Instead of You(68)

“I’ll leave right away,” I said hastily, heading back into my bedroom. “Please, promise me you’ll keep me posted.” I flipped on the light, sorry I had to wake McKenzie that way, but unable to move slowly. “I can’t handle driving home again not knowing if she’s dead or alive. Please, Mrs. Harris.”

“I’ll text you when I know something.” Her words sounded sad, I knew she didn’t want to have to tell me my mother had died. I was hoping she wouldn’t have to either.

“What happened?” This came from McKenzie, who’d been woken up by the light and my voice. She sat up in the bed, her hair falling around her face, her eyebrows scrunched inward with worry. I pressed the speaker button on my phone.

“My mom was taken to the hospital,” I said as I pulled on my jeans.

“McKenzie?” Mrs. Harris asked. I was definitely focused and panicked, but not enough to at least consider how odd it was that McKenzie was naked in my bed and her mother was on speakerphone. But it was a minuscule part of my brain concerned with that, and the majority worried about getting back to my mother, making it to her before something catastrophic could happen.

“I’m here, Mom,” she replied, sliding off the bed and pulling on her clothes.

“I need you to drive Hayes home, sweetie. He shouldn’t be driving right now.”

“Mom, what happened?”

I heard Mrs. Harris take in a deep breath, could hear it shaking even through the phone, but I was relieved when she continued talking. “I checked on her around 5:00 p.m. and she was asleep. A few times throughout the night I heard her get up, but she never called for anyone or came into the living room, so I assumed she was just using the restroom or something. I didn’t want to bother her because I know she’s been having a hard time….” Her voice trailed off as she started crying. “I fell asleep on the couch, and when I woke up around midnight, I went to check on her.”

I heard her sniffling and sobbing, and my panic started to intensify. I needed my mom to be okay. I needed to get to the hospital and see my mom sitting up in bed with a smile on her face, apologizing to everyone for scaring us. I needed her to live and thrive because I didn’t think I could handle being the only person left alive.

“Mom,” McKenzie said, trying to calm her mother from such a great distance. “It’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay.”

“She was lying on her bed, but she looked strange. Her head was hanging off the edge and it looked uncomfortable. I didn’t understand, I just walked in to try and help her, and that’s when I saw the bottle. And the pills.”

No.

No.

“Oh, my God,” McKenzie said, her hand coming to cover her mouth, her eyes darting to me, wide with fear and understanding. I felt my legs give out and luckily I was near the bed, landing with a thud, my elbows coming to rest on my knees while my head fell into my hands. Immediately Kenzie’s arms were around me, her face pressed into my neck, one hand running up and down my back.

“She still had a heartbeat when the paramedics took her away, Hayes.”

I scrubbed my hands over my face, adrenaline pumping through me so thoroughly, I could feel my knees starting to bounce. “We have to go,” I whispered.

“Okay,” Kenzie said, her hand threading through the hair at the back of my neck. “Which hospital are we headed to, Mom?”

I listened as McKenzie took the lead. She gathered information, soothed her mother, brought me the rest of my clothes, hung up the phone, finished dressing herself, and then led me to my car. She drove us through the night, the two-hour drive seeming as though it were stretched out to days and days. We got four updates from McKenzie’s mom, but none of them lifted the weight off me or made me feel any better.

**She’s still back with the doctors. Haven’t heard anything.**

**Nurse came out to update me, said she was still unconscious, they’re running blood tests.**

**She’s finally being admitted.**

**She’s upstairs in the ICU. Room 415. I haven’t been able to see her since I’m not family.**



McKenzie drove fast, not slowing down for anything, and it was amazing she never passed any cops as she would have been pulled over for sure. We were both mostly quiet, but every once in a while she’d say something to try and make me feel better.

“She’s going to be fine, Hayes.”

“Everything will work out. We just have to believe she’ll be all right.”

I said nothing. I stared at the road, watching the lines on the pavement pass us by, a steady rhythm, a pulsing that kept me grounded. If I were quiet, if I were still, I could upset nothing. Everything, my entire life, seemed to be dangling from just my fingertips, flailing over a dark abyss, and I knew if I moved, if I spoke, I risked upsetting the cosmic balance. So I stayed quiet and still, the only thing about me in motion was my brain.

When we pulled up to the hospital, McKenzie stopped at the front doors, put the car in park, and then leaned over to me.

“No matter what you learn when you walk in there, I am here, Hayes. I’m here, I love you, and I’ll be here to walk with you through whatever happens next.”

I turned to look at her, silently grateful for her words and simply for her. I kissed her, but still spoke no words, before I climbed out of the car and walked into the hospital, wondering if tomorrow would be the first day I’d wake up without a mother.