long live lola

that night in june

The last words that Lola Hargood spoke were to me, a girl she barely knew. We'd both been in the hospital for the same amount of time, six days to be exact. I was in a car accident after leaving the campus library late, another student slamming into me as they tore through the streets of Smallshore, drunk out of his goddamn mind. I had one surgery, to get my kneecap slotted back into its rightful position, and was told I had ten days to spend in the hospital. It was when I was told about my recovery time that the nurse let slip that a colleague of mine, a fellow student, was also hospitalized.

Lola Hargood had overdosed. They didn't tell me on what, or what her intent was. She had overdosed, damaged her liver, undergone several surgeries in the time I'd been triaged and had just one. On the sixth day of my recovery, a nurse wheeled me into her room: I told her Lola and I were close friends and that perhaps seeing me would help aid Lola's recovery.

    This was a lie. I'd only ever spoken to Lola a handful of times when interviewing her for this article or that article for the college's newspaper. She was always representing some sports team, some fundraising event, or some volunteering exhibition. Once or twice I interviewed her for the gossip column, but she merely smiled, tossed a sheet of golden caramel hair over her shoulder, and announced she wouldn't be talking about that kind of stuff.

    But I'd sat beside Lola's bed, her eyes fluttering, mouth pressed shut, hands folded over her chest as if she were already dead, however, the screech of the heart monitor told a different story. I sat by her bed, and for once in my life I did not know what to say. I've always known the right questions to ask, and the right nerves to touch to elicit just the reaction I wanted, it's what made me such an excellent journalist. Now sat before a half-dead Lola Hargood, I have no idea what to say.

    Did you do this to yourself? Why would you? Or did someone do this to you? Why would they? Why would you act so perfect, if none of it were true?

    Instead, I said nothing. I held her hand. I'm not one for physical comforts, normally shying away from any hugs or touches one may offer in my own time of need, however, I reach out and hold the chilled skin of Lola's hand between my clammy palms. For minutes, minutes that seem to last eternities, nothing happens. Machines beep, the intercom buzzes, shoes shuffle down the corridors but neither of us moves a muscle.

    I almost died in a car crash, escaped with nothing more than a mangled knee because some college student couldn't handle their substances. And here is Lola Hargood, a college student dying from said substances. Supposedly, anyway. What a twist of fate that we would be sat with one another, one miraculously alive, one clinging on by a thread.

    She coughs. I jump in surprise, jarring my knee but I ignore the pain. My eyes immediately dart to her face, to see her eyelids slowly opening, revealing her once bright brown eyes, now dark, tormented with pain.

    "Find out."

    That is all she says to me. Two words. Her hand fidgets in mine briefly before it falls limp. Her eyes close again. And the line on the monitor, her lifeline, drops. And she dies, right in front of me, her hand still in mine.