FicWad

Chapter 15: Home sweet home

____________________________Gia’s POV

When I woke up, a nurse instantly attacked me. I was a bit scared of the overly happy woman. This wasn’t the same nurse that was here yesterday. What made it worse was that my head felt dizzy, and I was still drowsy from sleeping. My eyes felt like they could explode at any moment because of the bright lights.

“You’re awake! Oh, excellent! I was told to take a blood sample from you, is that okay? Or would you like to eat first? Though I really need to take that sample now and take it to the lab, so I can fetch your breakfast at the same time”, the nurse ranted, and her voice was really high.

I nodded, not sure how to react. “What time is it?” I asked.

“It’s ten thirty. You sure slept a long time!” the nurse laughed. She took the blood sample and I didn’t even feel it when the tiny needle pierced my skin. “Your father will be here in thirty minutes to pick you up. But we are only letting you go if you don’t have any more of that poison in your system.”

I gave her a mean glare before I could help myself. As if I would have anything in my system. And who does she think she is anyway?

After stealing all my blood the nurse left and she soon returned with a tray of food. I wasn’t that pleased to see a plate full of paste-like porridge and a glass of warm milk, but it would have to do.
While I was eating, dad came into the room. And he wasn’t alone. That social worker lady was with him. I could tell that dad wasn’t exactly happy with her being here, but he’d have to endure it.

“Hi Gia, how are you feeling?” dad asked me with a smile.

“I’m fine. Could use a shower,” I answered.

“You remember Emily, right?” He nodded towards the woman who smiled down to me warmly. However, the smile on her face only made me feel restless. I may have been imagining it, but there was something very sinister about her. “She said she had something to say to you.”

“That’s right”, Emily nodded. “And I would like to speak with her in private, if you don’t mind.”

Dad hesitated before he agreed to go outside. “Fine. I’ll just wait in the hall”, he said and left.

“Now, Gia”, the woman sighed and sat down on the chair that was placed on the side of my bed. “I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable around me. I want us to be friends.”

‘As if I’d be friends with you’, I thought, but I nodded anyway. I was afraid that if I opened my mouth, I would blurt out something I shouldn’t say.

“I have seen so many kids in a situation similar to this”, she started with a sympathetic look on her face. “Even if their parents treat them badly, children still tend to have such high hopes of them and look up to them. What you need to understand that if your father mistreats you in any way, you deserve a better life and a better family.”

I opened my mouth to tell her a few well chosen words, but she raised a hand to stop me.

“I know what you’re going to say. And I understand your point, trust me. But some day you will be able to see more clearly. Think about it, okay?” She took out a piece of paper from her bag and placed it on the table by my bed. “This is my card. Feel free to call any time.”

Apparently she thought that we had achieved some sort of an agreement, because next she said: “I look forward to hearing from you”, and then walked out.

It took a few moments for my dad to come in, but when he did, he looked really troubled.

“What’s wrong?” I instantly asked. If he was worried, then that probably meant that I should be worried too.

“Nothing”, he shook his head and forced a smile.

____________________________Gerard’s POV

I resisted the urge to press my ear against the wall and listen to what that devil woman said to my daughter. Well, the only reason I didn’t do that was the nurses that kept walking past me in the hallway.

To my surprise, Emily didn’t stay in the room for long. When she came out, she had a really smug look on her face.

“Mr. Way”, she said. “I want to make something clear with you.”

“And what is that?” I snarled.

“I don’t think I like your attitude, young man. Anyhow, I want you to know that even though I don’t enjoy breaking homes, I will do so if I have a reason to. You better not give me that reason.”

“Whose side are you on? Try to decide already”, I sighed.

“I am on the victim’s side, and in this case the victim seems to be Gia”, she said, and those were her last words before she walked away.

When I returned to Gia’s room, she didn’t look any different, so maybe the devil hadn’t tried to kill her or something.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, getting worried.

“Nothing”, I answered and went to sit on the side of her bed.

“Come on, tell me, please. I can tell when everything’s not right”, she pleaded and being the weak person I am, I sighed, giving in.

“It’s just that... She pisses me off.”

“Well of course she does”, Gia said, rolling her eyes. “She’s doing it on purpose so you would lose your temper and do something you’ll surely regret.”

When she said it, it all started to make sense. That devil woman was really evil. It must’ve been her plan all along!

“But please, stay on her good side”, she said.

“Huh? But I can’t let her just –“ I started, but Gia interrupted me.

“Do you not understand who she is?” she asked. “She is the person who has the power to rip this family apart. Is that what you want?”

“Of course not!” I argued, but my shocked face soon turned into a smile. A real smile this time. “How did you get so smart? I’m sure you didn’t get it from my side of the family.”

“I don’t know, Mikey’s pretty smart”, she laughed.

Suddenly a happy voice interrupted our conversation: “I’m pretty smart too!” the voice said, and we turned to look. Frank was standing there with a huge bouquet of colorful flowers and Mikey stood next to him with beat red face.

“What are you guys doing here?” I asked them. I never asked them to come. In fact, I told Mikey to make sure Frank didn’t come to the hospital so that I could talk to Gia in private.

As if he had read my thoughts, Mikey quickly apologized. “Sorry Gee, I couldn’t stop him.”

“What’s up with the flowers?”

Frank suddenly remembered the bouquet he was holding and marched over to Gia. “These are for you!” he announced.

Gia, who absolutely hated it when people went through any trouble for her, smiled awkwardly. “Thanks, but you really didn’t need to...”

“You don’t know how embarrassing it was at the flower store”, Mikey started and walked over to the bed too. “At first he insisted that he buys her hundred red roses. Luckily I was able to talk him out of it.”

“I still think that I should’ve gotten those hundred roses though”, Frank frowned.

“I really think you shouldn’t have”, Mikey said. “Red roses wouldn’t be exactly appropriate since they symbolize love. The romantic type.”

“Oh”, Frank gasped. “So that’s why the flower lady at the store asked me if I’m planning on proposing!”

“Idiot”, Mikey grinned. “Okay, you’ve given her the flowers, so let’s leave them to talk.”

“But I want to stay and –“

“Frank, please go”, Gia said, surprising us all. “I’ll play with you later.”

That worked. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. If I had asked him to leave, he would’ve probably chained himself to the wall. But since Gia asked him, of course he’ll obey. Well, I suppose I should be happy about that.

Mikey and Frank left, promising to come by tomorrow to check out the house (and partly also to spend time with their favorite niece).

As soon as they were out of the door, the small smile on my daughter’s face was replaced by a serious look, and I’m sure it only mirrored my own expression.

“Look, Gia…” I started. “I’m really sorry about all of this.”

“Dad, it was an accident,” she said right away. “What happened… It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know.”

“Yeah but it did happen. And it could have happened before. I just… I never want to see you like that again.”

“Well, now you know how I’ve felt these past few years,” she sighed.

“I’m sorry,” I repeated.

“So you bought a house?” Gia asked, most likely just to change the subject.

“Yeah”, I answered, happy about the new topic. “I think you’ll like it.”

She nodded. “I’m sure I will.”

“Alicia and your grandma want to take you to get new furniture when you’re feeling better.”

“New furniture? But I don’t need new stuff. What’s wrong with the old one?”

“Just be happy that you get new stuff”, I grinned. But the truth was that most of the furniture in the new house was new as well. Yeah, the old stuff was good too, but in order to change my life I wanted to change some things around me as well. And I knew that Gia would understand, but I just didn’t want to talk to her about that stuff with her when she was lying on a hospital bed.

We continued talking about other stuff, and I determinedly avoided any topic that would make her worry or stress. The nurse came after about twenty minutes and immediately she attacked me.

“Who are you? What are you doing with my patient?” she demanded to know suspiciously.

“Relax, he’s my dad”, Gia answered. “So, can I go now?”

“Soon. But you haven’t finished eating!” the nurse worried.

“I don’t really feel like eating”, Gia muttered. The food was probably bad. Hospital food usually was. I figured that we should go get something to eat when we can leave.

“It is extremely important that you eat enough so you’ll stay healthy”, the nurse explained. “Your blood results were clean. The reason the drug had such a powerful affect on you was because your immune system had weakened so much that your body simply didn’t know how to deal with all that poison.” Then she turned to me and said: “Make sure she eats a healthy meal three times a day.”

I nodded. Of course Gia will eat even if I wasn’t making sure she did. She wasn’t stupid. She just was a little nervous so she couldn’t eat much these past few weeks, that’s all.

____________________________Gia’s POV

Finally we could leave the hospital and go home, and I had to admit, I was kind of excited to see the new house. On the way there I looked at the neighborhood. The only people I saw were little kids playing on the yards or the sidewalk. I figured that mostly families with little kids lived there.

But as we drove further and got closer to the new house, I started to see different kind of people too. I saw adults and teenagers walking on the sidewalk either with friends or a dog or pushing a baby carriage. So far so good.

Then the car pulled up in front of an average-size, not too big but not too small, two-story house. There was a garage, but dad left the car on the drive way.

I got out of the car and just stared at the house.

“You wanna go in?” dad asked. I nodded and followed him to the front door. There was already a doormat in front of it. It was black and it said ‘Oh shit, it’s you again!’ When dad noticed me looking at it, he grinned and explained: “It was a housewarming gift from Frank. Don’t worry, we don’t have to keep it.”

“No, I like it”, I smiled. Not like we would have that many guests anyway. The doormat was just a nice add. And besides, we can always take it off if we know that someone important is coming to visit, even though that seems very unlikely.

Dad opened the door and I could finally see what the house looked inside. The walls in the entrance hall were all white, and there were a few boxes beside them. I quickly went inside and went through the first floor. Only the basic furniture like couches, chairs, tables, the TV and stuff like that were in place. Everything else was still in boxes, which made the place look very empty. If this was someone else’s house, I would’ve thought that it was very unwelcoming and cold, but now I felt like home. I left the living room that I had been looking at and found my dad standing at the foot of the stairs.

“Well?” dad asked. He sounded kind of nervous. “Do you like it?”

“Yeah. I love it”, I answered and smiled to him. I was excited to live in this house, and I couldn’t hide it. It was impossible to wipe the smile off of my face.

My answer obviously made dad relax, because he looked relieved. “Well, in that case, welcome home.”

It was only this comment made me realize that I lived here now, and that my life had actually changed. I knew it before, but now it really hit me. Of course moving didn’t change everything, but it was one way to start a new way to live. And I liked it. It felt nice.

“Oh, and before I forget”, he said, digging through his jacket pocket for something. When he found whatever he was looking for, he gave it to me. “Here, the new house key. And I guess you want to see your room?”

We went up the stairs and came to an open room that was still completely empty, but still it was somewhat nice. The windows were big so there was a lot of sunlight. There were two doors in the room, and dad went to the one farthest away from the stairs.

“The other door leads to the bathroom”, he explained. “And this is your room.”

I curiously looked into the room after the opened the door. It was pretty empty too. None of my furniture was there, but that wasn’t strange. After all, I was supposed to go buy new stuff. However, there were a lot of boxes. All of them were marked as ‘Girly shit’. Frank probably marked them.

“Ray and Frank were in charge of packing most of your stuff”, dad explained. He was standing by the door, leaning on the doorframe.

I didn’t really even hear what he said. I was busy looking at the room. It was spacey, but it wasn’t so big that I would have trouble deciding what to do with all that space. There was a closet where I could fit all my clothes and other stuff too, and the view from the windows led to the back yard.

I might just be saying this because of the state of mind that I’m in, but this room was absolutely perfect.

____________________________

Two weeks later we were all settled into the new house. We got new furniture and other stuff. Let’s just say that I’ve been really worried about money lately, but dad assured me that it’s fine. I try not to worry so much, but I can’t help it. It’s just who I am.

It was Monday morning and I was ready to go to school. I grabbed my book bag and my new cell phone which I don’t need but dad insisted on buying anyway, and I was out of the door. However, dad was sitting outside, and he stopped me.

“You need a ride?” he asked, taking a drag from the cigarette he was smoking. It was winter, early December, and he was sitting outside without a coat, wearing a t-shirt, no shoes, and obviously freezing.

“What are you doing?” I gasped. “Aren’t you cold?”

He pointed at the cigarette with his free hand and shook his head. “I have this. So, do you want me to drive you to school?” For the past week he’s been driving me to school since we don’t live so close to it anymore.

“No thanks, I’ll walk”, I answered.

“You sure? It’s cold, you’ll get sick.”

I just smiled sweetly. “Well, perhaps I should start smoking so I would stay warm like you.”

“Don’t you dare”, he grinned, but I could tell that he was being completely serious. He was being a hypocrite, but I didn’t mind it when it came to smoking. I think cigarettes are a lot better option if you had to choose between drugs, alcohol and cigs. They’re all bad, but I had to compromise somewhere.

“What time will you be back?” dad asked me before I could try to leave again.

“Six or so. I have a piano lesson today.” Yeah, that’s right. I still play the piano. And I still hate it.

“Right”, he sighed. “I was supposed to talk to you about that. Come on, I’ll drive you.”

“But I told you I –“

“Gia, you can walk tomorrow, okay?”

I wasn’t very happy with this arrangement, but I would be able to live with it. While he went to change quickly, I already went to the garage, opened the big door ready for the car and went in to wait.

And while I waited, I started to wonder why he all of a sudden wanted to drive me to school. And what did he want to talk about? And I swear that coming from your dad who used to be a drug-addict, him wanting to talk doesn’t seem very good. I was already starting to think the worst case scenarios when he finally got into the car.

It wasn’t until we were on the road that he spoke.

“Alright, about the piano thing”, he started, and I could tell from the tone of his voice that he didn’t really want to talk about this either.

“What about the piano?”

“Well I guess you remember, since I told you what happened then, but I went to see your piano teacher that day when... You know.”

I remembered. Of course. That night that I accidentally took some weird drug and got hospitalized. No biggie. “What about it?”

“Well, she told me that you haven’t been going to your piano lessons.”

I groaned. “Do we have to talk about that?” I really didn’t want to tell him that I didn’t want to play anymore.

“Let me tell you a little story”, dad started. I sighed and leaned my forehead against the cold window, which should have been a clear sign for him that I didn’t want to hear his story, and yet he told me anyway. “When Mikey and I were still the size of foam extinguisher, our mom made us go to these ridiculous clarinet classes.”

“Foam extinguisher?”

“ Well okay, I was like eight”, he admitted. “But that’s not the point. We hated going there and playing that stupid instrument. But mom thought that we needed a hobby, and she didn’t let us quit that easily.”

“Get to the point, we’re almost at the school”, I hurried him, already seeing more students walking towards the big building.

“Well, since I hated going and I held a grudge for mom about it for at least a few weeks after I quit, I know what it’s like to have a hobby you don’t like”, he paused, and didn’t continue until he found a parking spot in front of the school building. Since he didn’t just drop me off and drive away, I figured that this conversation wasn’t done yet. I glanced nervously at the clock on the wall. Two minutes until the bell rings.

“So, I guess what I’m trying to say is...” he finally continued. “Why didn’t you tell me you hated playing the piano, and why didn’t you stop playing it if you didn’t like it?”

“Well isn’t it obvious?” I sighed, forgetting about the clock and the rush. “You’re a musician. I figured that you’d want me to have a musical hobby.”

“So you didn’t want to disappoint me?” he asked.

I nodded. “I’m sorry. It’s just that... Music isn’t really my thing.”

“Don’t say sorry. I’m not mad. And you can quit playing if you want to. I’m not going to force you.”

And suddenly I felt like a weight lifted off of my chest, and I hadn’t even noticed it before it was gone. I was so glad that I didn’t have to go back there.

After I managed to get out of the car, I ran inside the school building and straight to my first class, which was history. I hated to be late from class.

“Miss Way, I hope you have a good reason to be late from my class”, the teacher said when I ran in through the door. And even though he said it jokingly to let me know that I wasn’t really in trouble, I still felt uncomfortable. Every single pair of eyes in that classroom was directed towards me. Attention was something I hated, so this was just horrible. I preferred being invisible.

“I’m sorry”, I managed to squeak out.

“Don’t worry about it. Go sit”, the teacher said and continued talking about whatever he was saying before I interrupted him.

I tried to ignore the students around me, whispering and looking at me. It was hard. When I got to my seat, however, they stopped and dozed off again.

“What an entrance”, whispered the boy sitting next to me. He was of course that same boy that suddenly started talking to me a few months ago. I still didn’t know his first name since the teacher called us by our last names. Mr. Parker. That’s what the teacher called him.

“You weren’t in school last week. Why?” he continued. Dad had allowed me to be home from school for the whole week because there was so much going on at home. And even though I absolutely hated being away from school, I went along with it anyway.

“Family stuff”, I answered, not really caring about telling him anything. However, he seemed very eager to know.

“What family –“

“Mr. Parker and Miss Way, if you could please leave the socializing for recess”, the teacher said, and I instantly blushed. Everyone was staring at me again. “So, as I was saying...“

“Hey, you wanna copy my notes?” the boy asked, now speaking with even lower voice.

I looked at him surprised. “You took notes?”

“Don’t think that it’s a habit”, he grinned. “I thought you might need them.”

I didn’t know what to say. He was being so nice and friendly. But why? All the alarms in my head went off, telling me to stay away from him, but instead I accepted the notebook he was offering and thanked him.

“No problem”, he said, and leaned back on his chair, looking very proud of himself.

I didn’t understand him at all.