Chapter 27: Ambivalent. Part IV.
Narrator
"'Cause we all wanna party when the funeral ends. Ba-ba-ba, ba-ba-ba." She sang hoarsely before coughing loudly. It wasn't any kind of cough that made anyone think she was sick, it sounded like she was choking kind of cough.
Frank's eyebrows fell together as he tilted his head at his best friend.
"Are you gonna live?" He finally asked as he emerged from the shadows. Eliese turned to face him with a dizzy feeling reeling through her head. She stared at him through blurry eyes.
"I don't think so." She stated honestly but Frank took it as a joke. He chuckled and sat down on the floor beside her. Eliese was wearing a plain black tee shirt with a pair of high waist cow-girl jeans, or as her mom would call them modern day hippie jeans. That always made Eliese laugh because her and her mom have the same jeans just different generations.
Frank nosily looked into Eliese's notebook to see what she's been writing down, mindless doodles and foot notes that only made sense to Eliese. Nothing out of the ordinary there. Frank always thought Eliese made a better photographer than she did a writer but he could see her being the frontman of a band or writing songs. He thinks that no matter what she does, she does it 10x better than anyone else. Just like the lyrics he saw written down, they're 1000x better than what he could do.
"Kill All Your Friends"
Well you can hide a lot about yourself,
But honey, what're you gonna do?
And you can sleep in a coffin,
But the past ain't through with you.
'Cause we are all a bunch of liars.
Tell me, baby, who do you wanna be?
And we are all about to sell it,
'Cause it's tragic with a capital T.
Let it be, Let it be, Let it be!
'Cause we all wanna party when the funeral ends.
(Ba-ba-ba, ba-ba-ba)
And we all get together when we bury our friends.
(Ba-ba-ba, ba-ba-ba)
It's been eight bitter years since I've been seeing your face.
(Ba-ba-ba, ba-ba-ba)
And you're walking away, and I will die in this place.
Sometimes you scrape and sink so low,
I'm shocked at what you're capable of.
And if this is a coronation,
I ain't feeling the love.
'Cause we are all a bunch of animals
That never paid attention in school.
So tell me all about your problems;
I was killing before killing was cool.
You're so cool, You're so cool, So cool!
'Cause we all wanna party when the funeral ends.
(Ba-ba-ba, ba-ba-ba)
And we all get together when we bury our friends.
(Ba-ba-ba, ba-ba-ba)
It's been nine bitter years since I've been seeing your face.
(Ba-ba-ba, ba-ba-ba)
And you're walking away, and I will die in this place.
You'll never take me alive.
You'll never take me alive.
Do what it takes to survive,
'Cause I'm still here.
You'll never get me alive.
You'll never take me alive.
Do what it takes to survive,
And I'm still here.
You'll never take me alive.
You'll never get me alive.
Do what it takes to survive,
And I'm still here.
You'll never get me. (Get me!)
You'll never take me. (Take me!)
You'll never get me alive.
'Cause we all wanna party when the funeral ends.
(Ba-ba-ba, ba-ba-ba)
And we all get together when we bury our friends.
It's been ten fucking years since I've been seeing
Your face 'round here.
And you're walking away, and I will drown in the fear.
Frank knows that Eliese writes morbid things, her's read so many of her poems that have so much hate in them that he's scared for her but this song, it said something to him. He didn't know what but he knew it meant something. If he only knew that the answers he's been looking for are right before his eyes.
Eliese watched her friend carefully as thoughts raced through her head, she couldn't push them out this time. She couldn't push them out anymore. It's time. She thought before smacking her lips together nervously. She knew she had to be careful with telling him, unlike everyone else where it was like a Band-aid, she needed to do this carefully so she didn't break him. But the more she thought about it, the more she realized that she can't tell him. No matter how she does it, it's going to hurt the same way. She knew he'd be mad at her but for what it's worth, she'll do it.
Sorrow filled the small waiting room, along with silent prayers and with held sobs while the life they knew was in the hands of the hospital team. Everybody gathered around in the small waiting room to hear news on Eliese's condition. Joe and Barbra silently prayed that she was okay, Katie and Jessica held each other and reassured each other that she was going to pull through. Jimmy paced the room, knowing that this might be the end. He held the tears back forcefully. Rae was leaning into Gerard's arms as her mind rolled through everything that could possibly be happening. Ray and Mikey silently waited with Gerard. Matt, Brian and Zack watched as their best friend paced anxiously while Frank sat there beating himself up. He knew something wasn't right with the way she was coughing, he could've done something but he didn't.
It was merely minutes after he left her to go and retreive some drinks from the fridge upstairs that she collapsed, finally. Joe had called Donna to come back to California because Eliese was in the hospital. Donna immediately packed Nathan up and went out on the next flight. Tom was away for work and Nathan couldn't be left home alone.
There's so much she still has to do. Jimmy thought, curling his hands into fists. He was mad at Eliese for not mentioning this sooner so they could've helped her. He was angry that she behaved like a little girl and did this to herself. He knew that this was the end. He remembers when she told him if it was going to happen she wasn't going to make it out alive.
Meanwhile Eliese lies on the gurney, motionless as the Emergancy Room staff tried to get her lungs to function properly again. They tried restarting her heart and putting breathing tubes down her throat to provide oxygen to her brain but no matter what they did, she was unresponsive. It broke their hearts to see such a young girl gone. But Eliese wasn't gone just yet, she still felt everything. There was this sense of overwhelming peace that washed over her as she slipped into a deep slumber. She didn't need to worry about having to feel pain anymore, where she was, there was no pain. There was only peacefullness.
The Emergancy Room Doctors looked at each other and frowned sadly as they called it.
"Time of death: August 11, 1999; 11:59:34."
Nobody was prepared for the eruption of sorrowful cries when the Doctor walked in and told them the news. Joe collapsed to his knees, Rae began to hysterically sob into Gerard's shirt, Jimmy kicked the vending machine and Frank stayed frozen in time. He couldn't believe what he just heard. An hour ago she was fine and now she's gone without a word. He couldn't blink as the tears rolled down his face, he couldn't move, he couldn't speak; the only thing he could do was stare blankly at the wall as he felt his life line slip between his fingers effortlessly. Frank could feel himself falling into a pitch black hole of nothingness, merely depression that caught his soul like a fish on a hook.
He let out a shaky breath and frowned sadly.
"'Cause we all wanna party when the funeral ends, ba-ba-ba, ba-ba-ba."