~Andy’s POV~
I opened my eyes and looked at the chair near the edge of my curtained off cubicle. I can hear the heart monitor beeping, I know I’m awake. I rub my eyes and open them again. Someone is still sitting in the chair.

I shake my head and rub my eyes harder. He’s still sitting in a green recliner that looks like it’s covered in plastic, hands behind his head and legs stretched out before him.

I glare at the triage desk suspiciously, the blinding glow of overhead lights is back on in the hallway. I turn my head around just enough to glare suspiciously at the vital signs on the machine behind me, then back at the chair. I’m hallucinating.

I reach my bandaged left hand over to pinch my right forearm and don’t feel anything. I don’t feel anything, oh God, I’m panicking. The guy in the corner, he’s still sleeping there but there’s no way it could be him.I try to sit up, I have to get out of here now, this is not how my life ends.

A long loud beep sounds and I stare at the machine behind me in horror. I’m flat lining. My heart just stopped. I try to scream but a tiny “uh” comes out of my throat, I have no voice.

The curtain flies open and a nurse rushes in. “Help!” I yell as loud as I can. What if I’m a ghost?

“You’re awake!” She says loudly, reaching to my side and picking up what looks like a tiny legless R2D2. She squeezes R2D2’s head and it splits in half, I look at her in horror again. “These things come off all the time.” She smiles and sets R2D2 back on my index finger. She unwraps and rewraps the blood pressure cuff I hadn’t noticed around my muscle. The beeping starts up again. “Good as new!” She leaves the room.

The guy in the chair sits up and looks at me. “Hey buddy.” He says, standing up. He steps toward me and I put my hand up.

“You’re not here.” I say but the words come out slowly and don’t sound right.

“Andy it’s me.” He looks hurt.

“No.” I say and put my other hand up. “I’m hallucinating.” I shake my head and stare at my hands.

“Nurse!” He shouts and leaves my line of vision.

I stare at the machine behind me, the triage desk where a nurse eyes me with concern, the giant black numbers on the clock on the wall behind her desk. Everything looks wrong. This isn’t happening. I can’t still be in the Hospital.

“Olivia?” I call out. I feel faint and shut my eyes. Everything goes black but I still hear the machines.

“His blood pressure is low.” A lady says. “I’m sorry, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“But I just got here.” The guy replies.

“He’s unstable.” She says firmly.

“I’m his brother.” The guy replies firmly. “Chris.”

My eyes open when I hear his name. It is him. My vision blurs starting at the center and spreading toward the edges before I realize my eyes have teared up. I stare at him through watery eyes. “CC.” I whisper, my voice still hoarse from throwing up for hours. “You’re here.” I shut my eyes and feel the tears falling.

“Give us a few minutes okay?” The nurse says.

CC looks at her then at me as though he needs my permission to leave. “Yeah.” I answer for him.

“I’ll be over there bro?” He points to an area beyond the curtain walls that I can’t see.

“Yeah.” I repeat.

“Your brother came to see you?” The nurse asks.

“He must’ve driven for 2 days.” I wonder out loud.

“He can come back when we’re done, I have some questions for you then you’ll need to talk to the doctor.” She says firmly.

The questions are the same ones I’ve answered a dozen times since I’ve arrived at the Hospital. Name, date of birth, why am I here? How many pills did I take? Was I alone at the time? Was I often alone? When I’m released will I be alone? This time I can answer that last one with a smile, CC will handle everything for me.

“You’ve had some X-rays since the last time I saw you.” The nurse concludes. “Everything looks about as good as it can, all things considered.” She gave me a mother’s warning gaze. “So take it easy okay?” She pats my leg and opens the curtain on her way out.

The doctor is followed by three nurses, two of which stare at my chart as the third nurse checks my blood pressure cuff, shines a pocket flashlight on my head and moves the gauze to the side. I close one eye and tense half of my face in pain as she pokes my head.

“These stitches will have to be removed in two weeks.” She says quietly. The doctor and nurses are talking loudly but I stopped listening when I realized the doctor was reciting facts from my chart that I already knew. “I think you just had a bad day.” She whispers.

“Why did you aim to end your life, Andy?” The doctor says loudly.

I looked at the nurse next to me. “I think I just had a bad day.” I said.

The doctor smiled. “I think you’re a little bit too hard on yourself.” He nodded slowly.

I nodded in agreement. “You’re probably right.” I added.

“I think you’ll be fine.” He smiled.

The last few times I’d answered the why-did-you-do-it question I was barraged with an onslaught of follow-up questions. Everybody left the room except the third nurse who paused and winked at me, “Take it easy.” She whispered and disappeared.

I felt like I’d just gotten away with cheating on a test and was left smiling when CC came back. “I’m gonna hug you.” He said.

“Will it be a reunited brothers hug, or a drunk bitch hug?” I gave him the finger as he stepped closer.

He swung his arms over my shoulders and squeezed me into this engulfing bear hug. At first my arms clumsily found their way around his ribcage, but when I felt his heart pounding I pulled on his shirt until he was forced to sit on the bed next to me. At one point he tried to leave my embrace, but I knew him to well. “Let it out Ceese.” I said, resting my forehead on his shoulder.

He let a muffled sob out into my shoulder. “How could you do that to me?” He said, his voice still garbled by my shoulder and Hospital gown.

“I’m sorry.” I shouted but when the words came out I realized I was crying too.

He pulled away from me, his hands trailing from my back to hold my jaw in his hands. He looked deeply into my eyes. “I love you man.” He said. “Don’t ever do this again.”

Seeing the magnitude of his crying made me cry harder. “I love you too CC.”

“Promise me.” He said angrily.

“I promise.” I said.

“I’m here for you.” He smiled and kissed my forehead. “And you look like shit.” He moved away quickly and pulled his chair to the side of my bed.

“Dude you’re the one ugly crying.” I nodded.

“No way, I’m drunk bitch crying. You’re the one that’s ugly.” He flipped the bottom of his shirt up and wiped his face with it. I started wiping the ugly tears off my face with my gown. I felt so much better in that moment than I had in ages. Maybe the doctor’s right, maybe I will be fine.


~Olivia’s POV~
The sun was way too bright for this time of day. Wait, what time is it? I looked at my phone and saw two missed calls from….Chris?

I called him back, thinking this has to be good. Maybe Amelia caught him chasing tail instead of tornados. Maybe Amelia dumped his body in the river and called me from his phone to frame me.

“Hello?” A guy’s voice answered.

“What do you want?” I replied.

“Easy tiger, you called me.” He said.

“Uh you called me twice while I was.” Make something up. “Sleeping.” I did not sound convincing. What was I supposed to say? Amelia and I ended up singing karaoke in a shady bar until God knows what hour last night.

“Did you call Ollie?” He whispered. “Oh.” He said as though he just figured something out. “It was probably Andy. Here.”

“Excuse me, wtf?” Why was he with my boyfriend? “Did you drive all the way out there and leave your poor girlfriend with your ugly storm chasing car? The whole campus is laughing at her.” I shouted after him.

“Ollie?” Andy said quietly. I heard some kind of intercom in the background.

“Andy, why are you calling me from Chris’s phone?” I sounded like my mother.

“Something happened.” He sighed. I pictured him massaging his right temple with his middle finger the way he does when he’s hiding something.

“Okay.” I snapped.

“Before you get mad.” He started.

I had to interrupt. “I’m plenty mad! You’re calling me from Chris’s phone! Why didn’t he bring me to see you?” I was yelling now.

“I’m in the Hospital Ollie.” He shouted.

“Are you okay? Andy what happened?” What if he was in an accident and Chris was the only person they could contact? What if Chris caused the accident? I glared. “Did Chris have anything to do with this?” I started grinding my teeth.

“No. Will you listen to me?” He said.

“No!” I shouted and flew out of bed angrily. I stormed down the hallway clutching the phone in my fist. “Why are you in the Hospital? Why didn’t Chris take me with him? Why don’t you want me there? What did Chris do to you?” I pouted at the walls.

“Are you done? Will you listen now?” Andy snapped.

“Can I tell you about my ceramics project? I was going to wait to tell you, but Amelia and I went out for dinner last night. Wait a minute, she said Chris was storm chasing.”

“He’s with me. I told him not to tell anybody.” He sighed.

“Remember that drawing of Chip you gave me for our anniversary?” I smiled and looked at the picture he drew. “I came up with this final project idea because of your drawing. It’s a tea set based on Chip. I carved our initials in the bottom of each little cup.” I said proudly.

“Aw.” His voice softened. “That’s adorable baby.” I could hear him smiling.

“I miss you babe. You sound so tired.” I sulked.

“A little.” He said, defeated.

“Sorry I wasn’t online Sunday. I’ve been so busy with my project.” I stopped pacing the hallway.

“I haven’t been online either.” He sounded mad again. “I’ve been in the Hospital.”

“You still haven’t told me why.” I furrowed my brow.

“You won’t listen.” He sighed.

I smiled. “You mad babe?” I teased in my best naughty voice.

“I tried to kill myself.” He said quietly.

Silence. I was standing in the hallway staring in my open bedroom doorway.

“What?” I felt tears coming. “Why?” The blood rushed to my face. “Baby, why?” He wouldn’t talk to me. It was like he already knew.

Jinxx turned over in the far side of my bed, still asleep with the blanket almost covering his bare torso. Amelia called Andy last night, didn’t she? That bitch, I knew she wasn’t over Andy. She called him and told him what I did! I bet she roofied my whiskey last night too. OMG I will seriously end her if I ever see her again.

I could hear Andy breathing slowly and heavily, the way he did when I’d gone too far in trying to piss him off. “I called you last night to tell you why I wasn’t online.” He said in a low growl. “And some guy answered the phone.”

My heart stopped. The edges of my vision faded to black.

“What.” I whispered breathlessly.

“I called you and a guy answered your phone, said I had the wrong number and set the phone down.” He said. His voice was scaring me until that point.

Oh thank God. I breathed a huge sigh of relief and leaned against the wall. “Okay.”

“He didn’t end the call.” Andy growled.

I looked at Jinxx then pulled the phone away from my ear, staring at it in horror. “What?” I started to panic. “Andy.” OMG, how much did he hear?

“Olivia.” He said sharply.

“NO!” I yelled. “I can explain!” I gasped. “ANDY!”

He was ignoring me.“PLEASE ANDY!” I yelled louder.

“I heard everything.” He whispered.

“We were watching a movie! I didn’t do anything!” I tried.

“It’s over.” He said and ended the call.

“NOOOOOOOOOO!” I screamed and threw the phone at the wall. I fell to my knees and dug my fingers into my hair, my nails digging into my head. I squeezed my eyes shut so tightly that the blackness I saw turned into white and yellow swirls that obliterated any pain I felt.

I don’t know how long I had been screaming and crying before I realized Jinxx had picked me up. “Stop it Ollie!” He yelled as I beat my fists into his chest. He grabbed my wrists with one hand and wrapped my arms in his embrace.

I cried and repeated the word “No” as though it might go back in time and stop Andy from breaking up with me.

Stop Jinxx from answering my phone.
Stop me from drinking whiskey and chasing it with beer and more whiskey.
Stop the moment I tasted amaretto sour on Jinxx’s tongue the first time we kissed.
Stop me from telling Amelia that it was okay for Jinxx to crash on my couch, we were just going to watch a movie.
Stop me from running my fingernail over his collarbone and thumbing his guitar pick necklace.
Stop me from thinking of his fingers caressing a bow in one hand and a violin in the other.
Stop us from screaming the lyrics to Rock The Casbah in that horrible dingy karaoke bar.
Stop me from running into her while taking a break from my project.
Stop me from making Amelia take me out for dinner.
Stop me from ignoring Andy when he told me he needed to talk to me days ago.
Stop me from leaving him a voicemail telling him I was meeting Chris to work on a lighting assignment and deliberately avoiding him to make him want me more.

Jinxx picked me up in his arms and carried me back to bed. I was still a sobbing mess. I lay next to him, my head on his chest, his arm around me gently stroking up and down my back. Five years. I looked up at Jinxx’s face. He still had eyeliner on.

Five years blown away in one fucking night.

Notes