Feelings

Chapter 16 : Fault

Merediths POV

I manage to stop coughing long enough to look up, but when I do the whole word starts to spin. I feel myself fall back, and then my head erupts in pain, and then it's black.

Harrys POV

She stops coughing, the two whores gone, and Niall and I hovering over Mere in concern. She looks up, and then her eyes go unfocused, and she falls back. Before I can bend over and catch her, her head crashes to the tile, and she's laying limp on the floor.
"Fuck!" Im on my knees, gently shaking her shoulders, but I know she's blacked out. "Oh fuck, Niall call 911," I say, panicking.
"Already on it," he says from behind me, his voice shaking. I hear him dial the numbers, but I don't pay attention to what he says because I'm too busy making sure she's still breathing, and her pulse and heart rate are ok. As far as I can tell the only thing wrong is that she had a random coughing fit and then passed out. She's breathing normally but she's obviously not just sleeping.
The six minutes waiting for the ambulance are torture, but her condition doesn't change. Niall and I move her to the couch in the front room, and he gives me a t-shirt to wear. Annie is apparently still asleep, the two girls have disappeared, either somewhere in Niall's house or they've gone home. There's nobody else here unless they're sleeping upstairs. When the paramedics finally rush in, they take a look around the room. It's obvious there was a party here last night, and the place is a mess. They have a stretcher with them, and I watch as the lift her onto it, shouting at them at least three times for not being gentle enough.
I follow them out to the ambulance, and they start asking me questions.
"Was she drinking?"
"Yes," I say, disgusted with myself.
"Was she drunk?" They add.
"Yes."
"How drunk?"
"Drunk enough for a mild hangover this morning, but not passing out drunk." I say, climbing into the back of the ambulance after the stretcher is in.
"Anything else?"
"Yeah. She woke up with a fever, and she said her throat hurt. Then when we went downstairs she had this coughing fit, and when she looked up her eyes got unfocused and she passed out," I give them an uber short version of the morning.
"Coughing?" One of them asks, while another checks her temperature.
"Yeah, she yelled at someone and then started coughing." I nod, sitting beside her as the lights and sirens start up, and we pull away from Nialls house.
"It looks like Syncope," the man with the thermometer says. I don't know what that is, but it doesn't sound good. I take her hand in mine,
The man seems to sense how I'm feeling, because he lays a hand on my shoulder. I shrug it off, as he speaks. "Syncope is just another word for fainting or passing out. It's caused by extreme emotional stress, excessive coughing, dehydration, things like that."
"Oh," I breath a small sigh of relieve. "Yeah that sounds like Mere."
"Do you know if she's been stressed out recently?" A woman asks.
I laugh. "That's an understatement. I don't even know where to start."
"Try the beginning," she suggests, as I hold Mere's hand tight. It's warm, which is reassuring.
"Well, she..." I take a deep breath, "she was raped a few weeks ago..." I'm already clearing my throat, trying not to let my emotions take over. I'm so pissed at myself. I've never hated anyone as much as I currently hate me.
"What? Did she go to the doctor?" The man asks, alarmed.
"No, it..." I feel like being sick. "It was just oral," I close my eyes, taking slow deep breaths before I actually vomit.
"I'd say that would cause anyone to pass out," the woman says, a frown in her voice. "But keep going, hun."
"Her grandma had a stroke a few days after that," I continue quickly, opening my eyes, glad to get off the topic. "and then she decided to stay home to help her family instead of going to Yale." I say. And then it hits me just how much she HAD gone through. Just how much she had sacrificed. And most of it was because of me. "And then, the rest is because I'm a screwup, and a douche, and..."
"Slow down," the woman holds her hands up. "Take a deep breath. We really need you to explain this calmly ok?"
I nod, slowing my breathing. It's only then I realize how tightly I've begun to grasp her hand, and I loosen my grip before her fingers go white. "She drank last night, but she never drinks, and then we almost did something. And that was basically against her will because she was drunk and she's never been drunk before and she didn't know what she was saying, and we didn't do anything, you know, because I guess I am half way decent maybe, but then I tried to leave because I didn't want her to hurt because of me, but she woke up. But then I was a jerk and yelled at her and she got mad and we had this awful screaming match, and then we made up and she had a fever and a sore throat, and so we went to get ibuprofen for her headache and she yelled at these whores and started coughing. And she sat on the floor and then like I said she looked up, then passed out." I ramble endlessly, sucking in air at the end.
"These yours?" The man asks, tugging on my shirt and staring at the boxers.
"Yeah," I nod. I'm not embarrassed. I might be prouder than I should be, but I can't help it.
"Who put them on her?"
"She did," I confirm, my heart swelling. She wanted to wear my clothes. Not anyone else. She wanted to wear my clothes. It wasn't some whore, or bitch. It was Meredith, and she wanted to wear my clothes. That thought calmed me down a bit.
"It's definitely Syncope," the man nods.
"Probably," the woman corrects. "But since we can't be positive yet, we can't just assume."