Well, here it is, the next chapter in my story! As always, I want to thank reveiwers, readers, and random bystanders! We are now back to JD's perspective, so read and enjoy.
There were police cars all over the parking lot. 'Do Not Enter' and 'Caution' tape was all around Carla's car.
Well, I guess it's just Turk's car now. I was sitting on the steps of Sacred Heart, pulling leaves and branches off the nearby bush.
I wondered if she left anything to me. Probably not. She wouldn't have, because she didn't think she was going to die so soon. Why would she?
The branch I was trying to remove was a little thorny, but that just made me pull harder on it.
Why couldn't things have gone the way everyone thought they would?
Why did someone have to shoot one of my best friends?
Did I actually think it would be a good day?
Who was sitting beside me?
"Hey, JD," they said, putting a hand on my knee. I looked up to see that it was Elliot. Her hair was tangled and her make-up was smudged. I wanted to look away from this anti-Elliot, but I couldn't.
"Hey, Smelliot." She smiled ever so slightly at my old nickname for her. "How you holding up?"
She looked down, staring at her hand that was still sitting on my knee. "O-okay," she stuttered.
I grabbed her hand, held it in mine, and she looked up, fresh tears forming in her eyes. "Same here," I said, hoping she understood.
With her free hand, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a wad of tissue. She dabbed at her eyes.
"Excuse me," a female voice said, "My name is Officer Judy Greenfield. Are either of you John Dorian or Elliot Reid?"
"Yeah, that's us," Elliot replied, scrunching up her tissue. I squeezed her hand tighter.
"Would you be okay with you if I asked a few questions?" She had a little green notebook and a mini tape recorder sticking out of the pocket of her uniform.
"Sure," we said at the same time. We glanced at each other as she turned on her tape recorder and sat on the stairs beside Elliot.
She said some legal sounding gibberish into her recorder and then turned to us. "Were you there when Carla Espinosa was shot?"
What? My eyes started to blur suddenly, filling with tears. It sounded wrong when she said it like that. She can't just say it like that!
"Yeah." I sneak a peak at Elliot out of the corner of my eye. She was nowhere near as close to crying as I am.
Am I really that big of a girl?
"Did you see who shot her?" Officer Judy asked.
I grabbed Elliot's tissues from where she left them on her lap, dropping her hand in the process. "Not really," Elliot said.
"Are you sure you don't remember anything about him?" she asked, frowning.
Elliot shakes her head and tugs the tissues from my hand.
"Where exactly was he?" She tucks a stray piece of hair behind her ear and stifles a yawn: it's just another day on the job for her. I'm angry, suddenly, but too tired, too overwhelmed, too scared, to do anything about it. I tried pulling the tissues away from Elliot, but she refused to let them go.
"He came from around the corner, and then stood over th-th-the" Her voice cracked, gave out on her, and then she was sobbing, crying louder than I thought possible. She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand, but the tears kept coming. I deposited the tissues on her lap, along with her hand.
She jumped up, the crumpled tissues rolled down the steps, and she ran out through the parking lot, getting into a nearby vehicle. She pushed down on the gas as hard as she could, and sped out of there, leaving tire marks all over the ground.
Is that even her car? I didn't think so, hers had that thing on the side... and a California license plate.
Oh well, who am I to say if she's from Idaho or not...?
Stop daydreaming and get back to reality!
I suddenly decided to go the same way as Elliot, but instead of risking charges for auto theft, I jumped onto my scooter, leaving the police officer looking confused on the steps.
She sighed, putting her head in her hands. Her look said, 'You're not making this any easier!"
'Well,' I silently replied as Sasha and I turned out of the parking lot, 'Maybe I don't want to make things any easier.'
When I finally got home, bits of sunlight were already starting to creep over the horizon. I didn't mean to take the long way (really, really long way) home, but it just seemed to happen on its own. I lied down on my bed without changing out of my scrubs or washing up or anything. I fidgeted with the blanket, feeling too hot and too cold at the same time, yet unwilling to get up to turn on the heat or air conditioner. I eventually just rolled up my sleeves.
The pillows were stacked up too high, so I removed some of them and flung them across the room. The blanket was too heavy, so I just pulled the sheet over myself. My feet felt weird, so I took off my shoes.
There was still something wrong, though... ah-ha, it's the light! Luckily the blinds were closed, so all I had to do was flip off the switch by hurtling a heavy object in its direction, a technique I have always found extremely effective.
I chose a book, a thick medical text, and I was soon in a relatively dark room.
I curled up on my side, preparing to get some much needed sleep.
It didn't come. At first, I thought I might be asleep, dreaming this whole time, that would explain the whole Carla incident, after all. Suddenly, it was all so clear, I almost laugh. I've always had trouble discerning fantasies and dreams from reality, so, this whole Carla thing must be a dream I'm remembering! It's so simple!
I rolled back onto my side and tried to go to sleep again, with that whole big weight off my mind.
A few hours later, I'm still staring at the ceiling. I usually don't have this much trouble tricking myself, but then it was never for something this big, either.
I thought back to the last time I had to trick myself into believing something, just so I could sleep at night, eat at meals, and not throw up all over random passerby. It would probably make sense to the casual observer that the last time I would do this would have been about a year ago, when Dad died, right?
No, it was before that, all the way back in high school. Mom had decided to transform her life, and apparently that meant paying less attention to her kids than before. I was basically cool with that, at least until the day I realized to just what extent that went.
I had a cat, Berries. He disappeared one day, just vanished into the blue. Mom didn't even care.
I know this is a strange complaint; she cared about my grades, my life, all the things moms care about, all the things that mattered in the grand scheme of things, but she didn't care about Berries going missing. I may seem selfish, but... oh, what the hell, I am selfish. But I just wonder... why do people never pick up on the things that matter most?
I'm not saying anything that happened after that wasn't as bad, my dad dying definitely ranks highest, but at least that time I had someone else. Dan. Turk. Dr. Cox. Elliot. Carla.
Who do I have now? I can automatically cross Carla off the list, that's an unfortunate no-brainer, but it took a little longer to cross out Turk. He's my Chocolate Bear, always has been, always will be, right? Well, lets say, just for fun, that Carla is— was— his wife.
An imaginary 'X' slid itself over the letters 'SCB' in my imagined list.
Elliot: Carla's best friend, just as close to her as me, but whiny and easily upset by nature. The 'X' hovered above Dr. Reid.
Dr. Cox: he knew her longer than any of us, and she was one of his closest friends, so, no. Anyways, I thought, cringing, that'd almost be like asking the janitor for help. 'X' over Perry.
Janitor: No 'X' for him— no, he gets scribbled out completely, whilst ominous music played in the background, courtesy of my over active imagination.
Then, I was suddenly thinking back to my original list, wondering why I even bothered including Dan. He was more of a nuisance than a help. A lot more. But maybe this time... against all my better judgment, a checkmark slid into place next to 'the Daninator'.
Dan it.
Once again, my chapter seems to have taken a life of its own, cause this is pretty different than what I was going to write when I started it. Here's hoping it works!