Chapter 22

 Janelle

“Janelle, wait!” I shout after her as she races out the front door. I try to run to her, but Shannon still has her hand down my pants and another arm wrapped around my waist. “Get the fuck off me!”

I try to tear myself away from her, but she jumps on me like a spider and wraps her fucking legs around me. I feel her nails dig into my back.

“Fuck! Janelle!”

I shout again and stumble forward, but it’s impossible to move. Shannon’s like a rope twisted around my ankles. Finally, I grab her wrists with both hands and pull. She falls backwards but still has me with her legs, and I topple to the floor with her.

“Don’t leave me, Chris!” She blathers into my ear. I look up as Janelle pulls her car door open. She can’t leave!

I pry Shannon’s legs off me, but as soon as I’m free, she latches her arms around my neck.

“Get off!” I shout. But it’s no good. “Janelle!”

“Just beee with me, Chris!”

This can’t be happening!

“Shannon, get the fuck off me!” I almost lose it. If this was a guy holding on to me I would have slammed his head into the floor and kicked him out of the way, but it’s Shannon, and I don’t know how to handle this.

I manage to get one hand around both of her wrists and use my other hand to pull her left leg off me. Getting my feet under me, I manage to stand up and jump over her and move toward the door. She manages to grab my ankle, but I kick her off and race outside.

But it’s too late. Janelle’s already in the car. Her engine roars and her tires squeal as she hits the gas and all I can do is stand there like an idiot as she peels away from me.

“Fuck!” I scream, my fists balled so tight they hurt. I want to break something. I want to breathe fire and watch my stupid fucking house burn down. How the fuck is this happening?

Fuck it. I’ll go after her!

I turn back and leap up the steps and race back into the house. My keys are on the counter. I step over Shannon, who this time doesn’t try to grab me, and head into the kitchen. There they are. I grab them and rush toward the door.

“I’ve got to go,” I say to Shannon, who is still lying in a heap on the floor. “You better be gone when I get back—”

But as I go to shut the door behind me, I look at Shannon and realize she’s not moving. She must have passed out. Goddamn it!

My first thought is just to leave her there. So she’s had too much to drink. So what? She made my life Hell once already – I’m not letting her do it again. Plenty of people have passed out drunk on the floor of this house. What’s one more? But when I look at her, that’s when I see it.

She’s thrown up and it looks like there’s more just dripping from her mouth. This looks like something worse than just being drunk.

Did she take something?

I look out the door in time to see Janelle’s car vanish out of sight. I turn my car keys over in my hand. This girl doesn’t deserve anything from me. I don’t owe her anything. But if there’s really something wrong with her, I have to do the right thing.

“Fuck me,” I curse as I drop to my knees beside Shannon. “Shannon? Shannon!”

I raise my voice but she doesn’t respond. As I lift her head, more vomit spills out of her mouth onto the floor. She’s lifeless like a rag doll. I slap her on the cheek and shout.

“Shannon! Wake the fuck up!”

But there’s no response. She lies limp in my arms.

“Goddamn it, Shannon. Goddamn it!”

This definitely isn’t just being too drunk. Something else is going on here. I don’t know if she took something or what. But what I do know, is she has to get to the hospital – now.

I lift her easily into my arms and carry her out the front door, down the steps and over to my car. I manage to unlock it and get her into the back seat. I can get her there faster than it will take an ambulance to get here. I guess that’s one plus of having a ridiculously expensive fast car.

I get into the front seat and gun it. Fuck the stop signs. Fuck the traffic signals. I skip them all as I blow through town. The worst part about all this, is even with Shannon in my back seat, all fucked up and needing medical attention, I can’t stop thinking about Janelle.

I want to take every turn I know will lead me to her house, but I can’t. I’ve got this ghost of my past back to haunt me and take hold of my life again. But as much as I hate her – as much as she hurt me, I can’t just leave her.

On Main Street I cut off a red truck and take a hard right toward Route Ten. He blares his horn but I don’t give a shit. I blow the light at the intersection and gun it, going sixty in a thirty-five. I see a cop at his usual speed trap by the gas station and hit the gas. By the time I’m up the road there’s no way he’ll ever be able to catch me, and even if he did, there’s no way I’m stopping.

The hospital’s a mile up the road. I skip every light there, almost collide with a station wagon pulling out of the grocery store, and take the hard left down the hospital entrance road.

I toss my hazards on and park at the curb, leaving room for the ambulance. Shannon’s still not moving in the back. Adrenaline is coursing through my body like a torrential downpour as I yank open the door to the back seat and pull Shannon from the car.

Her head hangs over my arm as I race toward the sliding doors to the emergency room. I hear the hiss as they part and I storm inside.

“Help! Help! I need help here!”

The nurse behind the desk sees me and leaps up and yanks open a door. She shouts something and another nurse comes rushing out. They both race over to me.

“I – I don’t know what’s wrong with her,” I stammer. “She came over to my house – I thought she was drunk but she passed out—”

“Do you know what she’s had?” One of the nurses asks me. “Any drugs?”

“I don’t know!” I shout, my heart ready to burst. “I told you! She just came over. I turned around and she was lying there on the floor! She – she threw up! I grabbed her and brought her here!”

The doors to the ER open and someone comes out with a gurney. The nurses help me set her down and start wheeling her away.

“What’s her name?”

“Shannon!” I call after them.

“Okay, we’ll take care of her now,” one of the nurses tells me as they head through the door. “You did good bringing her here.”

The door shuts behind them and I sit down, right on the floor. If my heart rate goes any higher I might be the one who needs a doctor. What a fucking night. I can tell the nurses were giving me an odd look when I didn’t follow them back there. They know who I am, and I’m sure they think she’s just another one of my girls and I don’t give a shit about her. I should probably be back there with her, but I can’t. It’s just too much. And if I’m the first person she sees when she wakes up…

She’ll be fine, I tell myself. I know she will.

She wasn’t out long enough for there to be any real danger, and now she’s at the hospital. They’ll take good care of her. They deal with stuff like this all the time I’m sure.

What is Janelle going to think!?

She must be fucking heartbroken. Just the thought of what she must be feeling is enough to make me want to kill somebody. Everything was going right. Well – maybe not right but things were at least on track to maybe start heading toward some sort of reconciliation or resolution or something. And now everything is fucked.

Now the real question is – should I leave and go see her? Or do I wait here until Shannon wakes up?