The Parents
MASON
“Sit down, Mason,” Brittany snaps at me the next day around 8 a.m.
I’ve been pacing the small room for the past hour at least, wanting—no, needing—either an update on Lily or even better, to see her.
I nod and sit back down in the seat next to her and automatically start bouncing my leg up and down.
“Oh my god!” She huffs, grabbing a hold of my knee while Liam chuckles quietly.
“I swear to god, Mason, just sit still,” she hisses through her teeth, digging her nails into the knee pads.
“Can’t,” I grumble but try to stop my legs bouncing.
“I’m going to get coffee.” She sighs, getting to her feet, while Jonah jumps to his feet and immediately offers to go with her.
“I think this is the longest he’s been in one place for,” Harry comments casually as they head down the hallway.
“Same with this one.” Liam half-smiles, jabbing his thumb at my scowling face.
“Do you think we’ll be allowed to see her today?” I ask, rubbing my dry eyes.
“I don’t know.” Liam sighs, giving me that fucking sympathetic look again. I really want to tell him to fucking stop it, but I bite my tongue. For now.
Ten minutes later, Brittany and Jonah still aren’t back, so when the elevator opens I don’t bother turning around.
Only when Harry jumps to his feet and calls out Mrs. Bennett do I whip around.
I see Brittany and Jonah both clutching coffee trays and a food bag each, followed closely by who I’m guessing are Lily’s parents.
Lily’s mom looks a lot like her. Both of them have small frames and the same facial structure, but her mom’s eyes are brown and her hair is dyed a fake blonde, clearly not natural like Lily’s.
“Oh, Harry, you’re here,” Mrs. Bennett says, taking a few steps closer to us before placing a kiss onto his cheek.
“Murray has just gone to see if the doctor can talk to us,” she explains, sitting down across from me as Britt and Jonah hand out coffees.
“We haven’t heard anything since last night.” Harry sighs, sitting next to her.
“The woman on the phone didn’t say much. Just that she was in a coma.” Mrs. Bennett shrugs almost indifferently.
“The doctor will be out shortly.” A man, who I’m assuming is Mr. Bennett, states, sitting in the seat next to his wife, directly across from me. “Hello.” He nods to me and Liam.
His eyes are red and bloodshot, like he’s either been up all night or crying. Maybe both.
“This is Mason and Liam and Brittany. And my boyfriend, Jonah.” Harry introduces everyone awkwardly, flicking his eyes between us.
“You’re friends with Lily?” Mr. Bennett asks, looking at both me and Liam with slightly narrowed eyes.
“Yes, sir. Mason met her during the summer and introduced us not long after football season started,” Liam offers up, elbowing me in the side slightly.
“You play football?” he asks, his graying eyebrows shooting up.
“Yes, sir. I’m the running back and he’s the QB.”
“I thought Oliver was the quarterback,” Lily’s mom interrupts, making an awkward silence hang between us.
“Ah, we, um…” Liam fumbles over his words.
“We go to Greendale,” I state, watching her scoff and screw her face up in disgust while Mr. Bennett nods his head slightly as if he understands everything now.
Mrs. Bennett opens her mouth to say something but is cut off by the same doctor as last night.
“Mr. and Mrs. Bennett, I’m Doctor Sarah Bale. I’ve been looking after Lily,” she states, glancing between Brittany and them.
“Yes, how is she? Is she awake?” Mr. Bennett asks, jumping to his feet while Mrs. Bennett stays seated.
“Unfortunately not. We’re going to start weaning her off the medication,” she says, raising her eyebrow slightly at Lily’s mom.
“How long will it take for her to wake up?” Mr. Bennett asks.
“There’s no set time. It could be within a couple of hours or days,” Doctor Bale explains gently.
“Well, you can call us when she wakes,” Mrs. Bennett states, hitting her hands against her thighs and standing up.
What the fuck is wrong with this woman? Her daughter is in a fucking coma and she doesn’t give a shit.
I go to stand up to give her a piece of my mind but am pulled straight back down by Liam, who shakes his head.
“Right. Well, if that’s what you want,” Doctor Bale says, not hiding her disgust.
“No. I’m not going anywhere.” Mr. Bennett shakes his head ferociously while glaring at his wife.
“Are any of you three boys Mason by any chance?” she asks, looking between us.
“I am,” I state, jumping to my feet, my heart beginning to fasten.
“Right, you’d better come too,” she says, gesturing toward the doors she came out of.
Finally, I get to see my princess.
“Are you serious, Murray? We have a flight to catch.” Mrs. Bennett huffs.
“Of course I’m fucking serious, Heather. Our daughter is in a coma! Just go home!” he exclaims, shaking his head and turning his back on his wife.
“This way.” The doctor leads the way through the double doors and down a long hallway.
“The people that stopped to help her said she was asking about Mason and wouldn’t calm down until they told her he was coming,” she explains as Mr. Bennett and I follow.
“Did she say anything else?” he asks, glancing at me while I fight back tears again.
“She said her mom yelled at her,” she replies, stopping outside a room.
“Interesting,” he mutters before pushing the door open and going in.
I stare at the wooden door, wanting to go in and see Lily, but at the same time I’m scared.
“Everything okay?” the doctor asks me gently.
“Does she look dead?” I whisper, feeling my palms start to sweat.
“She looks like she’s sleeping,” she replies, placing her hand on my shoulder.
“Just talk to her like you normally would,” she adds before squeezing my shoulder slightly and walking off.
I stare at the door a little longer before taking a deep breath and pushing it open.
The first thing I see is Lily lying flat on her back with tubes coming out of her mouth and nose, along with multiple other tubes and cords attached to her hands and arms.
Her dad is sitting on a seat to the left of her, holding her hand while he quietly cries.
“You can come sit down.” His voice cracks.
I tear my eyes away from Lily’s body and take the seat on her right. I eye the cord sticking off her pointer finger and gently stroke the top of her hand, not wanting to move something by accident.
I look up at her face, and before I can stop myself I let out a gasp.
Her face is covered in a shitload of tiny cuts, her lip has a couple of stitches on the left side, and a large bandage covers the right side of her neck, blood seeping through.
Honestly, she looks like shit.
“She looks awful,” Mr. Bennett comments under his breath before we fall into a comfortable silence.
We both sit in the silence, other than the odd sniffle from Mr. Bennett, for twenty minutes, only interrupted by Lily’s doctor coming in.
I move out of the way but watch intently as she checks Lily over before bringing up insurance and paperwork to her dad, and they leave the room.
The second the door closes behind them I gently pick up Lily’s hand and bring it to my lips.
“Hi, princess,” I whisper. “You’re going to wake up soon,” I say, watching her chest move up and down at a steady pace.
“I love you,” I add quietly before kissing her hand again and lowering it back to the bed. “The doctor said you look like you’re sleeping,” I start as I draw circles on her hand.
“But your hair is too neat and you aren’t buried under a thousand blankets or somehow taking up the whole bed while being curled up.”
“God, I hope you wake up soon,” I mutter before letting my head drop onto the edge of the bed.
I want to cry again, but I can’t. I’m all dried up.
“You’re her boyfriend?” Mr. Bennett’s voice asks, making me jump and sit up straight. I didn’t even hear him come in.
“Ah, yeah,” I reply, scratching the back of my neck.
“She never mentioned having a new boyfriend,” he comments as he sits back down across from me.
“I’m not surprised,” I mutter, flicking my eyes back down to Lily.
“What’s that meant to mean?” her dad snaps at me.
“Not the time or place,” I mumble, wanting to tell him exactly how shitty of parents I think they both are.
“She wasn’t doing good, was she?” He sighs sadly, picking up her hand.
“She missed you both.” I nod, looking at the bandage on her neck.
“Oh god,” Mr. Bennett mutters before he’s full on sobbing onto Lily’s hand. “I’m so sorry, Lily-Pad.” He cries over and over before making what I’m guessing are empty promises to be home more.
***
It’s been exactly seven days since Lily was admitted to the hospital.
It’s been exactly seven days since I’ve been outside of this stupid hospital.
Liam and Brittany have been bringing me clean clothes, and eventually the nurses let me use the shower connected to Lily’s room when they realized I wasn’t leaving.
Lily still hasn’t woken up.
Her fingers and eyes have twitched, but Doctor Sarah said that it was her reflexes or some shit.
The first time it happened, me and Murray both rushed to get the doctors and nurses, but they quickly shut us down.
Murray hasn’t actually been too bad. He comes up first thing in the morning and leaves just after dinner. He likes to tell me stories of Lily when she was a little girl.
Not once has her mom come to see her. Unless she snuck in while I was showering, but I highly fucking doubt it.
“Harry said he was going to visit after school,” Murray comments casually as we both finish up the breakfast bagels he brings in every morning.
“Cool.” I nod, screwing my garbage up and throwing it into the trash can.
“Have you been talking to her?” he asks, clearing his throat.
A couple of days ago the doctor said that if we talk to Lily it might encourage her to wake up. Murray talks nonstop. So does Brittany. Harry just comes in, says sorry, and cries before leaving again.
I talk to her a bit around the others, but I only really talk to her when it’s just her and me.
“Yes,” I mumble, watching Lily’s chest rise and fall. All her tubes and all but one of the wires on her finger are gone. She looks more like herself. Just a busted-up version.
“Do you have any siblings?” Murray asks me, changing the subject completely.
“Three,” I mutter, not moving my eyes away.
“I grew up with a big family. I also wanted to have at least three kids, but Heather was done after Lily,” he rambles while I simply hum in response.
“Tell me about them,” he states, making me finally draw my eyes away from Lily.
“I’m curious. You haven’t left my daughter’s side once. You looked like a wreck that first night.” He half-chuckles before shaking his head.
“Hell, you’re the quarterback at Greendale, which means you obviously knew who she was when you met her, but you’re still her boyfriend. I’m curious about you.” He explains himself.
“I have an older brother who’s dead and two little sisters,” I mutter, giving him a little information. I feel bad for the guy. I know a lot about him, but he knows practically nothing about me.
“What do your parents do?”
“I don’t know my dad. Mom is a drunk living off one of her ex-husbands’ money.”
“You don’t know your dad?” Murray gasps, shock clear on his face.
“I don’t think my mom actually knows who he is. Just said that whatever boyfriend she was with at the time was him.” I shrug, looking back at Lily.
“Are you close with your sisters?” he questions, changing the subject.
“I was close with my brother. My sisters are annoying, but yeah, I guess so,” I reply as images of Lily’s shocked face flash through my mind from when Tayla blamed Gemma for eating her candy.
“What did you just think of?” Murray voices, interrupts my thoughts and making me realize I was smiling to myself.
“Nothing,” I mumble, leaning forward and grabbing hold of Lily’s hand.
“A little while ago I stole my sister’s candies and made Lily eat them all with me,” I begin slowly, wishing I didn’t stop kissing her that night.
“Then a little while later she was over at my house and Tayla blamed our little sister, Gemma. Lily felt really bad and wanted to tell her the truth,” I add, feeling Lily’s fingers twitch in my hand.
“I remember my brothers doing something similar to me.” He chuckles. “I probably could be nicer to them.”
I sigh, thinking about how Brittany said they’ve been calling and texting constantly and wanted to come up here. But I told them no.
“How did you and Lily meet?” he asks casually.
“I was running at this trail and I saw her stomping around in this dress and sandals. She looked so mad.” I half-smile.
“But then she started sobbing, so I asked if she was okay and we just began talking.”
“Why was she crying?” he whispers sadly.
“She just caught Kingsley sleeping with that bimbo friend of hers,” I mutter, feeling the anger and hatred I have for the son of a bitch start to build up again.
“What?” Murray gasps before grabbing hold of Lily’s other hand.
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you, Lily-Pad,” he whimpers, kissing her hand over and over before he starts with the promises to be here again.
“Tell me more,” he sniffles, lifting his head back up to look at me.
I spend the next half an hour telling him about random things Lily and I did over the summer, making sure to leave out the drinking, drugs, and sex, of course.
“I took her to a waterfall,” I find myself saying before I can stop myself. “We hiked for hours before jumping off the top and swimming,” I whisper.
I lift her dainty hand and bring it to my lips, trying to fight back tears as I think about how caring she was when I was telling her about Callum.
Lily’s fingers twitch under my lips, and her eyes flutter for the umpteenth time today.
“Keep going,” Murray whispers quietly.
“I knew I loved you then,” I whisper to Lily, ignoring her dad.
“I wanted to tell you so many times,” I add, closing my eyes and picturing her laughing and calling my name as I splashed her every time we went swimming.
Her squealing my name every time I would stop her from beating me in sprints.
“Mason.”
“Mason.”
“Mason.”
My eyes fly open only to be greeted by her blue eyes open all the way, staring back at me.
“Princess,” I whisper, not believing my eyes. Surely I’m dreaming.
“Mason,” Lily croaks out again before suddenly I’m pulled back from my princess.
