Rocker's Rivalry

Chapter 27

Astrid didn't know what to do with herself. She was almost beside herself with worry, and Hayden continued to slip in and out of consciousness as she knelt by his side. Gripping his hand tightly, Astrid tried to lure him from his sleep to get him to string a single sentence together. However, when he drifted back into reality, it was only for a few seconds, and then he was gone again.

When the ambulance and paramedics finally arrived, Astrid felt as though she had been watching over him for a few hours - when it had only been a little under ten minutes. But she sighed in relief as they stormed through the still-opened door and made their way over to Astrid and Hayden on the ground.

Quickly surveying him, they checked his vitals and asked Astrid to step back out of the way so they could examine him properly. Astrid couldn't help but worry, even if he was now in the right hands. Breathing heavily and craning her head to look over the paramedic's heads, Astrid kept her eyes on Hayden in worry.

"Has he been unconscious since you found him?" One of the paramedics questioned Astrid as they checked over Hayden's collapsed figure. They hadn't yet moved him off the floor yet, and Astrid was still in a state of panicked shock from the whole ordeal, so it took her a few seconds to respond.

"Err, well. Not really. He keeps drifting in and out of consciousness. But only for a few seconds or so, then he's gone again..." She responded hesitantly, her mind hazy and her memory foggy as she focused on the pale face of Hayden lying on the floor helplessly. "He's not gonna die, is he? Is he gonna be okay?" Astrid couldn't stop herself from asking.

However, the endless and uncomfortable silence that followed told her that she shouldn't have asked. Neither paramedic desired to answer that question, both of them being unsure as to what Hayden's current situation was as they scanned the room. One of them noticed a peculiar set of pills scattered on the floor, as well as an empty pill bottle collapsing on the coffee table beside Hayden's body.

"What's this?" One of them asked curiously as they took the empty bottle of pills off of the coffee table beside Hayden. Holding it up to their face, their eyes squinted at the label and tried focusing their eyes on the multiple words scrawled onto its nameplate. "Methadone..."

"Isn't that a painkiller? The kind they use for drug addicts or something?" One of the paramedics, clearly younger and less experienced than the other, asked eagerly.

"It can also be prescribed for use against chronic pain of some sort..." The other, older paramedic, replied thoughtfully as he scanned the bottle.

Picking a few of the pills off of the floor, the paramedic holding the bottle twisted the pills around in his palm for a few seconds contemplatively. As he thought, his gaze slowly came to focus on Astrid, who had been standing nearby cluelessly, with a worried expression plastered across her features.

"Miss, do you mind telling me, was your boyfriend here an addict of some kind? In for therapy or rehab for heroin addiction at all?" He asked kindly, his words calm and smooth, like an old man asking for the time of day. Astrid's face contorted from shock to one of confusion.

"No, I haven't heard of anything like that..." Astrid responded, her voice not hiding the slight astonishment and surprise that was flowing through her body.

Had Hayden really been a heroin addict?

"Well, not to worry... We'll have to take him into the hospital and have these drugs pumped out of his system quickly, I don't believe he took enough to overdose, but definitely, enough to harm himself." Upon those words, the paramedics hastily pulled Hayden onto their stretcher and hauled him out of the building and into their ambulance.

Throughout the journey to the hospital, the ambulance's sirens blaring away, Astrid never let go of Hayden's hand. Their fingers entwined together as Astrid kissed the back of it gently in her grasp, the rest of the world falling away as she watched Hayden's unconscious face smile sightly upon the small, intimate contact between them. For that small moment, Hayden regained consciousness and felt the soft brush of Astrid's lips against his skin.