Aaron jerked awake to the sound of someone beating on the apartment door. His heart was in his throat as he felt around for anything he could use as a weapon. It was the middle of the night - just after four in the morning and still pitch black out. Aaron’s first and last thought was that they were about to be robbed.
Without taking time to think about it, Aaron ripped his alarm clock out of the wall, and clutched it in his hands. If all else failed, maybe he could hit their intruder in the head and knock him out.
He could already hear Coby and Bryan, up and talking to each other, so Aaron crept down the hall, clock in hand, the cord dragging like a tail. His heart was beating in his throat. Aaron’s eyes widened as he saw Coby wielding a hammer and Bryan with a large kitchen knife.
“Who the hell is it?!” Bryan demanded, his voice so terrifying that Aaron actually believed he could run somebody through with that in order to protect his own life, as well as theirs.
“Liam!” the voice on the other side of the door insisted. But all three glanced at each other, their minds cloaked in fear.
Not one of them made a move to unlock the door. To them, the voice sounded eerily familiar, and nothing like Liam. They were all thinking about earlier. About the room. About reliving it all.
The blade of the knife glint in the moonlight as his hand shook, betraying his nerves.
“Prove it, asshole!” Coby ordered menacingly, taking a step toward the door, his hammer cocked and ready to use.
“You guys! Come on! I’m serious! This is serious! Morgan’s in trouble.”
“Keep it down, out there!” a neighbor yelled.
Finally, Bryan risked turning the lock and easing the door open.
“Jesus,” Liam gasped, his eyes wide at the sight of Bryan in an old Boyz II Men tee shirt, and red athletic shorts, carrying what was probably the biggest knife they owned.
Behind him, Liam could see Aaron dressed in blue boxers, his alarm clock poised to throw, and Coby still in jeans from the day before, armed with a hammer.
Liam put his hands up.
“Bryan, put the knife down,” Coby said calmly, though his own heart continued to beat like a war drum. From the looks of things, they had done a decent job of scaring Liam half to death. Which wasn’t exactly what they were going for, though it was kind of satisfying.
Silently, Bryan handed the knife off, handle first, and Coby put it back in the block, and his hammer safely in his toolbox.
Aaron sighed and sat heavily on the couch. “Are you trying to scare the shit out of us?” he accused, setting his alarm clock beside him.
“No! But, guys, this is serious. You need to pray for Morgan. She’s like, way, way backsliding. It’s really bad. I don’t have time to explain it. But you just need to pray as hard as you ever prayed for anything. Pray that she turns back to the Lord…”
Just as unexpectedly as Liam had arrived, he was gone, out their door and running down the hall.
--
“Where the hell did Liam take off to?” Nate asked, irritated, as he tried unsuccessfully to sit Morgan up. Liam had done nothing but make a bad situation so much worse and now he had left, when they really could have used another pair of hands.
“Who knows?” Jon grunted, catching Morgan as she fell forward onto him, and leaning her back against Nate.
It remained Nate’s goal to keep Morgan awake and talking. Jonathan was doing his best to get her dressed, and Cary was on the phone, trying to get a hold of her parents, or any of his friends who might know what to do in this situation. Other than the obvious, getting her to the hospital. He had already decided they needed to keep the pills Jon and Nate found in her sweatshirt and the note, too. So Cary had put them in his pocket for safekeeping.
“Don’t,” Morgan moaned. “I’m fine…Just leave me alone…”
Jonathan squinted at her. She was definitely getting worse fast. Whatever she had taken was starting to kick in. They should have never let her fall asleep in the first place. What if she lost consciousness?
He pushed that thought out of his mind, and concentrated on getting clothes on his friend, as quickly and compassionately as possible.
“No…” she whined, trying to move away from the hands that touched her. But her body felt like it was all liquid, and her brain felt like mush. She couldn’t make sense of anything, except that she was tired, and anxious and scared.
“It’s okay,” Jon said. “We’ve got to get you dressed so we can go, okay? I don’t want you to be cold.”
She mumbled something unintelligible, as Nate managed to get Morgan’s shirt over her head. He wrapped her in the blanket, forgoing shoes and socks, in favor of simply getting to the hospital.
Jon carried her to his car and laid her across the backseat, her head resting on Nate’s lap. Cary sat in the passenger seat, using his phone and its navigator to get them to the closest hospital. Despite being a patient there, Jonathan had been weak from blood loss and in shock the last time he’d been there as a patient, and couldn’t remember the first thing about how to get there.
Nate swallowed his fear, and concentrated on Morgan, whose skin was ashy and sweaty. Her breathing was faster than he thought it should have been, and he was about to comment when she started to choke.
“If she’s vomiting turn her on her side,” Cary instructed, while Jon honked and swore at the traffic.
Shifting Morgan, so her head lolled to the side, Nate was relieved when she started to vomit.
“Good girl,” he said quietly, though his stomach churned at the sound of her heaving. “You get rid of all that,” he encouraged, not caring that her sickness was all down the front of the legs of his jeans.
“Keep her talking. Is she talking?” Jon asked, his voice tense, as he sped through a yellow light. If a cop pulled him over, all the better. They could use the escort.
“Talk to me, sweetie,” Nate said softly. When he got no response, fear intensified his voice. “Morgan. I need you to talk to me. Do you understand?”
“Can’t…I feel like shit…” she whimpered.
“Okay,” Nate sighed, relieved. “She’s talking. Says she feels like shit.”
“Good,” Jon answered incongruously. “Morgan, you hang in there. You hear me?”
“Turn left here,” Cary advised. “It should be on the right. You can pull right up to the emergency entrance. This is an emergency,” he said, jumping out of the car before it was even completely stopped.
Cary opened Nate’s door and crouched, waiting for him to pass Morgan off to him.
The minute she was in his arms, Cary took off through the doors, Jonathan and Nathaniel on his heels.
“We need help!” he called in a commanding tone. Vaguely, he was aware of Morgan stiffening in his arms. “It’s okay,” he reassured softly. “You’re going to be fine, okay?”
“What happened?” someone in uniform asked as she rushed forward.
“Attempted suicide,” Cary managed as someone took Morgan from his arms.
--
Christian couldn’t breathe when he heard the sound of a scary stranger pounding on the door. He had been having a bad dream about Uncle Jesse from Full House dressed in a hockey mask with a big ax, coming to kill them all, like the bad guy probably tried to do to his mom and all her friends.
He started crying very hard, and he could tell the big girls were scared too. Libby, Emily and Legend were holding hands. His mom swallowed once and then got up to answer the door. Her face looked the same as it did when the robber came and was going to beat her up one time.
“No, Mom!” he sobbed, climbing over the other girls, and stepping on their hands. He didn’t care. He had to stop her from opening the door.
Christian clung to her legs, trying to climb Jess like a tree, causing her to sway unsteadily. He shook and sobbed, and it was the exact reaction she wanted to have. Except that somebody had to stay in control.
“Jess, don’t!” Emily screamed.
“Emily, stop it,’ Jess managed, willing her voice not to shake. She stopped a few feet from the door, and called out. The pounding was making her head ache, and her skin crawl.
“Who is it?” she asked in a hard voice, daring their night-visitor to try anything.
When the locked door eased open and a shape stood silhouetted in the doorway, all of them screamed.
“Hey! It’s Liam! Calm down! I have a key, remember?”
“Oh, I’m gonna kill him…” Libby vowed, forcing herself to breathe. Who did he think he was anyway? Hadn’t he done enough damage already? Why did he have to come knocking at their door like some crazed lunatic before it was even light out.
“Lib, hush,” Legend managed, though she’d very nearly hyperventilated.
But Libby was already up and in front of Jess, throwing the hallway light to glare at Liam. “Who the hell do you think you are?” she asked, grabbing him by the front of the shirt and jerking him inside. “You scared us half to death.”
“I’m sorry, okay? But we’ve got bigger problems here,” Liam managed, looking at them with wide gray eyes. “You need to pray for Morgan.”
“What are you talking about?” Jess asked, raising her voice to be heard over Christian’s cries. “Morgan’s here. She came home earlier.”
“Well, she’s not here now, because she was at my place. Which is how I know this in the first place.” Liam said matter-of-factly. “She’s in a lot of trouble, girls. Really backsliding. We need to pray her back in.”
“You are ridiculous,” Libby spat, and then cowered as the open doorway filled unexpectedly with people.
“Hey, it’s just us,” Coby reassured, pushing his way past Liam and inside where he put his arms around Jess and Christian.
“I’m sorry. We tried to get here before he did, but by the time he left our place and we figured out that he was probably one his way here, he already had a head start.”
Christian attached himself to Coby instantly, sobbing incoherently into his neck. “Bad guy’s…gonna…get my…mom!”
Coby bit his lip and looked over Christian’s head at Jess. She looked like she had seen a ghost.
“Hey,” he managed, forcing himself to sound in control. “You know what? That’s what I thought, too, okay? I thought it was a bad guy. But it’s not, see?” Coby reassured, coaxing Christian’s face out of his bare shoulder to peek at who had really come in. “It was just Liam, being impolite.”
Bryan went to Emily and Legend, putting his hands on either sides of both of their faces, as if to make sure they were really there in front of him. “Are you two okay?” he asked.
Emily nodded, looking perilously close to tears, and Legend refused to meet his eyes - terrified that she might accidentally catch a glimpse of Liam who had managed to dress in her least favorite color combination ever. Black jeans and a red hooded sweatshirt. She especially hated seeing people wear red, and refused to wear it herself, anymore. But Liam managed to remind her entirely too much of Buddy in his chosen attire.
“Hey. It’s all right,” Bryan reassured. “Let’s go in the kitchen. Want to?” he asked, as he saw Coby dragging Jess and Christian’s futon mattress back to their room as both of them followed closely behind.
Aaron stood by Libby, refusing to leave her alone with Liam. He had shown less than great judgment so far, with insisting they all go back to that horrible study room for no rational reason Aaron could think of. And then to come pounding on all their doors when he knew they would be all worked up over it? He shook his head.
“You guys!” Liam called, alarmed. “Come back here! Didn’t you hear? Morgan’s got serious spiritual warfare going on in her life right now. We need to fight it with a holy violence.”
“You stupid jerk,” Libby managed, between clenched teeth. “You can take your holy violence and shove it!”
“I can’t believe you don’t care enough about Morgan to pray for her deliverance,” Liam managed, shaking his head.
“Dude,” Aaron interrupted seriously, before Libby had the chance to say anything more. “Liam, I think you should go. I don’t know what’s going on, but you’re not helping. It’s late, and we’re exhausted. Just go home.”
“I’m talking to my sister,” Liam explained in placating tone that held a hint of threat.
“No, you’re not. Just get out,” Libby nodded toward the door. “I don’t have anything to say to you.”
“Fine… I guess Morgan and I know who our true friends are,” Liam huffed, slamming the door behind him.
--
Since Coby had thankfully taken over trying to get CJ back to sleep, and everyone else was sprawled all over the living room watching cartoons, trying to relax, Jess decided that
she might as well start breakfast. Most of them were still here, and everyone was awake. It was almost six now. Liam had left an hour before, and the house was settling down again. But she was about to start making calls, when her phone rang.
Jess snatched it up, before the noise woke up Christian.
“Hello?” she asked, sticking bread in the toaster and then changing her mind and going with strawberry Toaster Strudels. Those tasted especially nice on stressful days, and Jess ought to know about those.
“Hey, Jess?” a vaguely familiar voice asked.
“Yeah, this is Jess. Who is this?” she asked, pressing the lever on the front of the toaster down.
“This is Cary Mackey. We met earlier,” he said, biting his lip. This wasn’t going to be an easy call to make.
“Hey, Cary. What’s up?” she asked, trying to multitask and putting water in the kettle for tea. “You’re lucky we had a crazy night over here, and I was up this early, otherwise I would’ve been sleeping in before I had stuff going on this afternoon,” she rambled.
There was a pause as Cary thought about the best way to break it to her. Then he decided he owed it to all of them to just come out with it. “Morgan’s at the hospital. Nate, Jon and I are with her.”
“Why? What happened?” Jess asked, her mouth suddenly dry.
“She got drunk and took a whole bunch of pills. He and Nate found a bunch, with some of yours and Jon’s in her sweatshirt. Jon found a note…” he trailed off. “She’s okay, though. We got her here in time.”
“Oh, shit,” Jess choked out. She got herself together and managed, “Well, thank you guys, for taking care of her.”
“No problem,” Cary assured her, but sighed knowing there was more. “Nate’s been trying to get a hold of Morgan’s parents, but they’re on vacation in Mexico or something. They just woke up, and when Nate asked what to do, her mom said to ask you guys… Whoever‘s in charge. Nate said that‘s you. Morgan’s parents didn’t want anything to do with it. Said they already have one screwed up daughter and they don’t need another. They don’t need this right now.”
“So what the hell are we supposed to do?” Jess muttered, dropping her voice. The last thing she wanted to do was let the others overhear before she knew what they were dealing with.
Cary massaged his forehead. “I got a hold of Pete. Her brother?” he questioned, making sure he had the relation right.
“Twin brother, yeah.”
“Anyway, he said he caught Morgan with pills and crap back in December when she went home for the holiday break. He told their parents and I guess they all sat down and had a big talk about it. They threatened to send her to rehab, but she promised to get straight, so I guess they backed down.
“She’s here for now on a 72-hour psych hold. After that, since her parents aren’t involved, I guess it’s up to you girls. If you need help looking at rehabs or help with anything, let me know. I think Jon and Nate are gonna stop by after they’re done here. I can, too, if you want. I can watch play with Christian or whatever while you guys figure out a plan for her.”
“All right,” Jess managed, trying to put the jumbled pieces together in her mind. Morgan was in the psych ward and the next step was up to her? Jess wondered if they would have made the same choice if they knew she was only four months removed from being shot in the head.
“Hold on… The guys are here, I gotta let you go, but we’ll be in touch,” Cary promised.
--
“What’s up?” he asked staring at Nathaniel and Jon, who were both red-eyed and looked shell-shocked.
“They made us leave,” Nate explained, his voice hoarse.
Cary noticed belatedly that someone had given his boyfriend a pair of blue hospital scrubs and little hospital booties, since his own pants and shoes were disgusting. He looked run into the ground, dark circles around his eyes, and his hand shook as he ran it though his hair.
“She was swearing at us, telling us to go to hell. Ripping out her IV and charging the door like a linebacker.” Jon explained, running his hand down the side of his face with the scar and cringing.
“The staff’s all over us for not bringing her in sooner, telling us she’ll only get better when she dies. They think she’s too far gone to save.” Jon sat down heavily in a chair beside Cary and took a few deep breaths.
“Well, she’s alive, so she has a chance,” Cary said defiantly.
“Thank God she has insurance, but we had no idea what to put on all the forms,” Nate told him, resting his head on Cary’s shoulder. “Who were you talking to?”
“Jess. I think we’re gonna have to head that way after we’re done here. Do you have a number where you can reach Morgan?”
“Yeah…not like she’d take our calls anyway,” Nate said darkly.
Cary gave Nate’s head a kiss. “She’ll turn around,” he promised. “Right now, you’re not dealing with Morgan, you’re dealing with the shit she put in her body. Once that’s done and she withdraws and everything, she’ll be herself again,” Cary explained, yawning.
Who knew it would come in handy that he’d grown up with a alcoholic father? He knew too much about this kind of thing. Now there was nothing to do but share it, and hope that the knowledge did some good.
--
Jess had gathered everyone around their little table, and at the last minute, chickened out and decided to wait for Jon, Nate and Cary.
They ate in silence, as much from exhaustion as anything else.
Jess thought back to the days when they used to all get together for a meal every Monday.
They called it Monday Madness, like football. She couldn’t remember who had coined the term, but it definitely fit. Those nights had been special and precious and totally crazy. And she had been able to cook something better than Toaster Strudels and tea, too. Her spaghetti had been everyone’s favorite. She couldn’t remember the last time she had made it, and Jess cursed herself for even thinking about cooking when Morgan was at some hospital, after overdosing on pills and alcohol.
When the last three boys arrived looking haggard and defeated, Jess dragged out the folding chairs and prepared to share the news with her friends, and then prayed that they would know what the hell to do next.
“Liam was right,” she said, not knowing how else to start. “Morgan is in trouble. She went over to Jon and Nate’s last night after she’d gotten drunk and taken a bunch of pills.”
“Holy shit,” Coby breathed, putting his head in his hands.
“We searched her pockets and found a whole bunch of pills she’d taken from here, and probably the other places, too. There was a note,” Jon said flatly, not able to inflect anything in his tone of voice. “She wrote it weeks ago, but Nate and I…we think probably Liam’s idea to take back the room probably put her over the edge… The three of us,” he said, looking at Nate and Cary in turn, “drove her to the hospital a couple hours ago.”
“Where was Liam?” Libby demanded, her eyes flashing dark and dangerous. She knew her brother well enough to know that his plea for prayer was covering up something.
“He was home,” Nate confirmed. “In complete denial about everything….” he trailed off as images Liam making out with Morgan, both barely dressed, filled his mind. “I can’t do this,” he exclaimed suddenly, scraping his chair back.
Cary got up, too, walking with him into the living room. Thankfully, the TV was still on, playing Spongebob reruns. That was as good a distraction as any. He coaxed Nate to sit on his lap and scratched his back as he sang the theme song softly.
In the kitchen, Libby continued to press. “Did he give her something? What did he do?”
Jon gripped the edge of the table. “We sort of walked in on them, making out,” he admitted. “Nate and I and Cary. Looked like they were on their way to more than that. He insisted she came onto him and that he was powerless to stop it. She kept saying she wanted to, but…you guys know…”
Libby choked out a sob. She didn’t want to believe that her brother would take advantage of Morgan, but she couldn’t help but believe it. In the last 24 hours, it had become abundantly clear that while he cared about others, he cared about himself more.
Otherwise, he wouldn’t have done what he had to Morgan, and he wouldn’t have done what he had done to her. Making her go back to all those places, just so he could feel better. Though Libby didn’t know for sure how it would turn out for Morgan, she knew for sure that she wanted nothing more to do with her brother.
Bryan’s eyes blazed bright and furious, while Aaron simply looked ill. Legend’s mouth had fallen open and she hadn’t managed to close it yet. Emily was sitting very still, while Coby clenched one hand into a fist on the table, while he held onto Jess with the other.
No matter how Jess tried, she couldn’t wrap her brain around what she knew. But she knew there was more that needed to be discussed, so before the tension in the room completely exploded, she pushed on.
“Cary got a hold of Morgan’s family. Her mom and dad are on vacation, but they’re really mad about this, so they left whatever happens next up to us.”
“She tried to kill herself, and they’re not even coming back?” Coby asked, disbelieving.
“I guess not,” Jess shrugged. “Sometimes parents don’t care. Or they just can’t anymore,” she said, squeezing his hand.
He squeezed back. Jess would know, he thought. Her own parents were just like that. But he hadn’t known or ever guessed that Morgan’s were, too.
“So, it’s up to us what happens next. The hospital can keep her for 72 hours. Cary talked to Pete, though, and I guess she was even taking pills and stuff when she went home at Christmas. They talked about rehab, but she convinced them she didn’t need it or something. Right now, though, that sounds like it might be our only option.”
“How are we going to know what to do?” Emily asked, clearly overwhelmed.
“We pray,” Aaron said, certainly. “Nate and Cary, get your butts out here. We’re praying for guidance for Morgan,” he called softly.
Both men in the other room came back in and Cary offered softly. “You guys should know. I’m not Christian. If that means you don’t want me to participate, I understand.”
“If you’re comfortable staying, we want you to stay. You don’t have to pray. Just think good thoughts, or pray to whoever you do believe in,” Aaron offered, and was touched when Cary removed his hat, bowed his head and joined hands with the rest.
Then they prayed. For guidance and wisdom for themselves, and for strength, comfort and peace for Morgan.
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