Viaje

5. Life isn't fair

I volunteered to drive as the last time I did was only for like 10 minutes. While I drove I could hear everyone talking about the hotel we booked for when we got to Melbourne. "There's a friggin pool" Jude exclaimed, wiping his hair out of his eyes. "Yeah I told you that when I booked it online" Oscar replied and right at that very moment, Cade spilt his coffee after I drove through a huge ass pothole in the middle of the road. It came out of no where! "Rubi what the hell are you doing?"
"Did you just hit something?"
"Oh my god! did you just run over an animal???" Harriet said last and I yelled "Can everyone just calm down it was a pothole bam smack in the middle of the bloody road." Cade just laughed as he saw the look on Ella's face when he spilt coffee on her. "I can't wait to get to the hotel and sleep in a bed without any of you idiots" Ella said frustrated. "Hate to break it to you but there's only 4 beds, we all have to share" Tom replied and she turned around and punched Cade in the arm. Everyone but Noah found the whole situation rather amusing.

"RUBI WATCH OUT!!!"
Screams filled my ears.
We didn't hit anything, but I dozed off a little whilst driving. I had no idea what had gotten into me, I wasn't even tired. "Rubi what the fuck was that?! Are you fucking serious you almost killed us all!!" yelled James in my direction. I stopped the car, got out of my seat and went to throw up on the side of the road. When I came back, Jude was in the drivers seat and Harriet helped me get in the back next to her. I fell asleep in her lap.
When I woke up James apologised for yelling at me and said it wasn't a smart idea to yell after a situation like that. I forgave him obviously, I was pissed at myself for what had happened and I wasn't surprised that he was too. El looked a bit pale and we were all cautious as we thought they were about to throw up big time. They ended up being okay and I let them sleep on my lap. El and I were super close and I loved them to bits.

Frankie was talking to Eboni on the phone and the rest of us were just talking, sleeping or eating. Oscar and Ana decided to talk to each other in Spanish and from what I heard they were talking about sightseeing in Melbourne. El was driving, they volunteered after Jude. I was sitting next to Tom and just thinking. It was one of the happiest moments of my life. I was with the people that I loved and who loved me. I looked around and saw people that I knew I could always depend on. It reminded me of all the things we'd been through together. Just remembering all the relationships that we'd all had with each other was funny. Like when Tom dated Harriet for like 2 months in 9th grade, he was in year 10. Or when Oscar and I tried to date but never worked out simply because we had just always been friends and it was weird. Even when Jude had a massive crush on Ana and she totally rejected him. It was in that moment when I realised that I was truly happy.

Everyone has experienced that feeling of when you're at your happiest and then life decides that you're not allowed to be too happy. You can't have it all. I was surrounded by noises and lights and crying. People trying to make small talk even though everybody in the room knew we were all there for one reason.

Somebody we loved was hurt.

When Tom had gone into a fit everybody freaked out. James started yelling, "Thomas what's happening? what's wrong with you why aren't your eyes open. Tom can you hear me? Tommy what's happening to you?
I yelled to Harriet to drive faster. "We need to get him to a hospital." That's when Frankie said "There's nothing close enough we need to call an ambulance" Ella got out her phone and dialled triple zero while the rest of us were screaming, crying and trying to get a grip. There was a moment when we all looked at one another and just started to cry. How could our trip turn into this.. this emptiness. The only vibe in the van was one of pain and terror. We were absolutely terrified.

James was the only family member of Tom so he went in the ambulance with him but they gave us the name of which hospital to go to. We got in and Ana drove straight there. Everyone was panicking and freaking out beyond the point of return. When we arrived the lady at the desk told us to be quiet and take a seat. She was quite rude. "You can't just come in here in this large group and cause a racket. Sit down somewhere and I'll be with you shortly." That's when Ella said, "Now listen here. There is a guy in there that I've known for almost 5 years. He means everything to us and we watched him while he.." she broke down into tears. Noah grabbed her and helped her  to walk across the room into a seat. Harriet quickly said "sorry about that" as she walked past the lady but the rest of us just slowly moped along to the seating area.

The 10 of us took up 8 seats. Ella sat on Noah's lap and Harriet on mine. We'd been there for around 15 minutes before we got any news about Tom. James came out with this look on his face where I couldn't tell if something good had happened or the other horrific thing we were all thinking. "Only 2 people are allowed in at a time", he said miserably and Ella and Harriet went in first. They were in there for about 10 minutes when they came back holding hands and embracing each other's warmth as if they'd both just seen a ghost. Harriet was crying. Ella looked numb.
"He's in a coma."
A coma? We hadn't even had an accident. We explained to the doctor that he was just fine one minute and having an awful fit the next. Doctor Femi told us that is was some thing that was apparently quite rare. Tom's brain had simply stopped contributing to reality. He just blacked out. We all took our turns going to see him. He looked so plain. Like he wasn't himself. Tom is always so positive, so cheerful and reassuring. It broke my heart to see him like this. How lonely he must be trapped inside his own mind.

The next thing we had to figure out was what to do. Do we keep going or do we rent out a cheap place near Tom? We had no idea how long we was going to be there. James called his mum, Annette and his older sister, Olivia. We stayed with Tom that night. Most of us slept outside in the kombi. We were all snugged together and fell asleep on top of one another. Although I don't think we actually slept until 4am because we were crying. I cried more than I think I ever had. I'd seen Jude and Oscar cry for the first time. Everybody was afraid and vulnerable. Nobody wanted to talk about the decision we had to make. So we simply sat, sipping on hot coffee with our blue lips and our tired eyes. I slept next to Jude and he was warm. He was always warm.
This is how our trip had turned out, we wanted freedom and adventure but instead we got misery and torture. It was torture to see Thomas like that everyday. He just looked so alone.