Sophomore Year || Parenthood Series, Book One || WATTYS 2018

Chapter Thirty-Nine

SOUNDTRACK: "Young and Beautiful" - Lana Del Ray

ONE WEEK LATER

Jared looked down at his cell phone in annoyance as it rang for the second time. Emma's name appeared on the screen, but he hit ignore. Whatever she was calling for could wait, he was sure of it. She'd get the message after the second ignore and hopefully just leave him alone.

"Jay, you good to go?" Stevie asked, sitting with his guitar on the arm of a sofa.

"Yeah," Jared replied. "It's just Emma. She's probably calling about something stupid."

He had left Kate in the care of Emma at the Compound all week while he was gone recording. So far, it had been radio silence from Kate, but he wasn't bothered by it. He didn't really want to talk to her at the moment, anyways. Ever since their fight upon their return from Joshua Tree the weekend before, he felt like screaming at her every time he saw her. He could have stayed in L.A. to record, but the Compound was not big enough to diffuse that amount of tension. So he had chosen to put several hours between himself and Kate in an effort to cool off and move past the aggravation. He invited Stevie along for a last minute recording and writing session in a house just outside of Joshua Tree.

"Okay, just answer the damn phone," Stevie said. "I'm gonna take a piss."

Jared sighed and answered his phone as Emma called for a fourth time. "What, Emma?" he snapped. "We're trying to record here. Little hard to do when you keep calling me."

"Thank fuck you finally answered! I've been calling you so much for a reason!" she practically shrieked. He could hear tension in her voice.

Immediately, his mood shifted. "What's going on, Em?"

"It's Kate," she was nearly sobbing now. "I had to take her to the hospital."

He was up and moving before his mind even registered it. His body moved on natural instinct as he cradled his phone against his shoulder.

"Take a deep breath and tell me what happened," he said, trying to remain calm for the both of them. He heard the toilet flush and knew Stevie would be back in a minute.

"It's been pretty rough since you left. She hardly talks. She spends her time in her room by herself," Emma said. "I thought it might just be something from school, but when I asked her, she nearly jumped down my throat. But this morning when I had to get her up for school, she was locked in her bathroom."

Alarm bells were clanging in Jared's head. "What happened next?"

"Um - I tried to get it open, but I couldn't. So I had Samir and Dan take it down," she swallowed raggedly. He could hear sirens in the background of the call. "When I got in, she was unconscious on the floor. I found a bottle of Oxy next to her," her voice was shaking and Jared's mind went blank.

A replay of the times he had picked Shannon up off the floor after he had come down from one of his highs flashed through his mind.

"Is she okay?" he asked, panic in his voice. Stevie froze when he came around the corner.

"I don't know. They won't tell my anything. I'm not family," she said, tears evident. "They just left the house for the hospital. She's breathing, that's all I can say."

Jared steeled himself and forced his brain to concentrate. "In my office in the top right hand drawer of my desk, there is a medical power of attorney to be used in my temporary absence. I have Shannon listed on it. Get it to him and tell him to haul ass over to the hospital." He was suddenly grateful that he had done the paperwork, though it had seemed tedious at the time.