// Sold Out // - The 1975

Is There Somebody Who Can Watch You

"Brynn!!"

I looked around for the source and the American man standing at my car turned towards a tall man in black boots, jeans, and a grey t-shirt running across the highway towards my car. I recognized him immediately but I was so shaken, I had to be sure I was not seeing things. I scanned farther up his body and saw his long neck, then recognized his lips, those dark brown all-encompassing eyes and saw my Ross.

I slammed my car into park as I had left it in drive incase my fight or flight instinct got the best of me. I pushed open my car door nearly knocking the American out of the way and rushed across the hot concrete. Thankfully there were no cars coming at the time and ran into Ross’ arms. He engulfed me, squeezing me into him and held me tight.

“Bloody hell, Brynn. Where have you been?” He held me close to him, one hand on the back of my head boring it into his shoulder. “When you stopped texting me and your phone started going straight to voicemail, Matty and I rented a car in San Antonio and drove straight down here. I just saw your car. I’m so glad I saw your car,” he said into my hair. Then he pulled away from me and saw my face. It was blood spattered, tear stained, dirty and my eye was still swollen nearly shut and turning black and purple with slight hints of red and green adding to the gambit of colors it encompassed.

“What the hell happened to you?!” he whispered. He placed the palm of his hand against my unhurt cheek and cupped it slightly.

I started crying again and just fell into his arms. The American official motioned for Ross to walk me out of the middle of the street and towards him. Ross scooped me up in his arms and carried me towards him. Dan, as the official introduced himself to Ross, told him of my plight and the harrowing experience I had experienced over the past 36 hours. He could not fill him in exactly why my face was bruised however and told Ross he would have to ask me for more details.

Ross was angry, furious, his blood completely boiling at the story that was told to him. He wanted to find those responsible and beat them to bloody pulps. And then he looked at me, the obvious physical pain I was in and the less visible emotional pain I tried to hide. He held me in his arms, leaning against my car and let me cry. He asked me to tell him if I was ok, and I could only nod and clutch harder at him.

Matty pulled up beside us in a black Suburban. He leaned across the passenger seat and asked Ross if everything was ok. Ross could only nod to him and Dan suggested he pull over on the side of the road as well, which Matty did. When I lifted my head off of Ross’ shoulder and looked towards the car, I saw Matty, George and Adam walking towards us. I began to cry again.

What if I had never seen these crazy boys again? And my Ross?

Ross continued to cradle me in his arms and tried to fill the boys in as best as he could. He let Dan take over the story at one point when he teared up himself.

“She beat me,” I finally whispered.

“Who beat you, baby,” Ross asked me looking at me with every ounce of compassion he ever had.

“The Mexican lady,” I murmured, “She beat me, slapped me across the face with her hand and her fist. Then he fondled me.”

“Who!?” Ross hissed through his gritted teeth.

“Oh, that would be the man that I nearly killed,” Dan said, “and he will be hurting for weeks. I’m sure he will need plastic surgery on his face and his ribs were well broken. I hope I punctured a lung honestly.”

Ross gave Dan his contact information in case it was needed. Then he carried me to the suburban and laid me in the back seat. Adam volunteered to follow behind them driving the car I had rented and headed back to San Antonio Ross sat in the back seat with me, my head in his lap. He gingerly stroked my hair and they boys talked. They tried to not talk about what they had just learned had happened to me over the past day and a half, but it was impossible. I didn’t talk, I couldn’t. Shock had finally set in and I could hear the boys talking, but it only made sense every so often.

“Matty, as soon as we get to San Antonio, we need to find a hospital,” Ross said calmly.

“WHAT?! What’s wrong!?” Matty replied in a near panic. George whipped around in his seat and stared with huge eyes at me and Ross. Matty moved his mirror so he could see us better. He could see Ross, but he could not see my face. My eyes were closed anyways and I was ever so sleepy.

“I just need someone to look over Brynn. She is very pale and she seems to not be very coherent. My guess is that she is in shock, but I still want someone to look at her,” Ross told his bandmates.

The drive to San Antonio felt like a few minutes, but it was just slightly over an hour. Matty sped as much as he could, and traveling at 85 miles an hour with someone who had just had as rough a few days as I had just had was nothing to him. They were sure that any police officer would have given us an escort. Ross knew that I was not in need of an ambulance, but just getting checked over would be nice. Ross called my mom from his phone after I was able to give him the right number. She had not been panicked because she thought that I was just absorbed with my work. When Ross told her what had happened, I could hear my mother sobbing on the other end of the phone. Ross held his phone to my ear and my mom told me she loved me and that she would come to wherever I was if I needed her. I told her I loved her in some pretty slurred words and Ross took the phone back. He informed her that he would take excellent care of me. My mom being a nurse, assured Ross that he was making the right decisions by going straight to an emergency room and made him promise to let her know what was going on.

George googled the nearest hospitals and directed Matty to the Northeast Baptist Memorial emergency department right off of Interstate 35. Ross carried me in and I was back in a room very quickly. Doctors and nurses descended upon me, orders were shouted, and an IV was placed in my arm. Ross stood in the corner biting his fingernails and running his hands through his hair. I heard him ask a doctor if he had made the wrong decision waiting to bring me here, but the doctor reassured him that I was going to be fine, no harm had been done in waiting and they were going to do some quick tests to make sure that I was ok. He thought I was just dehydrated and fatigued from my experience and in need of some emotional support. The physician told Ross that the emotional support would be his job. Ross said he would be more than happy to accept.

X-rays were taken of my face as well as a CT scan with and without contrast and then an MRI of my entire head. They were looking for any damage to my bones and blood vessels. Not until all the tests came back negative did the physician reveal that they had been looking for blood clots or bleeds in my brain. Ross nearly collapsed himself when he heard that. I knew that he would have felt responsible had there been something wrong. The IV fluids had helped to perk me up a bit, but I was still very groggy and we were told I had a mild concussion. The repeated slaps and punches my face had taken had broken some very small veins around my eye, but other than that and some other below the surface bruising, I was going to be ok. They released me a few hours later and Ross had Matty take us to the hotel that he and George had reserved. Ross put my arm around his shoulders and his other arm underneath my arms and helped me walk. I was still a little weak on my feet and all I wanted to do was sleep.