The Luke Brooks Diaries

Chapter 7: Hospital

Luke’s POV:

I opened my eyes only to be blinded by the brightest white light I had ever seen. I squinted and put by hand between me and the lamp that was the source of this obnoxious light. I looked around the room, disoriented and confused. I was in a hospital. I looked down to see the powder blue hospital gown that I was wearing. There was an IV in the back of my left hand. I continued to scan the room and finally saw a familiar face. Jai was curled up, sleeping on a couch that sat under the only window in the room. He didn’t look comfortable at all, but he must have decided to stay when the other boys went back to the hotel. It didn’t surprise me, really, Jai and I had always had that special “twin bond” as people liked to call it. It didn’t feel right when we weren’t together and it made me feel better to know that he was her with me, even if I had no idea why I was here in the first place.

I turned my attention to a white board near the door. There were some names on the board and I figured they must be the doctors and nurses that had been helping me. I tried to look for anything on the board that might give me some kind of hint as to why I was here but there was nothing. I tried to remember what had happened last night, but the last thing that I could remember was dancing at the party… or was I at the bar the last I remembered? Well, either way I couldn’t think of anything that seemed out of the ordinary. Maybe I’d fallen or something, but I didn’t feel hurt or maybe I’d drank to much. That didn’t seem likely since I couldn’t remember drinking all that much the night before, but then again that didn’t mean it was impossible – I finally decided that this was the most logical explanation to why I was here. I looked back over to Jai – I was really tempted to wake him up and find out what was going on. The clock on the wall read 6:30, but am or pm? It didn’t say, although based on the fact that Jai was sleeping and the way the sun looked outside I assumed it was 6:30am.

I laid back in my bed trying to think of what I should do to kill time when I noticed the remote control looking device that sat on the side of my bed. It only had one big, red button with the word “Call” on it. I figured this was the button you pushed when you wanted the nurse to come in. I pressed the button and within a minute or two a nurse walked into the room.

“Good morning, Mr. Brooks. How are you feeling?” The nurse said with a smile as she looked at a clipboard.

“Umm, I’m feeling okay, but why am I here?” I asked back.

“Well, it seems that you were drugged last night without your knowledge,” the nurse said looking up at me. “we found MDMA in your system.”

“MDMA?” I replied, confused. Maybe someone had spiked my drink or something…

“Otherwise, known as ecstasy,” the nurse responded, her attention back on the clipboard.

Suddenly my heart sank and I could feel the color drain from my face. Ecstasy. So it was my fault that I was in the hospital right now. But she said someone had drugged me… my brothers must have told the doctors that I wouldn’t take ecstasy, which made sense considering I was pretty careful the last couple of night to make sure they didn’t catch on.

I looked over to the couch and noticed Jai sitting up on the couch rubbing his eyes. He looked over to see me awake and alert and immediately got up from the couch and walked over to me.

“Luke!” Jai said putting a hand on my shoulder. He looked exhausted and suddenly I felt awful about what I must have put him and the rest of the guys through last night. “How are you? Are you feeling okay?” His face was full of concern.

“I’m okay, Jai, really. I feel fine. But what happened last night? I don’t remember anything.”

“Well, we were at the party and then you came over to use and you looked dead. You weren’t talking and you kept drifing in and out. Me and Beau had to carry you out of the party because you could barely walk and then as soon as we got into the car you passed out. You were really cold and clammy and you looked really pale so we brought you here and they said they found ecstasy in your system. Someone must have spiked your drink or something…” He looked like he might start crying. “They had to pump your stomach.”

“We’ll need to keep you here for a couple more hours and do a few more tests, but assuming everything checks out you should be ready to go home this afternoon,” the nurse said with a smile as she hung the clipboard on a hook on the wall. “You know what to do if you need anything,” she added as she walked out of the room.

“I’m really glad that you’re okay,” Jai said sitting back down on the couch. “The other boys went home a few hours ago once they realized you were going to be okay, but I decided to stay so that you wouldn’t wake up in here all by yourself.”

“Thanks, Jai,” I said looking over at him, it really means a lot that’d you stay. But you can go home and get some sleep if you want. I’ll be okay, here.”

“Nah, I’ll stay. I probably wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep anyways.” He responded with a smile. I was actually really relieved that he wanted to stay. I didn’t really want to be here by myself and I had a feeling he must have picked up on that.

“Luke?” Jai said looking up at me, his face suddenly more serious. “You didn’t take anything did you? Like any drugs or anything?”

I didn’t know what to do. If I told him he’d be pissed, but at the same time I really hated lying to Jai. He was a pretty honest guy, so it always made me feel bad when I wasn’t truthful with him. I went back and forth in my head until Jai finally interrupted my thought.

“Luke?” I looked at Jai, his face full of worry as he anticipated my answer.

“Of course I didn’t Jai. I’m not an idiot, plus you remember what we talked about before getting here, about how the drugs here were sketch as fuck.” A look of relief replaced his worry. I just couldn’t bring myself to tell him.

“Are you sure, Luke? Because you know you could tell me anything. I won’t be mad, I just want to help you,” he pried.

“I didn’t fucking do anything!” I spat back. I felt awful about lying to him and I just wanted to change the subject.

“Sorry,” he said, sulking back into the chair and pulling his cellphone out of his pocket.

We sat in silence for a while, Jai on his phone and me left with my thoughts. I debated just telling him, but, I don’t know, I just couldn’t. The way he’d looked at me as he waited for what’d I’d say – he looked like a sad puppy or something. I didn’t want my stupidity to change our relationship. “I’ll just never to it again,” I thought to myself, “or at least I’ll be more careful next time…. Shit, no! There shouldn’t be a next time. You sound like a druggie or something, which you’re not. Right? What makes someone a druggie or an addict, even?” I wrestled with my own thoughts only to be interrupted every now and again when a nurse or doctor would come in to run some sort of test. At some point, I finally shut my eyes and fell back asleep.

******

Someone gently shook me awake and I opened my eyes to see Jai standing near me with a hand on my shoulder.

“The doctor’s here to check you out and see if you’re ready to go home,” Jai said.

I sat up in bed and looked the clock. 12:45.The doctor walked in and took my vitals as he went over exactly what had happened the night before. He quizzed me a little more about what’d happened and finally he cleared me to leave the hospital. The rest of the boys showed up as a nurse unhooked me from all the machines. I changed into some fresh clothes that Beau had brought me from home and then waited until the nurse that was escorting me out of the hospital finally showed up. The nurse finally came with a wheelchair which she insisted I ride in until we got to the car – kind of embarrassing considering I felt perfectly capable of walking, but hospital policy, I guess.

We finally made it to the car and I hopped in. The ride home was a little overwhelming – I was a little out of it, but the boys were, of course, interested in figuring out what had happened the night before and threatening to kill the person that had done this to me if they ever found them. The more the boys talked about who had done this to me, though, the more guilty I felt about having to lie to them. And, in addition to my guilt, I was couldn’t stop thinking about what this all meant for me. I was trying hard to convince myself that I wouldn’t never do anything like this ever again, but at the same time I wasn’t sure if I should have to convince myself.

Convincing myself meant that there was still a part of me that felt like I might what to get high again and I couldn’t ignore that part of me, but, at the same time, I knew that I had to. Somebody who wants to keep doing drugs even when they knew how bad they were for them, was a drug addict and I was definitely not a drug addict, right? No I definitely wasn’t I couldn’t be. It was just one mistake and I wasn’t ever going to let it get that far again.