Shattered Dreams [EDITING] - Chapter 52: Chapter 52

NADIA'S POV:
I am rushed awake by an intense pain in my right abdomen and I almost cry out but I decide to be strong. I don't know how to explain the pain other than it feels like I am being stabbed over and over again. As I have been taking my pill all over the place I am sure it's because my period is due and the cramps are even worse than they were before as I haven't had a period in so long.
I try to ignore it but it's proving more and more complex and as I try to move from lying down, I cry out in pain. "Corey." I try to scream to wake him up but it comes out more of a whisper. I feel around the sofa to try and find him but I don't feel him anywhere, I begin to get panicked as I think I am all alone to deal with this myself but that panic is soon dismissed when I finally register the voices flowing through from the hallway.
Corey bought me some painkillers just before we lay down for the night so I will take them to try and overpower the pain in my side. I usually go for a hot water bottle when I have period cramps but I can't be arsed to get up and make one. Plus, I want to be nosey about the conversation that everyone can't seem to have in front of me.
Does anyone other than Corey even know I'm in here?
I push myself up off the sofa, wincing at the sharpness in my side as I move and give myself a few seconds to catch my breath before reaching for the tablets on the coffee table. There's no water there for me and I have no hot chocolate left so I can't drink that to ease the tablets down, even though it would be cold anyway.
Since my throat has felt much better since having the surgery to get my tonsils removed I have been able to swallow my tablets without any water perfectly fine. The scabs on the back of my throat have disappeared now so I am glad the tonsillitis is over, I just wish everything else would be too. That surgery was supposed to be a fresh start for me but I'm still stuck on the same merry-go-round.
I take my painkillers and just sit and listen, taking in everything they are talking about as I assume it's about me. I had no idea my parents and Willem would be back tonight as they said they were coming home tomorrow so they may have been wanting to surprise me. I'm glad they are back as it's been so long since I've seen them all but I'm also upset they are back as that means Corey has to go back home and has to go back to being my brother's friend rather than mine.
I like it when we can be just us.
I try my hardest to focus in on what they are saying now that the pain is beginning to settle slightly and I am startled when Corey's raised voice rings out. He doesn't say it too loud as if he's holding himself back in an attempt to not let me hear anything.
"What do you mean there's nothing wrong with her? All you have to do is take one fucking look at her to know that what she is telling you is true!" I furrow my eyebrows because why could he possibly be saying all this and why to my parents? He has never gotten into an argument with my parents before, or ever been close to one so for his confidence to allow him to fight back now must mean he's very pissed off.
"Calm down, Corey," My mum warns him in that strict tone of hers. My mum never uses this tone on us and only does it when we are really cutting it fine so for her to use it on Corey right now must mean it's bad."We took Nadia's hospital notes to multiple specialists and each one of them said there is nothing medically wrong with her. This is their words, not ours so how are we supposed to get her medical help when there is nothing to be helped?"
I breathe in deeply before releasing a long breath to try and calm my erratic thoughts down as I try to process what the hell I'm listening to right now. My mum may be repeating what these so-called professionals have said to her but she must believe their words enough to be repeating them. My mum has been a massive part of me being able to still be here with everything that's going on, so for her to say that there is nothing to be helped makes me feel incredibly alone, more than I felt before.
"It felt like our only option," My dad says in a more level-headed tone than my mum.
I scoff out loud whilst shaking my head in amusement because of this statement. This wasn't their only option, they could've taken me with them so I could prove to these doctors that I really am sick, so I can tell them how much I am suffering.
My tests may all be coming back normal but I know my body and I know when something is wrong so I should be listened to when I have concerns, not them going by a set of rules every time.
I want to burst out crying again because why won't anyone listen to me? And now Corey is going to be turned against me as even my own family don't believe me anymore.
"Why did you keep your visit from her?" Corey asks them all what I was also thinking and I'm so glad he's not backing down just yet. I can't see the expression on everyone's faces but I just know they aren't happy.
"We didn't want to scare her about everything and we didn't want to think she wasn't being believed. They told us not to tell her because it might send her into even more of a depressive episode." Willem explains to Corey and my eyes grow wide. I haven't heard Willem speak in this argument yet but now I kind of wish he kept his mouth shut so I don't have to bear the heartbreak of him turning against me too.
I'm not mad at them for keeping it from me as I can kind of understand why they did it but that doesn't stop me from being hurt by it. They could've told me they were going to speak to specialist doctors before they left and I would've been on board with it because of the hope it would've given me. I can agree that them telling me and giving me hope would be bad because it could all go tits up, just like it has done every time in the past but I still would've preferred to know.
"So, what's going to happen now?" Corey asks them and I listen in closer awaiting their answer.
"We are going to go and check on our daughter and discuss the options with her." My mum answers and I become more alert that they are now coming to speak to me. I feel my heartbeat get heavier in my chest and can hear it in my ears and the rush of adrenalin that has flooded throughout my body has seemed to erase the pain in my side.
I might just do daredevil tasks every day to wear off the pain so I don't have to deal with it.
I quickly rush out the living room door and make a way for the backdoor to escape the house and hope to death they didn't see me. I don't think they did as they didn't call out after me and they were still speaking under their breaths when I left. I'm not shocked they didn't see me because all I seem to be anymore is invisible, to everyone but Corey at this point. He's the only one sticking up for me and the only one in my corner.
The cold immediately touches my skin when I walk out into the back garden but it doesn't cause discomfort because of the adrenaline I still have pumping through my blood. My body is telling me to run away from everything and to start a new life completely away from here. I wish I could go back inside and grab Corey so he could start over with me. Just me and him without the world working against us.
I'm thankful that my car keys were on the kitchen counter so I could just snatch them up as I was escaping and I rush to my car, hoping Ellie is okay in the living room by herself.
I reach my car and drive it away, not bothering to check my blind spots or anything as I do as I'm in too much of a rush. I have nowhere I need to be but all I know is that I need to go.
With the destination still unclear in my mind, I drive down my road, turning at every corner, not caring what way I'm going. I reach a give-way junction and stop because no matter how much of a rush I seem to be in, I don't fancy being in a car accident.
There would be some irony in that because that's exactly how Archie died. I could just not stop and end up in the same fate as him but he will absolutely punish me forever in the afterlife if I did, if there is even such a thing.
I leave my engine running, also leaving my headlights on their dipped beam as I get out of the car, a slight twitch of pain forming in my side again as my adrenaline wears off. I walk in front of my car to the middle of the road and just sit down, staring at my car's headlights.
The roads are bare tonight anyway, with only the streetlights lighting up the road. All the houses on the street are void of light, telling me that everyone is living peaceful lives and is happily sleeping away. We never know what goes on behind the doors of every house we see and it is always something we could never assume by looking at it.
If you were to drive past my house and look at it, you would assume that there is a happy, wealthy family with two snobby kids who get handed everything but that's not right. We were once a happy, wealthy family but now we aren't happy and Willem and I aren't snobby. Willem is still the same old kid he was, just a bit less lively because of the shit I've put him through and I am a girl who has had everything taken from her with no explanation as to why that's happened.
The only sounds I can hear are the wind blowing the cool air around me and the music coming faintly from my car. My mind is racing now as I come down from the high of adrenalin and all I can seem to focus on is the betrayal from my family.
I know what they want and I know they want me to receive treatment in a mental institute as they feel like that's their only option. I didn't have to hear them say it to know that's what they want. I was on my dad's laptop months ago when I was doing school work on it because my laptop was dead and I couldn't muster up enough energy to go upstairs and get the charger. On his computer, I saw his search history of how to get someone sectioned with and without their consent. I hadn't thought about why he was searching for that and it didn't click at the time as I just thought it would be for something to help with one of my mum's books but clearly I was wrong.
You'd think that he would clear his search history before allowing his daughter to go on his computer. At least I didn't find any porn on there I suppose.
I knew my family would give up on me eventually, it was only a matter of time and I have no choice but to go into the mental hospital so I can prove to them that I really am this way and it's nothing to do with how I'm feeling mentally. My mental health won't improve in that prison because there is nothing wrong with it. The only way my mental health will improve is if I can get physically better.
I dream of a day where I can do something as simple as walking around my house without being in pain. I am fucking sick and tired of it all. Somehow the betrayal from them hurts more than the endless amounts of pain I've endured over the last few months.
When I'm in there and my parents, Willem and Corey see I'm making no improvements they will think I'm a lost cause and won't even want to visit me anymore.
I'm so scared of being left completely alone.
I stay sat with my legs crossed in the middle of the road, still trying to ignore the pain in my side and just wait. I don't know what I'm waiting for but I want someone to come and run me over, or at least try to. If someone runs me over and causes me injury at least then I have a reason to be in pain and the doctors can't turn me away when I am asking for care.
Sitting here on the road reminds me of when I was in the bath a few weeks back. I was lying in there, just waiting for a burst of energy to pull myself out of it but it never came, it was my brother who pulled me out. Now I am in the same sort of situation, just in the middle of a road instead of the bath. I'll wait here for someone to run me over to take me out of my constant misery, or until I get a shot of adrenalin again to save myself. If neither happens, then I'll just wait to figure out my fate.
I still don't know that if it came down to it I would save myself, I don't think I would be testing myself this much if I knew the answer to that.
I don't know how long I sit here in my own thoughts as I seem to be dissociated from the time when I hear a car on the road. I don't look towards it, I just look up at the moon peaking from behind the clouds and close my eyes, waiting for the impact.
Nothing comes and the sound of the car stops as it reaches closer to me. I stay with my eyes closed just in case I am imagining things and it's my subconscious trying to get me out of the situation.
"Nadia." My mum's voice comes out in a panic and I open my eyes slowly, being met with everyone's faces looking down on me with worry and I notice that Corey isn't with them but I can't bring myself to be alarmed about it.
"Why did you leave without telling anyone, sweet? Why didn't you answer your phone?" My dad rushes out, brushing my hair back out of my face as I stay unresponsive to them. I close my eyes again, wanting all of this to be a hallucination and for them to not actually be here.
If this was a hallucination then wouldn't Corey be here?
"Nadia, let's get out of the road, shall we?" Willem asks, trying to make an effort for me to listen to them. I don't acknowledge them and just try and drown their voices out as they try to get me to move. The adrenalin has fully worn off now and so I feel at an all-time low and my body is riddled with pain. I don't necessarily want to even think about moving.
"Nads," I hear Corey's voice and I immediately concentrate in on it. "Get off the road." He says it in such a delicate way that it makes me forget everything that lead me up to this moment in the first place.
I open my eyes, searching for his and see him already looking down on me with his familiar friendly smile. I nod up at him and wince as I try to stand. Willem and Corey both take an arm of mine each and pull me up, guiding me to my car, where I take a seat and turn off the engine so I'm not wasting any more fuel. I don't move my car from the road because now I am coming more and more to my senses, I realise that this road is a backroad and hardly any cars drive on it at this time of the night.
Corey helps me get comfortable on the seat as my face is clearly showing the discomfort I'm in and Willem looks between us with a bewildered expression. I don't care if we are making things seem obvious, Corey was the only one to not go behind my back and so he is the person I can trust the most right now.
"I overheard everything," I tell them, wiping away the tears that I didn't realise were coming until now. "Why would you keep it from me?"
"We didn't want to give you hope, sweet. All the past few months have done to you is knock you down and we couldn't bear to see you defeated by doctors yet again." My mum explains and I feel immediately stupid for overreacting slightly.
"I get that, I just wish you all told me," I begin, feeling my throat tighten at the emotion in my voice. "I feel like so much of an outsider already, don't you think it's only fair for you to discuss my condition with me instead of amongst yourselves?"
"We know that now, Nads. We are sorry." Willem speaks up, looking directly in my eyes so I know how serious he is being when he says those words.
"Did you know?" I look towards Corey now. I know that he didn't but I just want to hear it from him for confirmation and the shock that appears on his face when I ask this question tells me everything I need to know.
"No, of course not." He confirms and I relax a little. Willem looks between us again but we both choose to ignore the silent questions in his gaze.
"Did you at least find something that could help me?" I query and they all look between themselves.
"We found someone who may be able to help you, but it's a long shot." My dad is the one to answer and I cut in before he can finish off with what he was saying.
"I'm not sitting in a locked room for months being force-fed drugs just so I can forget about everything," I tell them firmly and I hope they know I won't be backing down.
"No, sweet. You won't be doing any of that, not unless it is your choice. We would never force you to do anything, you should know that." My mum reassures me and I grow confused.
"That didn't sound the case when you were talking about it with Corey," I mutter.
"We were still confused about what to think ourselves at that point and we thought having you go to a mental hospital could be an option. Only on the way to finding you here did we realise how wrong we are." Willem explains, sounding more mature than he actually is.
"So, tell me," I ask them.
"Are you sure? We just spoke about the hope thing." My mum says.
I look to Corey for some advice and he just shrugs his shoulders at me, either to tell me it's my decision or that he has no clue what they are about to say to me.
"Please," I beg them.
"Okay, Willem, tell her," Dad tells him and Willem takes over.
"This won't be a mental hospital, Nads, it'll be a real one with a real doctor." He begins.
"You've seriously found someone who will see me?" I ask in shock and awe and Willem nods his head with a growing smile.
"We haven't met him but we were googling him and he has dealt with many cases like yours so Mum got into contact with him on the way here and he seemed pretty eager to help," Willem goes over everything and I just stand there in awe.
"Nadia he thinks he knows what's wrong with you." My mum cuts in and I feel all the voices in my head go silent.