Chapter 31
Have you ever experienced that feeling when everything just stops?
It's as if the world stops spinning, and you watch everything around you crumble and fall into tiny shards. It's when your heart skips a beat, but not in the good way. Not the skip when you're falling in love, but the skip when you feel like everything is falling apart.
That's how I'm feeling now. My heart is cracking, dropping to the pit of my stomach as I stare aimlessly at the bright white walls. The nauseating sterile smell of the hospital insulted my senses, and the sight of my best friend falling to pieces shifted in the corner of my eye.
I feel lost.
No, I feel like I'm not even there. That my body is just a shell without the contents - empty.
Tyler's tight wrap around my waist is the only thing that is stopping me from falling apart. A tear rolls down my cheek as I squeeze Tyler to stop the pain that doesn't seem to subside.
"She's going to be fine," he whispers in my ear, but I'm that zoned out it just sounds like absolute gibberish.
She's going to be fine, she's going to be fine, she's going to be fine, she's going to be fine. I recite in my head in a mantra, but it doesn't seem to help anything. She isn't going to be fine, he doesn't know that. In fact, all we can have is the spark in the bottom of our heart that everything is going to be okay.
"Friends and relatives of Emily Jaeger," a voice full of authority snaps me out of my episode. I immediately shift away from Tyler, standing up in a hurry to walk over to the doctor. Nate and Tyler do the same, staring at Doctor Perkins with hope filled in their eyes.
"I'm her boyfriend," Nate speaks up. He looks worse for wear, his clothes are crumpled from sitting in the uncomfortable hospital chair folded up in fetal position. His hair is askew, and he all round looks like a mess. "How is she?"
Doctor Perkins smiles slightly. This has got to be good news. Right? "Emily is stable," he confirms, "She's asleep at the moment, and should come around in a few hours. Emily is on lot's of pain killers at the moment, so she may drop in and out of consciousness for a few hours."
I breathe a sigh of relief. She's okay. Thank heavens. My heart pretty much broke when I heard that she was in the emergency room with the possibility of being on the next gurney to the graveyard from the injuries she sustained.
"Can we see her?" Nate almost pleads the doctor.
Doctor Perkins nods, "A nurse will be in every half an hour to check her vitals. Emily is in room," he looks down at his clip board, "Four-seven-nine. Take the elevator up to floor three and go left at the end of the hall, her room should be on the right side at the end of the passage. Good luck kiddos."
"Thank you," Nate hugs him. The doctor takes this by surprise, patting his back awkwardly. "So so so so much."
"Hurry up you idiot," I push Nate away from the poor violated doctor. Nate seems to realize that he just hugged Emily's doctor, quickly snapping out of it and taking off quicker than Usain Bolt.
"She's going to be fine," I breathe out, smiling at Tyler. He beams brightly. "I think I peed myself when he was talking," I squealed, jumping onto Tyler to envelope him into a huge hug.
Tyler wraps his arms around my waist so that I wouldn't slip down. I wrap my legs around his waist, squeezing the absolute poop out of him. Tyler chuckles, starting to follow Nate who is furiously punching the elevator button. I'm surprised it didn't concave in all honestly. "She's pretty lucky," he says, "If you ask me."
"Yeah," I breathe out, still in shock and happiness that our best friend is going to pull through.
A few wrong turns later, Nate, Tyler and I step into room four hundred and seventy nine. Emily is on the hospital bed with a few machines hooked up to her. The beeping of the heart monitor is the only sound filling the room since neither of us could utter out a word.
Emily looks broken.
Her light lilac hair is spread out on the pillow, looking matted and worse for wear. The bruises on her face and the slash across her cheek aren't the only evidence that Emily went through hell and back. Her left leg is plastered in a purple cast, the result of a golf club and a hell of a lot of muscle. There's an IV in her arm feeding her all the drugs one could dream about.
She's probably higher than Snoop Dogg after a good night out.
In all seriousness, I'm disgusted about how she sustained the injuries, but also glad and grateful at the same time.
Her abusive mother beat her only child up to a complete pulp. The worst part? Her only reason for doing that was because Emily had accidentally vomited in the kitchen sink while cooking breakfast for her demanding, malevolent mother.
The good thing? Her mother is now locked up in a cell at the local police department with the weight of child abuse, physical abuse and hopefully life in jail. She's going into court tomorrow, thankfully, and will be sentenced guilty and then taken to prison shortly after.
Since Emily is already eighteen, she has the option to move out. I'm not sure where she will go to though, because she could either stay at Nate or my house, or buy one.
I'm just glad that psycho bitch is going to prison. Heck, she deserves to rot in hell.
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Nate refuses to leave Emily's side.
She had just regained consciousness for fifteen minutes around half an hour ago, but is now asleep again. Nate hasn't eaten anything in way too long, and definitely needs a shower since he stinks worse than a dogs ass. I tried to tell him that, but he completely ignored me, saying he wanted to be there for Emily every time she wakes up.
He's so sweet.
"Oh fuck it," I say as my stomach grumbles loudly, "Tyler and I are going to go get some dinner, well bring some back for you."
Nate grins cheekily, "Thanks, I'm starving."
I mimic him, rolling my eyes. "Well, you could have but you're determined not to eave her side. She even told you that you stink but you were too busy crying for heavens sake."
Yeah, Nate cried when Emily woke up. He started singing heaps of cheesy songs while Emily nearly melted with happiness when he was practically serenading her.
Sure, she gave me a sad smile and thanked Tyler and I for being there for her, but later diverted all her attention to her greedy boyfriend.
Jesus, it's like he's taking her off of me. This must be stopped.
"What do you want for dinner?" I ask as I open the passenger door to Tyler's car.
"Hm," Tyler thinks for a second, "KFC? I haven't had it forever. I could eat a whole freaking chicken I'm that hungry. No lunch! I had no lunch Nova. It feels like my stomach is eating itself."
"Poor diddums," I laugh at him. "So much for going to the supermarket."
Tyler rolls his eyes, "I'm sure my mom can go and buy the grocery's instead of letting her poor son and his girlfriend deal with it."
"How rude," I reply sarcastically, "I mean, your children aren't your freaking slaves."
"Exactly!" Tyler exclaims as he drives out of the parking lot. "On another note, what the hell are we buying Nate?"
"The whole shop," I reply blatantly, "He could eat it and the next town over's shop out if he wanted to."
Tyler shudders, just thinking about all that chicken.
That's a lot of chicken.
My eyes widen as I remember that I completely forgot to message Austin back to tell him about what had happened. I'd been to off with the fairies to remember that I have a brother at home that I need to feed.
Instead of messaging him, I call him instead. He answers in two short rings.
"Oh, you remembered that you have a poor helpless brother that cannot operate kitchen appliances for the life of himself," he retorts.
Oh right, I completely forgot that Austin is a complete idiot when it comes to using the kitchen and trying to cook. Especially after that omelette he tried feeding me the other day. Heck, poor Austin can't even use the toaster without burning it because he turns the stupid temperature up so high.
"Shut up you butt," I roll my eyes, "Emily is in the hospital, so Tyler, Nate and I were all there with her. Tyler and I are going to KFC, do you want us to come pick you up and you can come back to the hospital with us?"
"Let me think for a second," he says.
I turn to look at Tyler, rolling my eyes and pointing to my phone which is pressed up to my ear.
"Yeah, I'll come. How long will you be cause I need to get dressed?"
"We're going to the hospital, not a freaking fashion parade," I snort out a laugh, "And fifteen minutes the max."
"You never know, the nurse's could be really hot?"
I can almost imagine Austin now. He's smirking deviously to himself and thinking about how awesome it would be to snag a hot young nurse. Disgusting.
"Goodbye," I hang up on my pervert of a brother. I look at Tyler who turns to look at me with an expectant smile. "Pitt stop," I grin sheepishly, "Got to pick up the brother."
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"I want that."
"Wait, no."
"Can I have this one?"
"Ew, I hate potato and gravy. Definitely not that."
"Just pick something already," Tyler and I scream at Austin simultaneously.
Austin is in the back seat being an indecisive little pain in the ass. He has spent the past two minutes trying to pick what he wants to have, making my blood almost boil.
The car behind us honks loudly, making Austin groan. "I hate this. You guys are putting too much pressure on me! I can't focus."
"Shut up," I growl, "Tyler, just pick something for him to eat. Please, put me out of my misery."
Tyler orders the same thing I got for Austin, effectively shutting the backseat driver up.
"I'm two seconds off ripping your jugular out," I turn around to look at my brother, "Regardless of the fact that you're going to be famous for acting."
"I told you I'm not just a pretty face," he shrugs, "And I'm pretty sure my vocal chords are worth more than you and Tyler combined."
"You can't sing for shit," I exclaim, "You sound like a dying llama! You're not going to be one of those Disney stars turned singers unless they practically shove auto tune down that annoying throat of yours. Word."
"Um."
The lady at the window stares at me with a horrified expression, while Tyler tries to hold back a laugh, gasping like a fish.
Oh.
Shit.
"Hi," I smile sheepishly.
"That's $50.75," she stares at me like I was some kind of alien with toes as a mustache.
Tyler pays for the food, still trying not to laugh. As soon as we drive away from the girl, he pisses himself laughing. Austin does as well, and I find it hard not to join in.
"Word," Tyler imitates me, snapping his fingers like a mean girl.
"Oh, shut up," I grumble, crossing my arms over my chest, "Stop picking on me."
The drive back to the hospital was pretty interesting if you ask me. Austin sat on the bag of takeaway to keep it warm, telling us he is a hen and that the food is the egg.
My brother is a complete idiot.
"My egg just hatched," Austin squeals in a girly high-pitched voice as we park the car.
Instead of running around like headless chickens into the hospital like earlier this morning, we walk leisurely to the doors with and extra person slash chicken.
"You gotta admit, I'm a pretty hot chick," Austin gushes. I stare at him like he grew two heads. "I mean a chicken," he covers himself up, "I have a penis and I'm not showing you it."
"Good, it's probably too small to see anyway," I retort.
"OOH, BURN!" Tyler yells, "Apply some water to that burn."
"What happened to following the bro code?" Austin looks at Tyler like he just kicked a puppy, "Always defend the male parts?"
Tyler shrugs, "I'm your sisters boyfriend now, I can boss you around."
Austin snorts, "I'll tell mommy."
"No, you won't." I glare at Austin. Mom is already gushing like an idiot about me having a boyfriend, and knowing that Tyler is bossing Austin around will make her melt to the floor like cheese.
Nasty.
We continue bickering during the trip to Emily's room. By the time we reached her door, Tyler and Austin had already established who was 'the man' by seeing who could fit the most nuggets in their mouth. None of us really like KFC nuggets, so they thought that they would finish them off in a game.
Austin won.
Big mouthed butt face.
"Emily," I squeal as I see my best friend awake. Nate, on the other hand, is rounding his piggies up for the market, snoring his head off. "I'm so glad you're awake, I can't deal with these nuggets much longer," I point to the two boys with nuggets in their mouth.
Emily laughs lightly, beaming brightly. For just going through hell and back, she's pretty damn happy.
We all eat our KFC after waking Nate up, secretly giving Emily a few chips when the nurse left after checking her vitals for what felt like the hundredth time.
I wait until everyone except Emily and I have fallen asleep before I start talking to Emily about what I really wanted to ask.
As much as I would like to admit, not everything is sunshine lollipops and rainbows.
Emily may seem happy, but I can see the pain in her eyes. I'm pretty sure everyone has, but they just haven't said anything.
"Hey Em," I sit at the foot of her bed, staring at her now-signed cast. We had all gone crazy, marking our names over it. "How are you? Really."
Emily gulps. "I'm not doing very well," she admits, "My mother just abused me to the point that I nearly died. I'm not emotionally and physically okay, but I know that time will help. I just keep on having visions that my mother is going to come back," a traitorous tear rolls down both our cheeks, "And I don't know if I can stomach feeling like that for the rest of my life."
"Oh, Em," I get up and walk over to her side, enveloping her in a hug making sure to not hurt her. She sobs into my shoulder, and I can honestly feel my heart breaking from inside my chest.
Nobody deserves this.
Emily sure as hell doesn't deserve what happened to her.
"You are my best friend," my voice cracks, "And I love you so much Emily. I know you're going to pull through. You've been so strong, you're a fighter and I know that you can do it."
"I love you too," she laughs through her tears. "God, I'd be a mess without you."
I laugh as well. "Ditto girl, ditto."
It was at this moment that I realized that you should never take your best friend for granted, not even for a second, because you never know when something bad is going to happen to them.
After all, you're only but half a person without your best friend right by your side.