Page 66 of Fake Rocks
And I needed the voices to stop too. I hoped they were in the room and not in my head.
With great effort, I cracked open my eyelids. A nurse was peering down at me, a friendly smile on her face.
“Hello, Saff. Do you know where you are?”
“I’m guessing hospital?” It didn’t exactly take a genius to work it out.
“And do you know why you’re here?”
The pounding in my head made it difficult to think. I struggled to sit up, reaching around to touch my temple.Yep, could be the cause of this horrendous headache.“I hit my head?” I ventured.
She smiled again. “Good girl. Anything else you can remember?”
I screwed up my eyes, wondering why she was asking me. I searched the depths of my memory to try to remember. There was a party, Darren and I had argued about Tris, there was a guy called Carl who made me feel better. “I was drinking and smoking, Carl had some weed, so we went upstairs.”
“And afterwards? Did Carl offer you anything else?”
Although her tone was soft, it felt like an interrogation. I was the one in hospital, surely I wasn’t the one in the wrong. Something jolted my consciousness as I had a sudden recollection of what Carl and I had done. Bile rose in my throat as I retched and the nurse reached for a bowl. She stroked the back of my neck, just like Carl had done and the movement made me vomit harder.
Shit. I’d taken heroin.
The tears spilled down my cheers and I struggled to breathe as I had a flashback to that moment.
How could I have been so stupid? What the hell was Jonas going to do when he found out?
My voice shook as I answered her. “Heroin.” Never before had I been less proud of myself. I wanted to curl up into a ball and be left alone.
The nurse’s expression changed to one of sympathy, although I was sure she was judging me. “It confirms what your friend told us might have happened. You realise mixing all those substances isn’t a good thing? You were very lucky. Have you ever done it before?”
Friend? What friend? Was Carl here?
The thought made me want to retch again.“Never.” I was adamant. Whether she chose to believe me was another matter.
“Were you trying to harm yourself?”
Her direct question hit me from left field. But it made me think. Had I done it to erase the past few days and to forget for a while? Or was there something deeper to it?
I shook my head, then instantly regretted it as the pain stabbed through me.
“Okay.” She nodded. “I need to get a doctor to check you out and to see what happens next. Try to get some rest.”
I sagged back onto the bed and the dam of tears I’d been trying to hold back broke. I sobbed wondering how I’d ended up like this.
Over the next few hours, I was prodded and poked, had my vital signs monitored a million times and had roughly the same amount of questions fired at me.
No, I hadn’t been trying to kill myself.
Yes, I had taken the drugs willingly.
Yes, I did understand mixing drugs was dangerous.
No, I wouldn’t do it again.
They wanted to keep me in for observation for a little while longer, although I seemed fine. Apparently, I couldn’t be released until they knew I had someone to look after me, so reluctantly I gave them Jonas’ number and waited for the fallout.
Most of the time, I’d been there alone, curtains closed around the cubicle. I wasn’t able to see the comings and goings of the emergency department, but I heard a lot. And not all of it was good. I was counting the tiles in the ceiling for about the hundredth time when the nurse poked her head in.
“Are you up for visitors?” she asked.
