Meet Me Halfway

Aubrey

I squeezed my eyes shut, feeling a slight headache come on. My stomach felt like it was in knots and I suddenly felt sick. As I opened my eyes, my vision was blurry, but even then I knew I wasn’t back at the hotel or anywhere I was familiar with. I panicked – my heart rate increasing – and knew something was wrong.

“You’re awake.”

I turned my head to the side and saw JR sitting in the chair next to me, looking relieved and smiled. Then I turned it to the other side when I heard a beep. Monitors? I didn’t understand why we were in a hospital. I moved my fingers and felt something heavy on one of them. What was I doing in the hospital?

“What’s going on? What happened?” I asked; my mouth was dry.

JR’s smile faded and I could tell he hadn’t slept. His eyes were filled with sadness more than anything and concern replaced relief on his face.

“I-I don’t know.” I saw tears in his eyes and that worried me. “You don’t remember anything?” he asked, hoping I would.

I could feel tears in my eyes and shook my head frantically. “N-no. I just remember the concert and running out of the venue. Why can’t I remember anything?” I asked feeling the tears slide down my cheeks.

JR looked at my curiously and wiped my tears away. “Why did you leave the venue? Hannah and I got worried when we noticed you were gone.”

I looked away. “I saw her. I saw Lauren or at least I thought I did. And when it turned out not to be her, I-I freaked and ran out of there as fast as I could,” I explained.

“Is-is that it? Do you remember anything after that?” he asked. I nodded slowly, but I knew he wouldn’t want to hear it. “What is it?” he asked with urgency. I shook my head. “Aubrey if you remember then just tell me.”

I turned to look at him and licked my dry lips. “Look, I’m not terribly proud of what I’m about to tell you okay? So, can you not judge me?” I asked. He stared at me confusingly, but nodded in agreement. I sighed. “After Lauren died, I started hanging around shady people who did shady things. One of those shady people turned into my ‘boyfriend’. This guy did stuff; drug related stuff and sooner than I knew it, I started to too.”

“Drugs?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I whispered.

I explained to him more details about that time in my life. Though I wasn’t proud about what I had done back then, I didn’t regret it either or feel sorry for my actions. I needed a way to cope and even though it wasn’t the best way to do so, it was the only way I knew how and it worked for me. And to reach the point of what happened after I left the venue, I told him about the drug dealer we had in L.A. and the only thing I remembered was calling him.

“Aubrey,” he whispered, caressing my cheek in his hand.

There was a knock on the door and a doctor walked in, holding a binder and smiling as she entered. “Oh good you’re awake,” she responded.

“Yeah, she just woke up a few minutes ago,” JR replied.

“This is great. Now do you remember anything?” she asked me.

I shrugged my shoulders. “I remember a few things, but I don’t remember how I got here or who I was with before then. Did you bring me here?” I asked JR.

He shook his head. “No. When we tried finding you, I called you, and after the ninth time someone from the hospital picked up. I came as soon as they told me where you were,” he said reaching for my hand.

Nothing made sense to me at that point. Did I ever meet Tom? Did I bring myself here? These were just a couple of the millions of thoughts that raced through my mind. More tears were running down my cheek when I tried, but failed at remembering anything more.

“Then how did I get here?” I asked.

The doctor looked uneasy and let out a sigh. “Sweetie, the paramedics found you at the ambulance entrance to the ER. We looked at security tapes and all we could see was someone pushing you out of the backseat and driving off,” she said sympathetically.

I rolled my eyes to keep more tears from streaming down my cheeks. “Did I get hurt? Is that why I can’t remember anything?” I asked wanting some answers.

JR turned his head towards the doctor, both of us waiting for a response. She stared at us and then sighed as she looked down at her binder. She opened it up and flipped through a couple of pages.

“When you came in we ran some tests – took blood, did an MRI – stuff like that. Your MRI came back negative for any bleeding or swelling, so that’s good, however…” My heart stopped and sunk when I heard her say “however". “…your blood test came back positive for Rohypnol.”

I looked her with bewilderment, because I had no idea what that was, but the way she said it made me think it wasn’t good. “Is that some kind of drug?” I asked.

She nodded her head. “You probably know it as a roofie. This is most likely why you don’t remember anything. It also seems that you had alcohol in your system and um…marijuana.” She hesitated saying the last bit.

I nodded my head, knowing that would come up. “Is that it? Is that all you did?” I asked afraid of knowing more.

“We did do a rape kit, considering the circumstances.”

Everything in the room seemed to disappear, along with the beeping of the monitors. I felt JR squeeze my hand and everything was back in focus. “And? What were the results?” I whispered feeling myself choke up.

“Negative. No fluids or genital tearing. My guess is, the Rohypnol was supposed to be used for recreational use, but with the amount of alcohol plus the drug use caused you to pass out.” She looked between JR and me and then back down at the paperwork. “Will you be taking care of her?” she asked JR.

I turned to see his response. He shook his head quickly and licked his lips. “No, I uh called her parents to come get her.”

The doctor nodded and left us. I pulled my hand out of JR’s grip and turned to give him my full attention. “You called my parents?” I asked angrily.

He rolled his eyes and sighed. “Yeah. What was I supposed to do? They have a right to know.”

“And what did you tell them?”

“That you passed out and were brought to the hospital. I didn’t give them specifics because I didn’t know them, I figured you would do that on your way home.” He stood up and placed his hands on the back of his head, pacing back and forth, as if trying to stay calm throughout this whole conversation.

“You mean the beach house right?” I asked keeping my eyes on him along with his movements.

He stopped and looked me in the eyes and knew that wasn’t what he meant. “They’re taking you back home – to your home. I brought your stuff back from the hotel,” he said pointing towards the corner of the room.

I didn’t comprehend why I couldn’t go back to the beach house. I had a moment of lapse judgment and now I felt like no one would trust me again. “What?” I asked making sure I got everything right.

“I just…I just think you need some time away from everything – me, the beach house.” He bent down and rummaged through my stuff. He walked towards me with a white envelope in his hand and laid the letter on my lap. “Here ya go,” he said and began walking towards the door.

I looked down at it and watched him grab the door handle. “Where’re going?”

He stopped, but didn’t turn around. “Back to the beach house. I’ll be there when you’re ready to come back. Bye Aubrey.” And he left.

My eyes fell back down at the letter on my lap and I slowly picked it up, sliding my fingers along the edges. I finally opened it and read what Lauren wrote:

My dearest Aubrey,

How are you holding up? I know it’s been a while since my passing, but if it had been you, I don’t think I’d be doing as fantastic as I’d think. But I do hope you’re staying strong and doing well. I remember how mad you were when I told you the bad news and how you stormed off because you couldn’t even look at me. I sometimes think it was all meant to happen that way. Me not telling you until that day and you storming off onto the beach, because it all led to us meeting JR. I hope you’ve soften up to JR so the mention of us meeting doesn’t bother you anymore. I don’t think you know how much he really cares about you and I know somewhere deep down you sort of care about him? Anyways, I’m rambling. Just…just take care of yourself Trigo.

Love ya, LV.

Every time I finished one of her letters I always felt like she knew exactly what was going on in my life – the present. Did she know I’d be this low in my life at this point? That her death would take such a heavy toll on me? And maybe that’s why she thought JR and I needed each other or that I really needed JR. Whichever it was, I blew it and wasn’t sure if I’d ever get back to the beach house.