Chapter 32—
A/N: Again, please be patient. It is going to take a couple of chapters for me to get this story line out. Please read and review.
The girls finished dinner and left to go to the Hump Bar. Jeremy went upstairs to his room. He opened his top desk drawer, and in the back corner was a bottle of pills. They were muscle relaxants that Dr. Bartley had prescribed for his knee. There were about twenty pills in the bottle, he dumped the pills on his desk and counted them.
Jeremy counted the pills individually… one, two, three, four, and five… and when got to twenty, he sat down and counted the pills one more time, because he was going to do this, he wanted to take all the pills. He wondered how long it would take for the pills to take effect. He had been planning this for the past couple of days, it just could not have worked out better than when Mrs. Holden called an invited Denise for drinks. He was happy that Stephanie went with her. Jeremy counted the muscle relaxants one more time, and there were exactly twenty, unfortunately his knee had been hurting a lot in the past couple of days so he had taken a couple of the pills, so there were not as many has he would have liked. Then he picked up the pills and took each pill individually. He waited until each pillow was swallowed before he took the next one, and after the fifth pill he clenched the other fifteen pills in his hand and stumbled over to the bed, and started to take the next pill. Jeremy followed the same process: he would take one, and swallow it, and then take another, and swallow, and then another and swallow, until they were all gone into his system. Jeremy lay down on the bed.
Meanwhile everyone had assembled at the Hump Bar. It was there 'tribal meeting', and tonight they all got to meet the infamous Stephanie. Stephanie was enamored by the five people that were sitting at the table with her. First she met Roland, a renowned psychiatrist who worked at the hospital. As she listened to him speak she was in awe of how well he articulated. Then she met Claudia Joy. Claudia Joy was not what she had expected of a Colonel's wife, she was outspoken, witty, and absolutely gorgeous. Then she met Roxy, the Army Wife and the waitress, and Stephanie was surprised at how classy and well spoken Roxy was. Finally she met Pamela. However, Stephanie already felt like she knew Pamela, at least she knew her from Pamela's radio show on post.
"So Stephanie, Denise tells us that you are planning to go to Medical School. Do you have a specialty that you are thinking about or are you going to go for general medicine and wait to see which specialty inspires you?" Roland asked.
"Well, originally I was going to wait to see what inspiration came, but now after working with some of the patients with the Institute I was thinking psychiatry." Stephanie said. This was the truth; she was not trying to impress Roland. Psychiatry was what she was planning to study.
"Interesting… do you have specific area you would like to study?" Roland was curious, because most of the time when someone wants to attend medical school psychiatry was not top on people's list of specialties.
"I was thinking about specializing in patience's who suffer life changing injuries." Stephanie figured she could use some of her life experiences.
"Good choice, the military is always in need." Roland continued.
"But we will have to see, I am still working on studying for the MCAT's." Stephanie admitted.
"Oh, do not worry about those… and if you need any help studying please let me know." Roland volunteered.
"Thank you, Dr. Burton. Denise has been very helpful already." Stephanie smiled.
"You are welcomed, and I know Denise will be very helpful. But here in this bar I am Roland, not Dr. Burton." Roland smiled.
"Yes, Sir." Stephanie agreed.
"So anyway… who call this meeting of the tribe? And why?" Pamela asked looking at her watch. She loved spending time in the tribal meetings however she only had her babysitter for another hour.
"Well, I did… I thought since Denise's man was deployed this afternoon… that a tribal meeting would be appropriate." Roxy said.
"I appreciate the gesture, but after almost twenty years of being married to the Army… I mean being married to an Army man, deploying is never easy, but I have seen it too many times." Denise said kind of stumbling over her words. Then all of a sudden Denise got a strange feeling wash over her, something was wrong… but she did not know what.
"Ladies and Roland… I need to make a phone call. She got up from the table and stepped outside. She dialed Jeremy's cell phone number and it went to voicemail. Then she tried dialing her home phone, and it too went to voicemail. This was odd, Jeremy was very good at answering his phone, and he promised that he would leave it on while she and Stephanie were out. She walked back to the table.
"Denise, what is wrong?" Pamela asked seeing the look on Denise's face.
"Jeremy is not answering his cell phone or the home phone… I am little concerned." Denise said.
"Do you want to go home?" Stephanie asked.
"No, I think that I am being over protective." Denise replied.
Every one continued talking and Denise just sat there, getting more and more concerned and finally… Stephanie said,
"It was nice meeting you all… and thanks for a nice evening, but I think that Denise should go home." Stephanie said getting Denise's attention.
Everyone said their good nights and Stephanie and Denise when back to the house. Denise quickly ran into the house, as Stephanie was getting her wheelchair out of the car. Denise ran through out the house calling Jeremy's name. She then walked into Jeremy's room. There was a sense of relief… she saw that Jeremy was sleeping and then she saw the empty pill bottle on the desk.
"Oh my God, Jeremy what have you done?" Denise said rushing over to Jeremy to check his pulse and his respiration. His pulse was not even close to being strong, and his respiration was slow. She started to give Jeremy breath into his mouth. She though that she heard Stephanie come in.
"Stephanie call 911…." Denise yelled to Stephanie.
"Why?" Stephanie yelled back.
"Stephanie just call 911, Jeremy took a lot of pills." Stephanie thought, 'Oh my God, Jeremy what have you done?' She quickly dialed 911. After explaining to the dispatcher what the issue was, the dispatcher alerted the paramedics. Unfortunately Stephanie was a paramedic but she could not get upstairs to help Denise. All she could do was sit there waiting for the paramedics. The paramedics showed up within 5 minutes of the call. Stephanie pointed the paramedics up the stairs. They found Denise doing CPR on Jeremy. They pushed her out of the way. The next thing that Denise knew Jeremy was on a stretcher heading downstairs to the ambulance. Denise rode in the ambulance with the paramedics and Jeremy. Stephanie followed in her car.
All Denise could think about was: Jeremy why did you try to kill yourself? She did know whether to be mad or angry… but she was confused. Jeremy had not shown the obvious signs of depression. Denise was confused.
Stephanie drove to the hospital. She just kept thinking about the conversation that she and Jeremy had had earlier in the day. She never realized that he was as depressed as he was; she just thought that he was overwhelmed. Furthermore, she wondered what she could have said differently that would not have caused him to do this. 'Why Jeremy? Why?' Stephanie thought.
The paramedics got to the hospital, and rushed Jeremy into emergency room. The ER doctor, Dr. Kinsley acted quickly, and eventually got Jeremy stabilized. After Jeremy was stabilized, the doctor came and spoke to Denise and Stephanie. Dr. Kinsley had worked with Denise on her ER rotation.
"Mrs. Sherwood, Denise… we have stabilized your son. However, he is unconscious. I am not sure as to how much of the drug was metabolized in your son's system. I will not know until we run some more tests. Again he stabilized, he is being moved to the psych ward, and I have ordered suicide watch for him. I believe that this was not an accidental overdose. Again, I am sorry, but I do not know what shape he is going to be in when he wakes up. But I do know that he is going to need some extensive therapy. Do you have any questions?" Dr. Kinsley asked.
"No I do not think so… just questions that I need to ask Jeremy." Denise said holding back the tears.
"Denise if you questions please let me know." Dr. Kingsley said, with a pat on Denise's arm.
Denise collapsed in to the chair next to Stephanie. Stephanie reached over and hugged Denise, trying to reassure her that everything was going to be ok.