“Are you sure?”
Jason nodded. “It’s best if I go. We’re all tired and we need a break.”
I unlinked my arm from his and gave him a hug. “Will you be okay?”
“Ellie, come on.” He gave me a reassuring smile. “You don’t need to worry about me. I’ll be fine.”
“Ellie. Ellie! Wake up!”
A hand prodded at my arm, and still half asleep, I slapped it away, turning over and pulling the covers around me. It was still pitch black in my room which meant it was nowhere near time to get up.
“Ellie!”
“What?” I mumbled. “I’m sleeping.”
“Dad called. Jason’s in hospital, we have to go. Now!”
Dad. Jason. Hospital.
Dad called. Jason hospital.
Hospital?
I blinked a few times, the duvet still covered my head. “What?”
“Ellie, please! We need to go!”
Cool air attacked my skin as the warm covers were snatched away from me.
Hospital.
I sprung into an upright position, head throbbing. “Wait. What... Why is... What the hell’s going on?”
My focus cleared, and Drew stood at the side of my bed, his eyes frantically begging me to get up. He’d thrown his jeans and a t-shirt on, and while I tried to fully regain consciousness, he scrambled around the room, picking up my clothes.
“He fucking overdosed on cocaine!” He threw my not-long-ago-removed outfit on the bed. “I don’t know anything else, Dad wasn’t making sense. Jason’s in hospital and we need to get there!”
The world stopped. Drew’s voice came to me in slow motion. Snippets drifting in and out of my head, trying to understand.
An overdose. How did he...? I took the cocaine away. Flushed it right down the toilet. And I was with him a few hours ago. He said he was okay. Nothing to worry about.
“Ells, please. Get dressed, or I’ll have to go without you.”
Shaking my head, I stood up, mind racing as I put my clothes on. Too fast. Everything was
happening too fast. “Tell me what you know,” I said, searching for my shoes. Where the hell were my shoes? I took them off... oh, in the kitchen! Right. Where Drew and I grabbed a glass of wine before falling into bed.
Without a thought for what Jason was doing.
Shit. Was this my fault?
Drew followed me, saying, “Dad found Jason in his old room, collapsed on the bed. He said he was struggling to breathe, and he told Dad he’d used cocaine. Dad called an ambulance, and... Ellie I don’t know!”
“Okay, okay.” I was struggling to breathe myself. When I’d put my shoes on, I grabbed my coat and keys. “Let’s go.”
I managed to get us safely to the hospital without any recollection of the journey, snippets of Drew calling Derek drifting in and out of my consciousness. The whole way, I kept telling myself everything would be okay. It wasn’t my fault.
The words didn’t ring true.