Page 82 of Just Desserts

Alyssa

A week or two passed, it could have been a month honestly. Time was fuzzy in the psych ward. Everyone wanted to ask me questions about what happened on that night. What caused me tosnapas everyone was considering it. No one understood that it had been Islas' fault the whole time. I wasn’t having a psychotic episode, Isla had this coming after the years of torment I had to stand by and take from her.

My emotions were a leaking sieve, filled to the brim with bile and hate, just waiting for a chance to seep through so everyone else could feel my pain. Isla pushed me too far, embarrassed me too much. She deserved everything that happened to her and more. I could sense everyone's frustration at my refusal to admit any wrongdoing.

The sour looks on their faces at my adamant denial that this was some sort of break in reality, burrowed under my skin only fueling my righteous indignation. They wanted to shove me in a box and put me away, neatly filing all of my actions under the label of mentally ill. I wasn't crazy, and I was tired of everyone trying to make me feel that way.

My parents tried to buy my forgiveness by hiring a lawyer for me but I fired that fucker on the spot. They made their choice and I don't need them or their help. I was assigned a court appointed lawyer instead, some recent graduate fresh out oflaw school and totally green, l had more experience under my belt than him.

I wasn’t surprised to hear that Jonathan had left town, slithering away like the coward he is. I was happy to hear he was fired alongside me but I still held him accountable for my fall. We had everything within reach and he had to tuck tail and go running home instead of moving up like we could have. I was being charged with two counts of kidnapping and attempted murder as well as one count of grievous bodily harm for what happened with Wes.

The only silver lining was the news about Wes's recovery. I didn't want my brother dead, but he chose his side when he got there that night. He chose Isla over me when he stepped between us. I was still haunted by the image of the knife pushing into his body, remembering the feel as the blade cut through flesh and muscle, how his skin turned pale as he collapsed on the floor. Once again this was all Islas' fault.

The lawyers my parents hired for me were pushing for psych treatment rather than prison but it was taken off the table when I fired them. The public defender said I was deemed sane when I made the decision to find my own representation and therefore any option of serving time in a psychiatric facility rather than jail was now gone. I was allowed to stay in the psych ward until my case went to trial and I was officially sentenced.

As much as I didn't want to go to jail, I didn't belong here among the drugged up, delusional halfwits finger painting with their oatmeal. The group therapy sessions were a joke as well. Most of the time I kept my mouth shut and listened to the looney tunes complain about all the perceived wrongs against them. They jabbered on about fights with imaginary people and alien abductions.

These were the people I was surrounded by, the peers I was supposed to share with. None of them knew what it was like to live in the real world, to face real issues with real people on a daily basis. Forced to share during one session, I gave a very condensed version of all that Isla had taken from me.

One of the inmates who was attending the group from the main prison was looking at me funny, snorting after I rolled my eyes at her. When the group was dismissed, I lingered. Tonya was always the last to leave, needing to wait for the guard from her ward to grab her and escort her back. I used the opportunity to see if she had something to say to me.

"You have a problem with what I said?" Looking at this ugly bitch who had the audacity to judge me. She had an ankle monitor on and her orange jumpsuit made her stand out among the beige colors that engulfed the psych patients.

"Girl, your cousin did nothing to you. You let her live rent free in your brain blaming her for the world when you done fucked everything up yourself. Didn't need her to do shit, you're a trainwreck all your own."

Outrage suffused me and when I found myself at a loss for words I did the next best thing. I hocked a loogie and spit right in that bitches face. That was when I learned that the guards at the psych facility were slightly slower than the ones at jail. That lesson came a bit too late as the inmate jumped me.

She tackled me to the ground and proceeded to slam my head into the floor repeatedly before the guards were able to rip her off me. I remember the taste of copper as my mouth filled with blood, a tooth visible on the cement ground in front of my face before I finally blacked out.

Chapter 59

Myles

Since that awful night, Isla was basically living with me. We came to an unspoken agreement where we never spent the night apart. My house had more room than her apartment and was also closer to Sarah so we naturally gravitated here. We were also looking into senior centers nearby.

I was open to having Grams live with us, I had more than enough money to buy a bigger house or build a mother in law apartment but Grams didn't want us cramping her style. She was the one leading the charge so she could be closer to her two girls, as she referred to Isla and Sarah, but still have enough independence.

Sarah lived in an apartment building a few miles away from the hotel but more importantly it was only a block or two from the house she grew up in. Her father and three youngest siblings still lived there. She had another brother, Aiden, who was currently in college out of state. Sarah's mom had always been a touchy subject. She seemed to leave and come back without a care for how that interfered or affected her children. I know it was a reason why Sarah stayed so heavily involved with her siblings day to day lives. She went to parent teacher meetings, school shows, sporting events; the works.

Her two youngest siblings were a pair of twins, Eric and Evie. From what I understood her mother left before telling anyone she was pregnant then came back just in time to give birth and disappear again. Sarah moved back in with her dad at the timeand has basically raised the twins since birth. Her father took on more hours so he could support all the kids and as much as he tried, I knew a lot of pressure was put on Sarah to step up. The twins who were now six, along with their 14 year old brother Zach, were frequent visitors at the hotel and now my house and Isla's bakery.

As soon as Isla met Sarah's family, she seamlessly enveloped them into our lives. Helping Sarah with extracurricular events, making sure they had cupcakes for bake sales and birthdays, my girl made me proud. I couldn't wait to see how she would be with our kids. A thought I had more and more frequently. After that night, the fear of losing her still held me in its grip. I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with Isla, wanted marriage, babies and growing old together on the front porch. I even had a ring picked out, I just felt like the time was off.

She was distracted with Wes, with Alyssa's upcoming trial and although she returned to therapy with a vengeance we weren't out of the woods yet. Isla still woke up screaming in the middle of the night, reaching for Wes or Grams. The hardest times were when she woke herself up crying, wondering what she did wrong to make Alyssa hate her this much. I didn't have an answer and had started joining in on some of her therapy sessions when she asked me. I was grateful, I liked her therapist and it felt like a safe place to ask how I could be there for Isla, how to support her.

I didn't have the same feelings about Alyssa, I wanted her to rot in jail for the rest of her life. I found myself awake in the middle of the night, clinging to Isla's small form. Afraid that I would wake up and she would be missing. As a habit, before bed I made a point to kiss each of her scars from that night. A reminder of how brave my girl was, how much she had to endure. It killed me to know that Isla was disappointed in herself. I had heard her say that she should have done more tostop it and that wrecked me. I thought that was wildly unfair, but I also didn't want to dismiss or downplay any of Isla's concerns.

Since her arrest, Alyssa has done everything to dig herself into a deeper hole. She fired the lawyers her parents arranged for her and lost the prospect of serving time at a psychiatric facility rather than in prison. Personally I was relieved but I knew it was taking a toll on both Isla and Wes. Wes barely asked about Alyssa, and seemed to want to avoid discussing her at all costs.

From the brief words I could get out of him I understood he was stuck in the middle of a lot of competing emotions. He was pissed, beyond pissed at his sister not only for what she did but because of her latest intent to refuse any and all help given to her. I also knew, like Isla, he blamed himself.

He said as much when the affair came to light, he knew Alyssa had feelings about Isla and was feeling guilty then. I was grateful that he felt comfortable enough to share that much with me, but I also knew it took more than a couple conversations with a friend to get over something of this magnitude. I wanted to suggest therapy but knew Wes had to come to that decision himself.

Right now he was fighting the idea of taking the appropriate amount of time off from work. I know he wanted to throw himself back into a job, lose himself in work rather than sit around dealing with his sister's pending future. Wes and Isla were similar that way. I understood where he was coming from, but also didn't want my friend to push himself too far.

It was why I was so grateful for Sarah's presence in our lives, and the way she seamlessly dragged Wes into our little unit. She bossed him around and like the rest of us he had no choice but to listen. I refused to give in to Isla's prodding when it cameto speculating about a relationship between Wes and Sarah.

Bro code told me to stick by Wes and not push him, but the truth was I was terrified of Sarah. I wasn't willing to betray either of them, even to my future wife. That is, if she accepted the ring that was burning a hole in my pocket.

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