breathe | r lewandowski

5

When I turned up for breakfast the following morning and Jagger didn't, it was the first point that I recognised something was wrong. Jagger was meant to be here. It was her job. I started to feel uneasy at the fact she wasn't here and everybody else was, even myself.

"Has anybody seen Jagger this morning?" Joshua asked from behind me.

Nobody answered him, making me feel even more nervous than I already was. I feared the worst. I imagined that she'd been taken by whoever was in the room with her last night and that I'd never see her again.

Not that I'd be bothered about seeing her, of course I wouldn't be. At all.

But I needed some organisation around here, otherwise I wouldn't survive the trip. That's all. It had nothing to do with Jagger. At All.

"I forgot my wallet, I'll be back down in a minute." I mumbled to to Mario before quickly taking off up the stairs, not bothering to wait for the lift.

I ran, two stairs at a time before finally reaching the eight floor and feeling slightly disorientated at where I was. However I soon read the numbers on the doors and headed to the left, pounding on Jagger's door with my fists.

When she didn't open the door, I started to panic. I knocked again, harder this time and the solid wood grazed my knuckles bitterly.

"Jagger? Jagger are you in there?"

The door suddenly clicked and I jumped back in a fast reaction. My chest was pounding and I hated it. I didn't want to feel so anxious or worried, I didn't want to care that she didn't turn up for breakfast and I didn't want to care about her wellbeing.

Yet here I was, on the verge of kicking the door in if she hadn't have opened it herself.

"Robert," she coughed, hiding her body behind the door so I could only see her head.

My eyes widened and I froze. Her hair was stained with blood, her eyes were dark and heavy, her lips chapped. She looked afraid but I was the only one out of the two of us that actual felt scared.

"W-what happened?"

Jagger pulled me inside the room, the door closing behind us. I stood in shock still, my lips moving but no words were being formed because I simply didn't know what to say. I had never been in a situation where someone needed me, where I was being relied on.

"I need a doctor, Robert. My head...it hurts."

She winced, her eyes squeezing shut and she placed a hand on the wall to hold herself up. I gulped, watching her slowly start to fall to the floor and have her legs collapse from underneath her, unable to take it any longer.

"Fuck. Alright, it's gonna be ok. I got you." I gasped as I caught her just in time, my arms wrapping around her frail body before she hit the ground.

As I held her unconscious body in my arms, I looked down at her. She looked so peaceful, yet I knew she felt nothing. The pain was numbing her and by now I was sure that nothing she felt could make it any worse.

I gently placed her down on the bed and called the hotel reception, ordering for a medical team to be sent up to the room immediately. Once I'd done that, I started to calm down. My breathing slowed and my heart rate regulated itself, although rose every time I looked at her.

I grabbed a towel and ran it under the tap with some warm water before holding it onto the side of her head, pressing on the seeping wound firmly to try and contain the bleeding. With my other hand, I called Mario and told him that Jagger was sick and I was helping her, so everybody should go to breakfast without us.

I couldn't tell them what had actually happened, not yet. I didn't even know myself, but I wanted to be the first one to know. I didn't want people to crowd around her and leave me in the dark about how she was. I wanted to take care of her. And I resented myself for it.

When the door swung open, my first instincts were to leap up from my seated position and stand in front of Jagger, making sure that nobody but a doctor would touch her.

"Can you explain what happened, Sir?"

I tried to be tough, but I froze again. I let five or six people barge past me and put their hands all over her without even saying a word.

"Sir," a hand was placed on my shoulder and I turned to face the paramedic that was staring me in the eyes.

"I- she didn't come down for breakfast. I came to check and she collapsed...I don't know what happened."

I was ignored for another five minutes as they bandaged her up, attached her to a drip and wrapped her in a blanket, doing God knows what else. All I could do was watch.

I felt guilty, like I should've done something to help her earlier. Even though I knew there was nothing I could have done, nothing at all, I still felt responsible and the weight was pressing down on my shoulders, crushing my chest and making my heart pump faster.

"Woah, woah, where are you taking her?"

The paramedics carried her towards the door and probably would have left without saying anything else to me, had I not intervened.

"The hospital in the centre, it's a 10 minute ride away I'm sure you'll get there in no time."

"No-" I said, stopping them from moving any further, "I have to come with you, I need to stay with her."

"Of what relation are you?"

"We- we work together."

"Then I'm sorry, you have to make your own way to the hospital."

They practically barged me out of the way, my body hitting the wall as they carried her out of the hotel room and leaving me stood alone in silence.

Instantly, I felt that overwhelming guilt wash over me again. I needed to stay with her. What if she woke up and there was nobody there? I knew I wasn't her favourite person, she'd probably much prefer to have Mario cracking jokes to make her laugh, or Thomas to bring her tea and biscuits, not me and my permanent miserable frown. But I'd be better than nothing, surely.

My phone vibrated in my back pocket and I quickly pulled it out, checking the caller ID. It was Dylan. For some reason, my blood began to boil. Tears welled in my eyes and I felt anger flame inside of me. I was incredibly tense, my hands practically shaking and my veins pulsing faster and faster as the thought of Dylan made me want to smash my face in with a brick.

I hurled my phone across the room without a second thought, the ringtone being broken by the shattering of the phone into a million tiny pieces as it hit the wall.

But I still didn't feel any better.