Helplessly praying, as we pull up and they unload her, whisking her away before I can even place my warm lips to her cold ones one last time. That’s all I wanted was to taste her one more time. To take her hand and squeeze it so she knows I’m right here. I am back and I’m not going anywhere.
The emergency room lights are too bright, my eyes water as I try to hide the shock and the chill that forms around me. I pace back and forth knowing that she will be alone in that room laying so still on a bed where she may die without my voice in her ear telling her it’s ok. I am here, that I love her.
I send a message to the heavens for God to deliver to her as I fall to the chair below me. Exhaustion and tears take over as the light begins to fade and I mumble out my message.
Hold on baby, I still want you, please my love. Come back, I still need you, really need you. I don’t wanna let go. I just wanna take you home.
Walking into the room my heart breaks more than I even thought was humanly possible she is laying there with tubes and wires coming from all over her body. She has a mask over her face and her hands are restrained. I lock eyes with the nurse. “Remove them now,” I spit out as I step inside on shaking legs with my heart inside my ears. Her cheeks are pale, her lashes thick and black fanning over the deep grey circles under her eyes. All I wanna do in that moment is hold and kiss her. To make love to her and take it all away. To just get lost in her and never come up for air. I have never loved anything or anyone more than I do her in this moment while looking at her so shattered, so alone, so lost.
The nurse moved fast to remove the restraints.
“I am Jayden James and I want Tru to be moved into the best room with the best doctor as soon as you can make that happen,” I bite out as bile rises. Her eyes meet mine. “Yes, certainly, Mr. James.” She scurries from the room.
For what felt like hours I stood there and looked over her body. The way her chest would rise and fall. The way her eyes would flicker behind her lids the odd twitch in her finger as I ran my hands over the top of the blanket feeling her.
“Oh, baby, sweet baby, what have I done to you?” I whisper out as I make my way to the side of her bed and climb in with her just to be close, to feel her, to not let her go. “I need you to listen, baby. I need you to fight. To come back to me. I don’t know what is going on. I don’t know much at all other than I love you and together we can try and make this fucked up thing we call love work.” Kissing the side of her neck as I pull her body deep into mine, I’m careful of the wires. Her body is heavy, her skin cool to the touch. Wrapping my arms around her, I transfer my warmth into her cool, clammy skin. I close my eyes and pray for what feels like hours, knowing that I need Him more in this moment than I did the moment He took my brother home. “I can’t let you have her too, God. Please keep her here with me. I will repent all my sins if you let me just have this chance at love.”
Thanatophobia, is a noun it means the phobia of losing someone you love. I am in that state of mind right now. I feel her under me with the weight of all our past sins just floating around us. My eyes closed unable to see the broken look etched on her face. I lay with my face inside the crook of her neck with a mess of tears and promises of a better tomorrow while my skin itched to get high and my mind screamed to be numb.
Broken, is an adjective. Having been fractured or damaged, no longer in one piece or working order.
That’s what her and I were right now laying together in the hospital bed. I see that we both are just as broken as the other. Maybe that is why I was so drawn to her that night in the club, because I could feel and see that we are both alike and we both don’t belong here inside the broken shards of our minds.
My mind runs away feeling like it’s been locked away for years inside a deep dark fog and I suppose it has. I have lived the high life since the first time I smoked a joint after my brother was killed, so I have walked years inside a cage and locked my feelings deep down. This way I didn’t have to deal. Now, oh now, I feel it all and it hurts just as much and makes me wanna run.
Drapetomania, noun an overwhelming urge to run away. All these words coming back to me. The love for the written word and meanings of words and feelings, it’s like I finally can understand the weight and depth of it all. I just relish in the simple it brings as I draw tiny patterns over my baby’s stomach under the blanket. Her body is warming with the heat from mine, her cheeks turning a shade of the most stunning pink.
Did you know that Philophobia is a noun. It’s the fear of falling or being in love. I have never been in love before. Well, drugs don’t count though, do they? I know I loved my brother and that love near killed me. Look at the love we share here and it’s doing the same. Raping us royally so I live with philophobia.
Whispering these things into her ear, I run my finger over the side of her face.
“You’re so beautiful it fucking hurts.” Kissing her jaw line then I curl my hand around the back of her neck breathing all of her in. All I want is for her to open her eyes. Look at me, smile and tell me it’s ok James Dean.
Another memory of the lost words I loved so much growing up the reason I write the songs I do, with feeling and depth.
Sillage, noun. The scent that lingers in the air, the trace of someone’s perfume.
Her scent lingers all over me. Inside me and around me. I could smell her all day and never tire of it.
The thing is now that I look back over it, all the way back, I sought her out. I wanted her, needed her. She helped with the suffering, numbed the grief. She was my own personal nepenthe, a noun for something that can make you forget your grief and suffering.
Now I need to allow her to lay back so I can be her nepenthe.
Pulling my tired body from her as the door opens, in walked a team of people in white coats and blue scrubs. Fear prickled down my spine as I locked eyes with them all.
“Mr. James.” An older guy with a balding head and white moustache places his hand out for me to shake. I place my hand in his as he opens his mouth again.
“You requested a private room and we have that ready for you but first we need to speak to you about Miss Monroe.”
A nurse walks around the side of the bed and I step back as she checks the wires and tubes while jotting down numbers and what not from the machine that does nothing but beep.
“Miss Monroe had a lethal dose of drugs inside her stomach. You got to her just in time and injecting the Narcan saved her life. Upon arrival we pumped her stomach and did blood levels. She had a range of different drugs inside her system, from LSD to Vicodin and oxytocin just to name a few. Her alcohol levels when she came in was 0.40, that is the onset of a coma and possible death from respiratory problems. You saved her life, but with everything that she has on board I will not be able to tell you what long term damage was caused until she wakes. She’s currently in a coma and it’s really up to Miss Monroe when she comes out of this.”
My mind screams as my hands shake; I fall against the window sliding into the chair. It’s all too much. “Mr. James, are you ok sir?” A nurse comes to my aid as the doctor begins to shine a torch into Tru’s eyes. They don’t move nor flicker, and my heart breaks for the twentieth time since this ordeal started.
I watch as they run numerous tests and write things down on clip boards then looking at each other and talking in hushed voices. Lost is an understatement and I have absolutely no one to call to help me deal with the unknown of what will happen if my baby doesn’t wake up. I’m afraid to say we may just have some Romeo and Juliet shit about to happen up in this hospital if that’s the case. Just like that they are gone and all that is left is a nurse and an orderly unplugging my baby’s bed and taking her machine and IV bag then walking from the room. The nurse stops and looks back at me. “You coming, Mr. James?” Her eyes are kind creased at the corners. “Um, yeah, sure,” I say back to her as she walks behind Tru’s bed. I follow like a lost puppy dog with nowhere to go and no one to love him. It’s like I am walking on air inside a tornado. Everything is moving around me, and I am standing still watching it all whoosh past me. I feel like I may be sick. I can’t seem to take any more of the stale air that is in this place. I stop my feet, no longer wanting to step forward, my legs heavy as my body finally gives in. “I-um-I-hey-stop-please,” I call out running my hands through my hair. “You ok, Mr. James?” The kind nurse asks me. “No-I-mean-oh man I just don’t know… I need air.” I say to her seeking an exit. “Down the hall take the left then a right to the lifts. That will take you to the ground floor. When you’re ready Miss Monroe will be in a private suite on the top floor so its level 11 room 566.” Her smile is full, but her eyes show the pain she feels for me. They all do as they know that there may not be a happy ending coming for us after this.
Nodding at her I turn and walk away. I can no longer stand there and look over Tru. I am weak, and I have an unhealthy thirst to get high right now and I need help.
