Ecstasy, Misery

30 | taco bell and jellybeans

I swear sometimes you're a whore

let's go get stoned - sublime (1992)

A/N: This was originally supposed to be a smut chapter but Harry & Nova got out of control. Yell at them, not me.

June 19th, 1998

Briella, Harry and I are in the waiting room of the emergency room, a mess of biting nails and tapping feet, when Jenalyn, Diana and Keegan come bursting through the door in a panic, the hasty note we left back at the house grasped practically to shreds in Jenalyn's hand.

Harry stands right away and calls them over so that their original hurried trajectory for the front desk redirects toward us and their pace picks up as they run to us.

"What the fuck?" Jenalyn bursts out, holding the note up, mouth hanging open and the three of them are just staring at the three of us, baffled and clearly having a hard time wrapping their heads around the situation we've been tossed into.

And they only know the half of it. The note we'd left was putting things mildly; 'Nessa was attacked. Going to Stanford ER.'

After a stressful minute of fighting, trying to figure out whether we should call for an ambulance or drive her here ourselves, I convinced Harry that it would be best to call, so she could get out on a stretcher. God forbid, one of us fucked something up from moving her the wrong way while trying to get her out to the ER ourselves.

We followed behind the ambulance and no matter how hard Briella fought to go back into emergency surgery with Nessa, the hospital staff stayed strict in their orders that she has to wait with us in the waiting room.

"What happened—the kitchen?" Diana stumbles over her words and I feel bad that they had to walk in on such a scene; the blood left behind as we all rushed away when the ambulance arrived.

"We found her in there w-with a fucking axe..." I tune out Briella's hysterical sobs; they haven't stopped since she stepped foot on the front porch close to an hour ago now.

I'm still in a daze. I went into 'fix it' mode when we were back at the house, being the one to call 911, the one to remind Harry and Briella not to fuck up any of the evidence in the kitchen, the one to murmur soft 'everything is going to be okay's to them on the drive over here, but...once Nessa disappeared through the hospital halls and they informed us that she'd be taken immediately into the ICU with no estimated promise of a successful surgery, I've just been sitting in the waiting room, staring at the dripping coffee machine in the corner and my mind has gone blank.

I'm exhausted. And guilty that I'm exhausted, because it isn't me who's sitting in emergency surgery. It's not even me whose girlfriend is going through emergency surgery. I wish there was more I could do. I feel useless.

Voices continue to drone on around me as I stare off at the coffee pot, drowsy from the Oxy and the situation in general.

'...surgery could take 7+ hours...'

'...we called Jaiden and Ren. Caught them before they left their place to come over...'

'...staff said the police will be called to question Nessa and probably the rest of us...'