Just as I Begin to Fade

Fifty One. Relief

Back at Lindsey's house, Bobby was helping Gwen settle in her room, even unpacking her overnight bag for her.

As he unpacked her things, she picked up the phone while she was in bed in order to call her aunt, Lori.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Lori, my mom's in the hospital..." she responded bluntly.

"Oh, my God, why?" the woman gasped.

The girl rolled her eyes only because she couldn't believe she asked; she was only ever in the hospital for one thing and one thing only. "She overdosed this morning or last night apparently... Did you know anything about that?"

"No... I had... Sharon and I had already gone."

"Did you know she had drugs with her or on her? She'd been clean for going on a month and apparently she had about a week's worth in very small quantities. That pretty much saved her but I was told she was very close to a brain hemorrhage."

"I'm sorry, sweetie. I knew she had the drugs, I just didn't know that she had been using."

"Sorry to burst this fantasy, but if you are buying drugs, you are doing them. When have you ever bought blow, just to keep in your house?" she stressed.

"You have a point."

"Yeah... Besides that, what do you mean you had left?"

"Oh, well, Friday night, Sharon and I went over to Lindsey's house, she told us to come over."

"And what did you do? Did you just drink?"

"We drank and smoked weed, but once we saw that your mom was settled with Lindsey, we left. We smoked in her car, we left them together and then we just left since we figured they passed out."

She sighed to herself because she knew she wasn't getting the full story. "Did Lindsey smoke too?"

"Well, he just drank, but the windows were up and your mom shoved the joint in his mouth. He didn't want to, but she sort of made him."

She was then more annoyed because she knew he was a good and refined man---she didn't care that he drank, she feared he would get high on an impulse since it was tempting. "Look, just go see your sister in-law in the morning. She's trying to get released, the doctor isn't totally keen on letting her go."

"Okay, honey, I'll call her right now."

Gwen set the phone down.

"That sounded stressful," Bobby commented as he came to bed to lay down beside her.

"You have no idea... When I talk to my family, it's like talking to a brick wall. Especially Lori, because she's usually trying to cover up my mom's messes, but then she doesn't want to get in trouble. Usually she takes her to pick up drugs or she picks them up and drops them to her. I know she had to know."

"That sucks, I'm sorry..." he laid his head down, waiting for her to settle so he could tuck her in.

She would eventually dial down and from there, she would curl up to his side, nearly gripping his arm out of fear.

"You okay?" he reached over to set his hand over on of hers. Looking down at her, he didn't see much but the top of her head.

"Yeah, it's just that everything is starting to hit me again... My mom and what happened to me. I had a bad feeling and two bad things happened, not even sure if the bad feeling was that something was going to happen to me or to her."

"I'm really sorry, we didn't leave. We should have left as soon as you said you were having a bad time."

"No, I wanted to stay."