Ch6
It was not easy for Gigi to live after her crime had been committed. When she woke up, she was being held by a man in a large green shirt who more than insisted on checking her vitals. Immediately, she knew what had happened, and sobbed in his strong arms. For once, it wasn't about Crystal. It was about her integrity. Her band wasn't exactly famous, but if word got out that she overdosed at a stranger's house party, then they never would be either. She would let everyone down. Especially Heidi, who had been a guardian to her the entire time. She would be devastated. Her heart; broken on the floor of their one-story tour bus. Alas, as sudden as it wasn't about Gigi, it was again. This would readily become the reason they wouldn't talk. In fact, Crystal was probably at home asleep in Seattle, the whole event unknown to her yet. Perhaps she would never find out. Maybe they would never speak again, and the poor girl would never have any chance to find out. Either way, Gigi had damaged herself, and lay in her ambulance wondering when she'd be dead, and how it would undoubtedly make Crystal feel.
Heidi stayed up all night in the hospital waiting room. Around her, sleeping band members snored and dozed on sets of seats and on linoleum floors. Their levels of comfort could not be reached by the girl, she was dreaming off far off places where Gigi wasn't half dead and where the band was as famous as they could've been. She wouldn't ever tell Gigi until it was much too late to process, but after she had left for the house, Heidi was approached by a talent agent. A name she couldn't reveal until things were much more secure. They wanted the band to do an EP. They wanted them to go to a studio, to a place where magic is made. They wanted to make Gigi famous. Heidi pushed her head back against the wall and thought about how excited she was to go back to the van and let Gigi know. How happy she was that it seemed all their hard work payed off. How very scared she was to see Gigi's sheets empty and cold in the bed. It was as if no one had ever slept in them at all. Heidi knew something was wrong immediately. Now, here she was. Sat in a waiting room, wanting nothing more than to be perfectly wrong about the entire thing. Perhaps, she would get up and be fine. Perhaps, Heidi would stop dreaming and would wake up in a cold sweat, go to find Gigi and cry the whole night through. As fate would have it, neither of these things would become of the whole situation. She simply sat against the wall, drowning her sorrows in ice chips until a young man in a long white jacket approached her slowly. His beard was grown patchy, and this eyes were tired and shrunken inside his head. They looked at each other for a moment before any word were spoke, knowing that neither of them wanted to be here. He reached up his to scratch his eyes before he spoke, and Heidi waited with anticipation for his news.
"Miss. Goode?"
"Yes?" She leaned forward to meet his sleepy gaze.
"Well, I have good news and I have bad news." The doctor sighed. "The good news is, she's stable and making a good way to recovery. She's on a steady drip of Narcan. Bad news, somebody already came to see her, so her room won't be available for the next half hour."
Although Heidi already knew who would be in that room, she felt the need to press on.
"Who?" She faked. "Whoever it was wasn't with us. Why did you let them in?"
"Whoever's it was demanded that she wanted to see your friend immediately. That she'd been driving all night and that her and your friend had some kind of relationship. She was adamant, there was nothing we could do."
"And, I can't see her at all?"
"Not for another half hour, I'm sorry."
"Please?"
"Ma'am, I'm sorry, there's just nothing I can do."
"Look, she sighed. "I just found my friend passed out and half dead on a stranger's bathroom floor, I've waited three hours, I thought she was going to die. You either let me in there for ten minutes, or I'll be letting myself in there with or without your permission."
The man looked defeated back at his receptionist, and then back to Heidi. There was a subtle reminder that it was 3am, everyone was tired, and everyone wanted nothing more than to be returned to their creature comforts.
"Fine." He breathed. "You can have ten minutes."
"Good, I should think so." She barged past him. Let it be noted, Heidi was not that type of girl to barge, and demand. She was never the type of girl to ask. Gigi, however, was more important.
Knowing that the girl sat lonely in her hospital bed, this was enough to drive Heidi through all the crowds in the world. Now, there was a mediator. Crystal was there. Realistically, it could have been anyone. It could have been someone from the house party she was at, or one of Gigi's old friends from out of town, there was even a slight chance it was one of her parents who had put their past behind them and flew in to see her. Secretly, she knew it was Crystal. She knew deep down the second Crystal found out that Gigi was in trouble, she made any person she could find with a car to drive her across states to fix the problem with her own two hands.
The room in which Gigi was contained looked like something from the movies. It was dull, and lifeless, and writhing in its own filth. The blowing fades of summer dripped sweat down the walls, and Heidi immediately felt unclean. As if there was somewhere else in the world she would rather be. To make things neither worse nor better, Crystal sat lifeless in the room pushed into the darkness away from the bed, dark skinned woman hung over her in shame. That must have been Jan, but she never could have been sure. They didn't even talk. Just shared awkward silences and a slight glance of facing the scariest thing both of them would ever face for the next year and a half.
"Heidi..." The girl in the bed croaked loudly. Her dry throat swallowed and filled the room with tension. "Heidi, is that you?"
"You're awake." She paced towards the bed.
"Heidi, I was so scared. I was terrified." She sobbed immediately, desperately clinging to the ends of the taller woman's cardigan. "I thought I was going to die."
"Gigi." Heidi calmly patted the girls back gently. The wetness of her tears was sopped up by Heidi's shirt, and the girl couldn't help but feel slightly disgusted.
"One minute I was looking in the mirror, and the next I was being stabbed with needles. I was terrified, Heidi, I didn't know what had happened. You were the only person in the world I wanted to see. You, and the girls, and Crystal."
Gigi, body cold and frail, moved in towards Heidi, pushing herself under the girl's wing.
"And, oh god, Crystal." She trembled. "I did something terrible, Heidi, something bad."
Heidi lifted her friends chin, already knowing underneath what she did and why.
"What did you do?"
"That girl. Rose. Remember?"
"Gigi. Please just calm down."
"She was here, with me, at the house. I kissed her. I wanted her so bad, Heidi. I wanted to have her in my arms that very second, but I couldn't stop thinking about Crystal."
"You saw her again?" Crystal practically leapt from her seat in shock, electrified by the anger and resentment.
"Crystal!" She jolted around.
"God, can you do nothing right?!" She shouted, startling Jan in her stride. "Since I came with you on this trip, you have done nothing but break my heart. What did I do to you?! I have been nothing but nice to you."
"Crystal, I know! I never would've told you, you weren't ever supposed to know."
"So, you broke my heart, and you wanted to lie to me about it?" She began to cry, not realising the severity of the situation Gigi had put herself in. "Gigi, you are a horrible person. I wish I'd never met you, and I mean that. You put me through hell, and I could never forgive you. I'm going back home tonight. Don't call, don't text me, don't talk to me ever again."
Crystal poured the slight ounce of effort she had into storming out the room and into the hallway which had since cleared up since she got there. It was duller than before, with an air of calm about the place she was seconds away from disrupting. Inside, Crystal wasn't really that made. There was only a singular futile projection in telling Gigi that she was forgiven. Crystal forgave her many days ago, realising that crying on the balcony of her parent's summer home got her nowhere. To think that the whole incident had all happened in a matter of seconds, it could not resonate with her even slightly. It was painful, even, how sickly Gigi had looked, how her voice was hoarse, and how they had just lost all respect for each other in less time it took than to gain it.
"I don't know why you came." Jan huffed, slowing down from speeding after the girl. "This whole thing was stupid."
"I know, I just didn't- "
"Crystal!" A much deeper voice huffed. It was Gigi, stood there with her vitals dripping off her arm, and head hollow. She was sweating profusely, and looked horrible all over. "Please. Let me talk to you."
"Gigi, get back in that room. I don't want to see you."
"Please."
"Gigi d-"
"Crystal, I'm begging you"
"No!" She broke, alerting all the hospital staff, few of which ran at Gigi, clearly distressed. "God, Gigi! After all you did to me, I'm expected to sit here and talk it out with you! Well, I'm done with you, you've had enough chances. I want you out of my life. I'm leaving tonight."
Crystal turned away, eyes full of tears and clenched her fist. Inside, a civil of war of love and anger whirred up its own storm on her heart. She couldn't even bare to see her again, yet stopped before the hospital door to wait out the silence.
"And I never wanna see you in this hospital again, hear me?" She spat, through gritted teeth. "And you know, I think it's awfully selfish of you to overdose days after you ruined my life. I thought you were dead."
One swift look over the shoulder gave rise to the view of Gigi stood there, huffing in her own exhaustion and leaning on the arms of a nurse either side of her.
"Look at what you've done to yourself. Your band. Us. You only think about yourself, that's very obvious to me now."
"But, I love you, Crystal." She uttered weakly. Heidi stood to the side, chest puffed in response to all the horrible words Crystal had said. She wanted to hurt her, seeing what the words were doing to Gigi. It was true that Crystal was angry, but it was also true that Gigi was in desperate need of her support. All of a sudden, it became more about Heidi's rejection than it was ever about Crystal and Gigi being together.
"No. You loved me once, and all it got me was pain and strife. You don't love me, because you don't hurt people you love." Crystal shivered. "You don't love me, and I don't love you. That's what it's like now."
There was a long sigh before she spoke again.
"Heidi, get her cleaned up. I'm heading home tomorrow morning."
There was a nod, and then she was gone. For a moment, Gigi had her again. Her perfume lingered the room and if she closed her eyes, she was back there. She was strewn along the bedsheets, with Crystal curled up next to her. She was asleep, and she always looked so pretty when she slept. Gigi had always said she loved to watch Crystal go, but this time, it was horrible. She had watch her leave without knowing if she was ever going to come back, or if she was going to see her again; and this was the worst torment she had ever experienced.