Gena/Finn

by Kat Helgeson

  Does anybody know anything?

  >>>>DanniRice reblogged this and added: Oh...my god. I hadn’t seen it. Fatalities?!

  >>>>finnblueline says: this is really scary

  >>>>Tylergirl93 reblogged this and added: Everyone: _EvenIf was on set this week. Is anyone in touch with her?

  >>>>MioMy says: oh my god

  >>>>SwingLowMySweet says: she hasn’t posted in a while and she promised pics.

  >>>>Tylergirl93 says: oh that’s not a good sign

  >>>>finnblueline says: this just happened a few hours ago

  >>>>Tylergirl93 says: you’re friends with her, right?

  >>>>finnblueline says: I haven’t heard anything

  >>>>mmmZack reblogged this and added: does ANYONE know if the guys are okay? And what does this mean for the season premiere? I will DIE if it gets delayed.

  >>>>slotohes says: this is the most insensitive thing I’ve ever heard. People are actually dead, asshole. Of course the TV show is going to get delayed. You’re not the center of the fucking universe.

  >>>>MioMy reblogged this and added: AMEN.

  >>>>DanniRice reblogged this

  >>>>mmmZack says: I meant it figuratively but if you have no sense of irony that’s your problem I guess

  >>>>slotohes says: that’s not even what irony is.

  >>>>popstotheweasel reblogged this and added: this picture leaked from the set after the explosion. It’s pretty low quality. You can see Carl Casden pretty clearly, but I can’t tell who any of the other people are. take a look.

  >>>>Tylergirl93 says: any news of Toby?

  >>>>popstotheweasel says: I don’t see him in the picture.

  >>>>Tylergirl93 says: fuuuuck. prayers for Toby, guys

  Text with Charlie

  gena’s not answering her

  texts...

  gena?

  evie.

  I’m sure it’s just really hectic

  over there. maybe she’s not

  near her phone

  yeah maybe

  we had such a bad fight

  I think I’m gonna be sick

  I’ll come home

  you don’t have to

  I’m coming home

  Text with Evie

  I know I said some really awful

  shit when we talked

  you don’t have to forgive me

  but can you please text me?

  I heard what happened and

  I’m completely freaked out

  Sept 28, 7:31 pm

  I don’t know if you have

  your phone...

  I guess you probably don’t

  know but the news says three

  people died and five were

  injured and they don’t

  know how badly or who and

  that’s all we know...

  Sept 28, 7:43 pm

  evie...

  Sept 28, 7:46 pm

  fuck please just text me when

  you see this. I’m sorry.

  For You:

  The problem with hospital gift shops is that everything costs too much, and the selection is shit. You can’t get a normal journal at a reasonable price. You’ll have to settle for something with an inspirational quote about God closing doors and opening windows. And, I mean, I’m not trying to be irreverent, but if God closes a door, can’t you just open the door again? That’s how doors work. Isn’t that really a more empowering message?

  Anyway, this is a stupid journal, but it’s all they had, and I can’t just sit here and think this stuff.

  I wish I had my sketchbook. I should have hung onto that.

  I should have hung onto you.

  There’s a beeping coming from somewhere, steady and even like a metronome driving the pace of this hospital. I’m stuffed into a plastic chair that wasn’t designed for style or comfort, achy from being bottled up on a five and a half hour flight. At some point, I’m going to crash. Right now I’m wide awake.

  The waiting room is packed, and it’s weird because I know these people. Carl Casden is sitting about ten feet away from me, picking at the soles of his shoes. The actress who played Nicola on the show is here too. Does that mean her character’s going to be returning this season? I don’t know how I have it in me to give a shit. I don’t, really.

  It was Carl who called me, voice wrecked and wet, wanting to know who I was and was I a friend of Gena’s and letting me know I could find you here, Humber River Regional Hospital, and Evie, you’d be so proud, I thanked him and acted totally normal and didn’t lose my head at all about Ben fucking Evanson calling my phone, and didn’t fall apart and beg to know how badly you were hurt.

  Hospital means alive.

  Hospital means alive.

  I mean, maybe if I write it enough times.

  The nurse or whatever she is at the desk in the middle of the room keeps wandering off, which is some special form of torture. Every time she stands up everyone looks up at her, which has the effect of making us look like a bunch of seagulls or something. I’m so tired that this strikes me as funny. I want to cry (nothing’s funny, nothing’s ever been less funny) but I’m too goddamn tired. So instead I’m scuffing my foot against the carpet in time with the beeps I hope aren’t about you, aren’t measuring your fucking life. (Beep, beep, beep, my Evie.)

  I hope that’s not coming from your room, but they haven’t let me see you.

  This is what I hope: that when I walk into your room you’ll tell me to fuck off, that I shouldn’t be here and you don’t want me. I hope you scream at me. I hope you jump up from your bed and try to hit me, because I hope you jump and scream and know you don’t deserve the shit I did.

  Charlie hasn’t returned the text I sent as I was getting in line for standby flights to Toronto. I should have sent a follow up text when I landed, but between running for a taxi and worrying about you, I just didn’t do it, and now I’m in this waiting room and I have enough time to count cracked tiles and memorize the French No-Smoking signs (“defense de fumer” sounds like they’re protecting the right to smoke) and browse the fucking gift shop and my phone’s not getting service.

  This all happened so fast, Charlie may not know I’m here yet.

  He may not want me back now.

  But the fucking fact of the matter is that you’re my best friend and this show was the only thing you had going, and I just don’t have it in me to not be here right now. If Charlie can’t deal with that then I guess he doesn’t love me.

  And fuck it. You know? Because I love this about me.

  The nurse is back now with a cup of coffee and a magazine, just flipping pages like the world’s not ending. Everyone’s impatient, everyone’s angry, but everyone’s talking in whispers because that’s waiting room protocol, I guess. We’re not here for this shit. We’re here to see our people. Let us see our people.

  Oh god, be okay, please be okay, what’s taking so long.

  It’s so weird how we’re all here for the same reason. There’s a feeling of community – people touching, holding hands, hugging –

  going on all around me, and I can’t help but resent it because I can’t be a part of it. I know these people by their faces, names, voices, but they don’t know me. I don’t belong to them. Their fucking world exploded today, and the fact that mine did too has nothing to do with them. I want someone to bring me coffee. I want someone to rub my back and ask me how I’m doing. I’d settle for some fucking sympathetic eye contact to acknowledge that this is shared grief, that this isn’t just happening to them, it’s happening to me and to you and it’s ours.

  And fuck, I’m even allowed to be sad (fucking devastated, holy sweet jesus) about Zack.

  His girlfriend’s here, in the corner. Miranda. I recognize her, voyeuristically, from pictures on message boards an
d handed around fandom. She’s alone. That seems poetic and disgusting and hilarious and I think I’m going to throw up again. They’re walking in wide arcs around her, the way people do around tragedy, and she’s dramatically beautiful with her makeup smeared and her model-thin body all at angles. She still looks like a model. I don’t know how she can. But I don’t know how I can still be sitting here wondering what Up Below is going to do without Jake, either. I guess some things are just fucking constant.

  I guess I can’t

  Was I asleep? I think I was asleep. I swear I just looked at the clock and it was 11:45 and then now it’s 12:20. There’s a lot of commotion in the room now, which is probably what woke me. People are getting to their feet, not bothering to whisper, moving toward the door in clumps. The room is emptying out.

  Oh. Toby’s awake.

  Their person. Not my person.

  Everything’s so surreal. I haven’t slept in about a day. People have started asking me who I am. Carl Fucking Casden just came over and asked me if I was Finn, and I swear there was a second where I couldn’t remember.

  He had your backpack. He brought it here from the set. First me and now your backpack. He’s looking out for you. It’s that cute pink backpack you had in your dorm room, and I’m remembering lying on your bed, rubbing my foot against the canvas and watching you struggle through your fourth hour of homework. The bag was heavy with books then. It looks nearly empty now.

  I don’t want to look inside. I guess I don’t want to think about what you did to get ready for the day on the morning Zack died (Jake died) (I’m a bad person).

  Also, I hate that Carl is seeing me today of all days, because

  I always imagined I’d be charming and clever and...you know. Memorable for good reasons. Like when I met Zack at the con and he liked my art (and what difference does that make now?). If Carl remembers me, it’ll be this terrible-looking mess, covered in flight and hospital and worry. You’d hate that I’m worrying, Evie; you’d tell me that worry isn’t love and that you don’t want me to be here because I’m afraid for you, you want me to be here because I fucking love you. And it’s not until right now, in this waiting room with Carl Casden, that I understand all that worry and fear and love are all the same damn feeling.

  Anyway, they’re leaving and the room’s emptying out and too damn quiet, and even though I was excluded from their pain, I miss them now. There’s nothing to distract from the too-loud ticking of the clock, the incessant beeping, and the worry.

  I wonder if they’ve told you I’m here.

  I wonder if the delay is just that you don’t want to see me (but someone would tell me, they’d have to, right?).

  I’m kind of thinking of nagging the nurse about it, in the same way I’m thinking about running out of this room and out of this hospital and running and running until I can’t feel any of this anymore. I’m not going to do it. I’m just going to sit here.

  You’d tell me I’m being brave, but you’d be wrong.

  ...Oh god, Evie, Toby just screamed. Toby. I recognize that cry from the fucking show, from an episode in season 2. That’s

  Tyler in agony (Toby in agony). He must just be finding out about Zack. Oh my god. Toby just found out about Zack and it’s killing him just like it did in the show. I’ve heard this exact sound for this exact reason and I’ve loved it.

  Oh god.

  There’s a sick, sad part of me that can’t help but think how touching this would all be to the fandom. They’d be sad and sorry and they’d absolutely want to know every detail of Toby’s pain. I’m not going to tell them, but I can’t deny feeling a little shiver of he loves Zack so much.

  **

  Evie baby baby baby.

  It’s funny (it’s not funny) but the first thing I noticed when I came into your room is that you won’t look at me. Before I saw the oxygen mask, before I wondered about the bandage on your cheek, before I registered the fact that you’re hugging yourself and rocking and crying, really crying, not trying to hide it the way you did in the dorm. This is crying like breathing, deep and constant and automatic and almost soothing.

  But you won’t look at me. I don’t know if you even know I’m here.

  Look at me. Yell at me, come on, make fun of my journal. You’d hate this journal. You’d steal it and say it’s too ugly to keep to myself and you’re going to read it, and I’d let you, because it’s for you, because I’m for you.

  Did you see it happen? Did you see the explosion and the fire and whatever it was that cut your face flying toward you, and did you understand the pain before you felt it? Did you see your friend die? I can see in your face, through the haze of whatever sedatives they’ve clearly got you on, that you know what happened. You won’t be like Toby. You won’t scream.

  The nurse warned me that you weren’t letting anyone touch you.

  But you let me hug you when I came in. My girl.

  Please fucking please hear me.

  I’m here now. I’m not going anywhere.

  For You:

  Hospitals should invest in curtains, and maybe some paint. Something to make this place less institutional and more comforting. If I were a doctor, I think I would set aside some of my money for interior design of my hospital. I would make sure my patients felt safe and at home. For you, Evie, gray walls and a thick pink comforter and a laptop with unlimited internet access. I know what you need.

  The phone reception here is so spotty that it merits wondering whether Charlie’s called a dozen times (or sent me a text telling me not to bother coming home) and the signal just hasn’t gone through. Anyway, there’s nothing from him or from anyone.

  The flowery nurse – she told me her name, but who could remember – gave you another shot late last night, which I held you still for. It wasn’t really necessary. You didn’t react, even when the needle went in. What I do remember is that, in a kind of shocking moment of responsibility, I asked her if whatever she was giving you was safe to take considering the meds you’re already on, to which she responded that no medication had shown up in your bloodwork.

  I know you didn’t want to stop taking your meds. Why did you?

  She tried to shoo me out. I guess visiting hours were over, but I didn’t have anywhere else to go. Should have planned ahead. I was thinking we’d leave together, but I don’t know what was supposed to come after that. This isn’t your hometown either. Back to your hotel, I suppose. I have no idea whether or not I’m going back to Santa Rosa, and it’s clear by now that you’re not going back to Providence. Not like this.

  So I slept in the waiting room with my head on your backpack and my feet on my journal, and consequently my hips hurt and I feel awkward and old.

  I really hope you’re not having nightmares. I can imagine what they’d be (of course I can’t imagine it, I’ll never be able to imagine what it was like). Your face is calm, but for all I know that’s just another effect of the drugs. It’s hard to trust anything right now.

  You still haven’t spoken or looked at me or acknowledged me at all.

  Doctor’s here...

  Well, the doctor doesn’t want you to leave the hospital. Apparently your “mental state is extremely fragile” and you “need full-time observation” while you’re coming off the drugs they put you on. Seems like a trap to me. They gave you the drugs, and now you can’t leave because of them?

  I don’t know what I think the alternative is. Sending you back to school is obviously a bad idea. Every time I try to call your parents I get that stupid chipper voicemail that makes me want to throw the phone at something. I know you were staying with your aunt and uncle, but none of the contacts in your phone mention those titles so I don’t know if “David” is “Uncle David” or “David who let me borrow his cell phone once,” or whatever. And until you start talking coherently, I don’t know how I can find out. But they can’t keep you here. You don�
�t belong here, where it’s too bright and no one loves you. You’re not going to get better here.

  And I don’t like your doctor, Evie, with her condescending looks and her “Miss Bartlett, I’m not sure you appreciate the severity of this situation.” I don’t appreciate the severity of the situation? I don’t? Who does she think took the goddamn red-eye out of San Francisco to be here? Who left her boyfriend hanging in the fucking wind? Who hasn’t eaten or slept in a day and a half, Doctor?

  At this point I’ve been with you for the past twelve hours straight and this doctor has stopped by your room one time for fifteen minutes and now she’s looking at a chart and telling me she knows you better than I do.

  What would you do, Evie? You’d turn on the charm. You’d tell her she’s right and you understand and you agree, and before long you’d be thick as thieves and she’d be agreeing that of course you knew what you were talking about.

  Me, I run away.

  You know, relatively.

  Specifically, to the hall.

  And there goes Tyler Pierce. I guess Toby’s doing better. Physically better, anyway; he looks like a ghost. He’s just wandering, apparently aimless. He looked at me for a second and I feel like I’m going to drown in the awfulness.

  I want to say something to him – I’m sorry about Zack – but who am I, and why should he care? I don’t know Zack. I’m just a friend of a friend. I’m just some fangirl.

  Maybe I need some water. Maybe I need some distance. Maybe I need to call Charlie. Maybe I shouldn’t be here. I just hate everything and everybody and my heart’s too big and my body’s too small and I want to go home I want to go home and I don’t know where home is anymore and I don’t think I will ever be enough. No one’s looking at me. Hospitals are a great place to fall apart in public. God, stop being crazy, Finn. No, I’m not crazy. You’re crazy. No. No. No.

  Evie.

  It’s Charlie.

  He’s here. He’s actually here, warm familiar hands, wrinkled clothes and messed–up hair and eyes red like the times we stayed up all night together for movie releases. He has never looked better.