I'm SO SO SO SO sorry it has taken me so long to update!
I could give this LOONG excuse, but truth is I just havent been able to write at all for some weird reason, but I'm (hopefully) making that up to you just a bit by making this one extra long :)
Anyways, as for my useless excuse:
First I was REALLY busy training for the danish cheer championships (and we did AWESOME by the way.. it's on youtube.. just find my user BritneyLuby if you want to see it :P ..
However, I didnt really train very much for it as I (exactly 3 weeks prior to it) once again hurt my knee (too much practice?)... I thought it was just sprained, cause thats what my doctor said... so I walked around Vienna (which was 2 days after I got hurt) for a week on crutches with my one leg twice as big as the other!
However, I went back to the doctor when I got home, and he decided I'd torn my miniscus... so I still joined the championships (looking like a retard.. but couldnt abandon my stunt group) and got knee surgery 2 days later.. still walking around with a DonJoy on my leg.. woot woot! So that kinda killed my mood!
Anyways, BACK TO THE STORY!!
And thank you guys SOOOOOOO much for the reviews!!! I LOVE them and they DO inspire me VERY MUCH to write :P
Chapter 46 - Stay...
"Luka, hurry up, we're late!" Rolling his eyes, Luka quickly put his bowl in the sink and threw his backpack over his left shoulder. "Mr. Martinson is gonna kill me!"
"I'm coming, Niko!" He smiled at Abby, who still sat at the table curled up in one of his over sized sweaters, happy that his brother was in the hallway. "Now, try not to get in too much trouble while we're gone." She just rolled her eyes at him, gently leaning into him as he placed a small kiss on her forehead.
"Like that's even possible." As he smiled she couldn't help but blush a little, so she quickly turned to look out the window in stead. "I mean, being stuck here and all."
"Well look at it from the bright side." Confused, she looked at him curiously. "You don't have to take the English literature test today like me." A small chuckle escaped her lips as she waved towards the door.
"Whatever you say, Luka. But you better hurry up if you don't want to walk to school." Knowing she was right he roughly tousled her hair before walking towards the open door.
"I suppose so. I'll see you later."
As soon as she heard the front door slam she leaned back against the chair she was sitting on, pulling the duvet tighter around her. She didn't mind being home alone, she actually quite enjoyed it, but it was starting to get a bit boring, even though it had only been a bit more than a week.
She carefully started poking a tiny cinnamon toast crunch which had been dropped on the floor with her toe, not knowing what else she could do. She'd already read more books than she cared to count and there was nothing on TV at these hours. She wasn't used to being this bored. She always had something to do, always had something to be stressed about. If not school, then work or taking care of Eric or her mom.
She closed her eyes as her foot stopped mid-movement. Work. She'd completely forgotten about that. Had anyone remembered - cared to call her walk and tell them that she wouldn't be coming in for the next?... She wasn't even sure how long they were going to prevent her from returning to a 'normal' life with work and school.
And how about her school? What had they been told? Had they been told anything? Somehow she wished that they had gotten a completely wrong story, that they had been told that she was traveling or something. But she knew that they had probably gotten the real story. At least the basics of it. And it was probably also best that way.
Sighing she got up and threw out the piece of cereal that had previously been on the ground. She placed the duvet on the chair an turned towards the sink. She could just as well do the dishes or something, after all, she only had about an hour to kill before she'd have to leave.
Abby tapped her foot on the floor as she was looking at the big clock on the wall. She hated the whole 'getting dragged to the hospital' ordeal, and today sure wasn't any different. Actually it was a even more annoying than usual if that was even possible.
Dr. Kovac, or well, Luka's mom (this was starting to get a bit confusing, even to herself) had worked the overnight shift, so she had driven in with Dr. Kovac, or Luka's dad, or Josef, or whatever seemed to fit in stead, meaning she had a couple of hours to kill before her 'appointment'.
At least they had been kind enough to let her stay in the doctors' lounge, not just having dumped her in the waiting area or placed her in a room. But that didn't really help much on keeping her from getting bored. She had already looked through numerous newspapers and medical magazines and even done some of the homework for chemistry she knew no one would know or care about if she did or not. After all, she would most likely not be going back anytime soon, so why bother.
Getting up she threw out the gum wrapper she had previously been fiddling with and left the dark room. Walking towards the admit area she gave the desk clerk a small smile as she leaned up against the desk. She knew, or at least recognized most of the people working in the department from before... from coming here to pick up Luka or just hanging around when waiting for him.
"What are you doing, Mike?" Giving her a wink he signaled for her to come to the other side of the desk. She quickly complied, looking confused at the computer screen as she did so.
"What am I looking at?" He removed the big donut from his mouth and placed it on napkin next to the keyboard.
"New blood for the rumor mill and the bet book." When she raised an eyebrow he pointed at the screen. "I set up hidden web cams in multiple parts of the hospital, mainly the doctors' lounges. A couple of minutes ago the head nurse from radiology made out with the janitor."Abby couldn't help but smirk a little at the huge smile that crossed his face. "I can't wait for Janice to hear about this."
"Hear about what?" Both of them quickly spun around, the big desk clerk attempting to cover the screen.
"Oh nothing, ehm, just that I'm gonna, you know, ditch donuts. They're not good for my cholesterol." Noticing the doctor's eyes pointing towards the desktop besides him he quickly pushed the half eaten chocolate sprinkled donut behind his back, his gaze never leaving the attending in front of him.
"Right... I'm sure she'll be really proud." She handed the chart she was currently holding to the now blushing Mike. "Anyways, I was just going to steal Abby from you if that's okay, so continue doing whatever it is you shouldn't be doing, just don't get into too much trouble."
"Of course, Dr. Kovac." Giving him a small smile, Abby followed Dr. Kovac as she motioned towards an empty room down the hallway. "See you later, Abby."
"I'm sorry it took so long," she gently closed the door behind her as she followed the doctor into the room furthest down the hallway. "I was stuck with this crazy person who..." She stopped, knowing that she wasn't allowed to discuss other patients and realizing that Abby couldn't really care less.
"It's fine."She quietly sat down on a nice, comfortable chair in the corner of the room, one that was big enough for her tiny frame to curl up and lay in it.
"Anyways, had a nice morning so far? Gotten any breakfast yet?" As Abby diverted her gaze she sighed. "Let me guess, you convinced my husband you were gonna eat something when you got here so you could in stead sleep a bit longer?" At the girl's guilty smile she went over to the desk and pulled out a banana and a sandwich from the drawer, both of which she threw back to Abby. "I expected as much, so I was prepared."
"Thanks." She gave her a sincere smile and took a bite of the banana as the doctor sat down across from her.
"So, anything specific you want to talk about?" Shrugging, Abby looked towards the window in the other end of the room. "Abby..." She looked away from the window, but in stead of looking at Dr. Kovac she looked down at her feet in front of her.
"I hate therapy." She spoke so quiet it was barely audible, but the doctor heard it nevertheless.
"I know, Abby." She gently grabbed a hold of her hand, the one not currently holding the packed sandwich. "And trust me, you're far from the only one. As far as I know, that is the way the majority of the world feels about it."
"But they're not all forced to... go through it." Giving her a warm smile Dr. Kovac squeezed her hand.
"No, they're not, because they are fortunate enough not to need it." When the girl just shrugged, Dr. Kovac leaned back in her own chair. "It'll be over before you know it, Abby. And it might seem completely useless to you, but trust me, it works. It really does. There's is no way I would put you through it if I had just the smallest doubts." When Abby still didn't really give a response, she figured it might be time to get to business. It was always much harder to get her to open up if they switched between personal and professional, concerning and reassuring.
"Look, I know you've been trying to put this off, and to some degree I have as well." A bit confused with the suddenly very serious tone of the doctor's voice, Abby looked up hesitantly. "But there are things I need to know, Abby. Not because I want to or because you're not allowed to keep some secrets to yourself, but because it's things I need to know to be able to help you the best way possible. And to help the police." At the last sentence Abby looked away again, and Dr. Kovac knew it was due to the very tiny confidence she had in the police. She was as positive as could be that they'd never even get close to catching him.
"I know. I just... It's really hard to talk about." Dr. Kovac just smiled at this. Abby had come a long way. A week, even just a couple of days ago, she would have never admitted to something like that.
"It is, but you're doing really good." When she shrugged, Dr. Kovac took a deep breath. "Abby..."
"Let me guess," She cut her off, looking up at the doctor in front of her. "You want to know how it all started." Not saying anything, Dr. Kovac just nodded, although Abby was too busy staring anywhere else to see it.
"I suppose you could blame it all on my mom." She really didn't want to share everything, tell her whole story, but she knew she couldn't stall forever. Besides, opening up would probably be in her own best interest, it might make all those doctors and police people see that she was fine and able return to school and stuff like that. "If she hadn't been sick... Or rather, if she hadn't let the disease completely control her life, then maybe she wouldn't have scared... made my dad run away from everything, flee from this crazy woman and the insane, carefree life she lived." Sure, she was trying to avoid the subject, but no one could really blame her for that.
"When did he leave?"
"I don't remember much, but he wasn't a very good dad. Very far from it, actually." It was like she wasn't really present in the room. She had curled her legs up close to her chest and was just staring straight into nothing. "I do remember that I loved him though, back then. But of course I did, the only person I could compare him to was my mom." Dr. Kovac gently reached out to grab a hold of Abby's hand, but as soon as she touched her the young girl recoiled, never getting pulled out of her trance.
"I woke up this one morning, the day before my 7th birthday, and he was gone. The car wasn't there, Maggie was acting as though everything was normal, and I just knew he wouldn't be coming back." A glimpse of sadness appeared in her eyes, but it was gone as quickly as it had come. "I had heard them fight the evening before. They did it all the time, almost every evening, but this was one of the louder ones. So I had locked the door to our room and tried to calm Eric down as usual. I could hear my name being mentioned a lot, but I just tried to block everything out, focusing on Eric in stead. But I suppose it must have been something bad, cause after I heard the door slam Maggie started banging on the door to our room, screaming for me to make Eric shut up and about how I had ruined everything. How it was my fault that he had stormed out again, which wasn't very unusual for him to do." Although she spoke in complete monotone, it was obvious to Dr. Kovac how painful it was for Abby to think back on, to have lived through, and all she wanted to do was to throw her arms around the girl and take all that pain away from her.
"Did you ever see him again?"Abby let out a small snort, gently shaking her head.
"I barely had time to register the fact that he was gone before my mom started either bringing random guys home with her at night or went to their places and left us for days." A tiny smile appeared on her face, but it never reached her eyes. "This one guy was actually really nice. He made blueberry pancakes for breakfast for me and Eric, but we didn't even get done eating them before Maggie threw him out. Apparently we were her children, and no one was allowed to 'criticize' the way she raised us by treating us like spoiled brats." There was a short silence.
"Were you at least allowed to finish eating the pancakes?" Dr. Kovac wasn't sure how to respond to what Abby told her, but she felt like she had to say something, and judging by the tiny but genuine smile that crossed Abby's face she knew she hadn't made a mistake.
"She told us to throw them all out, as there were a lot of them, but she just ran off as she always did when she was frustrated, so we wrapped them up and hid them in the closet behind all of the clothes Eric had grown out of. Those pancakes lasted almost 3 days." Although she would never admit it, never thought it was possible, it actually wasn't too bad sharing these stories. She actually kind of liked it, as long as it was still innocent stories like these, and not the more serious ones they would soon get to. It was almost a relief to tell someone, to share what her early childhood had been like, knowing that the person she told wouldn't judge her because of it.
The doctor opened her mouth, but just as she was about to say something, Mike, the desk clerk, came into the room without even knocking.
"I'm so sorry for interrupting, Dr. Kovac, but they need you in the ER." Embarrassed, Abby just tightened her grip around her legs as Dr. Kovac looked irritated at the man in the door.
"Well I'm busy. And besides, I was off half an hour ago!"
"I know, and I told them that." He really did look sorry. "But they said it was really, really urgent!" Taking a deep breath she nodded and he left the room.
"I'm really sorry Abby."
"It's okay. I totally understand." She wasn't even sure whether or not she was happy that they'd been interrupted.
"I'll be back really quick, okay?" Abby just nodded. "Then we can see if you feel up to talking anymore." Once again nodding, Abby motioned for the door.
"You should probably go."
When Dr. Kovac returned to the psychiatric floor, she ignored everyone she passed and walked straight to the room she'd left Abby in, surprised to now find Luka occupying the chair she'd previously sat on. Abby was softly laughing at something, and Dr. Kovac hated the fact that she stopped just because she had entered.
"Luka, what are you doing here?" Her tone wasn't accusing, just curious. He looked at the clock on the wall before turning back to his mom.
"I got out of school an hour ago." She found herself cursing inwardly.
"I was gone for that long?" When Abby just nodded, she sighed as she sat down on a chair next to her son.
"I am so, so sorry. If I'd known I'd be that long I'd have told you to go home."
"It's fine." Sometimes she thought Abby was too forgiving, like now. She had spent more time in the hospital that day than she was supposed to do over multiple weeks.
"No, it's not. And I definitely can't blame you for sick and tired of this place. So what do you say, let's get out of here?" Biting her lip, Abby nervously looked back and forth between the two people in front of her.
"Actually, I... ehm..." She wasn't sure she could get herself to say the words, but she really needed to. "I'd kind of like to finish this... if we could." Her voice was barely above a whisper. She just wanted it done and over with. She knew they were never going to stop asking her questions until she actually told the whole story, so why keep pushing it? Dr. Kovac just looked at her almost in shock.
"Of course. But are you sure?" Taking a deep breath she nodded weakly. "Okay then." The doctor turned towards her son. "Luka..."
"It's okay." She was looking down at her feet, but her voice still sounded more determined than any of her previous statements. "He... He can stay." Letting the words sink in, Dr. Kovac just nodded, noticing the same surprised look on Luka's face as was most likely a mirror of her own.
