This story is a bit wordy and fairly long, so if you are looking for immediate gratification, you might want to look elsewhere. It contains heterosexual and lesbian sexual activity.
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The following story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance between actual persons, living or dead (or just confused) is entirely coincidental. Please do not copy/redistribute the story, in part or in total, without the author's permission.
This story takes place in the entirely fictional city of Springfield, California, so don't go looking for it on a map. And in my little fictional world, there are no unwanted pregnancies or STD's, except as plot driving devices. The author encourages the practice of safe-sex.
This is part of an ongoing series. Please check out earlier part(s) for background and character history.
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"Run" Part 05
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Darkness was a funny thing. It seemed to hold whatever you were afraid of, even though you couldn't see it. It is the screen you project your nightmares onto.
Pat Baker saw nothing, and that was her fear. She was used to seeing her brother's smiling face. She was used to watching him run. She was used to him being there to cheer her up just through his love of life. His life was over, and her attempt to end her own life had apparently failed.
But as frightening as the dark was, she was even more scared of the light. She refused to open her eyes and see her father's disappointed gaze. She had tried so hard all her life to keep him happy and off of Buddy's back. He was probably trying to figure out how this little "episode" was going to affect his plans for her. She doubted her mother was there at all. She was probably grieving for the child she had actually loved. Her uncle might be around. She knew how much that he had wished that she were stronger.
Then she thought of her friends, if they still were in that category. She had become the psychopath everyone had thought she was when Keith had been dared to talk to on that one fateful afternoon. She had almost begun to believe that life would get better. He was probably at home right now, thanking his lucky stars that he had discovered the truth about Pat before it was too late. About then, one of Pat's headaches arrived, gnawing into the part of the brain right behind her eyes with vicious teeth and causing the blood in her temples to beat with an unholy rhythm. She tried to block it all out, squeezing her fists and her eyelids, trying to banish the pain back into the darkness that had sent it. She heard a distant beeping grow louder . . . the kind of beeping that accompanied a thin green line with period spikes marring its surface. Then she felt something cool inside the veins of her left arm and the pain subsided.
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In the light . . .
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Mary and Reginald Baker were asleep on a couch in the lobby nearby Pat's room. Lyle Baker was walking the off-white hallways trying to get some circulation back in his legs. Tobias was leaning against the nurse's station, making small talk and trying to dig for information. Keith and Todd and Gail had just returned from the cafeteria. Much to the chagrin of his school and team, Keith had decided to forsake the second game of the playoffs to be there when Pat woke up.
They sat down, and Keith glanced at Mrs. Baker. He had said some unkind things to her just before Buddy died which he now greatly regretted. She might not have been a great mother to Pat for whatever reason, but she had been a great mother to Buddy. And to be faced with such tragedy and then try and come to terms with her daughter's suicide attempt was more than she deserved. Mr. Baker . . . Keith really couldn't sympathize too much. He had frozen when his son was dying and his designs involving his daughter had been self-absorbed and self-centered. But mostly, Keith was concerned about Pat. Her spirit had died with her brother, and Keith had no idea how she was going to make it through, if she were inclined to even try.
"Hey," Lyle said as he walked over. "You really should go to your game," he chided the young man he had come to respect greatly. "The doctors say there's no telling how long she'll be out. Even after getting her stomach pumped . . ." He stopped. It had been a horrible process to watch. "She was exhausted and stressed and who knows what else."
"I wouldn't be any good to the team right now anyway," Keith said. He had pitched like shit in the first game. He had been in shock over Buddy's death. It was almost ironic. Everyone had thought it was when she twisted his arm that Pat Baker would keep Keith out of the game. It had taken something a lot more extreme. He had just quoted a "family emergency" and had spent as much time as he could in the last twenty-four hours at the hospital. He looked over at Pat's parents, then stood up and whispered to Lyle, "What's going to happen? I mean, how do you think they're going to handle this?"
"I don't know," the big man replied. "This was too much." The big man was choked up. "Buddy . . . now this. I know you don't think much of them, but I know Reginald loves Pat, and Mary was trying to remember how. And before you get harsh with them," he said softly, "remember that their only remaining child is tied to a hospital bed."
Keith sighed. "I wasn't going to pick a fight. When Pat comes out of this, that's the last thing she'll need." He and Lyle noticed Tobias was waving them over.
"I think she was awake," the butler said as they gazed in through the glass. "I saw her clenching her fists and . . . It's something she does when she meditates, particularly when she's got headaches. I've seen her in the kitchen doing it when she has a migraine." He covered his mouth with his hand and mumbled, "I should have done something. I should have told her parents what they were doing to her."
"We all should have done a lot of things," Lyle said. "But we get a second chance to do them now. Let's not blow it."
"Is she awake yet?" came a tired and feminine voice.
"Hey Mary," Lyle said, hugging his sister-in-law. "No, but Tobias think she may have woken up for a second. She's gonna live."
Mary was staring at his chest. "What did I do?" she asked. "I let my son die and drove my daughter to this."
Keith stiffened his spine. "Buddy lived a long time because you both loved him so much. It's the same reason Pat's in . . . in there. Buddy loved his sister. Can you be strong enough to do the same?"
Mary glanced at him, her tear-stained eyes questioning him. Then she let go of Lyle and walked into the hospital room, pulling up a chair and taking hold of her daughter's hand.
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In the darkness . . .
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Pat felt something warm. It made her want to cry. Her brother used to hold her hand sometimes when he knew she was feeling like crap. She knew it wasn't him. She knew she couldn't keep her eyes closed forever, as badly as she wanted to. So she cracked them open.
It was her mother in the room with her. Mrs. Mary Baker hadn't noticed that Pat was awake yet. Pat glanced at the window and saw her Uncle Lyle, Keith and Tobias staring in the window. They most DEFINITELY noticed she was awake. They slowly walked inside, obviously nervous. That was when Mary realized something was up. Tobias left to wake up Reginald while mother and daughter locked eyes on each other.
"What . . ." Pat started in a raspy voice, "are you doing here?" Her tone was empty.
"Pat," Mary replied, her eyes, face and voice pained. She went to hug the girl who tried to turn away, finding herself constrained by a series of belts and buckles reserved for those patients on suicide watch and might be a danger to themselves. So she turned away from her mother as best she could.
