Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 102929 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 515(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102929 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 515(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
“911, what is your emergency?” she said on the other end.
“Melody! I mean… my mother… our mother… she’s… she’s not breathing… I…”
“Sir, you need to calm down. Help is on the way, but I need you to listen to me and do as I say so we can help your mom until the EMS gets there, okay?”
With wide eyes, I confessed, “I don’t want her to die, but I think she’s already dead…”
Tears brimmed my eyes.
“Is she in a safe place? Anything around her that she could hurt herself with?”
“No, she’s in my brother’s arms. She had a needle in her arm.”
“The EMS is en route and will be there in one minute.”
“Melody!” Julius yelled in a panic. “Come on, don’t do this to me! Don’t you fucking do this!”
I watched my brother fall apart in front of my eyes.
“Sir, you need to calm down, too. You can’t help her like this. She needs you to be strong. Can you do that for me? Can you do that for her?”
My eyes snapped to the front door when I heard knocking, seeing the red and white lights flashing through the front window. “Come in!” I shouted, ending the call with the operator.
They must have been near. They’d never gotten here that fast.
Two men and one woman dressed in uniforms rushed into the room, ushering us out of the way.
“Please! Help her!” Isla yelled, backing up to the adjacent wall. Using it to support her weight.
“Please! Help her!” I repeated, my vision zeroing in on her.
I dragged my hands through my unruly hair, trying like hell to shake the feeling that this was just our fate.
“Sir, calm down,” the woman coaxed with her hands out in front of her while the two men hovered around my mother, holding her down much harder and firmer than Julius was.
“You’re hurting her!” I shouted. “You’re fucking hurting her! Can’t you see she needs help!”
“They’re not hurting her, Kraven.” Julius grabbed me. “I promise they’re just doing what they’re trained to do.”
“Calm down?” I spit. “You want me to calm down when we just found our mother with a needle in her arm?!”
“Kraven,” he guided. “You’re going into shock.”
“Then get her to wake the fuck up!”
“Is she allergic to anything?” the man asked.
“I don’t know…” Julius informed. “I don’t think so, but I don’t know.”
“What’s her name?” the other uniformed man asked.
“Melody,” Julius replied, watching as they performed their routine to try to save her for us.
When we told her hours ago that this was what we wanted.
Did we manifest this? Is this our fault?
They carried her onto a stretcher, wheeling her still body toward the ambulance parked out in front of our house.
We followed close, hurrying her into the ambulance.
“I’ll go with her,” Julius announced.
“We’ll take an Uber,” Isla called out.
Because I was now unable to form words.
Julius
They hooked her up to all these machines, one right after the other. They tried to explain to me what they were doing as they poked and prodded, trying to bring her back to life in the ambulance. I held her hand, hoping she could feel my presence so that she wouldn’t feel alone. That she still had a son who was battling his own demons beside her.
Mostly in the form of her.
I bit back the tears, hiding behind the pain I’d been used to all my life.
With glossy eyes, I watched them wheel her into the ER, paging the on-call doctor. One of the nurses told me to have a seat in the waiting area and they’d update me as soon as they could.
I sat in one of the cold chairs at the hospital, doing exactly that—waiting. In a place I’d come to know, remembering all the times we were there for her or Joe. From getting their stomachs pumped to finding them passed out on the street, the list piled up after a while.
My stomach was in knots.
I growled with frustration, abruptly standing to my feet and practically crushing my phone in my hand. I started pacing the small waiting room, trying to govern my plaguing thoughts and reel in my emotions that were killing me inside. At this point, I was too far gone.
As if on cue, Isla and Kraven walked into the hospital, holding hands, and I quickly wondered who reached for who, but they both appeared as broken as I felt, so I didn’t say anything.
“Julius, right?” a man dressed in scrubs and a white coat greeted, pulling me away from my thoughts.
“Yeah,” I responded, already aware of where this was going.
The rest played out in slow motion.
For a few seconds, Kraven and Isla mirrored my stare, though it wasn’t the same. She might have put the needle into her arm, but I was the reason she did it.
Every decision had a consequence, and this one was mine.