Disclaimer: I don't own Victorious
04/27/2016.
Today has been a roller coaster in terms of emotions. I'm actually, for the first time in the three months I've been doing a full length concert every night, completely exhausted. I don't get angry often but after what happened this morning, I just couldn't help but feel furious when I arrived at the hospital.
Within minutes of the plane touching earth in LA I was hailing a cab to take me to the hospital. Beck had already texted me which ward she was in and let me know she'd was being treated for an overdose. We had decided not to let anyone else know that Jade was in hospital because we didn't want to have to do the rounds of explaining to Jenn, Sam, Charlie, Cat, Andre, her Dad and numerous other people what she had done and for the time being, she was in a stable condition. After I'd filled out a form, I was directed to a waiting room on the third floor of the hospital and immediately reunited with Beck.
"You made it." Beck stood up and gave me a tight, reassuring hug.
"Of course I did." I sighed, hugging him back. "She's fine yes?"
"I saw her briefly before and she's fragile, but yes essentially she's fine."
"What the hell happened? The phone cut out."
"Sit down.." Beck grimaced, gesturing to some seats. The two of us sat down and I listened to Beck explain what sounded like a horror story to me. Jade was going into some sort of shock and her body was shaking unnaturally. Under the operators instruction, Beck ended up sticking his fingers down her throat to trigger her gag reflex and force her to puke out as much as possible. If he hadn't done that and any more of those emetics got into her blood stream she would either have died from a heart attack or suffered serious brain damage. The paramedics arrived and the second she was moved to the ambulance they began pumping her stomach. By this point Jade had woken up but Beck stayed by her side and looked after her until they got to the hospital.
"She's lucky she's alive!" I exclaimed horrified.
"I think she knows that Tori. Be gentle with her." Beck suggested but I shook my head.
"No Beck. She has had gentle and evidently that doesn't work! She needs to understand how life threateningly stupid this is!" I insisted. She couldn't keep getting away with putting her body through this.
"You do realise she overdosed right?" Beck added.
"What do you mean?"
"Recommended dosage is two capsules + one additional if necessary." Beck said solemnly "Jade took fourteen."
"What?!" I exclaimed appalled.
"She's on suicide watch." Beck finished.
"Oh my god." I shook my head devastated. Jade wasn't suicidal. Or at least that's what I thought.. no knew. Sure she had issues but she wanted to live, she wouldn't do this to die. Beck and I sat in silence for another half hour whilst I just processed everything and waited for someone to come and let us in. Unfortunately this just gave me more time to fester more anger and disgust with her. By the time a nurse called us through I was wrathful.
Jade was lying in the centre of the hospital bed and was completely sheet white in colour. A doctor was just finishing talking to her about something to do with her heart and she nodded solemnly, not meeting anyones eye. When the doctor closed the door, you could cut the tension in the room with a knife.
"Don't do that to me again Jade." I broke the silence with vicious tone. "Don't you ever do that again!" Jade didn't say anything or look me in the eye, but just sniffed and let a couple of tears drip down her cheeks.
"Jesus we could have lost you! If Beck hadn't been in uni that day you'd be dead Jade!" I shouted.
"I'm sorry." Jade croaked.
"Damn right you're sorry! I cant even look at you!" I shouted in disgust.
"Tori." Beck chastised me. But I didn't listen
"No beck do not defend her on this! Do you want to leave me? Do you hate me so much that you'd put me through that?"
"No I love you." Jade looked at me for the first time since I'd got here.
"Well you don't act like it!" I denounced. "You lie to me over and over again!"
"I'm sorry."
"You have no idea why you're losing weight? No idea? I believed that crap Jade and once again you're not sorry about it. You're just sorry that you've been caught! Are you proud of this?"
"No."
"Come on Jade you practically worship those pictures of you when you were 80lbs! You love it! You are fucking proud. Admit it!"
"Okay it makes me proud. I'm fucked up in the head alright!? I know that!" Jade sobbed, wiping flood of tears from under her eyes.
"After everything you've been through. After everything everyone's done for you!" I berated.
"I never meant for it to get this far." Jade said quietly.
"Oh of course you didn't which explained why you took twelve pills more than the safe dosage? What the hell! How does that make any sense?" I yelled.
"Tori." Beck pulled me firmly out of the room and for some reason I let him.
"Tori stop, look at her! Stop shouting at her. You're just being mean!"
"She's going to relapse and end up back where we were a couple of years ago if someone doesn't say something!"
"She almost died Tori. Look at how upset and scared she is right now. You just made that worse." Beck scolded, "She needed you to love her and look after her and tell her she'll be okay. Not whatever that was."
"She took fourteen dodgy emetics that she bought online! It's just idiotic!" I exclaimed.
"It was a cry for help Tori." Beck disagreed. I ran a hand through my hair and kept quiet. I never thought of it that way.
"Go take a walk and calm down. Come back when you see things more clearly."
"Fine." I sighed. Beck went back into Jade's room and I made my way back to the waiting room. I sat down on one of the chairs and thought about my reaction and how Beck had seen it and I just started to cry. I didn't mean to be mean. I just wanted her to understand how dangerous this was. I was just so, so scared.
I needed a distraction and a break from thinking about this so I phoned my manager and told him there was no way I could perform tonight or tomorrow. He was completely furious with me and told me I had to. I told him my girlfriend had tried to commit suicide. It stretched the truth but I needed to say something to get him off my back. We organised an official statement to be given out to fans that a relative was rushed to hospital, and that I was incredibly sorry to everyone who bought tickets. The majority of the refunds would come out of my pay check but I didn't care by this point.
About an hour or so later I felt a lot calmer and just wanted to tell Jade how sorry I was for that outburst and make sure she was okay so I took a deep breath and made my way back to the room. I thought I was composed but after I knocked and quietly let myself back in I was heartbroken to see Jade curled up in a ball on Beck's knee and crying. Beck was just rubbing her back and hushing her and I doubt she'd even noticed I'd come back. Beck raised an eyebrow and looked down at Jade as if I needed him to make me feel any worse.
"Jade." I placed a hand on her back and waited for her to notice I was here. "I love you." Jade sniffed but didn't move from her childlike position.
"I love you and I'm sorry." I tried again, unintentionally crying myself. Jade still didn't move. "Beck would you give us some time alone please?"
"Is that ok?" Beck asked Jade. To my relief she nodded and shuffled out of his lap. Beck kissed her hair before getting out of the bed.
"I'm going to get going but call me if you need me alright?" Beck said to her. Jade nodded.
"You too ok?" Beck stopped to give me a hug on the way out. I nodded and hugged him back. Once he'd gone I turned back to Jade who was lying in the bed, her eyes red with tears and looking down at her hands. I stepped closer and intertwined my fingers with hers.
"I'm sorry" Jade sniffed.
"No I'm sorry. I shouldn't have shouted at you like that." I cried.
"I deserved it." Jade replied.
"You didn't deserve it. You almost died and you were terrified and I made it worse."
"I shouldn't have taken the pills."
"No but thank god you called me when you did." I ran my fingers through her long pretty black hair and bent down to kiss her cheek. Jade closed her eyes and whimpered. It was a scary thought if she hadn't called for help that she would probably be lying dead in her apartment. I sighed as Jade leant her head in my hand
"I thought we were passed this."
"Was this a one time thing?"Jade shook her head guiltily. "How long has this been going on?"
"I've been taking all different emetics about twice a week since December."
"Oh god Jade.." I wailed devastated it had got so bad
"I'm trying to stop." Jade grabbed my arm as if to assure me.
"You should tell me about these things." I stressed. But Jade just shook her head.
"How can I tell you Tori?.. Oh hi babe, hope you're having a great time on heart fm. Oh by the way I threw up my dinner last night and I can't afford to go out on friday because i just spent $300 on emetics online." Jade burst into tears.
"Shhh" I hugged her again tightly. "Listen to me. I don't care if its 3o'clock in the morning. Or if I'm in the middle of whatever concert, interview, recording. I don't care. If you feel triggered, you tell me!"
"I'm so sorry." Jade apologised again.
"It's okay." I assured her, holding her in my arms. I sat down on her bedside and hugged her properly.
"I really, really let you down this time." Jade sniffed, wiping her eyes.
"No you didn't, you just scared me to death." I cuddled and kissed her cheek. "I'm disappointed but it's happened and we can't undo it, so lets just get you through this."
We had to sit there for another two hours before finally the doctor treating her came in to speak to her.
"Thanks to the actions of your friend, you didn't cause any permanent damage to your stomach lining and your heart is normal. You have built up a large quantity of ipecac in your system which unfortunately has accumulated over a long period of time. If you continue abusing emetics like this the end result is death."
"I understand." Jade said solemnly. The doctor looked sympathetic as he handed Jade a clipboard with a form attached to it.
"Sign these forms and we can discharge you after a brief chat with one of the psychiatrists."
"Thanks." Jade mumbled accepting the forms and immediately filling them in.
"Do you want me to stay?" I asked gently. I knew whatever the psychiatrist wanted to talk to her about would be extremely private but she didn't seem to want to be alone right now.
"Yeah." Jade nodded. Her hands were shaking as she tried to fill out the forms so I leant across and placed my hand over her wrist in an attempt to stable her.
"I won't let you die." I whispered.
"Thank you." Jade sniffed, continuing to fill out the details. I watched silently as she completed the discharge papers. She was about to write Jenn as her emergency contact but stopped and wrote my details instead. She'd just finished the form and laid her head down on my shoulder when the psychiatrist came in the room.
"Hi Jade, My name's Tali, I'm a young persons psychiatrist with a specialism in eating disorders, how are you feeling?" The red headed psychiatrist introduced herself as she took a seat on a chair next to the bed and read over some information she'd been given.
"A bit better now." Jade replied.
"Glad to hear it." Tali smiled "Would you like your friend to step out of the room or are you okay with her being here?"
"No it's fine, she's my girlfriend I don't care if she hears." Jade replied.
"Alright." Tali smiled. "How about you start by telling me a little bit about you and what you've been through with bulimia?"
"Do I have to?" Jade groaned.
"A short version would be great if you find it too difficult." Jade gave the psychiatrist a brief outline of her time at Valewood but left out a lot of the details. I think she was just too tired to go over all that.
"So you've been feeling better but this morning you took a potentially lethal dose of emetics, what made you take them?" Jade shrugged and the psychiatrist pressed further.
"Were you suicidal?"
"No of course not." Jade sighed.
"As I understand you're familiar with these drugs, you knew overdosing on them would be dangerous"
"I— I just wanted to throw up." Jade insisted.
"But why did you take so many pills?"
"They weren't working fast enough so I took more." Jade explained.
"What was your mental state like when you did that?" The psychiatrist asked seriously
"What do you think?" Jade rolled her eyes sarcastically.
"Jade." I shook my head.
"I was terrified because I'd binged and I thought if I didn't get it out soon I'd get fat." Jade confessed. This alarmed the psychiatrist immensely and she questioned her a lot about it, about what she ate, what she did before she binged, about whether she'd bought the food specifically for a binge.
"Why did you feel like you had to take pills?" The psychiatrist tried one last time.
"Because I ate all the crap. I needed to get rid of the bad!" Jade explained again. The answer just seemed weak to all of us. There is no way she would have taken fourteen pills if all she wanted to do was puke.
"A lot of students feel stress because of exams, studying, peer pressure but you cant let it interfere with your recovery."
"I wasn't stressed." Jade shook her head. "And I thought I'd recovered." This is the point that the psychiatrist looked serious. She put down her pen to look directly at Jade.
"I had a chat with Dr. Taye at Valewood Eating Recovery Center on the phone before." Tali confessed. "Unfortunately based on what happened today we have no choice but to revoke you to a bulimia diagnosis."
"No!" Jade started crying again.
"Shh it's okay" I rubbed her arm gently.
"No please I'm better. I swear I am!" Jade begged with the psychiatrist.
"Prove it to me. Three times a week with Dr. Clarke, group therapy and daily diet logs." Tali ordered.
"I have college and exams, I don't have time for this!" Jade cried.
"You need to prioritise your health Jade. I'm sorry." Jade completely broke down at this point and was sobbing into the thin white pillow of her hospital bed. I wrapped my arm around her at a loss of what to say.
"Once she's calmed down she just has to hand the discharge papers in to reception and your free to take her home." Tali advised me.
"Thank you." I replied to the psychiatrist who quietly left the room.
"Hey look at me," I ordered Jade "Baby look at me." Eventually she stopped sobbing and turned to face me looking terrified and devastated.
"I don't want the tube." Jade shook her head.
"You are not getting a tube. You are nowhere near that far gone ok? It's just a little relapse." I rubbed her back. "Come on you're coming back to mine."
