Page 30 of Euphoria
“When will you be here?”
He sighs. “I’ll do my best to be there in the next couple of hours. I was in the middle of some stupid set that had me turn my cell off, so I didn’t find out until Andres got a hold of me. Don’t be scared, baby, he’s going to be okay,” he reassures me.
“How do you know?” I say.
“Because he’s my best friend. That fucker never stays down and for once in my life, I’m grateful for knowing that. Plus, he’s a Phoenix, remember? He rises out of the ashes. Be strong and hang in there. I’ll be there soon.”
“I love you, Bowie,” I say.
Bowie groans. “Don’t say it just fucking because you’re scared something is happening to us. I want you to mean that shit, Bams.”
“Bow, I mean it.” I say with conviction.
“Then when you see me, look me in my fucking eyes and say it to me. None of this hiding behind the phone shit.”
“Okay.”
“And Bambi?” He calls out to me.
“Yes, Bowie?”
“I love you too. Now, go make sure our best friend is fine. I’ll kick his ass for making you worry like that.”
I lightly chuckle. “Okay, Bowie.”
He hangs up just as fast as he called.
Bowie’s call calmed me down some and deep down, I know that he did it on purpose. He called me acting like he isn’t worried and it helped me calm down. Once we get to the hospital we go through a private entrance. Had I been paying attention to I would’ve realized that this isn’t the part of BHM that I’ve ever seen before. I hear our steps and when I see Orion’s back while he stares at something through the glass. He plants his palm on the glass and a small woman is standing next to him but not too close. I don’t know who she is but it makes me wonder if he has a girlfriend or wife now. She looks familiar though. I can feel as Andres brings me closer to the glass. The second I see Phoenix connected to the tubes, all the blood and the doctor doing his job I gasp and my breath comes out rugged.
I don’t know what to say but I can’t move. It’s like my life is now on pause. Nothing is moving forward or backward. Nothing around me makes sense. How can it?
“He lost a lot of blood,” I hear Orion saying. I can’t bring myself to look at him but he continues. “He was doing what he does best, protecting people before himself and now, he’s in there, fighting for his life. When he makes it, I’m going to fucking kill him because he never listens. He never puts himself first!” Orion yells out.
I take a step back away from the glass and then another. Before I know it, I turn. I run away from the beeping of the machines and as I reach a pair of double doors; it opens. I stop in my tracks as I loop up at Bowie, my brows crease, am I hallucinating? He looks at me with worry in his eyes and he eats up the steps left to get to me, then pulls me into his arms. He holds me not saying anything and even though we’re silent, that moment of peace is broken because there’s a beeping sound so loud that anyone could hear it. A beeping that no one in their right mind could ever forget.
It’s the flat beeping showing that someone died. I stop breathing hard, I can feel my universe spinning. Bowie lets me go as if his world just flipped on its axis. I’m not sure which one of us runs towards the room first but we get there at the same time, I slam my palms on the glass. I open my mouth to call his name, but nothing comes out. I hear a doctor yell out. “Get me the crash cart, do everything on my command.”
I release a loud sob, feeling like I’m losing every part of me. This can’t be it. This can’t be happening. Not Phoenix. No, not him. I watch as they use the defibrillator and then the chest compressions. Everything falls away as I slam my hands on the glass. They need to wake him up. “Phoenix! Phoenix!” I yell.
After the third time, the doctor stops his chest compressions. “Call it.” He says to his staff around him. I can’t see his face, but the people around look up at the glass and they are afraid.
“No! No!” I slip away from the glass and I don’t know when I took my heels off, but I do everything against the rules. I run into the operating room and bypass everyone pumping my legs like I’m some kind of track star. Someone grabs me and stops me, but I maneuver my small body out of their hold courtesy of my self-defense training. I want to apologize to the person, but I can’t concentrate past Phoenix. I climb onto the bed, straddle Phoenix’s body, not caring if his blood gets all over my clothes. I give chest compressions.
“You’re not fucking dying, Nix!” I shake my head. “No. No! You bigHIJO DE PUTA!” I switch to Spanish. I don’t remember the last time I spoke Spanish. I feel hands trying to pull me away, but I’m not budging. I don’t know where I gain the strength to not be pulled off from, but it’s here. “I promise, I’ll make your favorite,Arroz con lecheand I won’t complain about making it for you. Please don’t be like this.”
“Leave her!” I hear Orion’s voice as he shouts in the operating room. If I wasn’t so focused, I would’ve peed my pants at the authority in the bass of his voice.
I keep pumping, tears taking over, my hands bloodied but I don’t quit. “I will never give up on you, Phoenix. No, not like this. Nixy, you mean the world to me. Come back to us and I’ll marry you guys again. I’ll do it.” I cry out. “I swear it, I’ll do it. I’ll do anything you both ask of me. I love you! You hear me? I LOVE YOU!!! Please! Please!Por Favor!Baby PLEASE!” I scream. I let out a crazy sob. “Get up, Markos!” The beeping starts. The irony doesn’t fail me but I can’t seem to focus on the fact that Phoenix would come back just because I called him Markos instead of Phoenix.
“We’ve got a pulse!” Someone yells from behind me. “Ma’am, please stop pumping, let us do our jobs now.”
I stop pumping but turn towards the doctor, he must be the doctor Nash that Andres was talking about. I look him up and down, glaring. “Vete al infierno!Your job?” I say. “Your job!Vete al coño!If you were doing your job, he would’ve never fucking died.Hijo de puta!” I’m so angry that for the first time in my life, I want to swing on someone. “My husband died! He fucking died!Cabron! HE DIED! Fuck your job! Fuck your hospital! Fuck your position!Hijo de puta!”
The doctor just sort of stares at me like he’s stuck between taking me seriously and laughing. I must look crazy because I feel crazy.
I feel an arm wrap around me and scoop me up like I weigh nothing, but I don’t stop raging. “How dare you try to call it? How! Are you fucking crazy? If he would’ve died, I would’ve killed every single person in this room! Don’t you dare fail him again!”
The man who’s holding me moves us back to a corner and we sink to the floor.
