The Desired Effect ~ Cameron Liddell

Chapter 26. Anything, Anything, Anything.

A knock on my window. Several before I heard them. Several more before Danny opened the door. "We have her, Cameron. Come." He just wrapped his arms around me. I couldn't move. I couldn't speak, or turn my head, or move, or even cry. I couldn't do anything. James arrived and picked me up out of the car, the only person strong enough to pick me up. He put me in the back seat and they both got in the front. "She came to my house. She was- I calmed her down and took her to the hospital. She's not hurt but she's not taking it. She won't do anything the doctors say. She pretty much only listened to me." I slipped to the side and layed down in the back of the car. Danny reached back and squeezed my knee reassuringly.

"I don't think they're letting you take her home again." James said. I knew they wouldn't. The mysterious, ever-elusive they. They were going to take her away and never let me see her. They were going to put her away and never give her back to me. Maybe they'd put me away too. In separate states so we could never see each other. I'll kill myself. If they take her away from me I'll kill myself. Anything, Anything, anything but losing her.

Being in the hospital, waiting to see her, waiting to hear if she was okay, was all very familiar. No one was allowed to see her but Danny. He was the only person she would listen to apparently. I could hear her screaming from the hallway. Every once in a while Danny would walk out shaking his head, or pulling at his hair, or screaming at the top of his lungs. But he would always come back. And then more screaming. I'm gonna throw up. I'm gonna fucking vomit. I can't stand this. I can't listen to this anymore. They're hurting her. I thought I was doing well for her. Feeding her and helping her and taking her outside every day. I thought I was doing well for her. But I wasn't. I was destroying her. She never wanted help. I should have just given her what she wanted this whole time. I should have just given it to her. And she wouldn't be in this pain. She wouldn't be screaming. She wouldn't be in this pain.

"What the fuck are we going to do?" Sam said. I hadn't gotten out of the chair other than to go to the bathroom and contemplate killing myself. "It sounds like they're torturing her. I can't listen to it anymore. Danny is going crazy. James is on...." Sam glanced at me "...suicide watch. How did things get so fucked up?" Ben shrugged and sat back down. Before I could get up and run away James grabbed my arm and pulled me back down. "You know what? Let him go." Sam looked at me. "He already gave up her life. Why not his own."

"That was fucking uncalled for mate." James turned to him.

"What does that even mean anymore! None of this had to happen! It's all his fault. And now none of us can do anything but sit here and watch. I knew this would happen. No one can fucking keep her. No one can help her. Cameron you are a sorry fucking excuse for a man." Sam walked out of the hospital. Before, I would have gotten up and knocked him out in one punch. Beaten the shit out of him. Ben went after him.

"Don't listen to him. He's just upset. He's-"

"Right." I interrupted. "He is right." James didn't argue. No one did. "I was trying. You know that right? You know that? I was trying, I was feeding her, and taking her out, and keeping her sober, and I've been sober, and... I was really trying this time. You have to tell me you know that."

"We know that." They kept watching me as things happened, as if my face could show how broken I was. Like my chest would deflate and my face would drop and my shoulders would slouch. As if anything could hurt me more than I already was. That had happened once, and it was the first time Naomi almost overdosed and Danny had to come save her. It was like all my bones had broken and they just healed apart. Scar tissue blocking up all the parts blood should have been flowing to. Instead the blood just dried up, I thought. I had been broken so hard and so deeply that there was no putting me back together and no further breaking possible. I was just there, like the kid they could never find a babysitter for, that the whole band had to drag everywhere they went. The kid they needed a leash for because they could never control. Less like some wild stallion, I was the one stealing other kids toys and breaking them.

"You should eat something." Ben spoke after a while, leaning around James. I knew that he knew I was trying. He was the only person who had any sympathy left for me.

"No, I shouldn't."

"Starving yourself to death also counts as suicide. Which I have been appointed to help you avoid. Let's go to the cafeteria." James stood in front of me with a large sigh.

"You can't make me." I muttered, a lump forming in my throat. I already gave up on her life. Why not my own.

"You have made it very fuckin' easy for me to make you do anything. You walk to McDonalds, or I will carry you." I pushed myself off the chair and followed him. "A watched pot never boils."

Naomi

"Stop!" I screamed, tears streaming down my face. "You're trying to kill me!" A team of doctors held me down onto the bed. "Danny help, they're trying to kill me!!"

"No they aren't, Nomes. They're trying to help you. They're trying to help you get better." I screamed and I screamed until I couldn't scream anymore. Everything got really quiet. My head got really quiet, and the pain got really quiet. All the veins in my wrists had collapsed so they had to get the IV needle into my thigh. "They just want to help you, my love. They want you to get better."

"I don't want to get better." I whispered as Danny brushed my hair back. "Get me out of here. Take me home. I don't want to get better."

"Yes you do." He nodded. "Somewhere in that little oxygen deprived head of yours, you want to get better. I know you do. Remember how good things were before?" I looked into Danny's eyes and saw what once was. Falling in love with Cameron. Running away. Fighting with Danny. Getting drunk and smoking weed. Everything I did before seemed so trivial and silly when I was lying in a hospital bed half dead. It all seemed so fucking easy, even the bad parts, even Vegas.

"Yeah." I felt myself smile. "That was pretty good." Danny smiled. His first smile in a long time.

"Remember the wedding? And your girls night out with Brandi and Myca and Sam? And how you used to stay at my house once a week? Those were good nights. I miss that."

"Yeah." My brain started to go fuzzy again. "Those were good nights."

"You wanna know what's going to happen?" He whispered, brushing my hair behind my ears gently. I nodded as much as I could, my entire body numb and tingling. "You're gonna get better. You're gonna get healthy, and gain weight, and the pain will go away," I rolled my eyes and looked away.

"That's not gonna happen-"

"Listen, sweetie." I looked back at him. His voice was so nice I couldn't help it. "You're gonna get healthy, and gain weight, and your ass is gonna get nice and big again. Maybe your tits will come back. I promise when all that happens the pain will go away. And then you're gonna get a house far away from the city where nothing can hurt you. Something close to me and all of us. And it's gonna be a really nice house with a pool when you're strong enough to swim. And we'll all get really nice tans and sit in the sun all day drinking champagne and laughing. And you can have your girls nights where you get a little drunk with Brandi and Myca and watch silly romantic comedies and eat pizza. And then once a week. Once a week no more or less, you stay over at my house. I can steal you away to my hideaway in the hills, and spoil you and take you out to dinner if you want. Or we can stay in and I'll make you dinner. And I'll finally get to see you smiling and laughing again. And I'll steal kisses every so often when I know Cameron won't find out. But this time we all have the money to do it right. Now I have the money to give you everything you deserve. We could do all that. We could all be happy again, sweetheart. You just have to let the doctors help you. You have to let them help you get better." I looked up at the ceiling.

"That sounds nice." I smiled. "That sounds really nice." Danny crawled into bed beside me, hardly touching me, and looked up at the ceiling.

"It does, doesn't it."