“Will you please just tell me why I’m in the hospital, Jax, and why I feel like I’ve done ten rounds with Tyson?”
He turns on me so abruptly that I push myself further down into the bed.
“You took an overdose, George. You OD’d on Valium. What the fuck were you thinking; how could you do that to us?” What the fuck is he talking about? My mind races; I did not take an overdose last night. I can’t remember exactly what I did do, but I just know I didn’t do that; not once I got back to my apartment anyway.
“I didn’t take an overdose. I smoked some weed and did a line of coke at the hippy house with Roman, but I didn’t OD; he brought me home and I was just fine.” I start to cough as my throat feels sore and I can hardly swallow. I sit up slowly and reach for the water at the side of my bed. Jackson just stands with his hands on his hips at the end of my bed and glares at me.
“Roman let you do coke and weed at the hippy house?”
“I’m thirty-fuckin-two, Jax; Rome didn’t let me do anything. I chose to. I was fine; he dropped me home, and I was fine.” Why would anyone think I’d taken an overdose?
“What about the Valium all over the floor? I couldn’t wake you up. I had to shove my fingers down your throat to make you vomit, then you choked and I had to do the Heimlich manoeuvre. You were a mess, George. A fuckin’ mess.”
I hold my head in my hands. I didn’t take an overdose. I know I didn’t take an overdose. I try to remember what happened once I showered.
“What happened when Roman dropped you home? Oh, and just so we’re clear, George, I’m gonna knock him the fuck out when I catch up with him.”
“What, why?”
“He took you to fuckin’ Narnia.” Well, the orgasms have been good, but I wouldn’t stretch it that far.
“Jax, I swear to God, I have never, ever climbed through a wardrobe with Roman. I’ve had some great sex, but I have never climbed through a wardrobe with him.” I think I’m funny, but Jackson clearly doesn’t.
“The hippy house George, where all his weirdo mates live. We all call it Narnia. He shouldn’t have taken you there but aside from that, what happened when you got home? Talk me through it.”
“Can I get a coffee first?” He stares at me for a few seconds and his bottom lip trembles; mine instantly has the same reaction. “I swear, Jax, I wasn’t trying to kill myself.” He moves across the room to my bed and wraps his arms around me.
“You fuckin’ scared me, George. I thought I’d failed. I thought I’d let you down.” We both cry. I want my mum right now. I want my mum and my dad and my big brothers. I want my best friends and my nieces and nephews. I want to go home.
“I think the nurse is gonna wanna check you over. I’ll send her in, then go and get ya a coffee.” He kisses the top of my head then leaves the room.
The nurse is in almost instantly; she’s an older woman, in her forties maybe, with the most beautiful auburn hair. ‘Eve’ it says on her name badge.
“Okay, Georgia, good to see you’re back with us. You gave your brother a fright earlier and the emergency room doctors, too. You’re lucky he found you when he did.”
“I didn’t take an overdose,” I interrupt her. I need to make it clear that I didn’t take an overdose.
Eve doesn’t say anymore as she takes my blood pressure, temperature, monitors my saturation levels and writes notes down on a chart. She suddenly stops writing, tilts her head and says to me, “Do I know you; have we met before?” I shake my head. This is all I need, this story getting out… ‘Rock star’s widow in suicide attempt’. Lennon had managed to keep the other incidents and the time I was committed out of the press, but he might not be able to do that for me here. Then another thought strikes me: has Jackson called my family? Do they all think I’ve been alone here and tried to kill myself?
“Well, you look familiar, darl.” She chews on the inside of her bottom lip as she looks at me then continues. “Your blood pressure’s a little low, but that’s not surprising with what you’ve taken. The doctors will be here in a minute to talk to you anyway.” Jackson comes back through the door with two coffees in takeaway cups. “Here’s that handsome hero of a brother of yours.”
“He’s not…” Jax shoots me a look and shakes his head, “handsome,” I continue and she laughs.
“Well, you’re his sister so you would say that, but believe me, if I was ten years younger...” She winks at me, then turns and leaves the room as she shakes her head.
“Did you call my mum and dad, my brothers?” I ask him. He puts the coffees down.
“No, I didn’t call anyone. I told them I’m your brother, your next of kin, so they wouldn’t try and get in touch with anyone else.”
He takes the lids off our cups and stirs in sugar, then passes me mine; he takes his to the chair he was sitting in earlier and sits back down.
“Talk me through it, George. I wanna hear about what happened last night; everything you can remember.” He looks thoroughly pissed off with me, I conclude as I study him for a few moments; I take a sip of my coffee, which is hot and dire.
I must pull a face as he says, “It’s wet and it’s warm. Stop being a princess and just fucking drink it, George.”
“It tastes like crap,” I complain.
“I don’t care, George; that’s all that’s available. Have a drop then talk.”
I huff like a child then start my story. “I went out for dinner with Roman, then he took me to meet the Manson family. I smoked the weirdest weed I’ve ever had. It was really trippy. Then we did a line of coke. I had a bit of a freak out after that.”
Oh, God. My cheeks burn as the memories of what I let Skye do to me come flooding back. What the fuck had I been thinking?
“Why’d you freak out?” I stare at him for a few seconds. I knew I could tell him anything; it was me who would be embarrassed, not him.
“I was proper off my tits,” I try to reason with him, but he shakes his head at me.
“Why. Did. You. Freak. Out?” I screw my nose up and just blurt it out.
“I got it on with a girl and then I decided I didn’t like it, and I just needed her to stop.”
He frowns, closes his eyes for a few seconds and shakes his head. “Where the fuck was Roman when all this was happening?”
“Watching.”
He nods. “I’m gonna fucking kill him. I swear, Georgia, I will kill him when I see him.” I feel defensive of Roman. He didn’t make me do anything last night; everything I did was of my own free will.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Jax; Rome didn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to. She asked if she could kiss me and I let her, and we went back to her room…”
He looks up from his coffee. “She lives at the Narnia house? What’s her name?”
“Yeah,” I reply. “Her name’s Skye, and she looked like Tinker Bell.”
“Skye Turner. He watched, while Skye fucking Turner did her thing and came after you?”
I was confused. “No one came after me. The weed we had fucked with my head. It made me horny and just, I was just…” I try to think of a way to describe how I felt.
I had only ever tried LSD once, years ago when I was still at school. Marley had got it from somewhere; it was a little square piece of paper with the Superman logo on it. Sean, Marley, Jim and myself had all bunked off school and hid out in our summerhouse; it was a rainy winter’s day, and we knew my mum wouldn’t come out into the garden for anything. We had got our mark in the register after lunch and then all met up outside the school gates. We walked home to my house, snuck in the side gate and hid out in the summerhouse. We’d divided the little square into four, put the tiny pieces on our tongues and just let it dissolve. It took about an hour for the effects to start, and they were pretty similar to what I’d had last night; everything was bright, colourful and beautiful, and I just felt calm and peaceful…
“The weed I had was like a combination of taking acid and ecstasy, and I was fine with that; I felt great. Roman didn’t have any because he wanted to be straight for me; he wanted to be able to look after me.”