I stomped toward the staircase, rehearsing all the nasty things I wanted to say to the singer. When I made it to the landing, I peered down the empty gap between the flights of stairs and saw Jamie’s hand moving on the railing about halfway down.
“Hey,” I shouted, my voice echoing around me. “Jamie!”
He didn’t stop. Didn’t even acknowledge that he heard me.
I started after him, hopping down two steps at a time. Never had I felt righteous anger as potent as this. Maybe it was the lack of sleep or the long and emotional day I’d had, but in that moment, I felt more feral than human.
His pace was no match for my own, and soon I had him cornered on a landing. I shoved him into a wall. He put up no resistance.
“What the fuck, Jamie? What the hell is wrong…” I trailed off as I took him in. Jesus, he didn’t look good. His body was writhing against the concrete wall, as if it was a struggle for him to just stand straight. Impossibly, my anger surged even higher at seeing him in this state. He was high out of his mind. How could I have believed a single word he said even for a second?
His head bopped, his chin dropping to his chest before he managed to level his eyes on me. “You listened to me.”
“You are a disgusting liar.”
His face was blank for a moment, as if it took him a few seconds to process what I’d said. Then, his lips curled, and a sad huff of a laugh puffed out of his mouth. “I’ve been called worse.” His right knee buckled, and he swayed to the side, grasping at the wall behind him at the last second to help him stand.
I snarled at him. “Is this a joke to you? Do you try to ruin people’s lives for fun?”
He huff-laughed again, and my hands curled into fists by my sides.
“Listen to me, you sad excuse of a human being,” I said, my voice vibrating with fury. He slowly lifted his gaze to my face.
“This bullshit you pulled on me, you’ve been pulling it on good people—people like Oliver—for years. No one deserves having to deal with your crap. Check yourself into rehab, start eating, and try to rid yourself of whatever venereal diseases you must have picked up over the years.”
He had the gall to shake his head, his eyelids drooping until he was looking at me through narrow slits. “I might be a mess,” he slurred, “but with me, it’s ‘what you see, is what you get’. I don’t get off on pretending to be an angel so that seventeen-year-old girls fall in love with me and let me into their flower-patterned cotton panties.”
“He’s not pretending,” I grit out. “He—Jamie!”
The singer’s eyes fell completely shut, and he slid down the wall, landing on the ground with a thud.
Fear rushed through me as I kneeled beside him. “Wake up.” The singer moaned. “Jamie, wake the fuck up.” I slapped his cheeks lightly, then with more force.
His eyelids cracked open. “Ivy…”
“What do I do?” I was starting to panic. I’d never had to deal with a medical emergency on my own before, and it didn’t escape me that Jamie was someone a lot of people didn’t want to see hurt. “Jamie, what do I do?”
“Hospital,” the singer moaned, his head lolling from side to side. “Take me to a hospital.”
“Shit, shit, shit,” I chanted as I tried to get his arm over my shoulders. “Get up, please get up, I can’t carry you down.”
He nodded, or maybe it was just his head dropping again, but he got his arm around me, and I managed to get him to stand.
We teetered down two flights of stairs, while I prayed he wouldn’t pass out and take me down with him. “I’ll find Oliver as soon as we get to the lobby.”
“No, no, no,” he slurred but there was force behind it. “Just the hospital. Please, Ivy.”
“He’ll go with you.”
“No. Just the hospital.” He stopped when we were a few steps from the door that led to the lobby and refused to move farther.
“Jamie—”
He craned his neck, bringing his face close to mine so that he could look me directly in the eyes. “Promise. Me.”
I let out a breath. I’d already broken one promise today, so what was one more?
“Okay, chill,” I said, keeping my voice level. “I’ll call 911. Please just don’t die on me.”
