I'm Here to Fix You - Broken Souls Series #2

Like ten years ago

CHAPTER 39 - LIKE TEN YEARS AGO

SILVIA'S POV

It was a nightmare. It could only be a damn nightmare. Just that. I thought this as I stood at the doorframe, unable to find the strength to enter. Jake was sleeping peacefully, after having been saved right in the nick of time.

He was on overdose. Morphine, the doctor said. That jerk mixed it up with some other pain killers they'd given him. I have no idea where was he able to get the double of the dose of morphine he was allowed to take, but that's it. He took it, and he went on overdose. A minute more and he would have been gone. Forever.

I feel guilty. If I'd paid more attention when he told me he was stuffed with pain killers, when he was so weird, I would have been able to react more quickly ...

I covered my mouth with my sleeve to muffle the sob that erupted. I was crying. Of course I was crying. This was like ten years ago all over again. I'm always late, always causing disasters, always losing the people I care for.

It was all so sudden. One moment I'm finally telling him I love him, he's promising not to ever leave me, we're being as mushy as it can be, the other he's ... not even in a billion years I could have imagined Jake would go on overdose of morphine.

And you know what's worse? The doctor afterwards talked to Serene, the only family member present, therefore the only one he was officially allowed to speak to, and he said that, via tests of different kinds and via the documentation they received about Jake's anamnesis, they were able to tell this wasn't a first time.

You understand? That fucking idiot got himself on morphine overdose more than once already! It wasn't by choice, apparently. It was due to the same reason he'd taken the drug now: too much pain. When I gazed at Colin, I noticed his guilty look, which had me guess that he knew. I felt like lashing out on him for missing to tell this small detail about that irresponsible jackass that is his best friend.

Everybody was in the waiting room, all shook to the core. It's one thing the jerk doesn't seem to understand. He may not value his own life, but there are people that do. We all do. I see my angle, but the others don't look much good either.

I left that Serene was crying her heart out on Colin's shoulder as he consoled her, while Trey was cuddling Tess. I've never seen her so shaken up.

I needed a few moments alone with the idiot here. If he was awake, I would lash out on him, for how stupid he was, but when I entered he was sleeping, so I let him. Jake looked peaceful like that, as peaceful as I've barely ever seen him, and the only thought that I'd been, once more, a mere inch away from losing him, had me want to scream, tear my hair in frustration ... but the only solution I could find was cry silently at the doorframe, lacking of the courage to even enter.

Ten years ago the very same thing happened. Ten years ago I had to watch powerlessly as I lost my kindred spirit, my sister. Now, ten years later, I was about to watch as Jake left me, too. I guess it's pure luck Ryan hooked me to his medical shows, so that I was able to tell that Jake was on overdose just by watching how his pupils constricted. Myosis, the doctor called it, one of the first symptoms of morphine overdose.

It's been over an hour since Hell went down in this room, and I could still so vividly see it: me yelling for help while I watched him turn pale, his eyes becoming slits, his look blank, then doctors and nurses pushing me away, Jake calling for me, me replying but not being able to reach him ... it all felt like a huge flashback. A horrible, horrible flashback.

Ten years ago, after I left that pool, I ran straight home, I found my parents talking in the kitchen, wondering where were we, and when I entered, the first thing they did was wrap me up in a tight hug.