"What!?"
"They have been drinking excessively. It's not good. It heightens their symptoms, making it more probable for them to overdose tonight." My brother informs me, worrying me greatly.
"How do you know that?"
"I'm a copper, Grace." He gives me a look that makes me feel bad, like I should have known. He makes me feel stupid, but only because he seems angry.
"Would you just leave us alone, mate?!" Lucas seems very angry and tries to get out of my brother's hold, but William twists his arm in a way that Lucas can't move or object anymore.
"I'm trying to save your life, mate!"
"We're just having fun!"
"At the rate you drink, or if you take another dose just for fun, you could end up dead. I know, I have seen many people dead because of overdose on crime scenes. I have also seen many people in your situation where they got so high and angry that they'd killed somebody, or they were so under the influence that they got raped. I'm only looking out for you." William tells him on a categorical tone. It surprises me that he has seen so much horror and I didn't know a clue... "We are taking you back to your hotel."
Lucas seems to be about to argue when I feel the need to help my brother in this situation. I fully support his decision to get them both out of here.
"You will do anything he says, do you understand Lucas?!"
"It's not even your business!"
"It is my business! Sophie is my friend and if anything happens to you, it affects her, so it affects me. She deserves better than that!"
"You won't tell her, will you?"
"Not if you cooperate." I tell him firmly, trying to be as strong as my brother. But the truth is, I'm terrified! "You too. You are coming with us!" I tell Ash and thankfully he doesn't object as much as his friend.
I try to look for Mike, but he can't be found. I do the same for Caleb, but the images of him being kissed by two girls comes back to my mind. He might already be gone by now.
We get outside the club and wait for taxis to come. William gets impatient so he calls the taxi company and orders a van for us four to fit in. Ash questions me while we wait about where I'm taking him. I respond that we're going to his hotel room. He concludes the wrong conclusion about my answer, but if it's going to make him cooperate without objection then it's better to lead him on that way.
About half an hour later, we get in their hotel room which is less luxurious than I would have expected. All four of them share a room with two queen beds. Mike is there, already in bed. He wakes up when Lucas and Ash get in and speak terribly loud, being their intoxicated selves. They both haven't stopped talking the whole ride here.
I have let my brother handle both men because I really don't know how to deal with this situation. I know they are becoming rockstars and they're in the business of drug abuse and free drinks, but because of the fact that I know them personally it disappoints me. It's not my reality. I have never used any drugs nor seen what it looks like. I'm not dumb, I've seen movies, but I don't know what it looks like from up close.
Will really insists that we stay with them a little longer and make them drink loads of water. Lucas takes the phone and calls room service. I'm surprised there are still open at this hour, but it seems like they are minutes later when it knocks at the door and Luke literally runs through the room to get to the door. He had ordered chips for Ash, but at the forth he eats his good humour and his grin change for a look of concern. He downs a glass of water, but it doesn't seem to help his situation. He gets up in a hurry and rushes to the bathroom. I look around at all the boys. Mike doesn't seem too surprised.
"It happens all the time." He informs me before I follow Ash to the loo.
"What does?" I let out before I hear Ash throwing up and I rush to his side in panic.
I see him leaning over the loo breathlessly. The bad smell gets to me, so I press the flush to wash it away and look for towels.
"Are you feeling better?" I ask him but get no response. I look at him and it takes a moment before I see him shake his head.
I take the first clean wash cloth I see, and wet it with warm water in the sink. I open the door to ask my brother a glass of water. I hear Ash throwing up again before I get back in with the water.
Inside the bathroom, I see him weakly trying to flush the loo. His hand is shaking like an old man's. I rush by his side and kneel to give him the glass of water. He takes it uncertainly, not meeting my eyes once. He takes a small sip and puts it down next to him.
I look at him a second longer to be sure he won't throw up in the next seconds and reach for his face with a tender hand. I take his chin in my hand and start wiping his sweaty face with the wet wash cloth still in my hand. His eyes are closed and I seem to want him to look at me.
"I must be reminding you even more of your mum now." I joke to him with a kind smirk on my lips.
He chuckles slightly and finally open his eyes to look at me. They are a beautiful shade of hazel that can almost seem gold in this light.
"That was not what I meant."
"I know. I'm just teasing." I smile back to him as I comb his hair out of his face with my fingers. I want to free his locks from his sweaty forehead.
He hangs his mouth open, breathing in and out slowly but loudly. He is trembling. I run the warm cloth on his forehead once again and down to his face to his neck. But even though he seems to be burning hot on the outside, I think he is freezing on the inside. I get up and take a bigger towel to cover his shoulders with. I sit back down by his side and caress his back with a hand to bring some heat to the cloth.
He turns his head to my side without looking at me. I reach for his glass of water to feed it to him. His breathing increases. He refuses it quickly. He straightens himself and leans back over the loo. A loud and guttural noise is heard, but nothing comes out.
"I hate this..." He murmurs and he finds himself under another attack which doesn't make him throw up.
He stays like this, in pain and sweating over the loo, for several minutes. Nothing is said and there's nothing to be done but wait until it passes. All that is left for me to do is to rub his back and listen to the low cries of agony he makes.
"Why are you here?" He breathes out in the loo, his voice echoing in the porcelain.
I question myself a couple of seconds as to why he would be asking me that. The answer seems obvious.
"Because I care about you."
"I'm disgusting."
"I don't mind it." I respond calmly, mirroring his lack of energy.
I continue rubbing his back until I feel his muscle tense up under my hand. He moves and grabs a hold of the toilet lid before he throws up very loudly. Despite of myself, I see the mix of colours of his vomit, hinting me the variety of drinks he's had tonight.
"It's OK. Let it all out." I tell him as I kneel next to him and push back the towel on his shoulders so that it doesn't fall in the loo or get dirtied with vomit.
He throws up again, emptying his stomach one last time before he falls lazily on his knees and rests his head on his arm on the side of the loo.
I straighten myself to flush and lift gently his chin so that I can clean up his face. The towel is now dirty and cold, so I get up to rinse it and come back down to clean his face completely.
"Do you think you're done?" I ask him and take back the towel he had on his shoulders to wrap him comfortably.
"I think, yeah." He responds, his eyes shut, trying to sit back down in front of the loo.
"You must feel tired. Do you want to go to bed? Do you want to take a shower?"
"Not now.... I just, I want to stay here for a bit." He answers slowly, extremely weak, looking for something to lean on.
I scoot closer to him and embrace him so that he can lean on me the time he recovers a little. I take advantage of this time to look at him. His shirt is dirty. He stinks a lot, he really needs a shower.
Do they do that often?! Mike didn't seem surprised that Ashley was sick... I will have to question him on that matter at a later time. For now, I just need to get Ashley back on his feet for his shows this weekend. Why does he need drugs to get a high? His job, playing the drums in front of thousands of people, doesn't give him enough of a high?
I don't know for how long we stay like this, my arms wrapped around him on the bathroom floor, but I get out of my thoughts to find Ashley trembling in my arms.
"Ashley, what's wrong?" I ask him in a hurry, calling his name so that he wakes up or understands the urgency to answer me.
He doesn't respond and I panic. I step away from him and I see how little energy he has in him. I get out of the bathroom to seek for the first shirt I can find. My brother's attention is on me as soon as he sees me look into Ash's suitcase. Mikey's as well, but he's more nonchalant about this whole situation than my brother and I are.
"He's always cold when he's sick. The trick is to make him wear socks. Two pairs usually suffice." He informs me and wraps himself back into the cocoon of blankets we've found him in. Lucas seem to be a lot quieter, but I really don't fucking mind at the moment.
I take the first shirt that I see and join back Ashley in the bathroom. I find him laid on the floor with his eyes closed. I panic instantly and rush to his side to make him get up just in case he gets sick. I don't want him to choke with his own vomit, so I raise him in a seated position. I hold his head in front of mine and I can't hide my concern tone when I call his name.
"Ash?! Open your eyes. It's not time to sleep. We're going in the shower." I tell him and hold him close to me.
I take off the towel around his shoulders to then take off his dirty shirt. He barely opens his eyes, but the second his shirt is off, he clings onto me like his life depends on it. I can feel just how badly he is shaking, so I hurry my hands to the hem of his jeans and undo them to take them off. I don't care about his socks or his underwear. I take back the towel on the ground and wrap his shoulders again so that I can undress myself as well.
I search for his eyes to make sure he has some stability and can hold himself when I sit him on the loo. Thankfully, he does. So, I take off my clothes quickly and put on his shirt to cover my body. I take him by the hands and lead him with me in the shower.
"You don't need to do... this." He says very weakly as I close the glass door behind him.
"You don't need to do this, Ashley. It's clearly not the first time you've been so drunk that you can't hold it in." I tell him and turn on the water in the shower, he jumps at the contact of cold water, but it heats up in seconds.
He clings onto me even harder until he starts to warm up. The more he lets go of me, the easier I feel about starting to clean him. I take the wet cloth I had earlier and wash his face with water first until he gains composure and can stand on his own. I take the hotel soap and rub it on the cloth to wash his skin. The shirt I took from him is soaking wet as well as my hair. I feel the mascara running on my cheeks as it burns my eyes. I decide to wash my face first before I tenderly caress his face with the cloth to clean what might have left from his vomit.
Now that he doesn't need me to stand, his arm don't cling onto me, they circle me, resting on the lower part of my back. I don't realise it at first, until he pulls me to him and dives his lips slowly on mine. They don't touch for long. It's a peck more than a snog. It surprises me more than anything.
I part slowly to not make him fall. It didn't make me feel anything except how wrong it is... Marcel will never understand...
"You can't do that." I tell him and decide this shower is over and that it might have given him the wrong idea all along.
I get out of the shower and take his towel to give to him as I search for one, dripping water everywhere on the floor.
"I wanted to." He lets out and lazily dries himself before joining me out of the shower. "And I want to do it again."
"Ash, you can't. You're sick and I was only trying to help you." I finally find a towel and wrap it around myself since I realise how transparent his wet shirt that I wear has gotten.
"Grace..." He whispers and his insistence is becoming annoying.
"Look at yourself, Ash! You're drunk and high and sick! This is not the Ashley that I know." I let out furiously. I've tried to be nice, but I think he might have thought me as too nice.
I open the door of the bathroom and walk out of there to let him join the other lads and get to bed. I look at Lucas, still annoyed.
"He's clean and he's not cold anymore. He's your job to take care of. Dress him and get to bed, both of you." I let out furiously so that I can go back in the bathroom, get dressed, and leave this place.
I see Lucas wanting to complain, but I look at him very seriously and shut him up with my expression that warns him.
"Don't you dare argue. Do you realise how of a mess you are? Is that really the kind of artists you want to be? Do as you wish, it's your life, but know you're putting your life in danger. And I won't stand here and support your lifestyles." I tell both of them, knowing full well now the burden Mikey has to go through to take care of them.
I go back inside the loo and dry myself as quickly as possible to get dressed again. This is so not the night I wanted to have.
I get out of the bathroom and Lucas meets me in the door frame, a sorry look in his eyes.
"Please, don't say anything to Sophie." He pleads to me, looking very genuine, but honestly if there's someone in the world that can shake them is her.
"You have everything to gain if I tell her. Now, you're high and you don't understand... but you'll thank me one day."
I look him right in the eyes for a long moment, until I look to my left to my brother. I pick up my purse on the ground and turn my back to them to finally leave this room. And here I always thought of the boys as drama free... How wrong I have been!
***
Happy Valentine's Day!
May you treat yourself with a little Sinatra, My Funny Valentine.
All the love & thank you for your support!