While Louis and Fran prepared dinner at their home, Louis repeatedly called his parents and the hospital to check on Melissa's condition. Melissa was all that Louis was thinking about. He even googled medicines that he could help with to improve her health. Fran stood by Louis's side, listening and trying to keep him calm throughout the way.
"So what'd they say?" Louis asked as he stirred the homemade alfredo pasta they made for dinner. "Is her condition okay?"
Fran sat in their apartment chair, watching as Louis took a deep breath.
"Thank God. I prayed the entire night." Louis sighed.
"Is she okay, babe?" Fran asked.
"She's fine." Louis mouthed to her, getting back onto the phone. "How is she?"
Fran got up and grabbed two plates as Louis gave off a confused look.
"A coma? What do you mea...." Louis paused. "Is she gonna wa-"
*BANG BANG BANG!*
Fran glanced over at the door, getting up out of her seat.
"I'll get it." Fran murmured to Louis as she slid in front of their door.
When Fran opened the door, they saw two police officers standing there.
"How may I help you, officers?" Fran asked.
"Is this the home of Louis Rodriguez?" Two detectives asked.
"Yes?"
"We have a warrant to search this apartment for any sort of poisonings, mostly arsenic." The first detective said as he held up a sheet, watching as the second detective walked by with a box.
"Hold on dad, I'm gonna call you back." Louis said as he hung up the phone and walked ahead. "What's going on, detectives?"
"They say that they've got a search warrant." Fran said in a worried tone.
"A search warrant? Are you guys CRAZY!?" Louis scowled as he slammed his phone down. "You really think that I would poison my own sister?"
"It's routine, sir." The second detective said as forensic analysts filled the apartment.
"Routine? You're raiding my home!" Louis shouted as he placed his hands out. "I'm gonna have to rearran-"
"You didn't do anything wrong, did you?" The first detective asked.
"No?"
"Then you have nothing to worry about." The first detective said as they continued to search. "Since you were the one that your sister was staying with at the time of this poisoning, we have no choice but to investigate you first."
Louis shook his head and walked back into the kitchen when the analysts took the large pot of food that him and Fran were making.
"Hey. Hey!" Louis said as he walked up to them. "That's my dinner-"
"We have to investigate and make sure that there isn't any arsenic in here as well." One of the analysts said as they took a noodle sample and placed it into a plastic bag.
Louis shook his head and sat down in his seat, covering his face. Fran walked over to him and sat on Louis's lap, kissing him on his forehead.
"It's gonna be alright, sweetheart." Fran murmured to him as she placed her tucked lips on his temple. "Just keep praying and God'll answer your prayers."
Meanwhile, Maria was taking it twice as hard. She was so worried about Melissa that she couldn't even sleep during the middle of the night. At 9:05pm, Maria sat at her table and nervously sipped on her glass of wine, thinking of nothing but her daughter. When Rodrigo came downstairs, he placed on his robe and placed his hands onto her shoulders.
"I know, babe...." Rodrigo sighed. "I know."
"Nothing can happen to my baby!" Maria sniffed as she frantically looked over her shoulder. "That's my baby girl! Nothing can happen to her-"
"And nothing will happen to her, dear. You know how strong Melissa is." Rodrigo murmured. "She's gonna pull through this like it's nothing afterwards. Then all of this will be a funny memory."
Suddenly, the two heard the doorbell to their home ring. Rodrigo glanced up and looked through the peephole and saw that it was Mrs. M. When he opened the door, she was standing there with her hands together.
"Mr. and Mrs. Rodriguez, how are you guys?" She asked.
"Well not well, obviously." Maria sniffed.
"Maria." Rodrigo mouthed to her.
"Yeah um......I was calling to apologize for my ghastly behavior. What I said about Melissa wasn't in any way, shape, or form right." Mrs. M said. "Even if she was or was not on drugs, that's no reason to insult her the way that I did. Bottom line is, she's a person."
"We accept your apology." Rodrigo smiled.
"And as soon as she gets better, she'll be accepted right back on the team." Mrs. M smiled. "Especially since we didn't win nationals today. Heh."
Rodrigo and Maria cracked a small smile as Mrs. M waved to them and started making her way to her car.
"Good day."
In school on Wednesday, everyone was talking about what happened to Melissa. And at a typical high school, rumors started swirling around like crazy. One rumor went around that Melissa had a blunt that had rat poisoning, one went around that the food at the school was poisonous and Melissa got the bad hand, and another said that Melissa snuck some food out of the trash inside of the lunchroom to eat it. In health class, Jionni wasn't focused on anything but Melissa's health. His guilt was eating him alive. If Melissa died, he would be going to jail for murder. But in all honesty, that was the last thing on his mind. All he wanted to know was if she's okay. In the middle of teaching for his health class, Jionni raised his hand out of nowhere.
"Yes Jionni?" The teacher said.
Jionni slowly placed his hand down as he gazed into space.
"Is 5 sleepin' pills enough to kill you?" Jionni asked in a dazed tone.
"You're the 5th person to ask me this." The health teacher sighed. "Is this about Melissa Rodriguez?"
"Go easy on him, Mrs. Faultry." One of Jionni's friends snarled. "That was his girlfriend at one point."
"We was neva official, but.....we was close..." Jionni mumbled.
"Guys, 5 sleeping pills are dangerous, but they aren't deadly. At the most, they can make you pass out or have severe side effects." Mrs. Faultry said. "There had to have been something else in her drink for her to be in a coma right now."
As people started mumbling towards their friends in the classroom, a light bulb went off in Jionni's head. He turned and glanced at the floor, wondering about the last thing Chevy told him about the drink.
"I put 5 sleepin' pills in there!"
"Hey! Hey! We're not going to spend the entire time talking about a student." The teacher said in a loud tone over the escalating voices. "May God bless her soul, but we need to get back to our topic!"
It was at this point that Jionni knew that something wasn't adding up.
The next day made 2 days that Melissa survived her drug. However, she was still in her coma. When her family went to check up on her, the doctors delivered even more bad news on top of all of the news they'd received.
"We've been doing numerous tests and checks, but Melissa's condition seems to be grave at this poin-"
"What do you mean!?" Maria asked in a terrified tone.
"Well, the poison is attacking her red blood cells. Though she's in a coma, she's going through a TREMENDOUS amount of pain and based on how many of her cells are being attacked, she's more than likely not going to make it." The doctor said in a saddened tone. "We could continue to support her, but from a doctors recommendation, we suggest taking her off of life support to stop putting her through the pain."
Rosa let out a loud weep and fell into Louis's arms as he comforted her. Rodrigo's eyes welled with tears as he looked down at Maria.
"Would you like to do this, hun?" Rodrigo asked.
Tears fell out of Maria's eyes as she started to bawl silently, nodding her head.
"You do everythang in yo' damn power to help her!"
The family glanced by the door and saw Jionni standing there. He walked up to the doctor and shook his head, giving them a serious look.
"No!" Jionni demanded. "We are NOT takin' her offa' life suppor-"
"This is NOT your decision to make-"
"Smack me, fight me, shoot me, do whateva' the hell you won't. I am NOT lettin' y'all take her offa' life support!" Jionni snapped, interrupting Maria.
"She's going through pain right now, Jionni!"
"Unless you hear da' doctors say dat she brain dead or that she not breathin' on that damn operatin' table, you don't take her off of damn life support!" Jionni continued. "Lissa is a tough girl she can hack out that damn pain! But pain doesn't mean that she's dead. Don't take her off of fuckin' life support!"
Rodrigo could see the anger in Jionni's eyes. He was serious. Rodrigo looked over at the doctor as he placed his arm out.
"Don't take her off of life support, please." Rodrigo said in a low tone. "Do everything that you guys can."
The doctor nodded his head and headed back into Melissa's room. Rodrigo gave Jionni a slightly disgusted look, holding onto Maria and walking off with Louis and Fran.
"Let's go." Rodrigo mumbled as they walked close to the exit. "We'll be back tomorrow."
Rosa stood by Jionni, looking up at him.
"Thank you so much, Jionni." Rosa smiled as she wiped her tears. "Melissa is so lucky to have someone like you."
Jionni shook his head, barely able to look her in her eye.
"You ain't gotta do tha-"
"No, I do." Rosa interrupted. "Even if Melissa doesn't make it, it'll be good to know that she had someone helping her."
Jionni's heart was eating him up. He didn't even want to talk to the family because he felt that he was going to break down if he did. As Jionni got on his bike and prepared to ride off, Louis stopped him before he could go to far.
"Jionni!" Louis called as Jionni stopped his bike.
"Yeah?"
Louis jogged up to him as they walked into the hospital parking lot.
"I.......I'm really stressed." Louis sighed. "I'm at risk of losing my sister and.....I thought you may have some answers."
Jionni placed his legs down onto the ground, straddling his bike.
"What kinda answers?" Jionni asked.
Louis moved his hands back and forth, trying to figure out how to word what he wanted to say.
"Do you know anyone who would want my sister dead?" Louis asked in a sad tone. "Like has she had some serious beefs there?"
Jionni could name everyone in his crew, Britt Bratt, possibly Kiara, and everybody who bullied Melissa in the past. But even naming all of these people, it only came down to him and Chevy. They were the only two people who had "in" on the spiked drink.
"It could be one of them niggas at the school..." Jionni mumbled, not looking Louis in the eye. "Want she gettin' bullied a while back?"
Louis clenched his jaw, shaking his head.
"Sons of bitches tried to kill my sister. I never thought that it'd get this far." Louis said in pure rage. "If I have to search and glance down each and every student in that list, I'll find who did this to my sister. I swear it."
Jionni's heart started racing. Talking to Louis made him feel more and more guilty. He glanced down at his handlebars and clenched his jaw to keep him from crying, hopping back onto his back.
"If you need help findin' whoeva did this, lemme know..." Jionni said as he started riding off.
When Jionni got home, he had some investigating to do.
Jionni went straight over Jmo's and got onto his laptop to see what sleeping pills could do. After looking on multiple sites, all of them came down to the same conclusion. 95% of modern day sleeping pills can't kill you unless it's combined with alcohol or wine. Melissa's sleeping pills were combined with Gatorade. Since Jionni had no idea that rat poisoning was found inside of Melissa's drink, he knew that Chevy had placed something else in there. Afterwards, Jionni got onto his bike and made a 5 minute ride to his home. Jionni banged on the door and waited for him to open it, flaring his arms back and forth. When Chevy opened it, Jionni punched him in the face and watched him fall onto the ground. Jionni straddled him and placed his pocket knife on the skin of his neck, giving him a furious look.
"What the fuck else did you put in her drink?" Jionni yelled.
"What!?" Chevy gagged as Jionni kept his grip on his neck.
"What ELSE you put in her drink!?"
"Nigga......sleepin' pills is all I put in there..." Chevy coughed. "Can you let go uh' my damn neck?"
Jionni took his hand off of Chevy's neck and looked around, rubbing his head in confusion. Chevy started coughing some more as he stood up, giving him a confused look.
"Nigga, what the hell was that!?" Chevy snapped. "I told you I put 5 sleeping pills in there!"
"5 sleeping pills ain't enough to kill her." Jionni murmured.
Chevy paused, looking down.
"Wait, dey' found somethin' else in her Gatorade?"
Jionni looked at Chevy and could tell by his demeanor that he didn't put anything in his drink. His body was steady and his face was just as lost as it usually be when he's taking a test for class.
"You......you ain't put nothin' else in there?" Jionni stuttered.
"Nah. I only put 5 sleepin' pills to make her fall asleep befo' she hit the water, not kill ha' ass!" Chevy chuckled as he grabbed the pill wrappers. "Look."
Jionni looked inside and saw 5 pills missing. Chevy wasn't lying. Even though he didn't like Melissa, he never had any real motive to harm her other than her getting D'juan suspended.
So the remaining question was, who did it?