Achieving Unbroken
Chapter Forty

-

"There's never air to breathe, there's never in between's;
These nightmares always hang on past the dream"
Impossible Year | Panic! At The Disco

-

Jason
[Saturday, April 23rd, 2017 - 6:53 PM]

"JayJay, can you go tell Joey that dinner is ready?" Mama requests. Without giving her a vocal answer, I nod, slipping off of a barstool and starting towards the staircase. When Joey came home today, he went into his room and hasn't come out to my knowledge. I doubt he'll want to come down for dinner if he's that down in the dumps.

"Joe?" I tap on his door with my knuckle. "Dinner's ready."

"Not hungry," he grunts on the other side of the door.

"You sure, man? I don't think Mom's are gonna be having that."

"I don't fucking care, dude. I'm not hungry. I don't wanna come sit and have a 'family' dinner." I can hear the air quotes around the word 'family'. Deciding it would be best to not push any further and write it off as puberty, I sigh an "okay" and retreat from the doorway.

When I get back downstairs, my moms frown at my lack of company.

"Where's your brother?" Mom asks, already seated with the girls while Loraine puts down the last trays of food. I shrug, going to take my seat at the dining room table.

"He didn't wanna come. He's not hungry."

"Are you kidding me?" Mama snaps, still standing at the table. "That boy's attitude is like no other, hand to God." Wiping her hands on her leggings, she storms off and up the stairs; presumably to attempt to get Joey to come eat dinner. Mom focuses on getting the twins their food and I serve myself.

A minute later, Mama's footsteps are shuffling down the stairs, and only her footsteps.

"If he's gonna be like this, I don't want him at this table anyway." She states, taking her seat and dishing her food. I hear her and Mom mumbling about it to each other, but nothing that I can comprehend.

I can only hope that Joey will get out of this slump soon.

-

Hours later, I'm in bed, waking up slowly because of a familiar vibrating coming from my nightstand. Vision blurry and head throbbing with pain from the striking light emitting from my phone screen, I reach out and check the contact name. But, not before looking and seeing that it's 12:02 AM.

The person calling is my lab partner in chemistry. His name is Brett, and while we had different interests (he enjoyed anime and foreign pop music, things I do not indulge in), he was a cool guy and we made some even cooler projects together.

My only curiosity is why he's calling so late. It could be a misdial, right?

I don't answer soon enough, and the call stops. Determining that he didn't mean to call me, I rest my phone back on the bedside table. Seconds later, my phone starts vibrating again, and once again, it's Brett. I answer this time.

"Dude, you drunk dialing or something?" I groan into the phone, still tired.

"Jas- Jason? You there?"

There's a swarm of different voices and different sounds blurring with his voice as he tries to talk to me. There are people yelling, maybe or maybe not at him, there's music thumping so loud that I feel the base vibrating through the small speaker of my phone. Brett doesn't sound drunk like I'm sure most people are at this party. He sounds concerned.

"Yeah man, I'm here. What's up?"

He doesn't answer instantly, and I hear him mumbling a variety of "move's" and "excuse me's". The muffled sounds are the slightest bit quieter now.

"Jay, listen, I don't know what happened, but- Shit," he curses.

"Brett, what happened? What are you talking about?"

"Don't ask me, man - your kid brother's here, and he's fucking wasted," Brett hisses.

And my heart sinks. I'm flooded with panic, thinking about how the hell Joey could have gotten there in the first place.

"Wait, wait... Joey is there? At whatever kind of fucking crackhead party you're at?"

"Hey man, don't shoot the messenger. I'm trying to help you out. He's a fucking guppy here, dude. And he's shitfaced."

Halfway through his moment of speaking, I'm throwing back the covers of my bed and pulling a pair of sweats over my boxers and a zip-up hoodie that I've got discarded on the end of my bed.

"Send me the address right now," I struggle to slip on a pair of tennis shoes. "I'll be there as fast as I can. Please, don't loose track of him. I'm gonna be in and out."

"On it, dude. Sending it to you right now. Hurry."

There is something about the way that he says "hurry". It felt like foreshadowing, like he knew that the world was about to crumble. Like he could sense the destruction.

It made me feel like I had to throw up.

Silently, I slip out of the condo and make a mad dash to the garage. After throwing myself into my car, I put the address that Brett sent into my phone and speed down every road my phone tells me to. The whole way to the party's location, I'm teetering on the edge of breaking almost every traffic and speeding law in Seattle.

When I reach the address, I am met with the sight of a substantially large house that has cars parked up the whole driveway and almost up the entire block. When I finally find parking, I sprint past rows of cars and when I approach the front door, I open it and walk right in.

Instantly, this isn't my scene.

There's a bunch of half dressed people dancing to a song with no lyrics, and the smell of cigarettes in the house blends with the stench of marijuana. If I wasn't so hell bent on finding my stupid fucking brother and leaving, and took a moment to really breathe in the air; I might have to be hospitalized.

Are these people even teenagers? No one I know at Bringham would enjoy this. This feels like a frat party at that fraternity, you know?

"Jay, thank God," Brett shoves past the thick layer of people and slaps me on the shoulder.

"First, my brother. Second, whoever is holding this party, I wanna beat the shit out of them for letting a fourteen year old in this crackhouse."

Brett ignores my second request and pulls me down one of what looks like many hallways of this house.

"Okay, I didn't loose track of him, but he went into this bathroom like ten minutes ago and he hasn't come out. I've been watching him like a hawk." We stop at a doorway. "He came to the bathroom with some guy, they talked for a bit, and Joey went into the bathroom. He-" Brett gulps, heavy and like he's trying to avoid throwing up himself. "He hasn't left, man. I'm pretty sure he's just puking is guts out, but-"

"I got it, Brett. He better be fine for his sake, 'cause I'm gonna beat the shit out of him when we get home. He can't sneak into fucking parties and get wasted like this."

I approach the bathroom door, and without hesitation, I pound my fist on it.

"Joey! Christ, Joey, you're lucky I'm here. Let's get you a trash can to bring in the car and go home!"

No response. I can't even hear the sound of any kind of purging, even with the loud music. There is pure silence on the other side of the door. Like nobody is in it.

"Fuck, how drunk did he get?" I ask to not one in particular. Brett shakes his head and puts his hands up in surrender, like I'm going to yell at him. "Joey!" I try again, louder.

If he's passed out on the floor in there I'm going to be even more upset than I already am.

There is still no response.

"Is there some kind of lock to this door?" I grunt, trying to twist the locked doorknob. Looking down at it, there's no keyhole. "Joey!"

Nothing, nothing, nothing. My anger fades into a burning fear. My breathing becomes shallow.

"You're sure he's in here?" I clarify with Brett. He nods rapidly and crosses his heart with his right index finger. Exhaling sharply through my nose, I review the options that I have in my head. There aren't that many. In fact, there's only one; unless you would count leaving Joey here as an "option".

I don't.

Grabbing the door handle and holding it in place, I position my shoulder against the door, and pull myself back. Squeezing my eyes shut, I shove myself into the door, breaking it open just the smallest amount.

But it's enough. The door is open.

I have to put more effort into opening the door wider, because something has been positioned against the door. As I push it more, I can't see Joey, but I hear something.

Not the sound of a human.

The sound is shallow, like plastic. A tapping noise on the floor.

I suddenly feel as if I'm in a horror movie, and the jump scare is just around the corner.

Don't look, a voice in my head screams. It's the jump scare. Don't look.

I peer around the door, letting it shut more so that I have more room to stand.

And when I look, I see that something wasn't just positioned behind the door.

There was a body slumped against the door. The body, in fact, is curled up and limp and thin, head not turned my direction. The body folded up when I opened the door. It hasn't unfolded since I closed it.

My mind goes blank.

"Joey!?" I hear. The voice is loud, frantic. The voice is desperate. The voice is mine.

Hands, my hands, reach down and grasp the body so hard the knuckles bleach white. The hands turn him over. Eyes recognize the face of Joey Oakland; a face that was once pink and warm, now a bone-chilling shade of grey. "Joey..."

A strangled noise; a sob, a scream, claws its way up my throat and out of my mouth.

"Joey!"

Hands shake the body more.

The body doesn't move.

The heart in my own body freezes. My chest hurts, so, so bad, like an axe being taken to a porcelain heart. My knees give out and have to rest on the ground. My legs don't ever feel like holding me upright again. My arms are gelatin. Vision swirled with the frozen image of my brother, limp on a bathroom floor, and salty tears that are covering my face in a layer of dampness.

My eyes want to stop looking at him but they also never want to look away. If I look away he might be gone. If I keep looking... I don't know.

My eyes flicker away, just for the briefest moment, but it's long enough to notice the syringe that's lying adjacent to Joey's arm.

On Joey's arm, a small, pink circle is painted. It stares at me, laughing in my face, proud that it got to my brother before I could.

Oh my God. It got to him before I could.

"Joey! Joey! Call nine-one-one!" I scream, so hard that I feel the tissue of my throat ripping. I fling the door open - it knocks into Joey, but not too hard - seeing Brett still there, and I scream over and over "Call nine-one-one! Call them! Now!"

My face is hot. My hands are cold. My body is cold.

Joey's body is cold.

My hands fumble and reach for a pulse. I check his chest, his wrist, his neck. I don't feel anything. But the paramedics could.

Thoughts of something to do, action to take, go through my mind so fast I almost can't understand them all.

CPR. Chest compressions.

Something.

I position my numb hands best I can in the correct position, pumping both too lightly and too hard at the same time.

I don't want to hurt him.

I need him to live. Breathe already. The sooner the better.

I'll break all of his ribs if it means he stays alive.

Flaming tears race down my face, down my jaw, my cheeks, dripping from my chin to my hands and Joey's shirt.

His eyes are open. His lips are blue. His face is expressionless.

He's alive. He can't not be.

It's impossible.

I can't hear anything. I can't here anything when the pounding base suddenly stops and there's the thumps of hundreds of feet scuffling out of the house before the instant responders arrive and have them all arrested for possession. I can't hear what anyone says when a small crowd gathers outside of the bathroom, out of the corner of my eye, everybody in this audience supposedly sober and genuinely concerned.

I can't even hear my breathing. Am I breathing? Is Joey?

EMT's push past the partygoers and attempt to gently pry me from Joey.

My grip on him is so tight that I rip pieces of his shirt off.

I can't hear my retaliations to being removed from him, but I know that they're there.

I'm a sobbing mess on my knees in the crowd of people while I watch the medics roll a gurney in, and lift him up, limbs dangling. He slumps on the gurney as they set him down, and one of the EMT's gets on top of Joey to continue giving chest compressions. I follow them as they wheel him away to the ambulance, and two words in the mess of the medical lingo stick out to me.

"No pulse!"

They let me ride in the ambulance with him. I hyperventilate through the tears, and a medic even hands me a mask, telling me that I'll go unconscious if I keep breathing like this.

I think I tell him to put it on Joey. Help Joey breathe. I don't matter. The medic tells me that Joey isn't breathing. I tell him that he has to be breathing; he's alive.

The medic doesn't say anything. At least, until we arrive at the hospital, and I'm told to state my relationship to the patient and call who I can.

He's my brother. I call everybody. Mom, Dad, Loraine, Penny.

And within minutes that simultaneously feel like milliseconds and months, they're with me in the waiting room, screaming and screaming at any and every hospital employee about what's wrong with their son. They scream at me. I scream back; only much less clear. It's all strangled and fucked.

"The blood test results tells us that it was a heroine overdose."

When I hear the word "overdose", I look up. My mother looks like shit, bags under her cherry red bloodshot eyes. Mama looks similar, messy hair and all. Dad stares at the doctor like he could kill him. Penny, about to fall apart, spins around and pulls Carl - who I didn't know was here - into a lung-crushing embrace.

"Overdose?" Mom whispers so faint that I'm surprised the doctor hears it.

"I am so sorry for your loss," he responds.

Mom falls to the ground. The twins - also who I weren't aware were here - go to make sure she's okay.

Dad leans on a chair, bracing his stomach.

Penny holds onto Carl.

Mama leaves.

I stay in my chair, sure that I had misunderstood everything the doctor had just said.

What loss? Joey's alive. You just took some blood. That's all.

Then why is Mom a weeping heap on the linoleum?

Why did Dad make a mad dash to the bathroom to vomit up his denial?

Why is Penny melding herself to Carl, like if she lets go, she'll loose him?

Why did Loraine run off?

Why do I feel like I'm being suffocated, choked by hands that aren't there?

Most would say the answer is simple.

But if you're in my place, if you are in my family's current position - the answer is a pill that we are choking on while trying to swallow. Our bodies are physically rejecting it.

You would say that Joey is dead.

But, you see, we can't say that. Not right now.

We can't even try.

-

This chapter was overwhelming to write.

Beyond overwhelming.

Today, I have no funny comment or plea to vote or comment.

I have a special dedication, that I mentioned at the beginning:
This is for anyone struggling with grief. You aren't alone.
My door is open.

I love you all. Be safe.

PS. Since the main reasons for the flashback chapters were all related to Joey and his death, and now that has been revealed; those chapters end here.

We can only move forward now.