Scarlett 2

by Tiece

  Oh my God, she thought, looking at the DVR display the early morning, late night time of 1:14a.m. If this bitch answers…

  “Hello,” the very sweet and calm voice answered. Sheila felt a bit nervous at first, because she had no clue of what she was about to stir up. “Hello,” the kind voice said again.

  “Hey,” she finally spoke, her soft voice sounding a bit leery. “I know you don’t know me, but I actually got this number out of Jason’s call log.” Going after the bitch who came between her and her man wasn’t as easy as it should’ve been. She had replayed this moment hundreds of times since she’d first seen the text messages. Now that the moment had arrived, it seemed awkward because she wasn’t even sure if she was starting the conversation off the right way.

  “Excuse me,” the sweet voice spoke.

  Sheila cleared her throat before trying it again. “I was saying that I’d gotten your,” she hesitated then figured either go hard or go home.

  “I’m sorry sweetie, but fuck this. I’m aware of the fact that you’ve been seeing someone named Jason Lewis Jr. That someone happens to be my man, and I don’t appreciate the back and forth messages between you two.” She ran her fingers through her loose hair, patiently waiting for what the bitch had to say, or maybe she should say more, or maybe not, as she eagerly listened for some type of response.

  The bitch grinned and said nothing. She was feeling out her new opponent, her new contender, and frenemy. She listened at the quiet background and could almost hear the faint sound of her rival’s slowed breathing as she opened her mouth to speak.

  “So you’re the other woman or shall I say the sideline hoe?” The voice remained soft and unbroken.

  Sheila stood up and quickly started pacing back and forth in her living room. “Sideline hoe?” she quickly questioned. “I’m nobody’s sideline hoe.”

  “I can’t tell. You call my phone talking about Jason being your man. Well, here’s a wakeup call sweetie, as you can say it, I’m Jason’s woman, not you.”

  Sheila found herself looking stupid as she stood there thinking that Jay was full of shit.

  “Obviously, there has been some kind of mistake or Jason has been certainly playing us both.”

  “He’s not playing me, Boo. he’s playing you.” the bold voice stated.

  “Who is this?” Sheila asked, trying to figure out who the bitch was. “Are you and Jason fucking around?”

  “Why don’t you ask Jason? I’m sure he’ll tell you.”

  Sheila was becoming frustrated. The bitch was about to get cursed out. “Okay, well since you wanna play stupid, I’ll enlighten you on a few things. Jason tells you that he’s living in Atlanta because he obviously doesn’t want to be with you. The fact is that he lives right here in Augusta. With that being said, I usually stay most nights at his house, so I don’t see where there is much time for you. Fact is, there is no time for you because if he’s not at work around me, then he’s home around me. Matter of fact, I just closed on our new home this past week and we’ll be living together,” she lied, but continued. “So, I don’t know who you’re claiming to be, but I know you’re not his woman. Maybe somebody he’s stuck his dick in, but never his woman and that’s a fact.”

  The bitch sat quiet for a moment, feeling as though she’d already won this round. “Sweetie,” she mocked. “Hold on for one moment. Now, don’t hang up.”

  “Jason,” she called out. Sheila’s heart skipped three beats. “Jason,” she called out again and as he entered the bedroom, the bitch held the phone out to him. “Huh, phone.”

  “Who is that?” he asked. Sheila could hear Jason’s voice just as clear as day as she stood as still possible, just in case she could catch something else. Get the phone, coward.

  “Hello,” he said, assuming it was a mutual friend of theirs. Sheila had two choices at that point. She could either say something like… So that’s how it is muthafucka? You wanna break up with me to go be with the next bitch? The one you claimed you didn’t wanna be with either. I can’t stand your dirty dick ass. Don’t ever call me again! Or as the thoughts faded, she could just hang up the phone since she had made sure to save the bitch’s number with a *67 in front of it. He’d never know it was her, unless her competitor wanted him to. She highly doubted it at that point, knowing that the bitch had, without a doubt, won the first round.

  Feeling defeated and discouraged, Sheila quietly hung up the phone.

  __________

  Anton and Gwen sat inside the emergency room at the University Hospital. She kept leaning over, grabbing her side, and coughing.

  “Why the hell did I let you bring me here? We’ve been sitting here for almost two hours now waitin’ on these slow ass people.” she fussed.

  Anton shook his head. “You didn’t have much of a choice, Ma. Look at you. You look a mess.” He was trying to be kind, because she looked worse than a mess and smelled like shit. He was embarrassed to be sitting there next to her, but she was still his mama and he wanted to make sure she was going to be all right.

  Gwen began coughing again. She coughed so much, until she threw up on the floor. The vomit almost caught Anton’s new Adidas as he jumped back with disgust written across his face.

  A nurse came out of the back room and ran over to her. He could tell that Gwen was in bad shape and no telling how long she’d been like that. The nurse immediately began walking her to the back. Anton attempted to follow them, but the nurse turned to address him.

  “I’m assuming that you’re with her.”

  “Yes, she’s my mama.”

  “Okay, well they’ll call her name shortly and just tell them that we already have her in the back. There might be some paperwork that you have to sign for her, and I’ll come out and get you once we get her situated.”

  Anton knew the paperwork was really just a payment, but he didn’t care. He just wanted them to take care of his mama. He walked back over and sat in a different seat since maintenance was already mopping up Gwen’s vomit off the floor.

  Meanwhile, Gwen lay on the bed inside the hospital room. She felt just how she looked, and it wasn’t anything good about that. The nurse looked at her and slightly shook her head. She couldn’t believe this woman’s body odor was so bad that it stunk up the whole room. The nurse began to ask Gwen questions.

  “My name is Betty, and I’m just going to be checking your vitals to make sure that you’re okay,” she said, while checking Gwen’s blood pressure. “What’s your name?”

  “Gwen Harper,” she casually commented.

  The nurse couldn’t help but notice Gwen’s black eye and scars on her face. “Gwen, have you been in a fight?”

  She smugly grinned. “Not really, I just got my ass beat.”

  “Is your stomach still upset, or do you still feel as if you need to vomit?”

  “I don’t know about my stomach, but I’m upset for having to sit in here with you. I have licks to catch.” She coughed. The nurse ignored her response because she looked like she’d taken all the licks she could in one day.

  “Are you hurting anywhere?” Nurse Betty asked.

  “YES, my side hurts, my head hurts,” she said, followed by some harsh coughing. “My ass hurt, my throat hurt, my feet hurt, my back hurt.” She coughed some more. “Oh, and I have this bad ass cough and that shit hurt too.”

  “I can hear it,” the nurse responded, trying not to frown. She could smell Gwen’s breath like she was personally standing inside her mouth. Her clothes also reeked as if she hadn’t changed them in a month.

  “It seems that your entire body is aching,” the nurse commented.

  “You can say that. Don’t I look like it?” Gwen asked.

  The nurse didn’t know how to respond. She just smiled and began checking Gwen’s temperature. “Are you taking any medication?”

  Gwen raised an eager eyebrow. “Do illegal drugs count?”

  “In this case, yes they would count,” the nurse quickly advised. Gwen was definitely about
as real as they came.

  “People around my way call me a crack head, but to be honest I don’t like the label. I’m so much more than that. Hell, I’ll use any drug that’ll get me high.” She laughed again, mixed with very harsh coughing.

  “Oooookay…” The nurse responded. “So what drugs have you taken within the last forty-eight hours?”

  “Just a lil bit of this and that.” Gwen coolly stated.

  “Can you be a little more specific?” the nurse asked, trying her best not to run out of patience and out the room.

  “I injected myself with heroin earlier today, but it wasn’t much. The other dope fiends whooped my ass and took the rest. I smoked crack yesterday with my homie 10-10, and been drinking beer all day. As a matter of fact, I’ve been drinking beer all day today and yesterday.”

  The nurse shook her head. She was disgusted by Gwen’s nonchalant attitude as if she didn’t care about her life.

  “Okay, so your breathing seems a little shallow, and I’m certain we’re going to have to get some x-rays. The doctor will be in shortly.” The nurse smiled and hurriedly walked out of the room.

  Gwen rolled her eyes. She knew the nurse didn’t really want to be bothered with her, anyway. She laid her head back and sighed. The door opened and Anton stepped inside the room. Gwen mustered up a smile, but clearly she was exhausted.

  Anton frowned a bit from the stench in the room. He turned his head and coughed in his fist, hoping that his mom didn’t see his disenchanted expression.

  “There’s my favorite child,” she stated, causing Anton to smile as he sat down in the empty chair.

  The concerned look on his face showed just how much he loved her. “Mom, how are you feeling?”

  “Like shit,” she responded, just as the doctor walked inside the room. He smiled and walked directly over to her.

  “Hey young lady, I’m Doctor Bower. What seems to be the problem?” He grabbed Gwen’s small wrist and checked her pulse.

  “I don’t think that I have a problem, although my son does, because he is the reason why I’m here.”

  “I’ve been updated about your condition. Clearly there is a problem, and you should be glad that your son insisted that you come here.” he sternly stated.

  At that time, a different nurse walked into the room. She was short, and a little on the heavy side, but she had a cute face. She smiled at Gwen.

  “This is Tonya, and she is going to take you to the x-ray room. We need to get those as soon as possible,” informed the doctor.

  Gwen stood up. It seemed in just that little time, she had gotten even weaker and could hardly stand. The nurse immediately left the room and came back in with a wheelchair. Anton wanted to help, but it seemed that the doctor and the nurse had things under control as they helped Gwen sit down in the chair. The nurse then pushed her out into the corridor, heading in the direction of the x-ray room.

  Meanwhile, the doctor looked over at Anton. “I’m assuming you’re the son she’s talking about?” he inquired.

  “Yes sir. My name is Anton.”

  “I won’t sugarcoat this. Your mom is in bad shape, but I’ll know more when the x-rays come back.”

  Anton already figured that much. “I know she looks bad. That’s why I made her come here.”

  “I’m glad you did,” he said, jumping right in Gwen’s business. “Do you mind me asking you a few questions about your mom?”

  “Sure,” Anton answered, pretty much knowing what the drill was going to be about.

  “How long has your mom been using drugs?”

  “Honestly Doc, for as long as I can remember,” Anton sadly stated. “Except for this one time when she’d gotten herself clean for about three years, but I wasn’t even a teenager back then.”

  “This is what I figured.” He shook his head a little. “I’m going to have some blood work done on her and get her cleaned up. I can tell you now that she is definitely going to be staying the night here.”

  Anton knew from the Doctor’s expression that Gwen was indeed in bad shape. He just hoped that it wasn’t too late for her to get the help that she needed.

  “Would you go sit back out in the lobby area so someone else can get in this room? We’re going to take your mom out on the floor when she’s done, and I’ll have someone give you her room number when she’s settled.”

  “Thanks Doc,” Anton responded, shaking the doctor’s hand and walking out of the room.

  Anton had fallen asleep in the waiting room area when Nurse Tonya tapped him on the shoulder to wake him up.

  “Hey,” she said shaking him a little. He sat up rubbing his eyes. “We’ve put your mother in a room on the second floor. It’s room 209. The doctor should be in to speak with you and her shortly.”

  Anton felt relieved that progress was finally being made, even though the sun was now rising. “Okay, thanks. I’ll go on up. Do you know how she’s doing?”

  “She is sicker than what she thinks she is. I gave her a good bath. She really needed it. Through it all, she kept a hilarious sense of humor. We started an IV in her arm and she is sedated so she won’t feel any pain. She probably won’t even realize you’re in the room with her.” Anton grinned, because he knew that Gwen was probably feeling her best if she was high and out of it.

  “Thanks for the heads up,” he said. Tonya smiled at him and he walked off. He was thinking that he could’ve gotten her number if he wanted to, but he already had a lot going on between Breanne and Samantha.

  He stepped off the elevator and headed toward Gwen’s room. When he walked into the room, he could see that she was resting. He definitely didn’t want to bother her, so he went and sat in the lounge chair that was sitting next to her bed. He could see she was clean, and he didn’t know what they did with her clothes, but he was hoping they threw them away.

  Doctor Bower knocked lightly on the door before walking in.

  “Hey, Anton, right?”

  “Yes sir, that’s right,” he responded.

  “I see your mom is resting. That is what we wanted her to do.” He smiled and stood over Gwen. “Her x-rays came back, and they don’t look good.”

  “What do you mean?” Anton asked.

  “Her lungs are full of infection. She has Pneumonia.”

  “So that can be treated, right?” he asked hopefully.

  “Yes, we are treating her for it now. She has been walking around with Pneumonia for at least a month and didn’t know it. The drugs keep her so high that she doesn’t even realize how sick she has been. I’m not going to lie to you son, she has a long road of recovery ahead of her.”

  “Wow,” Anton sadly whispered while thinking that she could’ve left the house that night and never returned, because somebody would’ve found her dead.

  “On top of that, she has a broken rib on her left side, and it’s fresh so this could have come from the fight she was in earlier. Her ankle is also sprained. That explains why she could hardly walk.”

  “I know she mentioned something about a fight when I asked her about the black eye, but my mom never takes anything seriously.”

  “Nurse Betty said that your mom told her that she had gotten beat by other dope fiends over some heroin.”

  “That sounds about right,” Anton sighed, shaking his head in disappointment.

  “Look, your mother is very ill. We’re going to do everything we can, but your mom is gonna have realize that this is serious if she wants to live.” Anton didn’t know how to respond, because if Gwen wanted to really live, she would have been cleaned herself up. She always took life for a joke.

  “We drew her blood so that we can run some tests on her. Since she has admitted to injecting herself with needles, the main things I’m concerned about are HIV/AIDS, and Hepatitis.” Anton knew these diseases were very serious.

  “How soon will you know the results of those tests?”

  “Within twenty-four hours we will have the results back. Your mom will still be here, because I don’t see
her leaving anytime soon,” Dr. Bower stated.

  “Well, at least I’ll know where she’s at.” Anton uttered.

  “For the next couple of days, she’ll probably be sedated, so don’t worry yourself if you come in here and she’s talking out of her head.”

  “She does that anyway, Doc.” They grinned.

  “She has quite a memorable personality. I had to stop myself from laughing at her jokes a few times,” he admitted, grinning.

  “Yeah, that’s my mama. She is always the life of the party.”

  “I can imagine.” They laughed again. “Nurse Tonya gave her a very good bath, so she should sleep comfortably through most of the day. Plus, she’s going through detox and we’re monitoring her closely, because she’ll begin to go through withdrawals from the drug use. We don’t want her seizing or something worse happening to her. So we’re keeping a close eye on her.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.” Anton sat back down in the chair. He figured he’d be camping out by Gwen’s bed for the remainder of the day.

  The doctor headed for the door, and then he paused and turned to look back. “Hey, Anton… You can go on home if you want. She’s in good hands, and you can come back later after you’ve gotten some proper rest.”

  “Are you sure? You know, especially with her going through detox and all.”

  “I’m positive. She is not going to know you’re here, anyway. If things change, I’ll be sure to call you. Your number is written on her paperwork, right?”

  “Yes sir, it is,” he confirmed.

  “Well, I’ll see you later this evening. We’ll catch up then. The other nurses and doctors will be fully aware of her condition and what they need to do to keep her comfortable and resting well, if I’m not around by chance.”

  “Okay,” Anton said. He stood up and shook Dr. Bower’s hand. “Thanks for everything, Doc.”

  Dr. Bower nodded his head and walked out.

  Anton looked over at Gwen. She was sleeping peacefully. He kissed her on the forehead and whispered, “I love you,” then exited the hospital.