I wake up and head straight to the hospital. I stop at the nurses’ station, hoping for good news about Natalie.
The nurse fetches Natalie’s doctor, who tells me they’ve run more tests but still don’t know if Natalie will wake up from her coma.
She’s barely showing any brain activity, and they’ve put her on a respirator to help her breathe.
I leave the doctor, feeling upset, and walk into Natalie’s room. She’s still there, unmoving. If it weren’t for the steady beep of the heart monitor, I wouldn’t know she was alive.
Tubes are coming out of her body everywhere, pumping fluids and medicines into her.
Most of the machines keeping her alive are on her left, so I sit on the right side of her bed, careful not to disturb anything.
I take her hand in mine and close my eyes, praying silently for her to respond. To squeeze my hand back, to let me know she’s going to be okay.
Feeling desperate, I start talking to her out loud.
I tell her how much I need her. How I can’t live without her, how what she did wasn’t fair to either of us. I tell her she has so much more to give to the world.
Tears start to fall from my eyes. I kiss her forehead and tell her I’ll be back.
I give her hand one last squeeze and stand up, forcing myself to leave the room.
I can’t accept this, so I decide to go to our apartment to get her some clothes for when she wakes up. She has to wake up.
I tell myself I’m going to get her a change of clothes, so she has something clean to wear when she wakes up.
Then I’m going to try to reach one of those fucking band members, to find out what the hell happened to make her feel like this was her only option.
I pull into the parking lot of our apartment complex and sit in the car, regretting leaving her alone in the hospital.
She’ll think I left her there all alone. That I’m mad at her for what she did.
I am mad, in a way. I’m mad that whatever happened on that fucking bus, she didn’t feel like she could call me. I would have left work the moment I heard her voice.
I would have driven all the way there to pick her up, and I wouldn’t have left without hurting whoever caused her that much pain.
I rush into the apartment, leaving the door open behind me. I call a local taxi company to pick me up. I don’t want my car, so I don’t risk driving on so little sleep.
I grab a plastic bag from the kitchen pantry and go into Natalie’s room. I open her dresser drawers and quickly throw some clothes into the bag.
I find her cellphone in the bag she hadn’t unpacked, near her bedroom door. I grab her phone and charger and run back outside to the waiting taxi.
On the drive back to the hospital, I unlock her cellphone. Jesus.
Something big must have happened; she has fifty-eight missed calls and the same number of voicemails.
They’re from all the band members, but Liam left the most messages and texts, so I call him back.
Liam answers, sounding worried and a little angry. “NATALIE!!! Where have you been? What the hell happened?”
“What are you talking about? She disappeared, and I’ve been trying to reach her all day. She hasn’t returned any of my calls. Fuck. We canceled our next few shows to find her.”
His voice is full of worry and sincerity, and I realize whatever happened wasn’t his fault.
That’s one band member off the list. Four more to go.
“I don’t know what you guys did to her, but it must have been bad. Really fucking bad,” I tell him, my voice cracking as I try to hold back tears.
“What are you talking about? What aren’t you telling me? What happened?”
“She’s in a coma, Liam. The doctors don’t know when or if she’ll wake up,” I tell him, gasping for air. I’m so angry and upset about the whole situation that I start to cry.
“What hospital? I’ll be there tonight.” I can tell he really cares about Natalie, so I give him the hospital’s address. He agrees to meet me there as soon as he can.
