Chapter Sixty-Eight

Kaylie forced John to the ground, pressing her ear to his chest as she listened to his heart and breathing. "Allison, Claire, call the hospital. We need them here asap." She pressed on his stomach, trying to see if he'd thrown up already. She looked up at her friends, jumping as John's body became unusually still. "NOW!" She shouted, tilting John's head back and forcing his mouth open, she plugged his nose, sealing her lips around his as she forced air into his lungs. "Breath John!" She ordered, bracing her hands over his sternum and pressing down repeatedly. "God damnit!" She forced another breath into his body, tears streamed down her cheeks as she repeated the process, praying that she could keep him alive long enough for help to get there. "Richard!" She cried, praying that the man she'd chosen to be her father was close. "Daddy!" She forced another breath into John, gasping as she felt something in his chest pop with the next set of compressions. "Daddy! I need you!"

Vernon rushed to Kaylie, his heart hitting the floor as he took in the sight before him. "What happened?" He asked, kneeling beside Kaylie and the half-dead boy beside her. "Did he have an attack?" He asked, letting Kaylie rest as he took over the CPR.

She shook her head, wiping the tears from her cheeks as Vernon started his first round of compressions. "He- he was d-drugged by Jess-ica." She hiccupped, flinching as she heard John's chest give a painful crack with Vernon's attempts to force him to breathe.

Vernon, looked up as the sirens of an ambulance wailed outside, followed shortly by paramedics and a stretcher. He lifted John's limp body onto the stretcher, stepping back as the paramedics started fitting an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose, and letting one of them straddle John's hips as she started compressions on his chest.

Kaylie buried her face into Vernon's chest, her sobs breaking his heart as he held her. He watched as John was wheeled away to the hospital, looking over at Dominic in the sea of students who'd come to see what was wrong. "Call Clarissa, she's his legal guardian, she's the only one who can take care of all of his medical stuff."

The teen nodded, starting off for the phone.

Clarissa slammed the car door, not bothering to put it into park before she rushed inside of the hospital. She stopped at the reception counter, frantically gripping at the counter top. "I'm Clarissa Standish, my son, Johnathan Kurtis Bender was admitted earlier today for a drug overdose." She pulled on the locket around her neck, remembering the picture she kept of John and Claire on the night of their junior prom.

The woman nodded, picking up a file from the stack and motioning for her to follow her back to John's room. "He's not quite stable yet, but he is conscious he just isn't aware of where he is."

Clarissa nodded, taking Thomas's hand as he caught up to her. "Tommy…" She forced her tears back, the terror of what she might see being pushed with them.

He nodded, squeezing her hand as they turned into John's room. "He'll be okay." He whispered, as his wife slowly pulled the privacy curtain back to reveal their John.

"Johnny…" She pressed a hand to his knee, her heart breaking as his eyes shifted to look at her, no hint of recognition in those brown orbs. "Baby… it's me, it's mom." She brushed her hand through his hair, a broken smile gracing her lips as he leaned into her touch. "You remember me, right?" She lowered herself onto the bed, kissing his forehead as she listened to the oxygen tanks pump pure oxygen into his lungs with each breath he took. "Oh, Pumpkin, I was so scared…" She let her hand drop to his chest, feeling the hard bandaging around his torso.

Thomas rested his hand on John's shoulder, jumping back as John flinched away. "Johnny, it's me, it's Tom."

John whimpered in pain as his body shook in fear at Thomas's touch, he leaned toward Clarissa knowing that even if he didn't remember anything about this woman that she was safe. He clutched at her sleeve as his chest spasmed with a harsh cough, tears running down his face as he tried again and again to regain his breath.

Clarissa hugged him close to her, rubbing her hands over his wrapped chest as he made sounds somewhere between sobs and coughs and gags. She knew that his stomach had been pumped, and she also knew that would put strain on not only his esophagus and his already irregular eating habits, but his vocal chords as well. "I know, Pumpkin." She kissed his hair, her own tears running down her cheeks as she looked at her husband for support. "This is worse than giving birth to Caleb." She stated, remembering the painful labor and delivery of her firstborn child.

Thomas nodded, rubbing his hand over her shoulders, being careful to not touch John. "He'll be okay." He soothed, fear rising as John's sobs stopped and he went oddly still. "John?"

Clarissa pulled him away from her, panicking as realized that he was choking on something. "Go get the doctor." She ordered, squeezing her fingers over John's throat to see if she could find the obstruction in his airway. "Johnny, Johnny, try and breath for me." She pressed her thumb against the dip in his collar bones, feeling something that was swollen in the tubes of his neck. "Can you swallow?" She asked, praying that he could somehow get the obstruction out by himself.

John cried as he attempted and failed to swallow, fresh tears springing to his eyes. He jumped back as the doctor came in with the man that had come with this motherly woman, noticing that the doctor had something in his hand.

"Alright, John, let's get you breathing easier." He poked John's neck, stopping at the swollen spot. He grabbed a new length of tubing, rubbing it down with lubricant before he looked up at John and Clarissa. "Can you hold him down?" He asked, knowing that getting the tube down John's throat would be even harder now that he was awake.

Clarissa nodded, laying her upper body against John's making sure that her weight wasn't hurting him while she held his head against hers with her free hand as she held his other hand in hers. "Shh… it's okay baby, it'll be okay…" She tensed as John made a choked scream of pain as the tube was forced down his throat and onto the swollen bulge in his esophagus. She felt him start to kick to try and get away from the torture he was being put through. "Tom, grab his legs." She ordered, wincing as John's grip on her hand became tighter.

The doctor pushed a syringe of orange fluid into the tube, pushing the plunger and letting the medicine slide into his throat. "Alright, that should help him breathe." He looked at the boy's legal guardians, relief flooding through them all as John's chest heaved with a huge gulp of air. "I thought we'd try that first, just so I wouldn't have to put him under for a trach."

John moved his hand, touching the tube in this throat to try and pull it out. He yelped as Clarissa pushed his hand down, not understanding why this woman wanted to cause him pain.

The doctor closed his hand around the tube, giving it one hard pull and letting it slide from John's mouth as he screamed with the pain on his already raw throat. "Mom!" He cried, bowing his head against her shoulder. "Momma…"

Clarissa rubbed her hand through the back of his hair, her chest aching as she felt the sweat soaking the locks and listened to his sobs. "I'm here, Pumpkin." She breathed, closing her eyes so that she could try to force herself to focus on the fact that he was alive. "Momma's here."