So Long, Not Goodnight

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The door opened in front of him to his mother wiping bleeding mascara across her cheeks. "Frank, honey," she whimpered into a balled up tissue. "There's been an accident."

His heart hammered in his chest, it's beat about to crack open his ribs beneath. "What do you mean? Are you alright?" He took his moms arms harshly in his grip. 

Linda pulled both of her lips into her mouth, biting down as she cried harder. "It's Jamia..."

His whole body went limp with just her name. "What happened? Where is she?"

"Her parents just called me... She's been rushed to the hospital... She..." Linda Iero's face scrunched up into a ball like the tissue she held like a vise, focusing on the words as her mouth refused to speak them. "She's... She's..."

"What is it, Ma?" Frank tried to keep from shaking his mother as tremors tolled all over his body.

Linda collapsed to the floor in sobs as Frank lifted her up and set her down on their couch. "She's been... Brutally r-raped and b-b-b-beaten," she stuttered through sobs.

Frank ran into the foyer, grabbing the keys from the hook and calling to his mother that he was going to the hospital. Tearing through the streets on autopilot and going well above the speed limit, Frank spun out into the parking lot. His feet hit the pavement as though the car were still moving, making his way up the stairs to the E.R. front desk. "Where is she? Jamia?" He panted, out of breath, to the nurse on the other side of the desk.

"I'm sorry, young man, you're going to have to wait..."

"No!" Frank pounded a fist on the hard surface. "I need to see her! Now!"

A strong hand fell onto his shoulder. "Are you a mister, uh, Frank Iero?"

Frank looked over his shoulder at an adorned state trooper, his face professionally sympathetic. "Yeah," Frank nodded, turning to face the cop. "Yeah, I am... And I'm looking for my friend."

"You can't see her at the moment, she's still in surgery," the cop continued. "I do have some questions for you about what happened."

Frank gripped both sides of his forehead to keep it from spinning around. "I don't know what even happened! My mom just told me that she was in the hospital and that she... She was..." Tears rolled down his face as those two disgusting and disturbing words formed images in his head that he never wanted to imagine. 

"Mr. Iero," the man shook him gently from where he still held on to his shoulder. "I'm just trying to figure out who committed the crime and put them away. Maybe you have some thoughts."

The cop steered Frank into an empty waiting room that was just a bit bigger than a janitor's closet. As Frank sat with his head in his hands and his right leg bouncing, the officer returned not more than a minute later with a steaming cup of hospital waiting room coffee. Frank took it gratefully and took a swig; it tasted burnt and reheated, but it was something. "I apologize for not introducing myself," the officer pointed to his badge with his name. "I'm officer Kobel with the New Jersey State Police Department."

Frank took another slug of coffee like it was a shot of tequila. "What happened, officer?"

He didn't want to hear it, but he had to know. Officer Kobel fitted his fingers together over his one crossed knee taking a deep breath. "We got a call from Jamia's friend not long ago that she discovered her unconscious and bloodied on the floor in the basement of a house party that they went to together."

Frank remembered Jamia talking about going to a small party with her friend Shauna on their way home from the clinic. She was so excited to get out and enjoy being with her friends after feeling so sick and depressed for a bit. It made Frank happy seeing how excited she was. He should have called out of work and stayed with her and escorted her there, but he thought that she'd be safe with Shauna. All the what-ifs in the world wouldn't change what had happened, but it was something he couldn't help but try to redo, even though it wasn't possible. "Her friend said that Jamia was with her throughout the night, not drinking anything but water which she said was strange, but knew that Jamia had been sick so that maybe she was still recovering. She went to go to the bathroom and she was occupied with another person that she didn't notice just how long she had been gone. It had been two hours, maybe just a bit more, when Shauna had gotten concerned and went looking for Jamia."