"Get Ashton, please. I don't think he'll listen to me,"
She nods and hurries off. I wrap Phoebe in the comforter and carry her to down to the kitchen. "Get the door for me?"
"Looks like moving patients yourself has really paid off," Crystal comments, opening the garage door.
She helps me lie Phoebe down in the backseat and goes to get Ashton. He comes out with a tense, worried expression and gets in the passenger seat. Crystal sits with Phoebe.
"Michael?"
I swallow my pride and meet his eyes.
"I went to take my Celexa—" he cuts himself off. "I think she might have tried to overdose, or at least avoid everything for a little while. She took some of my medication,"
I shoot a glance back to Phoebe. "How much?"
"Sixty milligrams of Celexa. And then I started checking other bottles, she also took twenty milligrams of Ambien, so I checked the bottle of Ibuprofen Ben gave her, the eight hundred milligram kind, and she took three. That's twenty four hundred milligrams of Ibuprofen,"
Crystal rubs Phoebe's head, fixing her blanket. "At least we know what she took."
We drive the rest of the way in silence. When we park, Crystal leans forward. "I'm going to get an orderly so you don't have to carry her inside."
Ashton and I sit, not talking, until she comes back out with a gurney and an orderly. I help load Phoebe, and they wheel her inside. Crystal has switched into nurse-mode now.
"How long has the medication been in her system?" she asks me as we keep up with Phoebe.
I shrug. "Under an hour."
"Sir?" A nurse approaches me as Phoebe is wheeled into a bay. "You're going to have to stay in the waiting room, please."
I let go of Crystal and allow him to lead me to the waiting room. His name tag says Blaine. "Is she a medical emergency?"
He frowns. "I don't know. Why?"
"I don't know if you'll be able to get consent. Her mom died yesterday. My friend," I gesture to where Ashton has disappeared behind a curtain. "Is going to get custody tomorrow, but . . . "
"So you're not the guardian?"
"No,"
He pats my shoulder. "It'll get figured out. I'll make sure of it."
I settle down in an uncomfortable chair to wait. Luke and Calum sit next to me when they get to the waiting room.
Only a few hours later, Blaine, the nurse I met earlier, comes out. "Phoebe Welton?"
I look up, having drifted off sitting up. Wiping the sleep out of my eyes, I meet Blaine at the door, touching gazes, arms, hands, shoulders with Calum and Luke. He leads ups upstairs and to Phoebe's room. Ashton is asleep in a chair by her bed, holding her hand.
Blaine hovers over Phoebe, checking monitors. "She looks fine." he whispers to us. "They pumped her stomach, and they're keeping her overnight on some medicine to reverse the ones she took, so hopefully she'll be awake by morning. If not, we'll make a new plan. Try to get some sleep, you guys."
I check my phone. It's past 1:30. Exhaustion weighing me down, collapse into one of the chairs and sleep.
I'm woken the next morning by Blaine talking to Phoebe, trying to get her to wake up. Ashton is gone, Calum is asleep on a chair that apparently unfolds into a bed, and Luke is sitting in Ashton's chair, sipping a paper cup of water.
"Morning," Blaine greets me. "Phoebe's doing great, she's not quite awake yet but we're getting there."
The room is bright with sunlight, illuminating white walls, several chairs, a bathroom, a counter and sink, and Phoebe's bed. Phoebe looks exhausted, face pale, shadows under her eyes like sick bruises. At least her vitals look okay.
By the time Calum is awake an hour later, Phoebe is starting to wake up. And when Blaine comes back half an hour after that, the door shuts and her eyes fly open out of reflex.
"There she is,"
Phoebe's disoriented. She fumbles for Luke's hand, not taking her eyes off Blaine.
Luke leans forward. "Easy, easy. Just a nurse, it's okay."
She lets out a nervous, hitched breath.
Blaine seems to nod. "I'll come back in a minute, okay?" he makes sure to close the door a little quieter this time.
"Where's Ashton?" her voice is rough.
"Oh, he's in court, hon. We'll get home before him," Luke says softly. "Do you remember what happened?"
She steals a glance at me. I pretend I didn't see and turn to Calum. "We got home. I didn't feel good, so I took Ashton's sleeping medicine, I think some antidepressants, and Ibuprofen. I went to sleep in bed and I woke up here." she pauses for a long moment. "I didn't try to kill myself, if that's what you're thinking."
"Nobody thought—"
"It would make sense," she cuts him off. "I took four times the recommended amount of Ambien. You probably couldn't wake me up. You got worried, so you went to the ER. Perfectly logical."
No one speaks.
"Can we go home?" her voice gets quiet.
"I'll get Blaine," I get up and poke my head into the hallway. Blaine is just outside the door. "She's ready to go."
He follows me back inside. Staying a few feet away from Phoebe, he's careful to introduce himself and outline the steps we need to take to check her out, making his movements clear.
There's something about nurses. They always seem to know what she needs.
He checks her vitals, takes her IVs out, looks at her throat, and listens to her stomach before standing beside Luke. "The hospital psychiatrist will be here in a minute, just to talk for a bit, okay?"
She swallows, looks at me. "I already have a therapist."
He nods. "Good, that's good. You should consider seeing them soon, but the conversation with an on-call psychiatrist is protocol."
She sighs and closes her eyes. Blaine smiles a little and excuses himself.
A soft knock on the door makes her open her eyes. A man with brown skin and a neat goatee comes in, a warm smile dimpling his cheeks. "Hi, I'm Finn, the hospital psychiatrist."
"Phoebe," her lips curve up and looks at Luke, seeming put at ease by Finn. "Can I have a minute?"
Calum, Luke, and I take a trip down to the cafeteria for breakfast, and then to the gift shop to look around for a pick-me-up. Luke buys a small teddy bear for Phoebe.
By the time we're back upstairs, she looks better. More whole, even if it's only temporary. When Luke gives her the teddy bear, her eyes light up at the gesture and she smiles so big I can see the implant gap. She hugs him tightly.
Blaine helps us check out on the paperwork side of things, and we head home.
Hey, kiddos, I actually wrote this one in the moment, instead of having it prewritten. Um, so in the next few updates, I may have to switch to once a week, I'm not sure, but I'll keep you guys in the loop. And thanks everybody who's been commenting and voting, that really, really motivates me to finish stuff on time. Love you all!
