Night Owl (26 page)

Every time I brushed back his hair, a fresh sheen of sweat sprang up on his brow. I touched his neck. His heart was racing. My god, what was this?

"Xanax," he chattered. "Get me one. Get me a Xanax. In the k-kitchen."

"Matt, I don't think—"

"Hannah!"

I scurried to the kitchen. Okay, Xanax. Get a Xanax. Maybe Matt was addicted. Fuck, maybe that's what this was. Fuck. Did he need some kind of fix? Was he doing more than drinking himself to death?

Panic made it impossible to focus. My hands knocked against the table and scattered pill bottles. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Which was which? Why did Matt have all these fucking pharmaceuticals anyway?

Finally I found the Xanax. I shook out one blue oval and ran back to Matt, who was gripping the sink. Water dripped from his hair. He grabbed the pill, chewed and swallowed it, his face twisted in disgust.

I hovered at his side. He smiled grimly at me.

Oh god, I despised my emotions right now. Tears gathered in my eyes and I dashed them away. Fuck, I couldn't stand to see Matt—a man who always seemed so smug and in control—this frightened.

He splashed water on his face. He drank from his cupped hands. I tried to rub his back, but he flinched from my touch. His skin was on fire.

"Matt, what can I do? What's going on? This—" I hesitated. This didn't look like any hangover I had ever seen.

Matt shrank into the corner again. He opened his mouth, then lunged for the toilet, clinging to it and gagging. There was nothing in his stomach. Nothing but water, bile, and a blue swirl of crushed Xanax.

"Ah, fuck," he groaned.

Violent shivers racked him.

I caught his hand and squeezed it.

"Matt," I said helplessly.

He seemed to be struggling with himself. After a space, he pulled himself to his feet.

"We have to... g-go to the hospital," he said. He searched my eyes, which were the size of plates. "It's okay, Hannah, b-but we h-have to go. Th-this is withdrawal."

Matt's grip on my hand was weak.

His words sank in slowly.

Alcohol withdrawal. I should have guessed, but I had never witnessed it. I had no idea. God, I didn't know a single real alcoholic.

Until Matt.

"Yeah, okay," I said. I needed to be strong right now. I needed to be calm. "Okay, the—"

"Get m-me in the c-car," Matt prompted, lurching toward the doorway. "Your ph-phone. Geneva General."

Matt's anxiety was contagious. My heart began to hammer and my hands shook. At least I had something to do besides hover and panic.

I helped Matt through the cabin and out onto the porch. He vomited over the rail.

He was still wearing boxers and those sad old slippers. I couldn't look at the slippers. I could
not
break down right now.

I boosted him into the car as best I could. Matt slumped in the seat. I dashed back to the cabin for my flip-flops and purse.

Geneva General Hospital was less than four miles away. I propped my phone on my thigh and studied the directions as I backed up the drive too fast, thwacking branches. I squeezed Matt's shoulder.

"It's okay now," I said. "We'll be there in eight minutes. Five minutes. I love you, Matt."

If Matt heard me, he gave no indication. He was crumpled against the car door. He flinched with each bump in the road and his shallow breath hitched, but I wasn't about to slow down. I drove like hell, swerving and spraying gravel. My headlights bobbed crazily in the morning dark.

"It's okay," I kept saying, "it's okay," staring between my phone and the road. Fuck the dark. Fuck these road signs!

"Here!" I turned sharply onto North Street. Matt swayed. "Sorry, I—" I glanced at Matt and slammed on the brakes. My scream filled the car. Matt was convulsing, his eyes rolled into the back of his head and his arms and legs jerking spastically.

I floored the gas. The tires screeched.

By the time we reached the hospital Matt had stopped seizing. I didn't know which was worse—the spasms or this death-like stillness.

Another seizure shook him as I hurtled out of the SUV. I sprinted past the ambulance bay. Eerie white light lit everything.
Oh god, thank god, thank god for this place
. I realized I was praying as I ran.
God, don't take him! God, please, he's mine!

I burst into the ER.

I must have said the right words, explained things right. All I could hear was my fear grinding and screaming. My heart was in the car with Matt.

I led the paramedics outside and watched as they dragged him onto a stretcher. His beautiful body was lifeless. Then he started to seize.

Strangers surrounded the stretcher. I tried to get to Matt. They ran the stretcher into the hospital and I rushed after them. I collided with a nurse.

"My boyfriend!" I shrieked, reaching after him.
My boyfriend?

"Hun, listen to me." The nurse held my shoulders. No way could I get past this lady; she was solid and Germanic. "We need you here right now. What's your name?"

"Hannah. Hannah Catalano."

I glanced around for the first time. An old man and a younger couple sat in the lobby. All three pairs of eyes were on me.

"Okay hun, what's your boyfriend's name? Did he bring ID?" The nurse led me behind the front desk. Right, this was the desk clerk. I'd just seen her, and I nearly climbed over her desk screaming about Matt.

I dropped into a bony aluminum chair and hugged myself. Matt, oh god, Matt.

For the next fifteen minutes, I fielded questions and filled out paperwork, half of which I couldn't complete. Every other question was a reminder of how little I knew about Matt.

At least I wasn't bawling. Fear and hollow dread held back my tears.

"What are they doing? Can they stop the seizures? Is—"

The nurse rebuffed my questions with more of her own.

"He's very dehydrated. Do you know how long he's been drinking? How many times has he detoxed in the past?"

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know!

Detoxed in the past...

I remembered the way Matt's hand shook when I made him pour out his last bottle. I wanted to scream. He knew this would happen, didn't he? He'd been down this road before, probably more than once.

Around six, the nurse released me.

"I'll call you in as soon as he's stable," she promised.

I shambled into the lobby.

People came and went. The fluorescent lights hummed steadily.

I Googled alcohol withdrawal on my phone and skimmed the results.

Life-threatening condition.

Drinking heavily for weeks.

Agitation, seizure, delirium tremens... can be fatal.

When I held Matt last night and he came into my hand—was it the last time? And if I lost him now, how was I supposed to live?

I scrolled through my contacts.

Mom, dad, Chrissy, Jay, Pam, Nate.

I should call Nate. Where was he anyway? Maybe he spent the night in Geneva, though I doubted it. He probably drove home and passed out.

"Hannah?"

The desk clerk smiled down at me.

"You can go see him now. Down the hall, he's in the first bed on the left."

My terror burbled back up.

"Thanks," I said. I grabbed my things and jogged down the hall to the ICU. I blinked rapidly against the sanitized whiteness of the hospital. Everywhere I looked I saw monitors and beds and curtains. I heard low voices and a periodic groan. Doctors and nurses moved to and fro purposefully, ignoring me.

First bed on the left.

No one stopped me as I slipped into the curtained-off space.

Matt lay on a hospital bed, the head inclined. Velcro straps tethered his wrists and ankles to the rails. He had an IV in one arm, a catheter in the other. His drip bag was half empty. He was asleep, or maybe unconscious. A monitor blipped his stats.

I swallowed and crept closer. The weight of sorrow crushed my chest. I made this happen. I made him pour out all his alcohol. I made his system fly into panic. I made him start drinking in the first place.

Someone had dressed him in a pale gown with blue spots and socks with rubber paw-shaped grips. A tube snaked out of under his gown. I touched his chest.

"Matt?" I whispered, but I knew he couldn't hear me.

There was a pamphlet by his bed: PHYSICAL RESTRAINTS AND YOUR RIGHTS.

I kept one hand on Matt's body as I found my phone and made a call.

I listened to the ringtone.

Just when I thought no one would answer, I heard a click, then Nate's groggy voice.

"Hi Hannah, everything okay?"

I began to sob.

CHAPTER 27

Matt

_____

NATE SET THE
plush manatee on my chest and I touched it reluctantly.

It was velvet soft with black plastic eyes. I stroked it as I glared at the wall.

"A stuffed animal." I smirked. "What does she think I am, a child?"

Nate shrugged.

"I can't say as to that, though you do a damn good job of acting like one."

Nate was being brusquer than usual. Than ever, actually. I hugged the stuffed animal to my chest.

"What the fuck is your problem? You've been a shit all week. I'm lying in a hospital bed, cut me some slack."

Nate dropped into the chair by my bed and steepled his fingers. He looked at my untouched tray of breakfast.

"I would like to know how you propose to get out of here without eating, Matt."

"I have no appetite. You can Google withdrawal. It's kind of a common symptom."

Nate sighed through his nose. He closed his eyes and leaned back in the chair. God, if he didn't look like a longsuffering saint right now. I rolled my eyes.

"You know," I said, "you could just send Hannah in here unannounced and try to get her to feed me. That sounds like exactly the kind of humiliating thing you'd put me through."

"Don't think I haven't tried, Matt. Unfortunately, she was so crushed when I told her you didn't want to see her that it would be ridiculous to try to send her in now."

"I don't want
her
to see
me
. There's a fucking difference."

"Oh, tell that to her!" Nate rose and began to pace. I had never seen him so agitated. He was always the calm one, the kind one. "Besides, she's done enough of my dirty work."

Dirty work.
That hurt.

"I'll see her when I'm out of here," I mumbled. "When I can get out of this damn gown and shave, feel more like myself."

"You and your god-forsaken pride. I'm pretty sure she's seen you at your worst."

"Yeah, thanks to you," I snapped.

 Nate and I glared at one another. My fucking asshole of a brother. Freshly showered, in a tailored suit, he definitely had the upper hand. I played with the manatee's flippers.

"I had no other choice, Matt. And you know what? She worked. I'm only sorry I dragged the poor girl into this. You pulled a gun on her, you insane son of a bitch."

I winced. Mm, so Hannah told him about the gun.

"Yes, she told me about that," Nate said, weirdly prescient. "And before you ask, I have your gun. And you're not getting it back."

"Is she here?"

"Oh yes, as usual, she's sitting out in the lobby like a goddamn orphan. She wanted to deliver that to you personally." Nate jabbed a finger at my manatee.

"Don't touch her," I said.

"Excuse me?" Nate's eyes flared.

"What have you guys been doing?"

"Cleaning up
your
mess. Taking care of
your
rabbit. Packing
your
belongings."

I nodded vaguely. So, my stay at the cabin was over. I was going home, but home to where? Home to uncle or home to Denver? Or would Nate try to ship me off to a rehab facility? I felt strangely neutral on the matter.

In fact, I couldn't think of a damn thing I wanted, besides Hannah. And even Hannah was unknown territory. The thought of her filled me with embarrassment and guilt.

"Can I leave?" I said.

"Eat your breakfast."

Only Nate could talk to me like that. Only Nate could make me feel like a child.

I pulled the tray over and began to poke at the omelet I'd ordered. I thought of Hannah sitting in the lobby, waiting for Nate. Waiting for me. A spike of anxiety melted under my meds. Fuck, I was heavily medicated. It had been five days since I arrived at the hospital. I had my own room and I was off the IV, but the nurses and doctors still watched me vigilantly.

My omelet was cold and rubbery. I scooped another piece into my mouth. I tucked my manatee under my arm and looked at Nate.

I wasn't trying to look pitiful, but I must have, because his expression had done a one-eighty.

"God damnit, Matt." He came to me and clasped the back of my neck, leaning in and pressing his forehead to mine. He smelled like cologne and autumn. Like the outside world. My big brother. I shut my eyes against the prick of tears.

"Why am I so fucked up," I whispered.

"Hey little guy, you're not fucked up." He stroked my neck. "I love you buddy, your brother loves you."

My throat constricted. Was he trying to make me cry? I squeezed the manatee.

"And Hannah loves you, Matt. She really loves you. Can't you see that?"

Nate straightened and turned away suddenly. He brought a hand to his face.

"We're bringing you home today." He cleared his throat and got control of his voice. "You need to make a meaningful effort with your breakfast, show that your system is bouncing back. The doctor is going to check you. The psychiatrist wants to check you out, too. Be nice, okay? And you
have
to promise to take your discharge meds, whatever they are."

"I promise, I will." I chewed another mealy bite of omelet.

"Alright buddy. When they're through with you, I'll fill out the discharge paperwork. I've brought you some clothes, too."

Another swell of panic ebbed in my chest. My blood was pure Librium. I was thinking about the clothes I had at the cabin. I didn't have much. When I packed in August, I wasn't worried about looking good. But now? Now I was going to see Hannah.