Heartbeat // Grayson Dolan

3. [unexpected phone call]

Teala's POV

"Why can't you ever just let me get one kill off you?" Grayson questions as he walks me out to my car, shoving his hands in his pockets.

"Listen, it's not my fault you just suck at Call of Duty. You and Ethan both." I giggle looking at him as I walk down the pathway leading to their house.

My teeth chatter as a cold breeze blows past me. There is still snow on the ground, but it is no longer the pretty, sparkling white snow. It's dirty and ugly and serves absolutely no purpose anymore, since it is not Christmas.

"Well, I'm not a gamer type of guy. When you learn how to wrestle, hit me up. I'll definitely win at that," he smiles as I open my car door.

"Oh yeah?" I question sitting in my car.

"Mhm," he hums with a smirk.

I feel my butt vibrate and furrow my brows. I sit up and feel around for the object that gave my ass a massage.

I pick up my phone. I guess I must've left it in the car.

I'm impressed when I see the several messages I have.

"What?" Gray questions.

"My phone is blowing up," I trail off, unlocking it and clicking iMessage.

I press the most recent message, which comes from my mom. Typical.

'Please answer the phone, Teala.' It read.

I become confused as my phone starts to vibrate in my hands, the caller I.D. reading Mama Ruise.

"Hello?" I say into the phone.

I hear a sniffle on the other line. "Teala, please come to the hospital."

My heart drops to my stomach and I start to get anxious. "Mama, what is it?" I say, my vision becoming cloudy.

"It's Noah, he stopped breathing," she replies.

I drop my phone, my hands trembling, not knowing how to respond to this unfortunate news I just received.

"Teala, what happened?" Grayson says with concern as he sees tears fall from eyes for the second time today.

"Teala, please come baby." I hear my mom say from the phone.

Gray picks up my phone. "We're on our way Mrs. Ruise." he says before hanging up.

He kneels down next to the car and wraps his arms around me. I close my eyes, beginning to cry hard into Grayson's shoulder. I mentally scold myself for looking so weak in front of my best friend.

His warm palms begin to rub my back and he shushes me. "What happened?" he whispers.

"N-Noah stopped breathing," I manage to say through all of my tears.

-

I open the door to the hospital room, Grayson not trailing too far behind me. I can already feel the tears threatening to spill again as I look at my brother laying lifelessly in a gray, ugly bed. I turn to see my dad rubbing my mom's back, her leaning her head on his shoulder as they are seated.

The sound of a machine beeping plays through the room, that being the only sound in the room.

I rush over to my mom. She opens her eyes as she sees me coming over and gets up before engulfing me in a hug.

"Mama, what happened?" I question pulling back and looking straight into her eyes.

"We were sitting down and watching a movie in the living room, and of course he wanted to get some popcorn. But he had been gone for a while, so I went to check on him and saw him hovered over the counter, wheezing, desperately trying to catch his breath." she explains, voice cracking towards the end.