Leave The City (Book 8 of Adopted by the Josephs)

49. Brendon

Kala came running into my studio, without knocking. Normally I'd say something but the panic on her face stopped me cold.

"What's wrong? Is it Samantha?" I asked, putting down my guitar.

"Yeah. Something happened at school. Sarah's going to run and get her," she said.

"Not without me, she isn't," I said, standing up and leaving everything as it was. I ran back to the house with Kala. Sarah was gathering her bag with Sam's info in case, I guess, we needed to hospital?

I asked her what had happened as I came into the living room, the dogs at my heels.

"Something happened at school. She passed out but no one seems to know why," she said. "I'm going to the school to see if she needs the hospital."

"I'm coming with you," I said.

"This is just great," I said, more to myself, but still aloud.  "Tyler and Jenna are going to make her go home if this is another medical issue from the accident. You don't think something happened, like, something tore, broke, leaked? Do you think maybe she had a stroke or something?"

"Brendon, relax. Let's get to the school and find out what happened. Maybe she'll be awake by the time we get there.,"

I took a deep breath and nodded. Calm down, Brendon. I said to myself. Not everything is going to be life-threatening. We can't bubble wrap her. Not when she can finally live. Despite everything.

We ran into the school and Sarah took charge. I was on autopilot, trying to reassure myself Sam was okay. Well, not okay, but not in some critical state.

The school nurse led us around a sort of folding divider thing where we found Samantha curled up on the bed in the room, tears streaming out of her eyes, her dull, grey-blue eyes. Eyes that hadn't blinked since we'd gotten around here. Was she catatonic? Did we need an ambulance? Was this worse than we knew? With all the surgeries she's had... did Sam have a stroke?

I knelt down in front of her as Sarah sat beside her and took her hand.

"Hey, Sam," Sarah said, sitting down on the cot beside her. "What's going on, sweetie?" I watched as she moved some hair behind Sam's ear. Sam blinked and looked up at Sarah, and then at me, and burst into tears.

"Hey," I said, kneeling in front of her. "Hey, what's this? Talk to us, Sam. What happened?"

"I remembered," Samantha sobbed. "I remembered what happened. Why Brandi was driving like she was. I saw Asthton in the cafeteria and it all came back like a tidal wave. I remembered."

She curled up even tighter and sobbed.

"Oh, sweetie," Sarah said, rubbing her back. "Oh honey. All at once, huh? Oh, bunny."

"I want to go home," she sobbed.

I didn't hear much of what Sarah and Sam or anyone was saying, having gotten lost in a memory when Sarah called Samantha 'bunny'. I was trying to keep my composure while we helped Samantha out of the school. We were stopped by someone Sam knew, but I was working on autopilot. I didn't absorb any of the conversation around me. In my head was one word, echoing over and over. 'Bunny, bunny, bunny'.

The last words Jessica ever said to me. She had had this old stuffed rabbit named, cleverly, Mr. Rabbit. In her last year, Jess started losing the ability to walk, talk, we think she was blind in the end. We want to believe she could still hear us as we whispered our last goodbyes to our precious daughter. Four years. We had her for four amazing, fun, crazy, scary and exciting years. She taught me so much about life. I could no longer take every day for granted. I had made the difficult decision to do one last album, which I did in memory of my daughter. I used it as an outlet. I had been hanging out with a couple of other songwriter, singer, producer friends, Mike and Jake. Mike insisted on hanging at his studio. I knew it was because he was closest to our place, but also to get me out of the house, but still let me hole up somewhere familiar.