Thats Life

Chapter Twenty-One

Suzie refused to get off the floor, Katie pretty much carried her out and sat her on the floor in my room. I could hear her crying from here, but I couldn't do anything about it, couldn't do anything for her.

When the cops and paramedics got here, Jace was still laid in my lap, my hands in his hair and my head touching his. My tears slid down my face onto his, I can't explain how I feel. Hollow. Like this isn't actually happening I keep waiting to wake up from this re-occurring dream. Only this time I don't wake up. This time, its real.

I stood back with my hand over my face as I watched the paramedics pull Jace up into the ambulance.

"Name, and age?" She asked me. I couldn't peel my eyes away from Jace, he hasn't moved an inch since we found him. No muscle movement, no half assed fake smile, no sarcastic remarks.

"Sir, I understand this is hard, but I need his name and age."

"Jace, he's um" I paused to swallow "He's 21." So young, still so much life to live.

"Okay, and what did he take?" She asked me and my face tore from Jace to look at her.

"What?"

"What did he take? We need to know so we don't give him anything that will counteract with it, and so we know how to help." She was standing there, pen and notebook in her hands. Acting like this is just another day on the job. She doesn't know Jace, she doesn't know anything about him. Doesn't know how funny he is, how full of life he used to be, the way he used to dream of being a dancer. She doesn't know our dad beats him or calls him names. Nothing, she knows nothing. She's just doing her job to her he's just another kid who took too many pills on accident trying to get high.

The panic and the tears came back to me as I tried to find the answers to her question, "I-I don't know. I don't know what he took, the bag was full of different things I don't even know how many were originally in there. He's a recovering addict, anything he could find."

"That's fine. We're going to take him down, you are free to follow us down there, but once at the hospital we will ask you to stay in the waiting room until we have more information." She finished taking her notes and hopped into the back of the ambulance. I turned towards Katie and Will who were both standing outside.

"Let's go, I can drive." Will pulled the keys out of his pocket, and Katie ran back in to grab Suzie, a few minutes later we were all in will's car speeding down the road behind the ambulance.

"Is he going to be okay?" Will asked me.

"I don't know." I wiped my eyes.

"Tyson please, tell me he's okay" He pleaded.

"I said I don't KNOW!" I threw my hands up to my head.

I'm supposed to be the big brother, I'm supposed to keep everyone from this type of stuff. I can't fix this, I can't re-assure Will. I know he's feeling the same way I am, like we want someone to tell us right now 'he is fine' or 'this was a joke'.

Anything but this. I reached over and turned on the radio, the station was on the oldies and if we were in any other position, I would have teased him for it. But the music reminded me of Jace, he was always listening to old music.

"Oh my god." Suzie said leaning into the front seat and turning up the music. "Oh fuck." She started crying. I couldn't tell if she was smiling or crying.

"What?" I asked frantically.

"This song! This is his song." she covered her mouth - definitely crying.

It was silent in the car as we all listened to the music coming out the speakers.

'That's life, that's what all the people say, your riding high in April, shot down in May.'

Leave it to Jace to be so romantic as to "get shot down in May" like his favorite song insists.

"That's life, by Frank Sinatra" She stated. "I don't know what this means." She's shaking her head, tears still falling down her face.

I gave her a confused look.

"If it's a sign from the universe, it could be telling us he's going to be okay. If it's a sign from Jace then..." She stopped.

Suzie has always been into that spiritual energy stuff, whatever you want to call it. I hoped she didn't know what she was talking about, but I couldn't bring myself to tease her for this, not this time.

I slowly turned away from her back to the front of the road, right when the ambulance sirens started going off, and the lights turned on.

Fuck, Jace.