Saving Sawyer | ✓

Chapter 27 | I Can't Think Right Now

“Sawyer—”

“Oh my God,” I shriek, my mind just not comprehending what that means. She wouldn’t want to take me to the Consultation Room if Jackson was okay. She wouldn’t want to take me to the Consultation Room if Jackson wasn’t…gone. Oh my God. “Oh my God, no. Please, please, please,” I plead, starting to get delirious as the tears start streaming down my face and my knees buckle. I fall to the floor and start hyperventilating. “No, no, no. That’s not fair!”

“Sawyer, calm down,” Dr. Westbourne instructs, kneeling down in front of me and putting her hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay,” She tells me, wrapping her arms around me, trying to hug me. She knows about my past to an extent. She’s the doctor I saw after I came to the hospital a few days after that Halloween Party to get checked out and whatnot. I think that she thinks I’m a really fragile person or something (which, I guess I am) and so she’s trying to keep me calm because she knows that if I don’t, I’ll wind up having a full blown panic attack right here on the floor of this hospital. “Jackson isn’t dead.”

“H-he’s not?” I ask, looking up at her.

“No, he’s not,” She assures me, shaking her head.

“Promise?” I reply, doing the breathing exercise that Dr. Fontana told me to do if I ever feel like I’m about to have a panic attack and don’t have my meds.

“Yes, Sawyer, I promise,” Dr. Westbourne nods, standing up and reaching down for my hand, helping me up from the floor. “I’ll be completely honest with you though—it doesn’t look good. That’s why I wanted to go in the Consultation Room, so that we could discuss Jackson’s condition,” She explains.

“Oh, right,” I awkwardly reply with a nod. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea then,” I agree, using my jacket sleeves to wipe my face. If I weren’t so utterly relieved right now over the fact that I didn’t kill my boyfriend’s little brother, I’d be embarrassed about what just happened, especially because I can feel everyone in the waiting room staring at me and the fact that Dr. Westbourne probably thinks I’m an idiot now. She just said that it isn’t good though, so I can’t be too happy, but being not good is a hell of a lot better than being dead if you ask me.

Dr. Westbourne and I take off then, walking together to the end of the hallway, which is where the Consultation Room is located. When we get to it, she pulls her keys from the pocket of her white lab coat and unlocks the door, pushing it open and gesturing for me to go in first. I do and sit down in one of the eight leather chairs in the room and then I pull my knees up in the chair with me, wrapping my arms around them. Dr. Westbourne follows me in and closes and locks the door. She walks over to the window in the room that gives a view of the waiting room and grabs the stick on the blinds, twisting them closed. Then she sits down across from me, crosses her left leg over her right, turns on the lamp on the stand beside her and looks down at her clipboard.

“I’m not technically supposed to be doing this, you know,” She tells me.

“Not technically supposed to be doing what?” I ask, slowly rocking back and forth, still a little freaked out over the fact that I thought Jackson was dead.

“Telling you the condition of a patient,” Dr. Westbourne explains. “You know, since you’re not family. Have you gotten in contact with either of his parents?”

“His father’s in prison and his mother’s with my boyfriend out of town,” I explain to her. “His parents don’t have custody of him though—his brother does.”

“Your boyfriend?” She guesses.

“No, his other brother—Tucker.”

“Well, have you been able to get in contact with Tucker?” Dr. Westbourne asks.