After she died, p.18
After She Died, page 18
part #1 of Girl Broken Series
“No,” she said for the tenth time, blasting out a haze of vodka with each word. “I don’t want to. Leave me alone.”
“Too bad. If you didn’t want to be treated like a baby, then you shouldn’t have done this.” I knew I was wasting my breath. Faith could barely comprehend three words at a time. Even if she understood me, she wouldn’t remember anything the next day.
While we waited, I filled out a form with Faith’s details and health insurance information. Fortunately, she was still on Mom’s plan, but the thought only reminded me that I’d have to let Mom know sooner than later about what had happened.
If I had to guess, Faith had polished off the rest of the bottle of vodka we bought. Her stomach would need pumping. Scott and I left Faith alone for less than two hours to give her the space she asked for. How did things go downhill so rapidly?
We were all hiking down the mountain, happy in each other’s company. I tried to remember what we all were doing when her demeanor changed once we’d reached the bottom. After the selfie, Scott and I hadn’t flaunted our relationship in front of her. I’d made sure of that. We didn’t bring up her ex. Things seemed to be okay. So what set Faith off this time? I guess it didn’t matter.
The nurse called us through a pair of security doors and guided Faith along to an empty hospital bed. She leaned heavily on me the whole way. Scott was told to stay in the waiting area of the emergency room. The nurse said it was something to do with keeping the number of people within the emergency department to a minimum. He had no choice but to agree.
A new nurse with the surname Cason written on his badge appeared out of nowhere and helped lift Faith to the bed. He immediately checked her vitals and recorded his findings.
“Can you tell me how much she’s had to drink and what she was drinking?” the tired man in his late thirties asked.
“I think most of a bottle of vodka. My boyfriend and I were only away from her for less than a few hours.”
“Had she been drinking prior to then?”
“No. Not a drop of alcohol all day. She got drunk the previous night, though.”
“And what did you do today?”
“We hiked down Snow Peak. When we got home, she asked if we’d give her a few hours to herself, so my boyfriend and I went out.”
“It’s possible she may have started drinking the moment you left,” Cason said, staring at Faith.
“I guess so. So how will you treat her? Will she need her stomach pumped?”
“I doubt it. We’ll place her on an IV for dehydration and maybe an oxygen mask to assist her breathing. We also need to do a complete a toxicology screening to understand what we’re up against.”
“A toxicology screening? Like, to see if she’s taken any drugs?”
“Yes. We can’t assume this is just from drinking alcohol.”
“But you can smell the vodka on her breath.”
“I realize that, but we have to be sure she hasn’t swallowed anything lethal.”
“Lethal? What does that mean? She’s just had too much to drink,” I said.
“It doesn’t mean anything. Think of it as me checking off a box on a list of possibilities.”
I stared at Cason for a breath longer than I should have.
He pursed his lips. “I’ll get everything underway and ask one of the doctors to check her toxicology results as soon as they become available. If possible, it might be a good idea to search around the area you found your sister, to help confirm what it was she ingested. Is there someone you can call to do that?”
I ran my fingers through my hair as I tried to come to terms with what Cason was saying.
“Is there anyone you can ask?”
“Uh, yeah. My boyfriend is out in the waiting room. I’ll ask him to do a sweep of the cabin and the location we found Faith.”
“Good. Please let me or one of the other nurses know if your boyfriend finds anything.”
“Okay. We will,” I said as a tear rolled down my cheek.
Cason leaned in closer to me. “Try not to worry. I’m just being thorough. This will no doubt be a case of too much vodka in too short a time.”
I nodded while pressing my lips tight to hold back the emotions that were dying to fall out of me. Before, I was angry with Faith. But that rage soon turned to fear as the possibilities all came flying at me at once.
The nurse started placing an IV in Faith’s arm as I left to find Scott. I stopped before the security doors and found myself suddenly short of breath while a tightness formed in my chest. Moving to the side, I sucked in as much air as possible to stop a panic attack from taking over my system. Once I calmed down enough, my breathing returned to normal. I closed my eyes for a few seconds and centered my thoughts.
With a feeling of control returning to my being, I pressed a button to unlock the security doors and strolled through with as much confidence as I could muster. When I reached the waiting room, Scott was gone.
What the hell kind of night was I in for?
37
After
I’ve never handled pain all that well. So it’s no surprise when I yell out loud the moment I intentionally squeeze my left arm. An instant burning radiates from the cuts on my forearm and down through my entire system.
“What the fuck?” Lily yells. “What happened?”
With tears in my eyes, I concentrate on the pain and try to remember if this is what it felt like when I cut myself. Nothing comes into my head. No clear vision of the truth hits me, so I squeeze again. This time, I shriek, but I stifle the noise a little toward the end.
“Kay? What are you doing?” Lily asks, rushing closer to me.
I ignore her and hold my eyes closed. Nothing but darkness greets me as my left arm drops to my side and throbs. I have to try harder, so this time I punch myself in the forearm, right on the bandage.
“Stop it,” Lily shouts, grabbing my attention.
“I need to remember,” I whisper. “I have to know why I’m here.”
Lily’s mouth falls open. “This won’t help you.”
Agony overwhelms my ability to breathe, tripping me forward. I don’t cry out because I’m too busy trying to suck in enough air to function.
“Don’t do this, Kay,” Lily says as she grabs hold of my shoulders with both hands and sits me back. “You’re only hurting yourself.”
“I have to,” I say. A second later, I grip my forearm again as tight as I can. My eyes slam shut to deal with the agony.
“Kay, stop!”
I open my eyes as Lily pushes me to the ground. With a thud, I land on my back. More pain shoots through my veins.
“I get what you’re doing, but it’s not the way to remember. Trust me. I know what I’m talking about.” She holds me by my wrists and uses her strength to stretch my arms out wide.
“I need to know. You said so. They’ll extract the truth from me. I need to understand what that is before they treat me.”
Lily shakes her head as she hovers over me. “The truth isn’t worth knowing. Why fight that, huh? Wouldn’t you rather stay in this bubble your mind has created? You’re here for a reason. We all are.”
I stare up at Lily as she tells me things I swear she doesn’t believe. “But what if learning the truth helps me? What if all along, I’ve been thinking of myself as a monster when in reality I’m not?”
Lily’s breathing is almost as bad as mine as she holds her focus. She shakes her head and says, “Your brain wouldn’t be trying to protect you if you weren’t a monster.”
I feel the power vanish from my arms as I stop resisting. Lily lets go. We both stare at one another while we catch our breath.
“It’s not worth it,” Lily says. “Nothing good will ever—”
Lily’s words are cut short by two nurses, who tackle her off my chest. The man and woman pin her to the ground before I can respond.
“What are you doing?” I yell as I push up from the grass.
“Get off me,” Lily screams. “Get the fuck off me, you stupid—”
I watch the life fade from Lily’s eyes the instant a nurse pricks her with what I can only assume is a powerful sedative. Her limbs go floppy as she falls unconscious.
“She wasn’t trying to hurt me. She was helping.”
“Don’t move,” the male nurse yells.
I do as he says. The two nurses stay where they are until one of the hospital police officers arrives a minute later to cover me like I’m a tiger that’s broken out of its cage.
“She didn’t do anything,” I say to the officer, who might be younger than I am. She ignores what I say while her eyes run over the scene.
“What’s going on? Someone hit their emergency beeper.”
“Sorry about that,” the male nurse says. “I think I pressed it by mistake. It’s all under control now.”
“Are you sure?”
The three continue their discussion while I stare at Lily’s unconscious body. She looks weak and broken, and it’s all my fault.
“Lily? Are you okay?” I ask. The pain in my left arm increases, making me want to grind my teeth.
“She’s out cold, honey,” the female nurse says, approaching me. I recognize who she is. Her name is Bonnie. “Why don’t you come with me.”
I shake my head and try to shrug her off, but she’s already got me in her grasp.
“Please don’t make this more difficult than it has to be.”
“But Lily didn’t do anything. I swear, she was trying to help me. I was being an idiot.”
Bonnie ignores me and speaks to her coworkers like I’m not there. “I’ll handle her.”
“Don’t put Lily into isolation because of me. You can’t. You—”
I’m dragged a short distance from the situation. Bonnie presses my body against a wall before I can finish my sentence. “You need to calm down. Otherwise, I’ll have no choice but to hit you with the same dosage we just gave your friend. Got it?”
I nod, doing what I can to show her I’m calming down.
“Good. Now, I don’t want to hear another word about this. What’s done is done. It’s time you went back inside to find a nice little corner to sit in. Understand?”
My eyes slip away, lowering my focus to the ground.
“Understand?”
“Yes. I do.”
“Great. How about you show me by walking away?”
I take a second to let Bonnie’s order sink in before I head for the nearest door past a group of gawking patients who all want to know what’s going on. The nurse follows a few steps behind and escorts me from a distance. I find a seat in the dining area to sit in. Once I fall into the chair, I feel more than a dozen eyes on me at once. Unconsciously, I lift my legs up to my chest and hang them over the edge.
With crossed arms, Bonnie stands watch from the door that opens into the gardens in case I go back outside.
What have I done to Lily?
I don’t get the opportunity to ponder the question before the pain in my left arm intensifies. It grows from a dull ache to what feels like a sharp gash. I swear my wounds are opening again. What the hell was I thinking?
I lay my left arm on the table and try to check the bandage. Lifting the edge, I don’t find any blood seeping out and feel a sense of relief take hold. But it doesn’t last long. A fierce pain cripples my every thought. What kind of moron does this to themselves? I don’t know why I thought doing this would trigger a memory.
Sweat runs down my forehead as my whole body shakes. A fragility overtakes my core and spirals through me. A pending, terrifying apprehension consumes me, blocking out the gazing eyes.
The eyes all merge into a single pair. My vision narrows. Darkness creeps in at the corners. I’m in the cabin. I feel a raging, unstoppable fire. Its ability to cleanse becomes clear. A unison of voices takes over.
You killed her.
You killed her.
You killed her.
I jump up and out of my chair, knocking it over. Like a jackrabbit seeking a place to hide, I back myself into the nearest corner. Bonnie narrows her eyes at me while the other patients stare. They must all think I’m crazy. I’m not. They are.
With my back pressed into a concrete wall, I slide down to the cold ground of the dining area and try to make sense of the world. Only one question takes priority over all others. And it’s the only question I need to find an answer for.
Did I kill her? Did I kill my sister?
38
Before
“Where are you?” I asked Scott when he answered his phone. I called his cell five times in the space of two minutes, desperate to understand why he thought it would be a smart idea to leave the waiting room.
“Sorry. I had to get some air, so I went for a walk.”
I took a moment to think and remembered that Scott had a thing about hospitals. He had yet to tell me why he couldn’t stand to be in or around them for more than a short time. It was probably a good thing he wasn’t allowed past the waiting room. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me,” he said.
“No panic attack or anything like that?”
“Not yet. I just felt claustrophobic in there, so I thought I’d take a walk down to the street. How is she?”
“Okay, I guess. They’re putting her on an IV to get some fluids into her system, and they are running a test to see what she’s had.”
“That’s easy. She’s had too much vodka.”
“I said that, but they want to make sure she hasn’t taken anything else at the same time.”
“Right. Makes sense. Are you okay?” Scott asked.
I realized I was pacing around the waiting room. “I’m fine. The nurse I spoke to doesn’t seem overly worried. He would have seen this kind of thing many times before, right?”
“Without a doubt. Faith might be the hundredth person to come in like this over the long weekend.”
“Yeah,” I said with a forced chuckle.
Scott did the same, as if we were both trying to lighten the mood.
“I need you to do me a favor,” I said.
“Anything,” Scott replied.
“Can you take my car and head back to the cabin? We need to figure out what Faith was drinking. And also, we need to work out if she took anything else.”
“Like drugs?”
“Yeah. Pills. Weed. Whatever. They need to know. It might be worth talking to my neighbor again, to double-check what he knows.”
“Okay. I can do that for you,” Scott said.
“Thank you so much. It will help a lot. I’m in the waiting room right now with my car keys. I’ll come out and meet you.”
Scott said goodbye and ended the call. I paced outside and tried to find him. It wasn’t a big hospital, so I started to panic when I didn’t immediately spot him.
“Where are you?” I asked out loud. No one replied.
Scott appeared around the corner and hurried over to where I was. I met him halfway. He wrapped his arms around me and held tight. “She’ll be okay.”
“I know,” I said back. “Please hurry.” I handed him my car keys and resisted breaking down into a puddle of tears. I needed Scott to go, but I wished he could stay.
“I’ll call you once I’m at the cabin. The sooner you guys know if I find anything the better.”
“Okay. Great,” I said as Scott rushed for the parking lot. “I’ll talk to you soon.”
I watched him leave and stood out front of the emergency room longer than I needed to. The thought of going back inside sent a stabbing pain into my stomach I couldn’t ignore.
After a few minutes, I took in a deep breath and let it trickle out, giving myself enough power to go back into the hospital to my sister’s bed.
This time when I went through the emergency department, I noticed the other patients filling the beds. The usual stamp of misery plastered their faces. Those whose eye were open.
Faith’s bed was at the end of the row. I moved into her area and realized the nurse had finished placing her on the IV as well as a vitals monitor and breathing mask. It was a daunting sight, so I took a seat at my sister’s side and let reality hit hard.
I cried. And when I say cried, I mean every tear my body could produce came out at once. My left hand gripped the bedding while my right held Faith’s leg. I needed to feel connected to her. I needed my sister to know that I cared.
Cason returned and pulled the curtain around Faith’s bed closed behind him. He flashed me what I suspected was his professional comforting face. I attempted to smile back, knowing words were beyond me in that moment.
“So I’ve placed her on an IV and breathing mask, as you can see. We’ve also taken some blood for the toxicology screening. As I said, we’ll rush that through and ask a doctor to go over the results. That will determine what happens next. How did things go with your boyfriend?”
“He’s heading to the cabin now to investigate. He’ll call me shortly so I can update you.”
The man nodded and gave me a neutral smile. “That’s good. Write down what he tells you. It’s hard to remember everything in these situations.”
“I will. Thank you.”
Cason sighed. “Now I have to ask, is there any reason your sister has done this?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, what do you think prompted her to drink so heavily?”
I sigh under my breath. “Without getting into it, this weekend has been emotional. Faith’s run off drinking every night we’ve been here for one reason or another.”
“I see. Would you say she has a drinking problem?”
“Maybe. She likes to party, but then again, she’s also young.”
The man purses his lips. “So you’re the older sister, I take it.”
“No. But I can understand why you thought so. It’s usually the other way around with these scenarios, isn’t it?”
“Typically, yes. And I meant no offense.”
“It’s fine,” I said, waving him off.
A silence overtook the small space, allowing the ambient sounds of the hospital to seep in.
