The next thing I knew was a steady, rhythmic beeping. My eyes opened slowly, and it took a moment for my brain to catch up and realize that I wasn’t in my hotel room. This room was even more sterile, plain white. A hospital room. It could barely even be considered a room; there were walls on three sides, but the fourth was open with only a curtain to hide me from what appeared to be a nurse’s desk. The curtain was halfway open, but no one looked my way and I was all alone in the little cubicle.
I tried to remember how I had gotten there, but my memory was a blur. I vaguely recalled Isaac shaking me awake while Taylor talked to someone else, someone I couldn’t hear—a 911 operator, I assumed. I remembered the wailing of ambulance sirens. I remembered nurses and doctors and ice packs. Anything else… was lost forever, having not planted itself firmly in my memory.
I didn’t like it. Normally I was a loner, but being alone right then made my heart race. I didn’t like it at all. I wanted to call my brothers or page a nurse or something, but my mouth felt impossibly dry and hands wouldn’t cooperate. After staring at them for a few seconds, I realized that my hands had been covered in gauze, secured with several layers of tape. That was odd. Not having the use of my fingers, I decided my best option was to bang my fuzzy, gauze-covered fists against the side of the bed. I didn’t care that I looked like a toddler throwing a tantrum if it got somebody’s attention.
A large, confused looking male nurse scurried into the room and blinked at me. “Oh. We’re awake now. Are we feeling a little more like ourselves?”
“If you’re asking whether or not I feel sober, then yes.”
“Fantastic,” he deadpanned, obviously not amused that I didn’t like his bedside manner. “Doctor Robbins will be in to see you soon. And if you promise not rip out any more IVs, we can get your hands unwrapped.”
So that was why my hands were bandaged. It was actually fucking hilarious, but I didn’t think Nurse Ratchet would appreciate it if I laughed. That would probably be a one way ticket to the psych ward, in fact.
Staring him down, I replied, “Let’s get right on that.”
A few moments later, my hands were unwrapped and I could see the damage. There would be several nasty bruises there, as I apparently hadn’t been all too keen on having blood taken or fluids administered. The nurse was all too happy to show me the spot where they’d eventually resorted to sticking my foot; I vaguely wondered what they had done with my shoes… not to mention my pants.
According to the clock on the wall, it was exactly seven minutes before the doctor pushed my curtain aside and stepped into the room.
“Hello, Zachary,” he said.
“Zac.”
“Zac.” He smiled. That smile remained as he plucked the chart from the end of my bed and flipped through it. Someday, I wanted to look at one of those charts and see what was so damn interesting about them. “Well, the good news is, you should be able to leave us soon. Looks like your temperature is back to normal and everything else looks fine. It was, overall, a fairly mild overdose.”
Overdose. The word echoed in my mind. Was I really capable of something like that?
“I know you probably don’t remember much from earlier this morning,” Doctor Robbins continued.
I shook my head. The lump that had suddenly appeared my throat prevented speech entirely.
“You brothers brought you in this morning. You had a very high fever—probably from the drugs and the bug that I understand has been going around your crew–and they saw proof of emesis on your hotel bed. We gave you some Lorazapam to stop the vomiting and help you sleep, but mostly we’ve been trying to get that fever down and get you re-hydrated. According to your brothers, you’re not a regular amphetamine user, and you don’t show any signs of long term use, so you should be good to go in a few hours after we’ve monitored you a bit more.”
“You… you told my brothers?” I asked, sounding like a pathetic little child.
The doctor nodded. “In the absence of your wife, your brother—Taylor, I think it was—acted as your next of kin. He admitted you were all at a party last night where many people were using drugs and alcohol.”
“That’s true,” I managed to squeak out.
Doctor Robbins took a few steps closer to my bed. “Zachary—Zac. I’m not here to lecture you about drugs. The marijuana we found in your system likely did contribute to the dehydration, but study after study shows that on its own, it really isn’t harmful, aside from of course the damage caused by any smoke inhalation. The amphetamines—actually, we found a synthetic form in your system–are a bit more alarming; I’m not the police, so you’re not going to get in trouble, but I am curious why someone as young and healthy as you would be taking that sort of drug.”
“They were… I thought they were just for energy. Like diet pills or something. I mean, you can buy them over the counter, like a dietary supplement or whatever.”
“You can,” he replied, nodding. “But that doesn’t mean you should. The dosage can vary, the instructions are poor and it’s far too easy to have a negative reaction to them.”
“Obviously,” I replied weakly.
“This is probably the sort of thing you should discuss with your regular doctor, if you feel like you need those sort of medications. He can provide a safer, prescription or find some other way to treat any underlying problems. My concern here is just to get you out of here safely, and I think we can do that soon enough.”
I nodded. Thank god for these hippie California doctors, I decided, as he checked over my vitals before bidding me goodbye for the next hour. I was sure my lies were pretty weak, but he really didn’t seem to care at all about my potential drug habits.
Did I really have a drug habit? Was it really possible I was an addict?
It seemed impossible, and yet I wasn’t an idiot. I knew the pills I kept buying were dangerous. I wasn’t stupid. I knew what they contained, and I knew what they could do for me. I craved that. Those little pills gave me the boost I needed to get myself into shape. But… addicted? No. I felt it down to my bones, but the craving wasn’t truly physical.
As I stared up at the ceiling, though, a thought occurred to me. Doctor Robbins hadn’t said a single word about my weight. He knew why I was taking the pills, and I was sure my weight—one thirty six the last time I checked–was recorded on that chart that interested him so. Yet he hadn’t said a word about it. That meant he must not have seen it as a problem—neither overweight nor underweight. And yet my brothers were so concerned. Well, I trusted a doctor’s opinion over theirs, and if this doctor didn’t think I was too thin, then I hadn’t lost too much. I still had progress to make.
Those thoughts were interrupted by another hand pushing back the curtain to my room. I wasn’t sure who I expected to see, but my heart dropped when Taylor appeared, taking a few cautious steps into the room.
“At least you’re awake now,” he said softly, but the words still sounded like something of an accuasation.
“Apparently,” I replied. There was no fight in me, but I still couldn’t be anything other than my usual sarcastic self.
Taylor sank down into one of the small room’s two chairs, clutching his coffee tightly but not drinking it. “You’re going to get a hell of a lecture later from Isaac, you know. And I don’t even want to think about what your wife is going to say.”
“Neither do I,” I replied, although until that very moment I hadn’t thought about it at all. What would Katie say? Hadn’t I been talking to her before…? My memory was hazy, but I distinctly remembered the feeling that I needed to her.
“She’s the reason you’re here at all,” Taylor said, seeming to read my mind. “I mean, in the hospital. Or maybe here at all, I don’t know. She called me when you didn’t answer her call; she said your text was strange and it worried her. It just didn’t sound like you, she said. It’s a good thing she’s got that instinct about you, huh?”
“Yeah,” I replied. “I’m a really lucky guy.”
“You’re a really stupid guy,” Taylor said. “I mean, what the hell, Zac? Am-amphetamines?”
“God, it’s not like I’m an addict or something,” I replied, trying to sound dismissive enough to also sound innocent. It was the truth, after all, but I knew the rest of my explanation couldn’t be. “There was this guy at the party with some Adderall or whatever. Said it went well with pot. Obviously… it doesn’t.”
“I’ll say,” Taylor replied softly. He took a sip of his coffee and stared off at the blank wall. “I guess I can’t really lecture you about this, though, can I?”
“Save that for the ones who wouldn’t be hypocrites if they did,” I said, my tone as light as I could manage, which really wasn’t very light at all.
Taylor shook his head. “You really don’t know how lucky you are right now. Lucky we don’t have any more concerts left. Lucky that I’m the one who somehow got stuck with dealing with you today. And lucky I’m not going to rat you out to anyone else.”
I stared at him blankly. Rat me out? What was that supposed to mean? What could he possibly rat me out for… unless he meant the pills.
“I’m taking your word for this, Zac,” Taylor said, leaning forward and giving me a serious look. “If this was really an accident, just a total, freak accident, then I’ll leave it up to you to tell or not tell whoever you want the truth. I’m not going to tell anyone what the doctor told me, because it’s not my place. But you’ve got to promise me this was a one time thing.”
“It was,” I replied, the lie falling easily off my tongue. But was it really a lie? The overdose would, if I had anything to say about it, be a one time thing. I made a mistake—too many pills, too little water. I would be safer next time. Of course, I knew that wasn’t really what Taylor was asking, but if I pretended, it made it easier to sound convincing.
“Okay,” Taylor said. “Don’t fuck this up, alright? It’ll be my ass on the line if you do, and I can’t handle that. Not even seeing you get stabbed a dozen times will make that worth it.”
I let out a hoarse laugh and held up my bruised hand. “You have to admit, though—if you’re going to get poked with a billion needles, being fucked up at the time is really the way to go.”
Taylor returned my laugh, but his was weak. He could relate, I was sure, but it wasn’t something you wanted to relate to. I supposed that was why he was willing to cover for me, even if he didn’t realize just how much he was helping me to hide.
“Alright,” Taylor said, standing up. “I’m going to go try to smooth things over with Ike a little. Give me a call when they give you the okay to get out of here. And call your wife; she’s probably worried herself to death by now.”
“Okay. Thanks, Tay.”
He gave me a small nod, but didn’t speak again before walking out of the room, coffee still clutched tightly in his hand.
My wife… I could only imagine what she would have to say about this. Could I lie to her as easily as I had to Taylor? I wasn’t so sure. A part of me didn’t want to call her at all, but I knew Taylor was right. As if on cue, my phone buzzed and I traced the sound back to a pile of clothing in the other chair. I couldn’t reach them from where I was, and I didn’t quite trust myself to stand up just yet. It was awful of me, but I decided that whoever it was—most likely Kate–would have to wait.
I laid my head back against the stiff hospital pillow and let my eyes fall shut. At least I could get a little bit of rest before I was turned loose and forced back into the world. The world would have questions for me and I didn’t have any good answers. At least, not any truthful ones. I didn’t have the energy for the world right then. All I wanted was to sleep, and so that was exactly what I did.