The next Friday was a positively normal day. Or it appeared to be that way. Holden was supposed to be coming home that night, which I was admittedly pretty excited for. I think that was the main reason the day passed so quickly. I think if it hadn't have been for that, the day would have been agonizingly slow. It was the day before Thanksgiving Break, which gave us an entire week off.
I came home that day to an empty house. Mocha was meowing from my room. I smiled to myself and rushed up the stairs, placing my school bag on the floor of my room. I looked around my room searching for Mocha, but she wasn't there. She meowed again.
She was in the bathroom. I walked the few steps it took to get there. It was only a few steps, but in hindsight it took forever. Time is relative, right? So when the most influential thing happens, you will only ever remember it in slow motion. Because you want to retain every detail.
The pills. They were scattered on the floor, in every crevice. The bottle must have been huge. From far away, it might have looked like the floor was white, like snow was covering it, when in reality it was nothing like that.
I don't remember calling the ambulance. I don't remember getting in the ambulance with my brother and letting them drive me to the hospital. But I do remember waiting. It must have taken quite some time for the people at the hospital to get a hold of my parents because it was dark when they arrived, my mother in tears. I didn't know what to say to them. I might have been able to prevent it, had I stayed in my brother's room that night and talked more. My head felt dizzy and light. I felt like gravity was taking it's toll on my sanity. I kept waiting to pass out, but I never did. I thought about how the most fitting place to pass out would be the hospital. I thought about my near-death experience. But mostly I thought about what life would be like without my brother.
Finley caught my shoulder as I slumped forward. I didn't know when she got there, I was just glad she was. When my eyes finally adjusted, I looked at her face. She was no longer the gorgeous Fin I had grown up with. She looked tired and scared and broken. Her face was stained with tears and her cheeks were flushed. She looked like she had just wrapped her hair in a loose bun the minute she heard the news.
“Lizzie?” she asked, trying to get a reaction from me. I blinked, trying to see straight. My vision seemed blurry and I felt like I was about to throw up. I squeezed my eyes shut.
“Darce, what happened?” my mother spoke up, her voice caught on the last syllable. Finley slid on the bench right next to me, still making sure I wasn't about to fall over.
I closed my eyes again, trying to think. I didn't want to, but they deserved to know. They all did. It was hard to focus on one thing when my mind was racing and every noise seemed amplified a hundred times, ringing in my head.
“I came home to Mocha meowing. I checked my room for her, but she wasn't there. So I checked in the bathroom and...” I shuddered. I suddenly remembered what came after that. The pills. And the way he was just slumped over. Not breathing. I couldn't breathe.
I started panicking. I couldn't breathe. There was not enough air. Why the hell couldn't I breathe? I opened my eyes. My family was staring at me concerned. Why weren't they helping me breathe? I watched their mouths move, but no sound came out. I could only hear the blood rushing in my ears. Strangely enough, it sounded an awful lot like the ocean.
Then there was a young guy dressed in blue scrubs aiding me. He grabbed my hands and placed them on my stomach. I watched his mouth move and very slowly comprehended what he was saying to me.
“Look. Look, you're breathing. It's okay. You're breathing, it's fine. You're fine,” he repeated over and over again. It was hard not to listen to him. His voice was so smooth and calm. I focused on how my stomach was rising and falling with every breath and that I was in fact breathing. I took several deep breaths and I was suddenly able to hear the sounds surrounding me again.
