Heartbreak Hotel (Editing)

Chapter 65: Open Wounds

Leena's POV

"Are you sure?" I was standing in front of the doctor with my eyebrows knitted in disbelief. I was the only one I would talk to because I was labeled as her sister in her medical records and Liana or Sasha had not made it there yet. I hated doing this, because that meant that I would have to be the one to tell everyone what was going on. It was bad enough that the media was already talking about her having to be rushed to the hospital. Now it had to be decided who was going to explain to our fans and the whole world why their beloved Liyah passed out during a photo shoot.

"Yes, it's all in her blood stream." He told me as pressed his clipboard against his chest. "Do you live with her?"

I was shaken by the information he had given. So shaken that I could only answer in a slow and quiet voice. It sounded as though it was there, but my physical body was not. "No, her boyfriend does, why?"

"I want to know when was the last time she ate or drunk anything. She's lacking nutrition and she's extremely dehydrated."

"Well she was drinking water right before she went on shoot."

He shook his head from side to side. " I don't believe she had anything to drink for two or three days."

I shrugged my shoulders slowly." I wouldn't know."

" Has anyone called her boyfriend?" He asked with a sigh. " I need to speak with someone who she lives with."

" We called him like, thirty minutes ago." I told him as I glance towards the door. " How is she?"

"She's fine, we're going to have to get her hydrated first and then we will put her on a Valium IV in order to-"

"Leena!" his voice caused me to jump as I looked back to see Michael walking in the room with his brother Randy and sister Janet. His body guard stood in front of them. "What happened?"

I looked up at the doctor before answering." She fainted, because she's dehydrated and haven't been eating anything."

"I told her she needed to eat." he said to himself. "Is she okay?" I could see the fear in his, and the concern. They made the fear in my heart increase ten times as worst. Everyone who knew Michael knew that no one loved Liyah more than he did. He was just as scared as I was.

"She's fine." The doctor finally spoke up. " I'm doctor Mason." He said as he extended his frail white hand in front of him. " You must be the boyfriend."

"Yeah."

" I was wondering if you were aware of the scars she has on her arms?"

Both our faces became grave. I didn't know why his did, but mine did because I had forced myself to forget about those scars and she made it easy for me to.

"Uh.." Michael and I exchanged glances." y-yes. They're old scars."

Doctor Mason shook his head from side to side."No, these scars are about a week old. I can tell by the healing of patterns. Does she have a history of self-harm or..."

"She used to, she was sent to rehab a couple of years ago." I told him.

"Is there something that happened recently for her to relapse?"

"Um, yeah. Someone from her past came back into her life." I said, choosing my words as carefully as I possibly could.

"I highly recommend her to talk a counselor or something, because if she wouldn't have came here, she probably would've died."

His words struck a pain in my heart. I think we all knew that in the back of our heads, but deep down inside we didn't want to admit. It's like when you know you're gonna fail a test, but you just don't want to actually breathe those words, and your teacher comes and say you failed and at that moment you begin to get pissed. That's exactly how I felt at that particular moment. I'm sure that was how Michael had felt too. It was all in his face, his jaw was clenched by the news he had heard, but I knew If he would've come sooner he would've have been even more broken than he was now.

"Can we see her?" Michael asked after a moment of silence.

His blue eyes averted before landing on his."Yes, Mr. Jackson. You can."

I've only seen one person in my life in a hospital bed. That was my grandmother back in 1969 when she had died. I was only nine, and Liyah was just seven. I remember everything about it: the cold room, her still body just laying there, her gray looking skin, the beeping of the monitors, the goosebump rising on the surface of my skin. I hated the setting. The whole thing was just meant to be depressing. And yet, here I was standing there looking at my sister as she laid in front of us motionless.

Of course, she was a little less dramatic than my grandmother. That day I had saw my grandma she had just died. Liyah was still alive, and the color in her face was beginning to revive itself. She looked as though she was sleeping versus when she had fainted and looked as though she was dead. The whole thing was running through my brain. The paramedics rushing into the studio and putting her on a gurney after evaluating her to see if she was breathing. Then when they rushed out of the studio in the world I remember seeing our fans crowded around. Some was crying. Some was screaming, asking what was wrong with her. I remember paramedics telling them to move as they placed her in the back. And I remember Nikki running out saying she had called Michael. I remember my heart beating. I remember the fear.

I thought she was dead.

My eyes caught sight to her left arm. There was an IV hooked up to her, but that's not what made us both gasp. What made was gasp was the new scars that I had saw on her arm. They were out in the open, which was odd because over the years she had became good at hiding them. She kept them well hidden for years. I remember when she never would take off her jackets or long sleeved shirts no matter how hot it was outside. She never did it. I never understood why, I thought she just had a thing for her jackets. It never occurred to me that she was hiding something under them. Even now that her scars was so faded that they were barely noticeable, she would still covered them with makeup. Mainly, because she had to. As celebrities, we had to look perfect at all times. We weren't allowed to show any flaws. We couldn't even go out without makeup, even though she did it anyway. Liyah did whatever she wanted and didn't allow herself to be told what to do. Especially something so stupid as that. "I have the right to go out without makeup if I want. It's my face." she had told Danny and Bobby a few years back. "We're human, we're all not suppose to look perfect at all times. It's not about beauty, it's about talent. Besides, beauty is only skin deep. It's what's on the inside that matters." One thing I had to admit I liked about Liyah. She was never afraid to speak her mind. No matter how shy she could be, she would speak her mind and stand up for herself when she needed to.

Michael walked up to her bed and sat down in a chair that was near her bed. He took her hand and kissed the back of it before holding on to it. He took his other hand and began rubbing her hair with it. Stroking it softly as he stared down at her in silence. I could tell he was about to cry and that was something I did not want to see. I hated seeing emotion. It made feel so odd and out of place. It was painfully annoying in a way. Even though I wanted to cry I knew I wasn't going to do it front of him. "I'll just leave you two alone."I told him as I began to close the door.

"Why do you keep doing this to yourself?" I heard him ask her.

I closed my eyes and inhaled the cool hair through my nostrils. My eyes began to burn with tears as I shut the door closed. I began to walk back towards the room where everyone was sitting waiting for me to come back. I began to prepare myself for what I had to tell everyone. Something that I had not yet told Michael, but my words became lost when I saw man standing with Sasha.

He was familiar to me in a way. He was dressed in scrubs, and I could tell by his hazel brown eyes and the color of skin and the texture of his hair that he was mixed. Liana stood up and walked up to me. "How is she?"

"She's going to be okay."I said, not taking my eyes off of him."Who is this?"

"This is John" Liana told me." He was your momma's friend while she was in school.

I nodded my head slowly. I couldn't have met him before, but something in me was telling me that I had. He reminded me of someone just by his looks.

Sasha looked at Liana giving her a look that said, 'Isn't there something else you wanna tell her?' She looked back at me and sighed.  "We think he may know Liyah's father."