Red Leather (Book 2)

Chapter 18

Warning: This chapter contains horrible and disturbingly graphic scenes.

Chapter 18

 

It was only by a stroke of luck that the four of us – Becca wanted to take Yuri, who wanted to take Tamara – managed to get into the private visiting area of the Alistair General Hospital. Daddy hadn’t thought he was needed at work that day, but the accident caused him to be paged in immediately.

My Daddy could do anything. I just hoped that he wouldn’t be able to revive Cora.

That wouldn’t do.

We weren’t the only ones in the visiting area – a tall, balding man in a stark grey uniform paced up and down in front of us, refusing to pay us the slightest bit of attention. He knew that we were here. He just didn’t have the energy to care. The entire atmosphere was bated and tense, and I knew by the way Tammy was digging her nails into a cushion that she was trying hard not to break down.

The whole afternoon had been quite a shock on everybody. Cora, while being the quietest and most reserved person in the world, was still loved by many in Alistair. It had only been a couple of hours, but news of her episode had already spread like wildfire.

“Arthur!” A woman cried nearby. My head turned towards the sound; the woman was in her early 40’s at least, her hair dishevelled and her high heels clutched in her hands. She might have been beautiful if it weren’t for the ugly mascara streaks down her face, and how her square jaw didn’t suit her hairstyle.

She must be Mrs. Grey. Cora’s mother.

“Oh, Arthur,” she wailed, clutching her husband tightly, breathing as heavily as Cora had before her collapse. “Oh God, how is she? Have you been to see her? Is she okay? What-“

“Shh, shh.” Arthur’s hands shook as he wiped the mascara stains from her cheeks. His voice was soft, and yet very dry and husky. Cora must have inherited it. “We can’t see her yet. But Theodore Griffin’s said that it was a cardiac arrest.”

The woman couldn’t take it anymore – the news brought her to her knees. She seemed to have aged in a split second. Her fingers clutched her head desperately. “Jesus, no. No, no, no.”

Yuri stood up, making her presence known, and helped Mr. Arthur Grey pick his wife up from the ground and into an armrest. “Would you like some tea, Charlotte?” she offered kindly.

Charlotte’s glassy brown eyes blinked a couple of times, seemingly unable to focus on anything. “Oh, Yuri, you’re here. Thank you. You were there when it happened, yes? Tell me what happened.” There was a tone of desperation in there, mingling with dread.

She looked down at her toes, putting on a strong face. Her chin jutted out. Her voice, however, still cracked when she spoke, “We were in the middle of a volleyball game. Cora wasn’t handling it well - in fact, she hadn’t been handling sport well at all in the past couple of weeks. All of a sudden, she just collapsed. I wish we could have done something, Charlotte, I really do-“

Charlotte burst into tears once more. “Oh god. We couldn’t save her, could we? She didn’t want to be saved!” Her sobs turned into wails, and Tammy’s hand moved from the cushion to my arm, where she dug her nails in to stop from breaking down herself.  

Arthur embraced his wife, crying now himself, overcome with the grief of a child who was destroyed by her own administrations. They obviously loved her very much, and did everything in their power to fight Cora’s mental disorder and restore her health. All those dieticians and therapists and protein shakes – in the end, it was worthless.