by J. L. Wyer
“Are you going to finally fill me in on what happened at the party?”
“Are you sure you’re ready to hear it?”
I nod yes even though my mind screams no. Ryder tells me what transpired out on the back patio with Marshall and his side goons. When he describes how that sleazy prick kept taunting Liz to get a reaction from Julien, my blood boils which causes the heart rate monitor to rapidly beep. A nurse is in my room a minute later to check on me. I want Ryder to be able to get everything out before my parents arrive, so I focus on calming down. I don’t want any more interruptions from the hospital staff thinking I’m having a heart attack.
As soon as the nurse leaves, I turn my head back to Ryder. “What happened next?”
“Next, you come charging out and knock Marshall to the ground. We didn’t know what was going on at first because it all happened so fast. As soon as we realized it was you, we jumped in. But, man, you wouldn’t stop. I have never seen anything like that — never seen you like that before. You beat on Marshall until he was no longer moving, and you still didn’t stop.”
I cringe. “I don’t remember. Why can’t I remember?” I look down at my hands which the nurses cleaned up and bandaged after I was placed in the room.
“That may not be the worst of it.” He hands me his phone. A video is pulled up. “Hit play,” he says. I watch the video and even though it’s dark and you can’t make out who is who, I know what I’m viewing. I watch as my dark form sits on top of a body on the ground assailing it with punch after punch. Once the video ends, I hand Ry back his phone.
“They could press charges against us. Marshall’s family could sue you. We all could get suspended from school. This may get worse before it gets better.”
I release a disgusted laugh. That’s not the half of it. If colleges and athletic scouts see me on the video, my chances of getting a swim scholarship could be blown. I could face jail time and have a permanent record if they charge me as an adult.
“I know what you’re thinking. Don't jump to any conclusions. I’ve already spoken to Fallon and he assures me he’ll take care of it. He’s more concerned about the fallout to him if your lab work comes back positive for something. You were at his house at a party he threw. He has as much stake in making sure things are kept quiet as we do. I highly doubt Marshall or the other guys will go against Fallon since he rules their school and will make life miserable for them if they say anything.”
I’m sure Ryder’s right. If there’s one thing about Marshall, it’s he’s a coward. No one in their right mind wants to be on Fallon’s bad side.
The sounds of heavy footfalls outside in the corridor and my mom’s voice end our conversation. I tense in preparation of my mother's wrath. There is nothing worse than facing my mom when she’s angry, and as sure as I am that the sun will rise, she is going to be livid at me.
My hospital room door opens, and my mom, Dad, and Julien walk inside, closely followed thirty seconds later by a doctor wearing a typical white lab coat and wrapping a stethoscope around the back of his neck.
My mom rushes over to my bedside and runs her hands all over my face and shoulders to ensure for herself that I’m in one piece. “Oh sweetheart. What happened?”
“Are you the family of Mr. Jameson?” the doctor asks, clipboard in hand.
My dad speaks up. “Yes, we are, and this is his brother, Julien.” My dad looks at Ryder. “Ryder, thank you for calling us. Can you please tell us what happened?”
The doctor gets our attention by clearing his throat. All eyes turn to him. “My name is Dr. Dukovny. I am the doctor assigned to your son’s case.”
“Can they all stay in here with me?” I ask him. “I have no secrets from any of them. I’ll sign waivers if you need me to.”
“That’s fine. Your verbal agreement will do.” He sets the clipboard down and bends over me with a flashlight to check my pupils, listens to my heart, and checks the IV drip line. Once he’s satisfied, he sits down on a rolling stool and flips through papers on the clipboard. “Your vitals look good. The lab work did find trace amounts of GHB in your system.” My mom’s hands fly over her mouth when she gasps.
“If you had waited to come in,” the doctor continued, “we wouldn’t have been able to find any trace of it. From the timeline you both gave the medical staff and your symptoms, along with the blood results, it’s safe to say you didn’t ingest a large amount. You should recover quickly. We’ll keep you on an IV drip overnight to continue to flush your system and provide rehydration just to make sure. Any questions?”
“Shouldn’t my son report this to the police?” my mom asks. “Ryder said he didn’t willingly ingest this drug. It was put in his drink without his knowledge.”
“My responsibility is to provide your son with the best medical care and treatment I can and uphold doctor-patient confidentiality. The hospital is not required to report instances such as this. It’s up to your son if he would like to speak with the authorities regarding this matter.”
“No police.”
“Jayson! Why?”
“No police, Mom.”
“I’ll leave you all to discuss matters privately. Mr. Jameson, if you need anything, just press the call button. I’ll come back and check on you again before my shift is over.”
As soon as Dr. Dukovny exits the room, four sets of eyes turn toward me.
“How did this happen, Jayson?” my father asks with a no disappointed tone to his voice.
“We went to a party and apparently the beer I was handed had the stuff in it.”
“Jayson, you were drinking alcohol? You’re only seventeen years old!”
“Freda, honey, I don’t think yelling at him is going to help the situation.” Dad wraps his arm around Mom to hold her tight to his side. “Let’s let him explain.”
Julien walks over and stands by my bedside to show he and I are a united front. “Yes, Mom, we drink. We party, we have sex.” My parents’ eyes bug out like it’s the most shocking thing to hear that their two seventeen-year-old sons are having sex. “I’m sorry if that comes as a shock to you both, but it is what it is. We use protection, we don’t do drugs, we would never drink and drive, and we always have someone as a designated driver. We try to be responsible and look after one another. It’s not Jayson’s fault that someone slipped him something without him knowing. What is his fault, however,” he turns to scowl at me, “is that you took an open drink from someone. You know better, Jay.”
He’s right. There is nothing I can say to refute that, so I just bow my head in shame, nodding to let him know he is absolutely correct.
“Wait a minute. You were with Elizabeth tonight. Where’s Elizabeth? Oh, dear, is she here too? Did anything happen to her?” Mom starts frantically rummaging through her purse to find her phone, more than likely to call Liz’s mom, Ann.
Julien grabs Mom's arm. “She’s fine, Mom. Liz doesn’t drink. I drove her home and she’s fast asleep, safe in her bed. I saw Hailey when I dropped her off.”
“Thank goodness.” Mom exhales with relief.
I grab Ry’s attention. “Hey, man. Since Julien and my parents are here, would you mind checking on Liz for me?”
“I can do that.”
“Tell her that I love her. Tell her—”
“I know. I’ll take care of it.” He wraps his hand around the nape of my neck and gives it a hard squeeze. “Just rest, okay. I’ll see if she’ll come back with me before you’re discharged tomorrow.”
“Yeah, alright. Thanks, man.”
My mom launches herself at Ryder and hugs him fiercely. “Thank you, Ryder. Thank you for bringing Jay here and thank you for looking out for him. I don’t know what we would do without you.” She kisses his cheek. My dad is next and gives him a quick hug and a handshake, and then Ryder leaves. I hope he's able to get through to Liz.
Ryder
It’s after two in the morning when I arrive at Elizabeth’s house. I get out of my car and instead of going up to
the front door, I walk around the side to peer up at Elizabeth’s window. Since Jay’s parents and Julien are at the hospital with him now, their house is silent and dark. I hope the other neighbors are asleep and don’t look out their windows as I have no doubt that I probably appear like a freaky creeper that’s up to no good standing under a tree looking up at a window in the middle of the night. There’s a faint light coming from Elizabeth’s window, so I take a chance that she’s still up even though she hasn’t responded to any of my texts.
I take a lingering examination of the tree that sits between the two houses. There’s no way I’m going to climb this tree without falling and breaking my neck. Jayson and Julien do it, so can you. Even Elizabeth climbs up and down the thing. I take a few steps back and leap off the ground to grab one of the low hanging branches and pull myself up. This isn’t as hard as I thought it would be, as long as I don’t look down. I take my time climbing and when I reach Elizabeth’s window, I pluck an acorn from a branch and chuck it at the glass. I do it a second time. I remind myself once again not to look down.
Elizabeth’s curtains pull back and I see her shocked face looking at me as she unlatches, then pulls up her window.
“Ryder, what are you doing?”
“Hey, Elizabeth. Do you mind waiting to yell at me until I get inside? I hate to admit that I’m a little terrified up here.” My stupid eyes decide at that moment to look down and I go green, stomach rolling like I’m about to puke. Yeah, not the best idea I had coming up here. Elizabeth must see the color drain from my face.
“Ryder, aren’t you afraid of heights?”
“Yep,” I croak. One might find it a bit ridiculous that someone like me, a guy who races cars and bikes — bikes he does backflips and tricks with — would be afraid of heights. But I am.
“Oh, crap. Oh, okay. Here, take my hand and inch forward just a bit.” She guides me on what to do and I breathe a sigh of relief when my feet touch her bedroom floor. My body slides down to a siiting poisiton. Elizabeth sits cross-legged in front of me, rubbing my legs and arms vigorously.
“I don’t have hypothermia.”
“Just shut up. I can’t believe you did that.”
“You do it all the time.”
“I also don’t have acrophobia.”
I have no comeback for that.
Her hands slow their rubbing when she notices my busted knuckles. Without saying a word, she gets up and goes into her bathroom. I can hear Hailey’s voice faintly before a door closes and then sounds of rummaging around. Elizabeth comes back out with a first aid kit and sits back down grabbing my right hand.
“Here. Let me take a look at that.” Her fingers ever so gently feather across where scabs have formed over my middle three knuckles. She takes out a square packet from the kit and tears it open. “This may sting a little.” Elizabeth takes her time wiping away the old blood and applies some ointment. She repeats it all again on my other hand.
“Do I get a lollipop for being a good patient?”
Her light green eyes trail up to my golden ones. She lifts my curled hands to press a soft kiss on each one, then blows.
“I’m out of lollipops. Will that do?”
No, I want to say. I want her to kiss me and not my bruised fingers. I lean back against the wall at her window needing the extra space between us before I do something stupid to make this awful night go from bad to worse.
“Elizabeth, I came here to see how you were doing and to tell you about Jay. You didn’t answer any of my texts or calls.”
“I turned it off. And we’re not talking about him right now.”
“Elizabeth, you don’t understand.”
“I said, we are not talking about him right now!” she snaps at me and then immediately backs down, exhaling loudly. “Sorry. I’m not mad at you. I shouldn’t be yelling at you. You did nothing wrong.”
“I understand. But I really need to tell you—” she slaps her hand over my mouth to shut me up.
“I said no, Ryder. I just can’t right now. Please drop it. For me.” Since her hand is over my mouth, I nod yes.
Elizabeth removes her hand and gets up to pace back and forth in front of me. “What if I made a mistake, Ryder? It’s something I think about all the time. It’s something I thought about tonight. God, this is all so crazy. So insane. My thoughts are all jumbled and I’m angry. I’m confused.”
“Elizabeth, you’re not making any sense. And I really do need to talk with you.”
She stops pacing. “What if it was you that came through my window that night?” she says at the same time I say, “I really do need to talk to you.”
“What?” we say at the same time again.
She’s the first to continue. “That’s what I think about sometimes. I think about you. What if it was you that night? There’s always a part of me that wonders what if.”
My brain is malfunctioning at her words and what they mean. I need to stop this. I need to tell her about Jayson, how he was drugged and is in the hospital, how he needs her there with him. But I just can’t because my mouth won’t cooperate with what my brain is telling it to do. So I sit back and listen.
“There’s a part of me that knows that no matter what, no matter how much I love him, I will always love you, too,” she confesses and I'm totally speechless. “He ripped my heart out tonight, Ryder. He destroyed me. I gave him everything. I chose him over you, and look at what he does. It hurts so much, so, so, much,” she cries, huge, silent tears tracing down her face. “Part of me wishes that I never said yes to him that night. That I said yes to you instead. You would never hurt me like that, would you, Ryder?” Elizabeth’s liquid verdant eyes bore into me, begging me to ease her pain, make it go away, give her promises that I know I won’t be able to give and still live with myself without a heavy burden of guilt weighing me down.
I decide to once again be the better person. I lift myself up and go to her, taking her in my arms. “Elizabeth, I know you’re upset and angry and confused. I know you’re feeling hurt and want that hurt to go away. I wish I could be the one to give that to you. I wish things were not what they are between us, between you and Jay. But they are. You know that I've been in love you for years. And because I love you, I'm willing to step aside and let you go find your happiness. If that means you and Jay, then so be it. I told you I’m not going anywhere, regardless of if we’re together or not. Perhaps, one day, we’ll get our chance. I hope and wish for that with everything in me. But today,” I kiss her temple, “today, you need to be with Jayson.”
“I’m so sorry,” she cries into my chest, shoulders shaking, her hands gripping the front of my shirt wet with her tears. “You must hate me for saying these things to you. How could you love someone like me? I’m screwed up. I’m selfish.”
“Not selfish, Elizabeth,” I tell her. “Just wishing for something right now that’s not possible. And after you truly understand what happened, you would hate yourself if we allowed things to happen between us tonight.” I lift her chin, cradling her face, needing that small contact before I say the words that will once again send her to be with him. “Jayson is in the hospital. He needs you, Elizabeth. I came here to bring you to him.”
Her voice cracks with grief. “What? How? Why?”
“I think we need to sit down for this.” I pull her to sit on the side of her bed. We don’t let go of each other yet. Elizabeth and I will forever be tied together, just like she is with Jayson and Julien. I meant what I said, believing the words my dad told me the day my world fell apart and I lost her to Jayson. She needs to experience life and love, the good parts and the bad. And I will continue to dream of the day that she will be free and mine to love; hope that all of this, the things we feel and do and say right now, will be worth it in the end.
“He didn’t do it, Elizabeth. He told you the truth.”
Her eyes go wide, then she frowns. “How do you know for sure? We saw the same thing. I know what I saw!”
“He was drug
ged, Elizabeth. He didn’t know what he was doing.”
“Drugged?” she almost shouts before lowering her voice. “What do you mean, Ryder? How do you know?”
I fill her in on everything. How he was acting, the dizziness, vomiting, memory loss. As I explain it all to her, she goes from worried to furious to murderous. “The bloodwork confirmed it. He had GHB in his system. I looked it up and everything he did — the over the top way he went after Marshall, the dizziness, vomiting, not remembering stuff, even winding upstairs with Jacinda with no memory of how he got there — it was because of the drug.”
Elizabeth grabs her tablet and looks GHB up on the Center for Disease Control website to confirm what I’m telling her. “How can we be sure that he didn’t take it willingly?”
“I talked to Maria on my way over here. He was never out of her sight even when she went to grab the bottles of water. She saw Jacinda and Samantha give him the red cups. That’s the only thing he drank before they came outside.” Elizabeth growls when I say Jacinda’s name. “It’s not his fault, Elizabeth.”
I hold her face between my hands and force her to look at me. “You also didn’t see him after. He’s torn up and kicking himself knowing that he hurt you. He’s blaming himself, wanting you to forgive him. He needs you, Elizabeth. Will you let me take you to see him in the morning?”
She bites her lip and nods slowly.
“I’ll pick you up at seven. If everything's good overnight, they’ll discharge him in the morning.” I stand up and wipe my hands on my jeans. “Is it alright with you if I exit through your front door and not the tree?”
Her hand on my arm stops me from leaving. “Will you stay with me? Or just hold me until I fall asleep?”
“My beautiful, Elizabeth. I would do anything for you.”
She looks so lost at that moment, like a butterfly whose wings have been damaged and it struggles to keep flying, to keep going. She reaches out and takes my larger hand in her smaller, more delicate one, and leads me back to her bed. I remove my shoes and climb on top of her comforter, leaning back against her headboard with my legs outstretched. She joins me and snuggles into my side laying her head in the crook of my shoulder and closes her eyes. The smell of her jasmine body lotion envelops us.