Caught [l.s] (boyxboy)

IM Gone

sooo. how have you been? 

i have to admit, it's really nice that i can update like, once or twice a week.. it takes some of the stress off of me and i'm not so.. eh. i don't really know. anxiety sucks? especially because it makes me literally freak out for no reason. but i'm sure you really don't want to hear about that, so moving along:

i did my research for this chapter. alcohol poisoning can cause blood sugar levels to drop drastically, especially if a person hasn't eaten all day (which you probably know makes you feel very shitty and obviously makes you pass out) and then that can cause either unconsciousness or hypothermia due to the body's internal temperature dropping - leading to cardiac arrest.

so, before anyone tries to correct me or accuse me of exaggerating this next chapter (like the whole 140 character thing sigh) i came prepared this time, alright?

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The shock of losing someone so suddenly is surreal.

Louis isn't sure he can fathom his thoughts into words, much less complete sentences, statements, or conversations. In fact, he isn't sure he's even awake right now. Louis' brain is supposed to fill in the blanks, jump to conclusions, assume things, that's its job. To make sense of things. After all, sight is just flashes of light, sound is just waves and vibrations, love is just a sensation, and a soul is only a fragment of a piece of matter that may or may not exist. Louis is nothing without his brain, a brain that's so jumbled and confused that he almost wishes he had missed that call.

"I'm sorry," the doctors had said. "There's nothing else we can do. It was too late, she went into cardiac arrest before anyone knew what was happening."

"There was too much stress on her body at once. The panic, the alcohol, the dehydration: it was too much for her to handle. No amount of medicine can fix that. No amount of praying will bring her back. Jesus can't save her, and neither can you," her mum had said. "She brought this upon herself. She should have been more responsible, I raised her better than this."

"I shouldn't have called you. I should've let you find the obituary in the paper," Faye had said. "I should have taken care of it myself."

It's been two hours. Harry has called six times, but Louis is afraid of answering the phone. After all, sight is just flashes of light, sound is just waves and vibrations, love is just a sensation, and a soul is only a fragment of  piece of matter that may or may not exist. And Louis' vision has long since turned white, his soul has long since vanished - hiding somewhere deep underneath a heavy, painted on layer of grief that dries slower than grass grows in a field - and picking up the phone has never done him justice in the past.

So he lets it ring.

And ring.

And ring.

And ring.

Hospital chairs aren't comfortable. Neither are hospital couches. Or beds. Louis begins to question the quality of hospitals in general, because they're supposed to be place of miracles; instead, they are always portrayed as a place of disappointment. Of death. Of failed operations. Of miscarried babies. Of concussions, comas, cancers, broken bones, the whole lot. Louis faces the facts: hospitals are not places of miracles. They're places of broken people who are looking for someone to make them better again. Louis doesn't know if  he can be fixed by a syringe or a scalpel or a band-aid. 

No, because grief is the very worst emotion of them all. He's not sure if it's just the fact that death is so final that shakes him so deeply to the core or because Eve had been so young, and her death had been such an accident. A mistake. Preventable. Stupid. A terrible way to go. Everyone else could shake their heads and tut their fingers, (add Eve to the list of Preventable Ways to Die) and Louis would usually join them, of course. Another drop in the ocean, another grain of sand on the beach, another particle of soil in the ground, another bone in the casket. The circle of life is truly unfair, never ending or ceasing or pausing, never giving Louis a chance to say goodbye before it continues on and claims its next victim.

And it's just not fair.

It's been three hours. Harry's texted ten times. Louis can't read, can't see, can't do anything. After all, sight is just flashes of light, sound is just waves and vibrations, love is just a sensation, and a soul is only a fragment of a piece of matter that may or may not exist. So Louis lets it buzz.

And buzz.

And buzz.

And buzz.

Harry will find him eventually. He will. Harry will always find his way to Louis, that's how it works - that's how it's always worked.

But then again, Louis had been so sure that Eve had been smart enough to not allow herself to become so intoxicated in the presence of a stranger, let alone get behind the wheel of a vehicle after doing so. Louis had been so sure that she was wise beyond her years, softer than the petals of a barely-blooming flower, brighter than a flashlight in a pit of darkness. Louis had been so sure, was the thing, and now he's sat in a hospital waiting room with an empty stomach, a blank stare, and a frazzled mind.

Louis had been so sure, and look where that had gotten him.