was one of my best friends, for almost six months and I thought that things were going great. Two months ago I decided to go to my physics class a few minute early, because I frankly suck at physics, it's the one science that I can't fully wrap my head around. The study of motion? It's dull and anything dull is something I can never completely concentrate solely on because my mind tends to start wandering. Just like now, because I'm rambling. I'm rambling because I'm nervous, even though you can't heart me."
I take a deep breath now because I can feel my hands begin to get clammy and my heart begin to quicken.
"Anyways, as I was saying I went to my physics class a few minutes early. I knocked on the door and I don't get a response so I open the door and there it is. Casey is making out with my physics teach. That's not the worst of it. They're so into it they don't notice that I'm standing there. They only break apart once they hear the majority of the class enters the doorway. I stood there like staring at them like an idiot, with everyone staring at me for what felt like almost an entire minute before someone says anything."
I stop again as I feel the tears I hadn't noticed forming rolling down my face. I wipe away the tears before continuing. "The look on her face as she realized it was me standing in front of everyone else was enough to send me running for the hills. I remember running out of the room barely able to see anything through the tears. I went to my locker which was on the opposite end of the hall and threw my physics books to the bottom of my locker. After doing that I began to pull down all of the photos of Casey and me off the door of my locker ripping them to pieces before collapsing to the floor. Drew came and picked me up off the floor before bringing me home. That was the most embarrassing moment of my life."
I drag myself up out of the chair, quietly lifting it back to its proper place at the side of the room. As I turn around and make it half way out the door a voice stops me dead in my tracks.
"She'd understand, you know."
"You almost ready?" I ask I poke my head around the bank of lockers in the attending's locker room, checking to see if Santana was ready to go home yet. I find her with her head stuck into her locker searching for something or another.
"Uh, almost, I've just got to bring back these" She shakes the two patient charts she has in her hand, her voice reverberating out of the locker, as I walk close to her "back to the nurses' station. Then I'm ready."
"I can bring them to the nurses' station while you," I pause for a moment not being able to coming up with an appropriate word for Santana's endearing habit of triple checking, making sure she has everything she needs before she leaves the hospital. It wasn't unusual to find her like this; her head buried in her locker, her arms searching for a sock she may have taken off that afternoon or a specific notebook with her list of things to do or ideas for possible treatment plans for her patients that had somehow always managed to make its way to the back bottom of her locker. "While you do that." I say with a slight chuckle. Seeing Santana like this, as if she's a ninety year old woman searching for the glasses she has on her face, never ceased to amuse me or make me smile.
"No, I got it. You can go get the car and meet me at the entrance. I'll be down in," Santana doesn't get the chance to finish her sentence as her pager sitting on the wooden bench behind her begins to vibrate. "You've got to be kidding me!" Her tone has now become impatient.
I pick up the pager, "It's a 911, San. It's Julie Daniels."
At my words Santana stops what she's doing. Her once impatient tone becomes completely serious. "Take the charts." She says, taking her head out of her locker. "Give me your scrubs." Knowing I wouldn't be comfortable in my date night clothes Santana had give me a pair of her scrubs to wear earlier; I was lucky enough that she liked her pants a size too big, allowing them to be long enough.
My face forms a look of confusion. "What?"
"I said give me your scrubs, Britt. I used my last clean pair when I operated on Cam, when I checked up on one of my patients afterwards she vomited on me. So I don't have a clean pair and I'm going to end up going into surgery. So, Brittany I need your scrubs." Her eyes help support her serious tone.
She doesn't need to say anything more. I don't respond with words, I take the charts from her hand and place them on the bench before hauling off pair of scrubs for Santana.
"Here," I put the pair of scrubs on top of the charts before beginning to unbutton her shirt to help her change; not truly caring about being half naked because Santana clearly needed to get to her patient as soon as possible. I then walk behind her, taking the ponytail ring off my wrist and put her hair up as she pulls on my scrub pants.
"I'll get a ride home from one of the nurses or someone. I'll be home for breakfast baring anything goes wrong." Santana says as she ties the drawstring as tight as she can. "I've already almost lost one kid today, I really do not want to that to happen again."
"Just relax, you'll do fine." I give her a quick kiss on the cheek. "I'll have something ready for you when you get home, okay?"
"Okay." She gives me a quick kiss on the lips and a smile in response, "I'll see you at home." before swiftly exiting the locker room, leaving me to ponder how lucky I was to have such an amazing wife and best friend.
"She'd understand." Cam's voice enters my mind as I place one foot out of the door.
I turn around slightly, my back against the door frame. "Excuse me?" I try act like I don't know what he's talking about.
"You heard me," he chuckles. "You know what I'm talking about, it's written all over your face." A small innocent smirk crosses his face.
I hang my head in defeat for a moment, realizing that it was no use to try and tip toe around it, it was too late for that. "You were awake the whole time weren't you?" I look up at him with curious yet wary eyes.
"Not the entire time, I woke up at the part when I assume JJ fell asleep." He gives me a smile that seems slightly out of place on his features, looking more like it belonged to someone's eighty year old grandfather who is watching their convocation from university.
"Well, in that case you know the important part, I suppose." I say sheepishly, I can feel the blush beginning to creep upon my face.
"You could call it that I guess. I get that you don't know me very well but do you want to talk about it? I can tell this is hard for you but you technically told my sister, and you told her for a reason. You're going to need to talk about it again sometime, to some who is actually going to say something and be listening."
I continue to look at him, weighing my options. "I don't know."
"Take your time then. By the looks of it I'm not going anywhere." He chuckles again.
"I guess it can't hurt, it's not like your sister can hear us. She's as lively as a log." I chuckle slightly, making my way back to the chair I had been sitting in a few moments ago.
"You have an excellent point there."
"So," There is an awkward silence filling the room.
"This is usually the part when one of us starts to talk, in this case that person would be you." He says in an almost matter of fact like manner.
"Well what do you want to know?" I ask trying to get comfortable in what I'm sure is the most uncomfortable chair in this hospital.
"We'll what do you want to tell me?" is the only thing he asks, he simply looks at me waiting for some form of response from me.
"I'm curious why you said what you said." are the only words that come out of my mouth, unable to think of anything else to say given the situation.
"Why I said she'd understand?" He tilts his head slightly as he talks.
"Yeah, that."
"I said that she'd understand because she would. If anyone understands heartbreak it's my sister. You're not the only one with a bad break up, you know."
"To say it was a bad break up is the understatement of the year."
"Can I ask why it was the most embarrassing moment of your life?" He stresses the word 'most' as if to get a point across.
"Well you just did." I pause for a moment as a grin crosses his face. "It's the fact that I'm always the one who's cool under pressure and never backs down from a challenging situation because that's just not who I am, it's not who I was raised to be. But with seeing Casey do something like that just broke me, everything that made me 'me' just seemed to have slipped away for that moment in time. That's why it was so embarrassing, having everyone watching me like that knowing that I'm not going to be remembered as the girl who's a good man in a storm," I can't help but notice Cam's facial expression change to a slightly confused look for a moment with the use of my last phrase. "It's that I'm going to be remembered as the girl whose girlfriend cheated on her with a teacher and had an emotional break down in the middle of the hallway for the entire student body to see."
My stomach is now beginning to tie itself in knots as Cam begins to speak again. "Is it the embarrassment of that moment that makes the fact that you two broke up so upsetting?"
"It's not the embarrassment that bothers me for the most part. It's truly the dishonesty and the fact that she was my girlfriend, my one of my best friends, and she cheated that bothers me the most." I run my fingers through my bangs, beginning to feel frustrated.
"What bothers you the most? Is it that she cheated when you thought you guys were actually happy or who she cheated with?"
I sit there staring at the patterned blanket on the end of Cam's bed for a moment, honestly trying to think of which one out of the two made me more upset. I eventually settle on an answer.
"A bit of both, because there's a bit more to it than that. I found out later that it had been going on the whole time, before we were even together. So the fact that we were friends before and I didn't know about any of it showed me how I really didn't know her at all. It made me feel stupid for letting myself get slammed by someone I thought I honestly was in love with when I truly barely knew them at all." I pause for a moment, trying to gain my composure, trying not to let my emotions get the best of me as they rarely do. "Then there's also the fact that it was my teacher, who was at least twelve years older, and of course was a man."
There is a slight look of shock on Cam's face that only lasts for a moment before quickly disappearing. "Yeah, that would definitely effect how you felt, no question. So, the girl you who was your girlfriend, the one who you considered your best friend cheated on you. Has that only affected the romantic aspects of your life, am I correct?"
"You'd be correct." I answer almost instantaneously.
"Okay, I don't know you very well so I get the fact that this is awkward for you but I can tell you right now that you just lied straight through your teeth. You might not realize it but you did."
The look on his face is having an almost calming effect on me, he doesn't seem to be judging me, and he is just simply speaking the truth. It is as if he is genuinely trying to help. And I can't deny that I appreciate it.
"Well it might account for the fact the only friends I had before your sister was my siblings, my best friend Drew who is like my brother, and my cousin Penny." I pull my feet up, trying to hide myself slightly behind my knees. "Mind you I never had many friends before Casey anyhow."
"That might have something to do with it but might not necessarily be the entire problem so don't self-diagnose. I would love to keep you talking but its 4:30 in the morning and I'm sure your parents are expecting you to be home soon, I'm sure." Cam smiles yet again, looking and sounding wise beyond his years once again.
"I think I'll have to follow your advice on that and hit the trail. But before I go," I put my feet firmly back on the floor.
I don't get a chance to finish my sentence as he answers as if he's read my mind. "Ask away."
"How did you know who I was? I mean when I first came in with JJ right after you woke up after surgery, you knew who I was, disorientated and all." I ask genuinely curious.
"Well my sister tends to talk about you, a lot." Cam chuckles, "And I mean that in the most non-stalker way possible."
I feel my cheeks warm as blush immediately begins to cross my features. "Oh." I say bashfully.
"Lily, before you leave I just wanted to say something. I know that this conversation is between us, I consider you a friend so I won't speak a word of it to JJ, but I just want to put my two cents in and say that I think you should tell her, because as much as you wish you didn't I can tell you like her."
"I'll think about it." I say as I get up out of my chair. As I make it to the doorway I stop once more. "Cam?"
"Yeah."
"JJ told me that you were pre-med at Columbia, do you have a specialty in mind for med school?"
"I'm a bit on the fence between two, why?" His face expresses his slight confusion.
"If one of them is pysch, and I'm ninety nine percent sure one of them is, just go for it." I give him a genuine smile, "Thanks Cam."
"Not a problem, Lily. I'll think about it." He repeats my own words back to me before chuckling and turning off the light above his bed as I leave shutting the door quietly behind me.
As I pull into the driveway I'm pleasantly surprised to find Lily's car next to my Jeep Wrangler. Getting out of Santana's Suburban I notice that there's only one light on in the house, the light was on in the basement studio; Lily's favorite room in the house.
Entering the house I can hear the faint rock music coming from the basement stairs. I hang up my jacket and put my purse on the kitchen counter before slowly creeping down the stairs, trying not to startle her.
The singer's voice singing lyrics from one of my favorite songs echoes quietly through the basement, "Do you feel like a puzzle, you can't find your missing piece."
"Lily?" I call out, loud enough to be heard but not loud enough to wake anyone asleep upstairs. After receiving no response I call out again, "Lily!"
Turning the corner to the studio I find her. She's standing back on to me in front of her easel staring at her canvas, wearing a pair of flannel pyjama pants that had once been Tommy's until he had grown out of them and an oversized stained white dress shirt that had been Nik's before he spilt non-alcoholic wine on it at my parent's fifth wedding anniversary party.
Just as she's about to make a brushstroke I speak, not waiting for her to start just in case I startled her, as I lean against the doorframe. "Lily, what are you still doing up?" I ask with slight concern present in my tone.
"Couldn't sleep." She mumbles almost incoherently as she begins to add to her half finished painting.
"Well I think you should try to go to sleep again because everyone else is going to be up in a few hours and then you're going to regret not trying, mija" I attempt to entice her to go back to sleep.
"I'll be fine. You and Ma are bound to be exhausted so you guys better go take a nap before everyone gets up like you said." Her words seem to be distant and her gaze doesn't leave the canvas.
"Lily," I'm about to tell her to come upstairs with me but I'm cut off.
"Night Ma." Her tone assures me that something is inevitably wrong.
"Rory, look at me." I change my own tone making it more firm; hoping it will make her turn around.
I receive a sigh as she puts her palette down on the small splotch covered wooden table next to her before slowly turning around. Her eyes are rimmed with tears and slightly bloodshot. "Lily, what happened?"
I stand up straight beginning to walk further into the studio. I don't get very far before I feel Lily's arms wrap around my neck pulling me into a hug. "Oke, gewoon met me praten. We kunnen lossen het samen." I say quietly in her ear, trying to encourage her to let me in as I wrap my arms around her.
"Momma." She says, releasing her hold slowly but surely.
"Let's go upstairs and I'll make us some hot chocolate then we can talk, okay?" I give her a reassuring smile.
I receive a response in half Dutch half English, before she begins to put away her things. "I'll be upstairs when you're ready." I say before giving her a quick kiss on the top of her head before exiting the studio, hoping that she'll be ready to tell me something soon.
We've been sitting at the counter in silence long enough for me to have my mug almost half empty. Lily hasn't looked at me since she's come upstairs. She simply sits on her stool, staring into her mug in between sips.
As I notice Lily's finger beginning to tap random beats on the counter top out of nervous habit I decide that it was now or never. "Lily, I get that you're upset but I can't exactly read minds as good as when you were younger." I receive a chuckle from Lily, which I take as I good sign. "I'm going to take a stab in the dark and if I'm wrong, tell me, but if I'm right you need to talk about or you're never going to get passed it."
"Neem een stab." She says switching to complete Dutch rather than the 'Dutchlish' I had heard downstairs.
"This is about Casey," I pause for a moment as I realize her hold on her mug has tightened, whitening her knuckles slightly. She doesn't say anything to stop me so I continue. "But it's not just about Casey, it's also about JJ. I'm pretty sure that the two people who don't know you and JJ like each other are you and her. Liefje, you can't let the past dictate your life."
Lily's gaze finally leaves the mug in front of her; she turns her head to look me straight in the eye. "It's not that easy, Momma."
"I know, it's not supposed to be easy. If it was, it wouldn't mean anything."
"She's my best friend outside of Drew, and well Penny of course, even though I've only known her for a short time and I just can't have it happen again." Tears are starting to form in her eyes.
"How do you know it will, Lily?"
"I just know it will, because I've got the worst luck." She replies with an impatient sigh before taking her mug back to her lips, finishing off her hot chocolate.
I slowly brush her bang out of her eyes, tucking it behind her ear. "No, Lils, you really don't. Sure, Casey did leave you heartbroken and made you feel like you weren't you anymore, I've been there Lilypad. Casey was someone you thought would never hurt you. It makes you feel like you did something or there was something about you that made you not good enough, but there's not, sweetie. But you've got to believe me when I say it only takes one person to change that for you, and maybe that person is JJ or maybe she's not. But you'll never find out unless you try." I give her a wide smile, hoping it will make her realize that there's a large possibility that I'm right.
"How do you know?" She asks me her eyebrow furrowed slightly.
"I was broken once, for a much different reason, and even Aunt Quinn couldn't make me feel better and fix me. I had resorted to the worst medicine, going to parties and knocking back tequila on the weekends. I'm warning you now, don't ever resort to it, now or when you're older, you'll regret it in the morning and later in life when you acquire liver failure from drinking too much. But one night at the first party Uncle Puck ever threw Aunt Quinn took a seat next to me and asked me how I was and I just started to cry, so not wanting to be seen I went to the washroom to clean myself up. After a few moments the door opens to reveals this petite brunette who told me that people care about me and that I shouldn't believe what other people said because they're just jealous. She said I was the smartest persons she'd ever met."
I pause for a minute chuckling to myself causing myself to smile like a goofball. "I laughed and asked her if those people had names, and before I knew it I was experiencing the best kiss of my life. When she pulled away she gave me the most beautiful smile I've ever seen and said 'I think you know.' And I couldn't help but grin like an idiot as she left. That girl turned out to be the love of my life and your Mami. So I don't regret pursuing her even though she turned me down, twice."
Lily can't help but laugh, no matter how hard she tries to stifle it. "Ma turned you down, twice?"
"You bet she did, but she eventually changed her mind and decided to give a chance. So the moral of the story is," I pause for Lily to answer for me.
"You never know until you try and you deserve to give yourself a chance, and possibly a second." Lily chuckles, wiping the tears that form in her eyes away.
"Right. So now do you think you can go to sleep?"
"Definitely. Thanks Momma." She gives me a small smile before getting up off her stool.
"Zoete dromen, liefje."