The bass of you

Chapter 49

I wake up to the sounds of objects being fiddled with, rattling against each other. Opening my eyes, I see nurses fussing with Chase's bed and other things he's hooked up on. Sitting up properly, I rub my eyes and watch as a nurse approaches me.

"Hi there, we'll be moving Mr Ryder to a private room now," she says nicely. "Would you like to follow me?"

Nodding, I get up from the chair, and wait until the nurses start wheeling the bed Chase is on before I follow. As we walk out from the curtain and through this part of the emergency department, I can hear whimpers and crying from patients and/or people close to them. It makes me sad, breaks my heart. This is an emergency room for the some of the patients in the worst conditions, I can only imagine what they and the people that care about them are feeling.  With a heavy heart, I continue down the bottom of this part and watch as a nurse holds a door open to a dark room.

Inside the room it's dark and gloomy, with only the light of the miserable outside coming in through the window, not providing much light whatsoever. A nurse turns on the light for the other nurses as they fiddle with all those things again, fiddling with Chase's body. There's a leather armchair in the corner, right by the window, and right by the bed too. I go over to it and slump down in it effortlessly. I'm so tired.

I look out the window as the nurses do their thing, looking out over the tall structures of the other connected parts of the hospital. It's a massive hospital. The weather is terrible. It's raining, there's ominous grey clouds smothering the sky, hovering over the hospital, reflecting its broody shade over the already naturally miserable hospital.

The nurses are done what they're doing and one even turns the TV on for me on the wall, then comes over and hands me the remote. But she's not done yet. She comes back into the room a couple of minutes later with a blanket and puts it over me. With my eyes tearing up, I thank her, and she smiles and tells me that if I need anything else to just ask.

I don't even have my phone on me, it's in my leather jacket back at the hotel. I have no idea what time it is, but I'm guessing that maybe it's pretty early in the morning. It's light outside, but not too light. But I can't tell whether that's because of the gloomy weather or not. Turning back to Chase, I move as close to his bed as I possibly can in this armchair and reach out for his hand. My fingers curl around his fingers as I rest my head back and watch him with tired eyes. I'm silently praying for him to be okay, to get help after all of this is done with, hoping he'll get better and seek rehab or something for his addiction.

I didn't realise how much I really cared for Chase until I was doing chest compressions to kickstart his heart. Of course, I'd be fearing for anybody's life if they died and I was trying to bring them back, but something inside of me snapped when I realised he was dead. My heart literally self-destructed and I even had a panic attack. Maybe the way I feel about Chase has something to do with seeing the real him, before I opened my eyes to the addicted-to-heroin him. He's a good guy, he has a good heart, and he definitely doesn't deserve this.

A while later I'm woken by a bunch of people talking in the room around me. I presume it's nurses at first, until I can feel a pressure on my shoulder. Opening my eyes, I turn my head to the side to look at what's causing the pressure on my shoulder. Layla is sitting on the arm of the chair, leaning her head on my shoulder, her hands clutching around my arm comfortingly. Next to the chair, by the wall, Jace and Isaac are standing there. In front of the chair and beside the bed is Jackson and Bill. On the other side of the bed is Ace and Wolf.

"Hey, man, she's awake," says Ace, looking right at me from the other side of the bed.

"Mon? Are you okay?" Layla asks from beside me, taking her head from my shoulder.