Author's Note: My apologies if Julie seems a little sappy in this chapter. I definitely don't consider her a sappy character at all, but considering the circumstances (and the fact that she's a 15 year old girl), I figured it would be pretty weird for things to not get emotional at all. But yeah, I'm going to come right out and admit that I struggled a tad with characterization this chapter!
...….
Oh my God.
For a second, Julie could do nothing but stand there at the top of the steps, too shocked and horrified to move. All she could do was stare blankly at the mangled body below, unable to process what had just happened.
Oh my God.
It didn't seem possible. It had been such a nice day. Such a normal day. Just a couple of minutes earlier, she had been sitting on the couch, holding hands with him. Thinking about how perfect he smelled. Thinking about how his pale pink shirt brought out the gorgeous blue in his eyes. Thinking about the fact that they never had finished studying for their chemistry test.
It didn't seem right that things could turn so horrible so quickly. That the world could just suddenly be ripped apart with no warning.
"I fucking hate you!"
Just as Julie heard those words, there was a loud crash behind her. Turning around to see what was going on, she saw that Scott had his father pinned to the ground, his fists connecting with the older man's face over and over again.
"I fucking hate you so fucking much!" He cried out, the anger in his voice slowly giving over to sadness as tears began to stream down his cheeks. "You ruined all of our lives. You ruined my childhood. You ruined his childhood. You ruined our lives. How could you do that? How could you ruin all of our fucking lives? You fucking bastard." Every sentence was punctuated with another blow, his pounding fists creating a steady rhythm against his father's face. For a moment, Julie stayed frozen in place, entranced by the raw display of anger and despair playing out in front of her. Growing up with three testosterone laden brothers, she'd seen plenty of fights in her life, but nothing like that. Never that combination of hatred and sadness.
Finally, Julie managed to snap out of her shock, and she raced down the stairs towards Adam, terrified of what she would find.
Please let him be okay. Please God. Pretty please.
As she got closer, she noticed that his chest was moving up and down. He was still breathing. He was still alive.
"Adam?" She quietly pleaded, her fingers gently brushing his smooth, pale cheek "Adam, you've got to be okay, alright? You've got to be okay."
There was no response. For a moment she just sat there, crying as she gently stroked his hair.
Just let him be okay. Please let him be okay. He has to be okay.
Finally, after a minute or two, the logical part of her brain began to take over. She realized that nobody had called 911, and so she raced back upstairs to grab the cordless phone she remembered seeing on his nightstand. As she dialed the number, she could hear Scott wailing on Phil in the background, and looking over, she saw that Bunny was still sitting on the couch, gulping down her wine. She hadn't moved an inch the entire time. As she took it all in, an overwhelming sense of frustration rushed over her, and she found a piece of herself relating to Scott, still on the ground, his fists still pounding away at his father.
Do any of you assholes even care about Adam? You know, the really, really nice person who's lying unconscious at the bottom of the stairs right now? The one who you've apparently all just left to die?
I can't believe I ever complained about my family to him. He must have thought I was such an idiot whenever I'd bitch about my mom's meatloaf or my brothers changing the channel when I was watching Party of Five.
Sorry Mom and Dad. I definitely did not mean it when I said you were the worst parents in the world for not letting me go to Justin's party over Christmas break.
.
Once the ambulance was called, Julie headed back towards the stairs, rejoining Adam as he lay there lifelessly, the only movement coming from the slow, rhythmic rise and fall of his chest.
For what felt like hours, she sat there next to him, sobbing, quietly begging God for him to be okay. Her eyes were so swollen with tears that everything around her was beginning to look like a horrible kaleidoscope, blood and marble and his pink shirt replacing the glitter and sequins that normally give a kaleidoscope its color.
.
"Are you alright?"
Julie felt a large hand on her shoulder and jumped slightly, startled by the interruption. She looked over to see where the hand had come from, and through the haze of her tears, she could see a familiar set of blue eyes looking down at her, filled with concern.
To look nothing alike, they really do have the same eyes.
Scott's lip was cut, his face was red and puffy from crying, and his light yellow polo was now torn and covered in blood. Both of his hands were purple and swollen, and his knuckles were bleeding and raw. Carefully, he reached over to softly ruffle his younger brother's hair, tears still rolling down his face.
"Everything will be okay." He attempted to reassure her, not sounding overly convinced himself. "Everything will be okay."
Nothing is okay. Can't you see that nothing is fucking okay?
After a moment, Scott got up to go unlock the front door and turn on the porch light for the paramedics, grateful for the opportunity to have a second alone. Under the guise of going outside to make sure the emergency workers could find the house, he stood alone in the driveway, sobbing as the bitter February wind battered against his exposed arms and tear stained face.
In the distance, Julie could faintly hear the sounds of sirens. Carefully, she squeezed Adam's left hand, hoping she wasn't hurting him by doing so.
"I love you." She softly whispered, unsure of whether or not he could hear her.
Just as the sirens outside were growing louder, she thought she noticed his pale eyelashes begin to flutter. Instinctively, she squeezed his hand harder, her other hand reaching over to gently brush the hair out of his eyes.
"Come on, preppy. Wake up for me." She smiled, "I love you. I kind of need for you to be okay for me, alright?"
Geez, I must sound like a dumbass right now, begging my unconscious boyfriend to wake up. What is this? The worst soap opera ever?
This time, it was unmistakable. His eyelashes were definitely fluttering. Just as the lights from the approaching sirens began to dance through the foyer, his eyes slowly opened, and it vaguely sounded like he muttered "I love you, too", though as incoherent as he was, she knew that was likely just her imagination.
.
Julie sat silently in the passenger seat of Scott's Saab, staring down at her tan Birkenstock clogs. Down by her feet, dozens of empty beer cans rolled around, vibrating from the bass of N.W.A.'s Fuck The Police, and in the console next to her, she could see a marijuana pipe and what she really hoped was a small bag of baking powder for impromptu cake making.
What has happened to my life? Three hours ago, I was studying chemistry, like the good, responsible child my parents raised me to be. Now I am sitting in a drug filled car with a strange man who's covered in blood. This is so NOT how I envisioned my night playing out!
Also, can we get any more ironic? I mean, I could sort of, kind of imagine this turn of events with a guy like Portman, but Adam? I could not, in a zillion years, have foreseen Mr. Sweatervest getting me into this situation! Not that he exactly meant to….
"Are you sure you don't want me to take you back to the dorms? I don't want you to get in trouble or anything, and besides, I'm sure it's just going to be a lot of waiting at the hospital. I can always call you if anything happens." Scott offered as they approached the turn off for Eden Hall.
"No, I'm going to the hospital with you."
"Okay, well, if you decide you want me to take you back later, I will."
"Thanks."
The two then went back to their respective silent thoughts, Julie staring wordlessly out the window, looking out into the darkness of the residential suburbia that was passing them by.
.
Over the course of the following hour, everyone sat. And sat. And sat.
Julie, Scott, Phil, and Bunny all sat nervously in the hospital waiting room, flipping awkwardly through old copies of Golfer's Digest and Family Circle as they anxiously awaited any news. As the minutes passed, the swelling in Phil's face intensified until his features were unrecognizable, his eyes nearly swollen shut. Still, nobody said anything. They all just stared at the plastic covered magazines and the white tile floor of the waiting room, hoping for good news. Roughly every fifteen minutes, Phil and Scott would take turns going outside to smoke a cigarette, both more than willing to tolerate the biting wind in exchange for a temporary reprieve from the petri dish of nerves that the waiting room had become. At times, Julie found herself wishing she smoked so that she could join the rotation of nicotine addicts. So that she could get a break from the four sterile walls of the waiting room and the copy of Parents that sat mindlessly in her lap.
.
A little over an hour after arriving at the hospital, a portly doctor with a grey beard and white lab coat walked into the waiting room to give everyone the update they had been waiting so anxiously for. Emotionlessly, he explained that Adam had a severe concussion, a mild skull fracture, a deep laceration along the back of scalp, three broken ribs, a broken collarbone, a compound fracture of his right forearm, and multiple broken bones in his wrist. He'd need to stay in the hospital overnight for observation, and the arm and wrist would both require surgery, but from a survival standpoint, he would most likely be alright.
For a moment, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Then Phil asked the question that was on the back of everyone's mind.
"How bad are the arm and wrist?"
The doctor hesitated for a moment, but the look on his face told everyone all they needed to know.
"I'm not an orthopedic surgeon. I just re-set the bones well enough to restore circulation. You'll need to talk to the surgeon in a day or two for details."
.
By the time family was allowed to visit, Adam was more coherent than he had been when the paramedics had taken him away, but he was still dazed and groggy, only marginally aware of what was going on around him. The throbbing in his head and the searing pain of every breath clouded his already scrambled thoughts, to the point that his mind barely registered Julie's presence when she was finally allowed to see him.
"Hey Adam" She warmly greeted, bending down to kiss his forehead, "I told them I was your sister so I could come see you."
Still used to the incessant, blaring brightness of the waiting room, it took her eyes a moment to fully adjust to his room, lit only by the various monitors and the ambient light streaming in from the hallway. Once her eyes adjusted, she half wished that they hadn't. It wasn't that Adam looked particularly bad, so much as that he just looked very un-Adam-like, with his normally perfect hair still caked in blood, his meticulous clothes replaced by a flimsy hospital gown, and his sparkling blue eyes dull and clouded over. Even though he was physically right there beside her, in her mind, he was nowhere to found, and even though the doctor had reassured her everything was normal, a part of her was worried she'd never find him again.
.
A little later yet that night, noting that he was still groggy and confused, a nurse asked if anyone from the family wanted to stay overnight with him so that he'd have a familiar presence nearby. As much as seeing him earlier had killed her, Julie happily volunteered for the job, crossing her fingers that her Adam would come back during the night.
Still too lost in her own thoughts to notice, Scott quietly ducked out. A little less than an hour later, he returned with a pair of Adam's sweatpants, an old T-shirt from hockey camp, a sweatshirt, a very large bag of junk food, and a one eyed stuffed manatee.
"I figured you could use something to sleep in. Plus, a certain queer is probably going to start his missing his beloved Mr. Fluffy before too long." Scott smiled, handing the bag of clothes and the threadbare stuffed animal over to Julie. Noticing that she was still eyeing the second bag in his hands, he added "And you've definitely had a Dunk-A-Roos kind of night, so I raided the pantry. There's also a box of Cheez-Its, a bag of Doritos, and a thing of Twinkies in there. So basically, everything you need for a well balanced night of eating your feelings."
Julie just stared at him for a second, trying to reconcile this version of Scott Banks with the guy who had come home at six in the evening wearing a sombrero and his own vomit.
"Need anything else before I go?"
"No, I'm good. Thank you so much."
"Well, I wrote down my beeper number, so if you need anything, just call. Otherwise, I'll be by in the morning to take you to school."
He briefly went back into Adam's room to tell him goodbye for the night, and then noting the look of concern still written across Julie's face, he gave her a hug, wrapping his muscular arms tightly around her.
"It'll all be okay." He reassured her, his massive frame enveloping her, "He'll be back to being the same annoying loser in no time."
.
At about three in the morning, Adam began to stir awake, his thoughts clearer than they had been in hours. He smiled when he realized that someone had placed Mr. Fluffy in the crook of his left arm, and trying not to move his still pounding head, he glanced around the dark room, taking in his surroundings. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see a person lying on a cot beside his bed. Carefully turning his head slightly to get a better look, he noticed a long blonde ponytail.
Julie? Julie's staying the night with me?
It was only then that it dawned on him that he could feel the hospital's scratchy sheets and waffle weave blanket a little too intimately in some places.
Oh God, I'm not wearing pants! Julie is sleeping just a couple of feet away from me, and I don't have any pants on!
To be fair, technically I suppose this is what I've been dreaming about for years.
Clearly, I should have been more specific about that wish. Waaaay way more specific.
…..