Wherever You Are

I woke up in the dark hours of morning. It was barely four o'clock and my phone wouldn't stop ringing. I groggily answered when I noticed that it was Sarah, not bothering to question why she didn't come by my room. Her voice was in panic, and I quickly shot upright and reached for my glasses on the night stand.

"Dani, we had to take Leda to the hospital. They need you here to fill out the insurance paperwork. Richard is waiting to get a cab."

The long drive to the hospital was a quiet one during which I did my best to not give in to the frenzy. I needed to stay calm and collected, even though I didn't know what had happened or what to expect. Sarah didn't have the time to sit on the phone, and I could hear Leda groaning in the background before she hung up. I loved that in Japan, paparazzi was hardly a thing. They all kept their distance, and didn't bother you. I had never been appreciative of that until I was rushing through the hospital, barely noticing that I hadn't seen a single camera. Leda was probably thankful for that, too. When I reached her room, she was a terrifying sight. Her forehead was glistening with sweat, and she had a tube down her throat and was connected to so many monitors and drips. Sarah wasn't alone where she sat, on the edge of the room. Michael and Luke were there, too. They were all dressed rather haphazardly and I assumed that they were probably sleeping when everything happened. But what had happened? I pulled Sarah into the hall to get caught up.

She was very uncomfortable with talking about it. I couldn't help but feel like she was leaving some details out, but the bigger picture was most important. Leda had gone to Michael and Luke's room and passed out. Luke had called Sarah to come retrieve her and get her to bed, but when Sarah arrived it went downhill. Leda wasn't breathing and her face was turning blue. I looked into her face when I entered the room again and could tell that her skin looked a bit different than usual. Just different. It was hard to tell because she was usually wearing pale make up and black lipstick. I tried to imagine her looking blue but the image wasn't coming to me. The hospital interpreter and record keeper came to the room momentarily and we discussed the details of payment. I carried insurance on everyone who worked for me while we were on tour for such accidents, and kept all pertinent documents digitally, in my phone. It was a long discussion but my adrenaline was still racing so it didn't feel so bad. Nearing the end of the thick packet of paperwork, the record keeper cleared his throat and spoke rather quickly. The interpreter translated a bit slowly before it started to make sense to me. "Now, let's discuss payment regarding rehabilitation treatment." My head short up from my phone, uncertain what he was trying to say. "Rehabilitation?" The record keeper spoke up again by my brain was starting to mute out the nonsense.

"Her blood alcohol content was too high, the doctor was surprised that she wasn't dead already. Paired with the commentary from the boyfriend regarding her drinking habits-" I interrupted the interpreter, my chest growing tense. "Michael is not Leda's boyfriend." He continued anyway. "It's of the upmost importance that she finds some form of rehabilitation to help her body heal. We have a great program in the city that lasts only six months-" my throat felt dry. "Six months?!" Both men jumped at the shrill sound of my voice. "We don't have six months! There has to be something else." The record keeper shook his head as he shuffled through the paperwork on his lap, clearly trying to find something specific. When he did find it, he handed it to me but I had no way of reading it, so I just handed it right back as the interpreter went on. "Matters of this sort are very serious. Alcoholism is a life threatening condition and it's a difficult road to recovery. She will need a lot of help-" help. Leda needed help. She needed help and what a better time than when she was surrounded by people who adored her? "We'll take care of her. I mean, it's not going to be easy but it can't be impossible. No alcohol, right? Okay, done."

"Miss Weston, we really advise against this decision-" he was growing tired of being interrupted but I never took no for an answer when it counted. "But the decision is ours, right? Leda will be much more willing to recover in the presence of the people she loves." The record keeper clicked his tongue before waving a hand, as thigh he were finished trying to put up with me, and he left the room. The interpreter thanked me for his time and have a friendly nod as he left as well. I didn't get up from my own seat quite yet. There was a lot of information buzzing around in my head and I needed to take a moment and process what had just happened. I had made a terrible decision, I already knew it. The thing was, it was made selfishly. I didn't want Leda to attend a six month long program that could save her life because I had already poured money into this tour and couldn't do it without her. She just lost out on a great opportunity, and it was all because of me. I swallowed hard, finding it difficult to mute my mind as I finally left the room. I needed to take this whole recovery thing seriously, which meant so did everyone else. We needed a meeting of the minds.

I returned to the room and asked Sarah to call the hotel and have everyone woken up. We were going to take over a conference room here at the hospital and have a discussion regarding the situation at hand. No one knew what was going on and Michael grew obviously tense at the thought of things being bad enough to require a meeting. Still, I couldn't take any chances considering how monumentally I had just screwed up. Now, I just needed to think about what I was going to say.