Wild Ride - The Alternative Version (Book 2)

Chapter 43~The Trouble With Truth Is That It Never Lies

Elise was on the phone for a while, not saying anything in this big huge, silent pause after saying the word, 'hello'. We all sat around the living room, watching and waiting for news of Abbie. I glanced around at the guys and the girls, who all looked extremely scared and worried as they waited, all holding onto each other. I sat there with my heart pounding hard inside my chest, both with fear and with hope. I watched Elise's face for any kind of burst of happy emotion, though it was expressionless like mine. I wanted so badly to know what she was hearing, what the receptionist was telling her. I should've told her to use speaker phone. Whatever she was feeling depending on what the receptionist was telling her, I didn't want her to feel it alone. Especially if what she was being told wasn't good things. It wasn't really fair to her. 

Please be ok, Abbie, please, I thought, pleading with her in my mind, wishing there was some way for her to hear me. I just don't want to be told what I don't want to hear, but unfortunately, in a lot of cases like this one, that happens. Abbie's always been unpredictable though, so maybe she will be with this too. Maybe she won't end up like others, she doesn't usually in every day life anyway. 

While I was waiting, I just couldn't sit there with everyone like that anymore. I got up and left the room, going down to the basement. I wanted to know if she was ok, and what the results of her surgery were, but at the same time I didn't. I was incredibly afraid of what I might hear. I don't want to lose my princess, that's my worst fear! It can't happen, it just can't! 

At the bottom of the stairs, I looked around the room. I saw ghosts of the past everywhere. I looked over at the piano, seeing us when she was six and she'd asked the question of whether or not I played other instruments than drums. I see that one all the time as just a memory, but right now it's so much more than that. I looked over at the couch, where I'd seen her just a few weeks ago strumming out the chords to The Messenger by Linkin Park. I could hear her emotionally powered voice in my mind, I remembered the chills that she'd given me while singing. Finally, I looked over at my drum set. I wish I hadn't. 

I remembered the past week, her working so hard to learn that damn song. She never got frustrated or gave up on it, she just pushed through and it paid off. The day she finally got it down, played all the way through with no mistakes, she jumped up from the drum set and let out a victory cry, and then she played it all over again just to be sure of herself. Then while she was playing it a smile would just break out across her face from absolutely nowhere, like she was thinking about something funny that happened the day before or something. It was like nothing I've ever seen, watching that child play. 

I had to reach up and wipe my eyes, having the thought that maybe I'd never get to see that smile again. I wondered if Elise and the others already knew by now, I wondered what they were doing just above me, just through the ceiling. 

Trying to shake free of these awful thoughts running through my mind, I went and sat down at the drum set, grabbing the sticks and just turning them over in my palms for a moment before I just started lashing out. This was the best way for me to release my emotions, though crying does a pretty good job when it's needed, but even then it doesn't get the job completely done. 

I pretty much turned my whirlwind of emotions into a whirlwind of noise, filling every inch of the basement, from corner to corner, with loud noise. I kept hearing the sounds of Abbie struggling to breathe, and I was trying to drown it out with the sound of the drums, I didn't want to hear it anymore. I wanted to erase every memory of earlier today out of my head, I didn't want to see her collapsing, or hear the sounds of her unable to breathe, the blood coming out of her mouth and spattering onto the floor that she coughed up, or the fear in her eyes. I wanted it gone. 

By the time I got done, I'd broken down all over again, and I dropped my drumsticks, letting them drop to the floor as I leaned forward and just cried. I was afraid to go upstairs, I was afraid to see the looks on their faces that would give me my answer. I could only guess that they were upstairs crying too if Elise didn't come running to tell me the good news. I removed myself from my seat at the drum set and just sat on the floor a little ways behind it, my legs stretched out and my hands my lap, hunched over with my head hanging low. I just sat there and cried like a small, emotionally disturbed child who was throwing a fit.