Lonely People

Die and Let Live

Twice in one month, I found myself sitting in a hospital waiting room, wondering if one of my friends was alive or dead. Janice had gone back three hours before, and we had yet to hear anything. She could be dead for all we know, or worse, she could be a vegetable. We could never see Janice again.

When Ringo was in the hospital, I was terrified. I didn't want to lose him, and I was scared he wasn't going to come out of it. That fear didn't compare to what I felt as I waited for Janice. This fear felt more real, more urgent. Janice was young, with so much ahead of her, she couldn't die yet. I felt like I needed to protect her, but there was no way I could fight an enemy that attacked from the inside out.

Something was different. Beyond Janice's youth or even the threat of losing the band, something was different. There was a dread hanging in the air that none of us wanted to address. I could feel it, as could everyone else. Janice might survive this, but she wasn't going to come out of it the same. I prayed it was just my anxiety running away from me. I felt like we had already lost her even if she was still breathing. 

Ellen arrived in a panic. They let her go back, just like they let Brian go back with Ringo. Ellen was the closest 'kin' Janice had, since she was the manager and practically held our lives in our hands. The last I saw of Ellen was her wild eyes and steadily greying hair. Part of me wondered if managing our band had taken a few years off of her life. If not, this sure as hell did. I knew I had lost a few years off of my life just by the sheer panic of seeing Janice in the tub.

The lads and Brian arrived with Ellen. The very first thing they did was go to us. Paul plopped down next to me and wrapped his arms around my shoulders. Ringo sat next to Molly and tried to comfort her as George and John sat across from us. Molly and I both accepted the comfort, but our hands never parted. While I was beyond grateful to have Paul there with me, there was something about the comfort of a love versus the comfort of family. Brian took to asking the nurse as many questions as he could, though he didn't get any more answers than us.

"How is she?" Paul asked.

I shrugged, "Dunno, they won't let us know."

My voice was so quiet, I wasn't sure it was mine. Paul kept a comforting arm around my shoulders the entire time, and I was more than grateful. It was like a shield against the horrors around us. George shot me a comforting smile as John patted my knee, "She'll be alright, Mel."

"I hope," I breathed, "It would be nice if someone actually told us what the hell was going on!"

I shouted the last part, making Paul shush me. Ringo furrowed his eyebrows, "I was gonna ask you the same thing."

"We know what happened to Jan, we just don't know why," Molly explained.

John crossed his arms, "Care to enlighten us? All we got was Paul shouting at us to leave because something was wrong with our girl."

"We found Jan unconscious in the bathtub," I explained, "She had a fever earlier, and we had left her to sleep. She must have wanted to take a bath, but it didn't end well."

I didn't want to think of what happened in that bathroom. I could picture Janice standing over the tub, watching it begin to fill with water, until the entire world went black. She could have been injured much worse than she was. Her neck could have been broken. All because Molly and I weren't there to help her, she nearly drowned. Had we been there, perhaps we could have gotten her to the hospital quicker.

"Hey, Ringo, you're contagious," John teased.

Ringo frowned as I groaned, "Bloody hell, John, now is not the time for jokes."