Authors: Bec Linder
“You’re good at this,” he said. “You’ve had practice, huh?”
She nodded. “My old band—you were right, of course. About the lead singer. He was really—we had a bad year, before the end. I spent a lot of time convincing him to keep going.” The memories didn’t sting the way they used to. Telling O’Connor about it had released some internal pressure in her, cleansed those old wounds. It was a sad thing, a heartache, but she wasn’t afraid to talk about it anymore.
“So now you’re working your magic on me,” he said. “Okay.” He straightened up and raked his hair out of his eyes, knotted it up into a bun with the swiftness of long practice. He looked at her, his gaze clear and direct, probing. “Why do you care what I do?”
“Because I love making music,” Leah said, deciding to be honest. “I love being on stage. I care about it more than I care about anything else in life. And I also hate to see anyone suffer as much as you are.”
He nodded. “Good. Straightforward selfishness mixed with human empathy. I can live with that.” He stood up. “Let’s go eat some of Rushani’s pizza.”
Was it that easy? Leah scrambled to follow him. They went to the dressing room, and Andrew told Rushani that he had fallen asleep and Leah had kindly woken him up. He was all smiles, really putting on the dog, and Leah watched him and knew that this was only the beginning.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
They drove overnight to Denver, and played another good show there the next evening. That night they were in a hotel. They didn’t check in until late, after the show was over and Rushani was confident there weren’t going to be any unexpected crises with load-out. Leah kept giving him sly looks while they waited in the dressing room, drinking beer and shooting the shit. James was planning a trip to Antarctica in early September, and O’Connor thought it was pretty cool and genuinely wanted to listen to him talk about his travel arrangements, but he kept getting distracted by the way Leah was mouthing at the rim of her bottle. Succubus. Devil-woman.
He didn’t get much sleep that night. Leah was… Well. They had a good time.
He woke early, left Leah a note, and went back to his own room to catch a few more hours of sleep. It was late in the morning by the time he finally made it downstairs. Breakfast was over, but maybe he could talk Rushani into going to buy him a bagel.
James was in the lobby with a couple of the roadies. They beckoned O’Connor over. “Day off in Denver, man!” Tom said, and held up his hand for a high five. “We’re gonna get us some of that legal weed!”
James rolled his eyes without looking up from his phone.
“I’ve got other plans, but thanks,” O’Connor said. His plans involved Leah, a bed, and plenty of condoms.
“Your loss,” Leonard said. “I hear they’ve got the good stuff.”
“Yeah, I’ll just have to miss out,” O’Connor said, shrugging. He didn’t smoke weed very much anyway. The cotton mouth wasn’t worth it.
Tom and Leonard headed out, talking loudly about how incredibly high they were going to get. “There go the most responsible roadies in the business,” James said.
O’Connor grinned. James wasn’t being sarcastic: they had made a policy of being incredibly picky about who they took on tour, and their crew were serious, hardworking people who periodically acted like junkie slackers just to maintain their roadie cred. “They’ll have a lot of fun and they’ll be back before midnight.”
“Or earlier,” James agreed. “You know how Leonard likes his sleep.”
O’Connor settled on the couch next to James and peeked over his shoulder. Twitter, it looked like. “Have you seen Rushani?”
“Nope,” James said. “Go out and get your own bagel, you lazy bastard.”
Busted. “But it tastes so much better when she gets it for me.”
James poked at his phone. “Speak of the devil.” He held it to his ear and said, “Yeah?” He listened for a minute. O’Connor watched as his face changed: a sudden stillness, and then a hard, frozen fear. O’Connor sat up straight and leaned toward him, trying to eavesdrop. “Okay. Rushani. Rushani! Call 911. Yeah. I know. I know. Do it now. I’m on my way up with O’Connor.”
O’Connor was already on his feet. He knew, of course. There was no need to talk about it.
It must have been pretty bad if Rushani—capable, resourceful Rushani—was too rattled to remember to call 911.
She opened the door on the first knock, her phone held to her ear. She was speaking rapidly to the emergency dispatcher. She stepped aside to let them into the room, and they both went immediately to the bed, where Andrew was splayed on top of the covers, one hand dangling down toward the floor.
James felt for a pulse, bent down and listened at Andrew’s mouth. “He’s breathing.”
O’Connor stared. He didn’t quite believe it. Andrew looked like a corpse, waxy and limp. How long had he been like this before Rushani found him? How long had he been like this? They had all known, all of them, for months, and none of them had done anything about it, and now here it was: the worst thing, the ultimate nightmare. They could have stopped it. Somehow. Before it came to this.
“O’Connor,” James said sharply, and O’Connor snapped to attention. “Listen to me! Search the room and see if you can find what he took.”
“Right,” O’Connor said, grateful to be told what to do. He knelt on the carpet and lifted the bed skirt to peer beneath the frame.
“They’re on their way,” Rushani said above him, her voice wobbling.
“Good,” James said. “Rushani. Come here.” Fabric rustled. They were hugging. O’Connor stayed on the floor. There was nothing under the bed. His eyes hurt. His eyeballs were throbbing in his skull, pulsing in time with his heartbeat. He wanted to go back to sleep. He wanted to still be asleep. James said, “It wasn’t your fault.”
Rushani started weeping.
The EMTs arrived, clamped an oxygen mask on Andrew’s face, lifted him onto a gurney. O’Connor felt numb as they took the elevator down to the ground floor. His skull buzzed, a dull electric whine. The man at the front desk watched them leave, eyes wide. There was room for only one additional person in the back of the ambulance. Rushani went, gripping Andrew’s limp hand as the doors closed and the ambulance peeled out of the lot, lights flashing.
“I called a cab,” James said. “We’ll meet them there.”
“I didn’t find it,” O’Connor said. “Whatever he took.”
James sighed. “It doesn’t matter. He probably flushed it, flushed the bottle, whatever. They’ll figure it out at the hospital.”
“You think he did it on purpose?” O’Connor asked. The thought hadn’t occurred to him.
James gave him a strange look. “Yeah. Of course he did.”
Of course.
The hospital wasn’t far. James paid the cabbie and they walked into the antiseptic lobby. A receptionist pointed them in the direction of the ER. It wasn’t hard to locate Andrew. Thursday morning wasn’t a busy time in the ER, but there was a hive of activity centered around one curtained bed, people moving briskly in and out. And there was Rushani, standing to one side, pale, arms folded.
She acknowledged them with a glance. “They’re pumping his stomach.”
“Is that good?” James asked.
She shrugged. “Too soon to tell. They said we can hang out as long as we don’t get in the way. They’ll tell us as soon as they know anything.”
So they waited. James and O’Connor sat side by side on the empty bed beside Andrew’s, and Rushani claimed the single chair. They listened to the nurses and the ER doctor speaking to each other in rapid, impenetrable medical jargon.
O’Connor’s stomach gurgled. He still hadn’t had any breakfast.
After an hour or so, Rushani stood up and sighed. “I need another cup of coffee.”
“Take O’Connor with you. He hasn’t eaten anything. I’ll stay here and hold down the fort,” James said.
“Thanks, James,” Rushani said. “I’ll bring you a cup of coffee.”
They walked to the cafeteria, Rushani leading the way, O’Connor trailing uselessly behind. He hated hospitals: the lights, the way they smelled.
“Are you doing okay?” Rushani asked him, when they settled at a table with their overpriced food. “You seem a little out of it.”
He
felt
out of it. “Sorry. Lack of breakfast, partly.” He stirred creamer into his coffee. “And bad memories. My grandfather died of a heart attack when I was a kid. He lived with us on the farm, and we all went with him to the hospital, and he died in the ER. I was old enough to know what was going on. I guess it was sort of traumatizing.”
“I’m sorry,” Rushani said, and reached across the table to squeeze his hand. “You can go back to the hotel, if you want. We’ve got it under control.”
He shook his head. “I want to be here. Sorry I haven’t been more help.”
“You’re here,” Rushani said. “That’s plenty.” Her mouth quirked. “Me and James like being in charge anyway. You may have noticed.”
“No,” he said, drawling the word out with ample sarcasm, and she laughed.
They sobered quickly. Rushani said, “We’re probably going to have to cancel some tour dates.”
“If he lives,” O’Connor said, because someone had to say it; someone had to consider the worst of all possible outcomes. They had to be prepared for anything that happened.
“Don’t say that,” she said sharply. “He’s going to live.”
“He’s probably going to live,” O’Connor said. “You’re right.” He didn’t want her to start crying again. He regretted opening his mouth. Of course Rushani knew what the worst outcome was. Of course she was thinking about it. They all were. There was no reason to say it aloud.
“Oh, God,” Rushani said, and covered her face with her hands. “Oh, God. What are we going to do?”
He didn’t have an answer to that.
When they went back to the ER, a doctor was speaking with James. He looked over as they approached and gave them a tight smile. “I’ve been explaining the situation to your friend,” he said. “Andrew is going to be okay, at least physically. He took a bunch of sleeping pills, which is honestly not very effective for a suicide attempt. If they’re not barbiturates, they just give you a nice long nap.”
“So he’s going to be fine,” Rushani said, staring at the doctor.
“Yes, we expect a full recovery,” the man said.
They all looked at each other, numb, trying to figure out if this was good news. It
was
good news. Full recovery. That meant he was going to be okay. He was going to live.
“Full recovery,” O’Connor repeated, as if saying the words made them somehow more true.
“We’re holding him overnight for observation,” the doctor said. “And we’re going to have a psychiatrist evaluate him. He’ll likely end up being admitted. Danger to self or others, et cetera.”
“He isn’t a danger to anyone,” Rushani snapped.
“He’s certainly a danger to himself,” the doctor said. “You have to understand that we’re liable if we release him and he does end up killing himself. The psychiatrist can order an involuntary hold if need be.”
Christ. They were going to have to cancel the rest of the tour.
“Anyway, he’s awake now,” the doctor continued, “so you can go talk to him if you’d like. We’ll move him upstairs to the psychiatric unit as soon as a bed opens up.” He raised his eyebrows at them, stuck his pen in his coat pocket, and walked off.
Rushani glared at his retreating back. “I didn’t like that doctor at all.”
“I don’t think ER doctors have a reputation for being particularly warm and fuzzy,” James said. “It must be a brutal job.”
“I don’t care,” Rushani said, still scowling. “He didn’t have to talk about Andrew like that.”
O’Connor sighed. “Let’s go see what Andrew has to say for himself.”
They trooped into the curtained-off area where Andrew was resting. He looked very pale and very still, lying there on the bed with his eyes closed and his hands folded on top of his stomach.
“I think he’s sleeping,” Rushani whispered.
“He isn’t sleeping,” O’Connor said. “He’s playing possum.”
“I’m
resting
,” Andrew said, and opened his eyes. “When are they letting me out of here? I know we have a show tomorrow.”
There was a bitter edge to his voice that O’Connor didn’t want to think about.
James cleared his throat. “Uh, well. Didn’t the doctor tell you?”
Andrew’s eyes narrowed. “Tell me what?”
“They’re keeping you overnight,” O’Connor said. “And probably longer than that.”
“What?
Why
?” Andrew struggled to sit up. “I’m
fine
. The doctor said I’m going to be fine. It was a stupid mistake, I got confused about the dosage for my new sleeping pills—”
“Really?” O’Connor asked. “Do you really think we’re going to believe that?”
His words were sharper than he intended, but he was
angry
. He had known Andrew for years, since their first week of college, and they had been close friends, once. Best friends. And now Andrew was treating his life like it was something disposable, when he was so talented, and loved by so many people.