Never Too Late

Lucy's Point of View

While the doctor was in the hospital room talking to Lacey, I sat out in the waiting room with Gerard while Mikey went off to go get us all coffee. Neither one of us had said anything since Gerard has basically told my dad to fuck off, and I was in awe of him. No one since Mom had stood up for me and Lacey that way, especially against our dad. It almost felt like having her back for a second. Almost.

“That was pretty cool,” I said finally.

Gerard glanced over at me, his expression puzzled.

“Not the accident,” I backtracked, realizing that I’d started the conversation in the middle of my thought. “Obviously not the accident. But the way you handled my dad. That was cool.”

“It was nothing,” he replied almost bashfully. “Someone had to do it. If you ever repeat this, I’ll deny it, but I always thought your dad was a dick. I could never understand what your mom saw in him.” Gerard started to say more, but then Mikey returned with the coffee, passing both of us a cup.

“What are you talking about?” Mikey asked, taking the seat on the other side of me.

“My dickhead father,” I replied, taking a sip of the coffee, in need of the energy. My head had barely hit the pillow when Gerard had gotten the call about Lacey’s accident. I was dressed and out the door again before I’d even caught a wink of sleep, but that wasn’t what I’d been worried about. Even as pissed as I was at Lacey, all I cared about was if she was okay. I would have never forgiven myself if she wasn’t, but I was glad that it wasn’t something I had to worry about. I still felt guilty, but at least she was still alive.

“Matt?” Mikey said, stirring his coffee a little before drinking a little. “Oh yeah, he’s a major asshole. I can’t stand the guy. Never could.”

“We’ve discussed that already,” Gerard said, sounding annoyed. “We’re all on the same page.”

“You know, your dad’s the reason you don’t know us,” Mikey continued, totally ignoring his brother. “He was, and is, super controlling and he didn’t like Allison bringing you around us. She brought you and Lacey over a few times when you were kids, but your dad thought we were bad influences or something.”

“Mikey,” Gerard hissed, leaning across me. “Stop. Now’s not the time.”

“I’m just sayin’,” Mikey put a hand up in defense.

“How come no one ever told me that?” I asked. That would explain why Mom and Dad had never told us about our uncles, but we’d been with Gerard and Mikey for two weeks; I would’ve figured that the subject would have actually been addressed during that time.

“Because I didn’t want to paint your dad in a bad light,” Gerard answered after a little hesitation. “You’re both old enough to decide for yourselves the kind of relationship that you want with him, and I didn’t want either one of us influencing you two one way or the other.”

“Dude,” I scoffed, shaking my head. “You’ve met my dad. Did you really think that we had a good opinion of him at any point in time? Especially now. The dude gave us up so he could be alone with his stupid wife and create another demon spawn.”

“Fair enough,” Gerard said as Lacey’s doctor began to approach us.

“Mr. Way?” she inquired. “Can we speak privately for a moment?”

Gerard nodded and rose to go talk to the doctor, leaving me alone with Mikey. Admittedly, I hadn’t actually spent much time with either of my uncles since we’d moved in, so it was a little awkward to be alone with either one of them most of the time.

“You doing okay?” Mikey asked, bumping his elbow against me. “Today’s been pretty crazy.”

“Yeah, you have no idea.” No one except Lacey and I needed to know about the huge fight we’d had; Gerard and Mikey wouldn’t be able to understand. And none of it even really mattered anyway with Lacey in the hospital.

“I’m just glad she’s okay,” Mikey said and then backtracked. “Well, not okay, but…you know. Not dead. Or paralyzed.”

“Yeah, thank God,” I agreed. I glanced over at Gerard talking with the doctor. He looked concerned from what I could tell, his arms crossed and a frown firmly embedded on his face.

Gerard returned a few moments later, shaking his head a little. “Lucy, can we go talk for a minute?”

“Uh, yeah, sure.” I wondered what the doctor had said to him that would make him need to talk to me. I got up and followed him down the hallway towards the cafeteria. “What’s up?”

We sat down at one of the tables, Gerard across from me. He still looked gravely serious, and I was beginning to fear that this was an interrogation of sorts. He looked down at his coffee, swirling it around a little. “So what do you know about Lacey cutting herself?”

“What?” I definitely hadn’t been expecting him to ask about that. No one knew about Lacey’s cutting except for me, John, and Mason. And besides, she hadn’t hurt herself in such a long time; why was it suddenly coming up as an issue again? “I thought she stopped doing that a long time ago.”

“Well, apparently not,” Gerard replied, shaking his head. “The doctor said she found some fairly fresh self-inflicted cuts, and that there were a lot of scars.”

“Are you sure that they’re self-inflicted?” I asked, refusing to wrap my mind around the thought of Lacey hurting herself again. “I mean, she was just in a bad accident. That could be all it was.”

“Lucy,” Gerard said softly. “The doctor said the cuts were perfectly straight lines on her arms. The odds that the accident caused that are incredibly low.” He sighed. “The doctor’s recommending a psychiatric stay for Lacey. And I think I’m gonna go with her recommendation for an inpatient stay. As much as I want Lacey with us, I think this might be the best thing for her right now.”

“I have to go talk to her,” I told him, pushing away from the table abruptly and marching up the hallway, leaving my coffee behind. So many thoughts and emotions were flowing through me, confusion and guilt reigning supreme. How could I have been so blind to Lacey cutting herself again? I should have known, I should have helped her…

I reached Lacey’s room quickly and opened the door as calmly as possible, hoping I wasn’t disturbing her. She appeared to be sleeping at first, but then her eyes opened and rested on me. “Can we talk?”

She nodded and I took the seat by her bedside. I wasn’t even sure where to start, but apologizing seemed like the best option. After all, I had a lot to apologize for.

“I’m sorry,” I started, taking a deep breath before continuing. “I’m sorry for blowing up about you and John and making you so upset that you got into an accident. I was mad but I never wanted anything bad to happen to you. I’m just really glad that you’re gonna be okay.” I kept going, not giving her a chance to interject at all. “But most of all, I’m sorry I didn’t notice you were cutting again. I knew you were struggling and having a hard time, but I didn’t know it was that bad.”

“Who told you?” Lacey asked, her eyes dulled by all the pain meds.

“The doctor saw the cuts and told Gerard,” I explained. “And then Gerard asked me about it and I didn’t know what to say. But he said that the doctor recommended that you stay in the hospital for a bit. Gerard said he’s thinking about taking her suggestion.”

“He can’t do that,” she protested. “I won’t do it.”

“He can, though,” I told her. I definitely hadn’t meant to upset Lacey, but I only felt it was fair to warn her about everything so that she wasn’t taken totally by surprise. “You’re not eighteen, so he can legally have you committed. But maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Maybe you’d feel better having someone to talk to about everything. It could be like a fresh start.”

Lacey started to say something else, but was cut off by a knock on the door and the creak of the hinges. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at the person who’d entered. “What’s he doing here?”