Changing Lanes (Lake Park University Book 1) Read online

  “I don’t hate you, Rico,” she tells me softly and I look up at her. “I never hated you.”

  “Then how do you feel about me?”

  “Right now, grateful,” she answers and smiles at me. “You’re still the person who knows me better than anyone else, and I’m glad I came into this coffee shop this morning. I needed a friend more than I thought I did.”

  “So, does that mean we’re friends again?” I ask, hopeful.

  “I think we can be friends again,” she responds, and I smile.

  “I’d like that very much,” I tell her. “I have to get back to work. Are you going to be okay?”

  “Yeah,” she responds and looks at the window. “I’m going to finish my muffin and coffee, then go see my mom. I need to talk to Aunt Margie, too, I guess. Uncle James is going to be upset with her, but that can’t be avoided.”

  “Here,” I say and pull a notepad from the pocket of my apron. I scribble my number on one of the order tickets, then rip it out and hand it to her. “Call me if you need to talk.”

  She takes the paper I hand her and looks at it for a second before she slips it into her pocket. I’m nearly certain she just memorized it, and I smile at her.

  “Thank you,” she says, and I nod before returning to the counter.

  I watch her for a couple of minutes before the bell over the door rings and a small group of students from the local high school walk in. They’re regulars, and I greet them with a smile.

  Once I’ve finished with them, I look over to the table Gray was at, and notice it’s empty. Sighing, I pull my attention to what I’m doing.

  A few minutes later, my phone dings, and I glance at the screen. It’s a text from a number I don’t recognize, so I open it and my face lights up in a smile.

  GRAYCEN: Thank you for talking to me this morning. It helped more than I could have guessed. You always were one of the people I could turn to no matter what.

  I quickly save her number before I reply.

  ME: Any time. U will always be someone I care about.

  GRAYCEN: See you at practice.

  ME: See u then

  I get back to work with a smile on my face. Seeing Gray, talking to her, has made my morning so much brighter.

  I’m focused on making a cappuccino for one of the high school students when the bell over the door rings again.

  “Welcome to Mean Bean,” I say absently without turning around.

  “Al,” I hear Xander’s voice say and I cringe a little.

  “Hey, Xan,” I say, still without turning around. “I’ll be with you in a second.”

  “Have you seen Graycen?” He asks, as I turn to look at him.

  “She was in a little while ago,” I answer him honestly. “She left while I was taking care of some customers though.”

  “Shit,” he says softly.

  “Why don’t you just call her?” I ask.

  “She’s upset with my dad, and not answering my calls or responding to my texts,” he responds, and I have to stop the smile that wants to form on my face.

  “Why is she upset with your dad? I didn’t realize she even knew him,” I say. I won’t tell him she talked to me about it. He just doesn’t need that information.

  He sighs and runs his hand through his hair in frustration before looking back up at me. “She came by this morning. I was going to go with her to visit her mom. When she was telling my dad where we were going, he mentioned my aunt and uncle live there. Long story short, Gray’s uncle is married to my aunt. Aunt Margie told Dad some things about Gray’s mom, and Dad told Gray. She was really upset when she left my house. I’m worried about her.”

  “She seemed fine when she was here,” I tell him, which isn’t the complete truth, but she was fine by the time she left here. “She had coffee and a muffin, then she left. I have no idea where she was going though. We don’t exactly talk, you know.”

  “Shit,” he says again, and I almost feel bad for lying to him. “Thanks, Al. If you see her again before practice, tell her I need to talk to her.”

  “Will do,” I tell him. “Need anything else?”

  “Yeah,” he replies and looks at the menu. “Coffee, black and a blueberry muffin. To go.”

  “Coming right up,” I respond and quickly get his order ready. After he pays, he smiles at me then leaves the shop.

  “Shit,” I mutter and sigh. I don’t want him and Graycen together, but it isn’t my place to keep them apart.

  “What’s wrong?” My boss asks as he steps from the back of the shop. “You look like you’ve been punched in the gut.”

  “The girl I was talking to earlier, the one I took my break with, she’s someone from my past. Someone that, until a couple of weeks ago, I had not seen in four years,” I tell him and run my hands through my hair. “She goes to school with me, she’s on the bowling team with me, and seeing her again, talking to her again, is stirring up thoughts and feelings I thought were long dead.”

  “Who is she to you?” He asks.

  “She’s the twin sister of a girl I once dated. A girl who was killed in a violent incident,” I answer and sigh. “I was dating her sister when she was killed, and I was driving the car she was in when she died.”

  “Shit, dude,” he says, and I chuckle. “That’s some pretty deep shit.”

  “Tell me about it,” I respond then look out the window. I wonder if Gray is going to see her mom. I hope she is, but I can’t be sure.

  “You like her, don’t you?” He asks and I chuckle again. For a twenty-three year old guy, Dustin sure is observant.

  “Yeah,” I answer and run my hands through my hair again. “But there’s nothing I can do about that. Until she forgives me for what happened to her sister, we can never truly be back to where we were.”

  “And where was that?”

  “Once upon a time, she was my best friend,” I answer and sigh. “Her entire family was more like a family to me than my own, and I lost them all after the incident.”

  “So, they all blamed you?”

  “Her dad didn’t,” I answer and sigh again. “He and I still talk, but it was nothing like it was before. He’s there when I need someone to talk to, but he’s not the father figure I once saw him as.”

  “Seems like you lost as much as they did,” Dustin muses and I look at him and frown. I’d never looked at it that way, but what he says is true. When Gav was killed, I not only lost her, but I also lost the family I counted on more than anyone else.

  “Yeah,” I answer and turn back to the cappuccino machine. “I deserved it, though. If I’d been a better boyfriend, the boyfriend she truly deserved, Gavyn would still be alive, and their lives would be so much different.”

  “You were sixteen, Al. How could you have guessed something like that would happen?” He asks and I sigh again.

  “You’re right, but that doesn’t change anything,” I tell him and glance at the clock. “I need to get this finished before we start getting busy. Some people will be arriving on campus today, and we’ll be bombarded by college students in a little while.”

  “Yeah,” Dustin responds and glances at the clock before looking back at me.

  “I’m alright,” I tell him and grin. “I just need to focus on this, and not let my mind reflect on the past.”

  “I’ll leave you to it, then,” he says and shakes his head before he walks into the back and starts prepping for the late morning customers.

  I focus on cleaning the machines, and stocking everything until the bell over the door rings again. I paste a smile on my face and turn toward the customers who just entered. Pushing aside all thoughts for the next few hours, I let my job consume me, and relax into my normal groove. I know I’ll have to face the demons from my past soon, but that day isn’t today, and I have a job to do.

  Chapter Seven

  Graycen

  “Mom,” I call out as I enter the small house we’ve lived in for the past four years. Silence answers me, and I get an eerie feelin
g in the pit of my stomach. “Mom?”

  Again, nothing. I walk into her bedroom, and gaze around for a moment before I shake my head and walk back out. I thought maybe she was sleeping, but no, that’s not it. Sighing, I turn and head down the hall to my bedroom. I’m going to grab more of my clothes today, and a few other things I want in the dorm with me, so I may as well get that together while I wait for her to come back from wherever she’s gone.

  I open my bedroom door and a gasp when my eyes land on my mom. She’s lying on my bed and appears to be sleeping. “Mom?” I ask as I approach her. She’s not a sound sleeper, not these days anyway, and when she doesn’t respond, I start to worry.

  “Mom?” I say from right beside her and reach out to shake her. When I touch her, my blood turns to ice. Her skin is cold and clammy, and I can tell she’s barely breathing. My eyes dart around the room, and land on the bottle in the floor beside my bed. My antidepressants, the ones I haven’t taken in about two years, are gone. There was probably thirty or so pills in that bottle, and it was empty now.

  I pull my phone from my back pocket and dial nine-one-one. Mom is still breathing, so there’s hope she’ll be okay.

  “Nine-one-one, how may I help you?”

  “It’s my mom. She’s taken a bottle of antidepressants, and I can’t get her to wake up,” I say then rattle off our address.

  “How many were in the bottle?” The dispatcher asks.

  “Around thirty,” I answer then pick up the bottle and tell her the name of them. “They’re about a year out of date, too.”

  “I’ve dispatched an ambulance,” she tells me. “Is your mom breathing?”

  “Barely,” I answer as I start to panic a little. What if they aren’t here in time to save her? What if I wasn’t here in time to save her? What if my running late is what caused this?

  “EMTs are two minutes out,” she tells me, and I inhale deeply to calm myself. I can’t be freaking out when I call Uncle James.

  “I hear the sirens,” I say a moment later. If I can hear them, Uncle James can too.

  “Stay on the line with me until they’re there,” she says, and I nod. I hear the sirens cut off, and I run to the front door as two EMTs are jumping from the ambulance.

  I lead them through our small house, and into my bedroom before I thank the dispatcher and end the call.

  As they take her vitals, I step from the room and call Uncle James.

  “Graycen, what’s wrong? I heard sirens a minute ago,” he says when he answers the phone.

  “It’s Mom,” I answer, and finally let myself break down. “She swallowed a bottle of pills.”

  “I’ll be right there,” he responds, and I hear him say something to Aunt Margie before he ends the call.

  I crumple to the floor as one of the paramedics walks from the room. He’s a younger guy, probably only a couple years older than I am, and he immediately comes to my aid.

  “Here,” he says and reaches out to me. I lay my hand in his and let him pull me to my feet and lead me over to the small sofa. “Can I get some information from you?”

  I nod in response as I wipe the tears from my face.

  “What’s your mom’s name?” He asks as he pulls a small notebook form his shirt pocket.

  “Eden Kelley,” I answer automatically. “Her birthday is September twenty-fifth nineteen seventy-eight.”

  “Okay, and who’s pills was it she took?”

  “Mine,” I answer and press the heels of my hands to my eyes to stop the tears from falling. “I had forgotten they were even here. I haven’t taken them in about two years.”

  “Okay,” he says and writes everything down in his notebook. “And what’s your name?”

  “Graycen Kelley, that’s spelled G R A Y C E N,” I tell him. I’ve gotten in the habit of spelling out my name because everyone misspells it.

  “What’s going on?” Uncle James asks before the paramedic can ask me anything else. “How’s Eden?”

  “Uncle James,” I cry out and shoot off the couch and into his strong embrace. He has been like a father to me for the past four years, and he is the only one I want right now.

  “She’s stable,” the older paramedic says as he walks from my bedroom wheeling out a gurney. “We’re moving her now.”

  “We’ll be right behind you,” Uncle James answers and grabs my keys from the table where I’d tossed them when I came into the house.

  “You drive,” I tell him, and he nods. He knows I’m not up for driving right now.

  “Let’s go,” he responds and follows the paramedics out the door. I follow behind him, shutting and locking the door on my way out.

  Once in the car, he looks at me for a second, then starts the engine and makes a big circle in the dirt to fall behind the ambulance.

  “Wanna tell me what happened?” He asks when we hit the main road into town.

  “I don’t know,” I tell him. “I was running late this morning, despite an early start, and when I got home I called out for Mom, but she didn’t answer. I checked her bedroom, but it was empty, so I went into mine to gather a few more things I needed for school. When I opened my door, I saw mom on my bed. I thought she was asleep at first, so I tried to wake her up. As soon as I touched her, I knew something was wrong. That’s when I saw the empty bottle lying on the floor beside the bed. Uncle James, she took the antidepressants I was on after Gav died. There were at least thirty in that bottle, and they were about a year out of date.”

  “Shit,” he says and runs his hand down his face. “She’s going to be okay.”

  “I need to call Dad,” I say, instead of responding to his reassurance.

  “Yeah,” he says, but his tone tells me he doesn’t agree with me calling Dad.

  “Uncle James,” I say, and he shakes his head. “Dad needs to know what’s going on. And I need to call my coach. I may not be at practice Monday, and he needs to know why.”

  “You’ll be at practice Monday,” he says, and I look over at him. “You’re not going to risk your scholarship, Graycen.”

  “But,” I start, and he shakes his head.

  “But nothing,” he tells me as we pull into the hospital parking lot and he kills the engine. “You worked too hard and put in too many hours to risk losing it all. We’ll know something about your mom’s condition before you have to be back for practice, and I’ll be here to oversee everything.”

  “Uncle James, I can’t ask you to do that,” I say, and he sighs. “She’s my mom, my responsibility.”

  “She’s my baby sister,” he reminds me. “And I haven’t done enough to help her over the past couple weeks. Shit, the signs were there, but I ignored them. I should have made her go get help before it came to this.”

  “The signs have been there for a while,” I remind him. “And you couldn’t make her get help. She always refused help, remember?”

  “Yeah,” he responds and runs his hand down his face again. He is six years older than Mom, but you would never know that by looking at him.

  “Come on,” I say and get out of the car. “Let’s go see what they can tell us.”

  He nods and gets out of the car. “Call your dad and call your coach. They both do need to know what’s going on.”

  “After we talk to the doctor,” I tell him, and he nods. He knows I won’t call anyone until I know what’s going on.

  “Eden Kelley,” he says when we stop in front of the nurse who’s working the check-in desk. “She was brought in by ambulance a few moments ago.”

  “She’s being examined now,” she answers and looks at the two of us. “I’m assuming you’re family.”

  “I’m her daughter, and this is her brother,” I answer and nod toward Uncle James.

  “Go through that door, and she’s in room three,” she tells us. “I’ll buzz you through the door.”

  “Thanks,” I say and walk to the door just as it buzzes then clicks. I tug it open and Uncle James walks through it right on me heels. I stop before I reac
h the room mom’s in, and I take a deep breath to calm myself.

  “You okay, kiddo?” Uncle James asks, and I shake my head.

  “No,” I answer quietly.

  “She’s going to be okay, kiddo,” he says, and I nod. I can’t seem to be as optimistic as he is. “Let’s go see your mom.”

  I nod again, and he opens the door to the glass room she’s in. The curtain is pulled, and as the door opens a young doctor steps out from behind it.

  “May I help you?” He asks, looking at us.

  “I’m Eden Kelley’s daughter,” I answer, and he nods then looks at Uncle James. “He’s her brother. What can you tell us?”

  “She’s stable, at the moment. We’re about to take her down and pump her stomach. According to the paramedics, she swallowed about thirty antidepressants, correct?” He asks and I nod. “We’ll keep her here for the next few days after we get the drug out of her system so we can monitor for any organ damage. Afterwards, she will be released into a facility. It’s standard procedure after someone attempts suicide.”

  “Where will the facility be?” Uncle James asks.

  “Gainesville, most likely,” the doctor answers. “We’ll see where we can get her a bed.”

  “I’m in Gainesville for school,” I tell him, and he nods. “Will we be able to visit her at the facility?”

  “Probably not at first,” he answers. “Most have a seven or fourteen day lockdown for new arrivals. After that, you should be able to see her. Once we have a place for her, I will let you know where she’s at.”

  “Thank you,” I say and sigh. “Can I see her now?”

  “Of course,” he responds and pushes the curtain back. “They’ll be up in a moment to take her down, but you can stay here until they come.”

  “Thank you,” I say again, and he smiles at me before he walks out of the room.

  I inhale deeply again then walk over to where my mom is lying, unconscious, in the bed.

  “Why did you do it, Mom?” I ask softly and take her hand. I’m mindful of the tubes coming from her arm, as I look at her pale face. “I know losing Gav has been hard on you, but I’m still here. I still need you.”