"Jeff, how could this happen?" Kate muttered, clenching his hand. "Her father was supposed to watch her. How could he not have noticed?"
Jeff tried to calm her, rubbing her back in slow, gentle circles.
"This isn't his fault, Kate." Jeff spoke slowly. "Ashley's a smart girl, she probably knew how --"
"Exactly!" Kate jerked beneath his hand. "She's smart. Christ, Jeff, we sent her to music camp."
Jeff held his tongue as he saw a man in white labcoat round the corner. He was a short, portly man in his late forties, with an obvious comb-over on the back of his head to cover his evergrowing blad spot.
"Mrs.Kerwin? Mr.Isaacs?" His voice was soft and gravelly.
Kate and Jeff leapt to their feet.
"Yes, that's us." Kate spoke rapidly. "Is she alright?"
"She's going to be fine."
Kate's eyes bulged.
"Fine?" Her voice was low. "Fine? When Toby found her she was having a goddamn seizure right on the bedroom floor and you're telling me she's fine?"
Jeff held her wrist tightly. His lips were pursed, a knit of worry on his brow.
"Ma'am, you're daughter ingested a heavy dosage of 2C-T-7. Seizures --"
"2C-what?" Kate shook Jeff's hold from her wrist.
"2C-T-7." He paused, waiting for her to interrupt him; when she failed to do so, he continued. "Seizures are a fairly regular side effect for larger doses. She didn't overdose -- that's rare with 2Cs -- but she could have choked to death if someone hadn't found her."
"Choked to death? On what?" Jeff's brow knitted further, making him look decades older.
"Vomit, sir." He paused, adjusting his labcoat. "Bloodwork also detected ketamine in her blood system."
"What's ketamine?" Jeff asked, bracing himself for the answer.
"It's a veterinary tranquilizer. When cooked, it crystallizes and is crushed and sold in powder form." He flipped a few pages on his clipboard. "Have you noticed any white residues on anything like a credit card, or a driver's license?"
"No. I mean, we would have, but she got home from London yesterday." Kate ran a hand through her hair.
"I see." He jotted a note on the paper. "You can come in and see her, if you like."
Kate nodded weakly, grasping for Jeff's hand as they followed the doctor through a series of hallways. The fluorescent bulbs flickered overhead, the gentle hum only broken by the occasional zap of a wandering insect.
The lights seemed to dim as they entered the small hospital room. The shades were drawn, leaving only a scant reminder of the setting sun outside the thick sterile walls. The smell of rubbing alcohol and saline solution filled the air, clouding out any natural smell that might have remained.
Ashley lay prostrate on the thick hospital mattress, the mechanical bed moved into a variation of the sitting position. Her eyes darted nervously from one wall to the other, occasionally one eye going to opposite direction of the other. As her eyes darted about, she caught sight of her mother.
Her eyes bulged and she began to choke. Her hands went to her mouth, grasping at the tube that went down her throat and into her stomach. She pulled it an inch out of her throat, her eyes brimming with tears at the scraping of her throat.
The doctor rushed at her, brushing her hands away from her throat as he tried, as gently as he could, to return the tubing to its original position. Ashley was gasping for breath, her hands gripping the rails of her hospital bed so tightly that the skin on the back of her hand was stretchd so thin that the outline of the IV needle was apparent.
Once the tube's place was established, the flustered doctor pressed a small button on a cylindrical device, creating a low hum to cover the uncomfortable silence. He picked up another set of tubes and hooked them around Ashley's neck, leading the two openings to her nostrils. She relaxed as the oxygen pumped directly into her airways.
The doctor took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his brow.
"Well now, not exactly an ideal reunion, but one nonetheless." He tried to muster a smile, but after seeing the horrified expressions on Kate and Jeff's faces, he thought better of it. "Obviously, I recommend she doesn't speak -- she should be able to return home in the morning; keeping her overnight for observation, you know, standard procedure."
Kate barely managed a nod as she neared her daughter. Ashley was pallid and gaunt -- she had noticed when she returned that she had lost weight, but only then did it become apparent how much weight had been shed in London. Clumps of hair stood on end, while others lay tamely against her head, due to an observant nurse's ministrations.
"Ashley...honey..." Kate struggled to find something to say; there were no Hallmark cards for this. "...we can get you help."
Ashley shook her head vigorously, coughing only once. Her eyebrows knitted together in worry as she tried to think of a way to tell her mother that she didn't need help.
She noticed a complimentary pen and pad on the writing desk in the corner. She motioned for it, making small primal noises. Jeff moved to obtain it, handing it to her.
She scribbled furiously, as if she were writing a text message and not a note to her mother.
Im fine. i dont have NEmore
She thrust the pad at her mother, who read it as if it were a foreign language.
"No more?" She raised her hands in dismay. "Ashley, I don't know how long you've been .. using...but I can't let it go on any longer. You have to get help."
Ashley motioned for the pad and hurriedly scrawled her message across an entire sheet.
not a junky!
Kate sighed, a sad smile on her light features. Jeff came up beside her, his hand on her shoulder.
"I don't think this is a good time to discuss this." Kate said, brushing the searing glare Ashley had given her right off. "Not with Ashley's current condition."
"We've got to go home and make some arrangements, anyway." Kate drifted towards the door before turning. "I love you, Ashley. We'll come to pick you up in the morning."
Ashley said nothing as they left.
As the night wore on, Ashley began to notice a craving. A pool of saliva gathered at the back of her mouth at the mere thought of a good line of K. Oh! Falling into the glory of a K-hole! What she would do for a tiny, little, itsy-bitsy, smidgen of a bump...
No.
She tried to shake the thoughts. She remembered her location. If anyone at the hospital saw her wanting, they would be sure to tell her parents, and they would most definitely send her off to rehab then.
But no. That wasn't her plan.
At the first mention of rehab, Ashley had decided to lie. To go to all measures to escape being sent to a ranch, or a farm, or a psych ward -- she had a good story. A tiny part of her screamed that rehab would be okay, but the rest of her instantly squashed the little bugger. She'd fooled her father for two months; how hard could it be to fool everyone else?
She only wished she knew how long she would have to play the part.