A Pretty Pill

by Criss Copp

  “Fuck... Jade!” Ben states; coming to me and grabbing me up.

  Silas is just simply looking at me with his sad look.

  “I’m so sorry Jade... I’ve totally broken you haven’t I?” he says, looking at his hands and nodding his head in grief.

  “No...” I croak. “It’s been a big day.” I lie; I’m in my uniform.

  Ben isn’t looking at me; he’s pulled up another chair, since he placed me in his, and he’s pointedly looking everywhere else.

  “How’s today been?” I ask Silas.

  “Fine... tiring... they’ve stopped the Phenergan and started me on Seroquel.” He says.

  “Seroquel... I’ve heard of it before, it’s another mood stabiliser! Is that its proper name?” I ask.

  “No, I told them you’d want to know the real name, it’s Quetiapine.” He answers. “But everyone calls it Seroquel.”

  “I’ll look that up when I go home.” I say.

  “Oh, so you plan on going there do you?” Ben pipes up.

  “Excuse me?” I rancidly reply.

  “Home, either you still live in that place you used to call home or you have a new one; since I haven’t been able to catch you at home for several days, I’m thinking you RAN AWAY!” he suddenly shouts.

  “Don’t you fucking shout at me in here.” I argue angrily.

  “Fine, I’ll see you outside in one minute.” He says, before turning to Silas and saying, “See you tomorrow man, we’ll start a new game or something. Take care.” He says, giving Silas, who has stood up, a one armed man hug, and slap on the back.

  “Yeah, see you tomorrow.” Silas returns, before sitting down and scowling at me.

  “Don’t look at me like that.” I say, as Ben leaves.

  “I will look at you like that, you’re a fucking moron, Jade.” He says. “I really love you, I really do, but fuck off please, and go and talk to him before you fuck everything up beyond fixing! I may be the one with a mental illness, but you’re the one who’s behaving like a mental case!” he argues.

  I can’t believe this... I have no plans on shifting.

  A mental health nurse named Grace comes up to me. “The other gentleman said you’d need a hand getting out of here straight after him dear.” She says.

  “Oh, no...” I begin.

  “Yeah... she does Grace, she’s got some stuff to do before she comes back to see me.” He says defiantly.

  “Okay,” Grace says without interpreting the situation, “I’ve got some med rounds to prepare for, so I’ll let you out now.” She says to me smiling.

  I can’t talk, I’m too damned angry, so I nod and quickly give Silas a kiss and a half hug, before following her out, where she swipes me clear of the doors.

  Stepping outside the outer doors, it’s not hard to see Ben.

  He’s formidable on his own, but he’s lugging around a huge dispute on his chest, and although it’s physically non-tangible... it’s an emotional cluster bomb.

  I just start walking, and he pushes off the wall and follows me.

  We make it about two hundred metres away from the entrance to the adult unit, and he grabs my arm and swings me around.

  “You know what Jade? I’m trying to figure out what it is about you that fucking has me dangling on these fucking strings like a puppet waiting for you to move me!” he starts.

  I fiercely shrug his hand off.

  “I’m not interested in you... or in all this bullshit!” I scream at him.

  “Don’t fucking lie to me, and stop fucking lying to yourself!” he shouts back.

  I go to say something, but he shouts me down.

  “Shut the fuck up and listen Jade!” he shouts at me. I can’t help but conform. His face is so desperately angry... his demeanour is precariously coiled, waiting for permission to strike, and although I know instinctually that he wouldn’t hit me... I fear very much for the property that surrounds us. He’s a volatile mixture, waiting to be stirred to combustion.

  “I hate this bullshit exterior you have going... I fucking hate it! I can’t for the fucking life of me understand why it had to be you that I fucking fell in love with. I could’ve fallen for any other woman and had an easier time with it! You fucking destroy me, over and over again, and you don’t even give a fuck what that does to me or what it puts me through!” he shouts, breathing erratically. I know I already have tears streaming down my face, but he can’t see them in his rage, and I have yet to feel their devastation.

  “You think I’m going to run away from Silas or find him too hard then your fucking stupid! I want to help him and I want to be there for him, because he deserves it! He fucking deserves a break and I’m going to give it to him. So regardless of you throwing me away yet again, get used to seeing me around cupcake; because I have already decided to move in on the Silas territory!” he shouts, claiming responsibility for Silas in a few short sentences.

  I’m really starting to feel his anger now... physically; like a sharp pain that’s emanating from him and giving me a flash burn from across the metre of space between us.

  “You think you’ve got the pain market cornered... you think you’re the only person in this fucked up existence that knows what pain is and how it feels. You think that devastation and loneliness is just a Jade concept and that all us heathens surrounding you haven’t got a clue what it feels like to suffer and flounder through neck deep shit! Well you’re fucking delusional, because you’re nothing special and the fucking planet doesn’t revolve around you! You’re just another pawn in this fucked up existence of pain and suffering. I’m suffering too, as are a significant proportion of the population on a daily basis!” he seethes.

  “I told myself to stop chasing you over and over again, and I fucking didn’t listen to myself! Well guess what! I give up, I fucking give up Jade, I fucking give in with you! I’m not chasing you any more, I quit! You’re nothing but a cock-tease and I can’t fucking play your games anymore! I fucking hate everything you do to me, I fucking hate it... and yet I fucking love you!” he shouts, and then he sort of starts to scream. “I’m not playing this game and I’m not chasing you anymore! I’m not my God damn father and I’m not waiting a decade for you to fucking work out your shit! You know where I live if you want me, but don’t wait too long, because when my Mum dies I’m leaving this God damn arse-end of a city and going home to LA with Silas in tow!” he slams down, and storms off.

  Fuck, the devastation sets in like a tsunami; sucking me inside of its ruin... what have I done?

  Chapter Sixteen: Redemption

  Jade.

  I’m not even sure how I made it back to the hotel and then returned home. I can’t recall crawling into bed, and I can’t even recognise the woman I am looking in the mirror at right now... as she brushes her teeth for work.

  I’m on an evening shift, looking after a middle aged man whose hold on life is tenuous at best... he’s already crashed three times in the last 24 hours, and the MET Team, of which I’m a member tonight, bring him back every time.

  I must look like shit, because Samuel, another registered nurse in my area is telling me I should’ve called in sick. I don’t know how I’m going to get through to 10:00pm... it’s only 7:00pm. And then my patient rapidly drops into his fourth cardiac arrest in 30 hours.

  The pace is frantic, the team gathers immediately since we are all here, and everyone’s working on him under direction, to get his heart going again. We’re like a well oiled machine... everyone is productive and doing everything they need to do in order to salvage the threads of my patients’ life.

  It’s futile... and we know it... but we continue to try till Ned... the Medical Officer in charge tonight, calls it, and leaves to request confirmation. And that’s when I’m spent and needing out! At least for another couple of days till I get myself sorted out properly.

  Yes, I know... I want to run... but not from everything; not anymore!

  I’m not an island... I’m a person.

  I need to
remember that and remember what it means to need others; and the give and take that that implies.

  I fill out the necessary paperwork, and I get to the end of the shift fulfilling all my requirements and nothing more... not tonight. I inform other staff that I won’t be in tomorrow... I’m too sick. Samuel backs me up, having worked alongside me all evening. I leave messages and post it notes on the screen of my NUMs computer, so he’ll see it in the morning and make arrangements to have me replaced for the day.

  Hopefully I can have my private life sorted by Monday... because I’ll need to be back by then.

  Ben.

  I hear Jade’s bike pull up outside my house, possibly because my body has been sub-consciously awaiting her arrival since yesterday; when I tore strips off her for leaving me soulless.

  I’m breathing hard and I’m instantly on alert. The clock says 11:23pm... I’m not sure what happens next. Do I get up?

  Of course you fucking do dickwad... how else is she going to get in?

  I throw the covers off my bed, aware of the cool air sweeping in to claim me in my boxers. But I’m racing to the front door before she knocks and wakes my Mum.

  I get there just as she is rounding the top step.

  I’m breathless from both the cold night air outside slamming into me, and seeing her there in the flesh; but she doesn’t stop at all; she just simply ploughs into me and demands that I hold her.

  “Hold me... please!” she asks.

  “Come inside.” I whisper, throwing my arms around her and dragging her back into my home, like a predator dragging its catch back into its lair.

  “I’m so sorry Ben... I’m such a bitch. But I really don’t want to be!” she cries.

  “Shhh... here,” I start, taking her face in my hands and rubbing the tears away with my thumbs. “Come to my room... Mum’s asleep!” I explain.

  She nods and allows me to grab her hand and walk her down the hallway to my room. It’s actually not my room. It’s the room that used to be the guest room; and thank God it’s got a bathroom between it and my Mum’s room; plus an ensuite and walk-in robe within her room, so I feel I have some privacy in the distance a couple of rooms in-between provides. My real bedroom is the flat downstairs. But I can’t sleep down there, because I need to be close to Mum.

  I pull her into my room and I suddenly feel like a 16 year old boy, sneaking his girl in for some mischief. I want to descend into the temptation of slowly stripping her of her clothes, but I’m guessing it took her a lot of nerve to come to me; and as hard as it is to drop her hand and make my way to the bed and climb back in after putting the lamp on, I do it anyway. I climb into the bed, leaving the sheets pulled back and I pat the mattress beside me.

  “Climb in Red.” I request.

  She looks at me, and rather than fight me, she sighs and gives me a shy smile.

  I may have been strong enough to walk away from assisting her in taking her clothes off... but that’s it... I’ve reached my limit for one night. I’m not strong enough now that I have her here, to give her darkness to strip down... neither am I strong enough to close my eyes for her.

  She walks over and places her helmet on the chair in the corner, which already has my jeans draped over it, and then she drops her backpack and gloves on the floor next to the chair. She takes her jacket off, and she drapes it over the back of the chair, over my shirt that I’ve left there. She hesitates; she has her back to me... so, I’m expecting her to turn around now and hop in with her jeans and shirt on. Once again I pat the bed, as a way to let her know that that’s okay.

  “Come on Red!” I say softly.

  She doesn’t say anything, and then she’s peeling her shirt off over her shoulders and showing me her naked back, with the exception of a bra. I realise she must’ve been undoing her buttons.

  I’m stunned, because I haven’t before seen a women’s back that has my breathing struggling to escape me... she’s so beautiful, with her jeans cupping her arse and legs; so of course, I’m looking.

  Then her hair is falling down her back, because she’s pulled it out of her ponytail, and it’s now hiding her back from me, and the movement of her hair sweeping across her naked back is the sexiest thing a woman’s ever done in front of me... period!

  She turns, and walks to the end of the bed... showing me her lacy pink bra over her sweet perky breasts, her stomach is incredibly toned, and she looks astoundingly like the specimen of a Goddess, and she hasn’t even taken her jeans off yet.

  I’m in freefall, I’m burning, and it feels as though someone just pushed me out of a plane at thirty-thousand feet, and they didn’t bother to give me a parachute.

  Good luck with the landing!

  She turns without looking at me, and sits her arse down to take her boots off; and she carefully places each under the end of the bed, before flinging her socks onto the floor beside the chair.

  She stands again, and I know what happens next, and since my entire body is simply ready to splat on the earth... the adrenalin is racing rapidly around my body without an outlet, which means my body temperature has soared exponentially.

  My cock is so damned hard and standing to attention, that he could be confused with having been the product of a Viagra incident. And I can’t even think what will happen once she gets into the bed, because I have a feeling we will only be sleeping with each other tonight, which is a damn shame, because this erection would do us both for around four hours, it’s so hard, that even if I came it would continue to stay firm and solid.

  She’s shimmying her arse out of her tight jeans and dancing it around the end of the bed in front of me... I can’t prevent the squeak that erupts from my throat, betraying me for the pre-pubescent boy I’m at risk of revealing.

  She sits her pink lace clad arse on the bed once again in order to pull her jeans off her legs, and now, the air in the room is sucked out in anticipation of her entering the bed like that. I’m a fish out of water, struggling against the onslaught of the incorrect delivery of available breathing oxygen to my system. Or maybe I’ve just hit the ground... that’s it; I’m spread thinly across twenty square feet of concrete. Please, I’ve got a sexy woman in my room... scrape me up and place me back into human form so I can cope with the situation better!

  And then she does the unthinkable, because I’m reduced to a smeared mess on the tarmac and I can’t think! She turns on the end of the bed, and seductively crawls across it and into the space beside me, and so of course; I drop dead from heart failure right there! True story!

  “Hold me?” she asks, at least I think she asks, because the appendage that is my arm has enough smarts to first grab a pillow to place between us so I don’t stab her; and then it manages to pull the covers over us, turn off the lamp, and throw itself across her body... before having the extra nous to pull her in to me too.

  Fucking kickarse... brilliant arm! I’m giving you a raise tomorrow.

  Then if she couldn’t kill me quicker... she reaches in and reefs the pillow out from between us and says.

  “I know you’ve got a hard on, but that pillow was stopping you from holding me properly.” She explains and backs her arse right into my dick!

  Holy fucking shit!

  She falls asleep fairly quickly, but I’m not able to relax for what feels like hours!

  ***

  Mum manages to shuffle around the house fairly easily in the mornings, but as the day moves along, she tires, and finds it difficult to get out of her chair.

  She shouldn’t be out in the cold, but for some reason, it’s a ritual with her to go out onto the font landing and look at the view on clear days.

  Today is a clear day; she’s standing there, breathing in the crisp morning air and looking directly down at the driveway.

  I step out.

  “Jade’s here?” she asks.

  “Yes!” I reply; thinking about the sight of waking up beside her this morning... simply beautiful!

  “She’s in your room?” she asks. She
still hasn’t looked at me; she’s still looking at the bike.

  “Yes!” I answer.

  “Finally!” Mum groans.

  “No, not finally. She only stayed the night... sleeping, nothing else.” I explain.

  Why am I explaining this to my Mum?

  “Good enough.” She reasons.

  “Not for me.” I grumble.

  Mum laughs, clear as crystal and full and loud.

  “Give her time... she’s faster than me!” she says.

  “Thank fuck for that!” I say with a huff.

  She actually hits me on the arm... back handed... it’s the nicest thing she’s done in ages.

  Jade.

  When I wake up, I’m waking to the smell of coffee and toast. I love coffee, and I love toast. So it’s a double winner!

  I don’t know if I’m supposed to walk out there or not. I haven’t done this before. I decide that I should just blend in and not remain hiding. So I throw the covers back and go to the chair and start dressing myself in the clothes that I have left draped there. The clock says it’s 8:03am.

  I step into the hall with bare feet, and pad down the length of it to the end and turn left into the kitchen and dining area. Here I find Ben and his mum, talking animatedly over a cup of coffee. They stop instantly upon noticing me enter the room.

  My hair’s all over the place, and my head is groggy and dumb feeling.

  Ben jumps up and gives me his stool.

  “Here you go Red, sit down! Do you want some toast? Coffee? Porridge?” he asks.

  I sit down and suddenly Sabrina’s skinny arms are around me and pulling me toward her for a side on hug.

  “I am so happy to see you.” She enthuses.

  “I saw you a week ago.” I say, chuckling.

  “Not like this you didn’t.” She reasons.

  “True. A week ago you wouldn’t have caught me walking out of a bedroom Ben occupied.” I agree.

  Ben’s just leaning over the breakfast bench with a pair of grey flannel pyjama bottoms on and a white long sleeved t-shirt over his chest. He’s barefoot too. His face has split into a huge grin.