CHIM - Life in the limelight SEQUEL

Chapter 3

I’ve forgotten how to breathe. I can’t remember ever running so fast or getting somewhere so quick. From the minute the taxi I had earlier rushed into stopped I was out the door and hectically sprinting from corridor to corridor to the ward I was directed to leaving my friends to follow behind at a much slower pace. I slow down once I come around a corner, once I see Nadine stood outside of a closed door with my youngest daughter attached to her chest  I stop in my tracks and I’m not completely sure why. Maybe it’s the look on her face, anxiety mixed with her tears. Or maybe it’s because I wasn’t expecting to see Paisley and Alaina here. Paisleys half asleep sprawled out of two uncomfortable wooden chairs, her small arms curled under her head causing her blonde locks to tumble carelessly over it. She’s in her pyjamas, they both are. Nadine must have draped her coat over her because she’s hidden under it as she falls in and out of sleep.

Nadine stops her rocking back and forth when she sees me and hears Sarah and Nicola echoed voices puncturing the silence from behind me. I can smell the fear clogging the air. Her face is ghostly pale, her eyes swimming with emotion but she doesn’t speak to me, I presume that if she even attempted to she would choke on her words and probably her sobs too. “What happened?” I ask, my voice barely a whisper. Her eyes flicker from Sarah then back to me but just for a split second because she has to look away again, she can’t give me eye contact and I’m sure that when her mouth first opens she holds Alaina just a little bit tighter.

“She had a fall… caused by an overdose”

“An overdose?” I feel like with just that being said it knocks all the air from me. I don’t register what’s happening until Nicola is forcing me onto one of the empty plastic chairs pushed up against the wall. I feel numb.

“It was accidental, they said it was accidental. It has to be, hasn’t it? ” She’s crying even more now, sobbing in fact and I’m crying too. “They won’t let me see her, they won’t even tell me if she’s alright. I don’t know what to do!”

“Oh god” Sarah gasps and she pulls Nadine into her with Alaina uncomfortably between them.

“I just got a call from Paisley and-“

“Paisley?”

“She found her at the bottom of the stairs; she took Cheryl’s phone and knew how to ring me. She can barely read, how did she know how to ring me?” She’s still crying just like the rest of us. I can’t imagine how scared Paisley must have been, she must have been terrified but she was intelligent enough to have phoned someone and I can’t get my head around it. Around any of this actually, not at the minute. I feel sick, my heart rate is racing and thumping against my chest so obnoxiously. I rub a hand across my forehead and I take a deep breath. I just now realise Paisley has woken and she’s nudged herself under my arm so I wrap my other one around her and hold onto her so tight that if was to let her go I’m sure she’d disappear and turn into nothing but a memory.

 We all have the same uneasy look on our faces. The space between us is tense with anxiety. Disinfectant. The smell will haunt me forever. The smell of this place is starting to knock me sick now or maybe that’s just the realisation of what my former actions have caused and what my girls have had to witness tonight. A loud bleeping noise from down the corridor sends everyone into panic, it fills the air with distress as doctors and nurses begin to spring into action. For a split second I’m sure my heart pauses because I thought it was coming from Cheryl’s room. I was wrong ,thank god. But the door opens and the doctor that I had been told previously entered steps out, his wooden clipboard under one arm and his thin rimmed glasses sliding own his nose. My eyes widen, I would have jumped up if my Paisley hadn’t have just settled against me mid sob. Nicola does though and she’s asking if there’s any news, if she’s on the mend and she is because he’s nodding while I cry with relief. He’s telling us she’s making progress. She’s still weak but she’s stable, luckily.