11.21 Suicide

Matt’s mouth suddenly felt completely and painfully dry. He licked his lips, and tried to keep from obviously staring at Celeste’s chest. He cleared his throat nervously.
“Can I try?” Celeste said, leaning even harder against him, and reaching across him to use the trackpad on the laptop.
“Sure,” Matt replied hoarsley. He got to his feet, and moved out of the way. “You can have my chair.”
Celeste was getting stuck for ideas. She was hoping he’d lean over and kiss her or something, but he was just acting interested and embarrassed. She followed the steps he showed her in the software, typed a couple example keywords, and when she felt like she had some idea of what she was doing, she shut down the program.
Matt was still eyeing her cautiously, trying to decide what his next move should be. Celeste stretched, her arms up over her head, which caused her shirt to lift enough to reveal the strings of her thong underneath her pants. Matt nervously licked his lips again.
He couldn’t stop staring at her.
Celeste slowing turned and deliberately met his eyes. She held his stare for a minute, and then she slowly and deliberately closed the laptop. She picked it up off the top of the desk, opened one of the desk drawers, and carefully set it inside.
Then, trying to communicate self assurance and sheer blatant sexuality, she stood up from the chair she was sitting in, turned around, and sat on the desk, with one leg resting on the side of the seat of the chair she had been sitting in.
“Sit,” she said to him in a husky deep sort of voice.
“Uh,” he cleared his throat. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.”
Celeste shrugged, but keenly observed that the growing bulge in his slacks gave lie to his statement. Very deliberately, very slowly, she reached up and unbuttoned another button on her shirt.
Matt couldn’t breathe. His knees locked, and he wasn’t sure where to look or what to do.
Celeste surpressed a surge of annoyance at his inability to take the initiative; she was undressing for God’s sake. She undid another button, and then another, still staring at him.
Matt was in heaven. Celeste’s long blond hair flowed down her back, and her flesh was an appealing peach in contrast with the stark lacy whiteness of the corset and blouse. He took an unwilling step forward, then another, and suddenly he was kissing her, stroking her breasts over the top of the corset, rubbing impatient circles on her back, stroking her tiny waist.
Any degree of self consiousness or self doubt evaporated when Matt took Celeste into his arms. Celeste allowd herself to be swept up into the swirling passion surrounding them, and all of her senses both dissappeared and were hightened as they kissed. She could smell him, a faint soapy aftershavey smell, and a growing smell of heat and sex. She could taste the salty sweet of his lips and sweat. Mostly, though, she was overpowered by his hands, his tongue in her mouth, gently, strongly.
Matt’s fingers slipped underneath the string on her thong. He traced the curve of her hip underneath it, and his fingers strayed to the buttons on her slacks. With one hand, he fumbled with the button and zipper, and realeasing it, reached inside her pants to grab her behind and pull her closer to the edge of the table and against him. Celeste’s legs were one on each side of him, and suddenly they were angled so that his throbbing hardness touched her moist softness through their clothing. Celeste felt the contact like a shock, and it heightenered her already increased state of arousal and awareness. Each time he touched her, each place he kissed her, Celeste felt like her skin was on fire.
Matt slipped a hand inside her corset, and teased each of her nipples over the top of the corset. He then shifted the entire corset down her waist a little, so that all of her breasts popped out over the top. He buried his face in between he breasts, and kissed, licked sucked, sensuously.
Celeste lost it entirely. She pressed his head against her breasts as he suckled, moaning quietly. Her moaning increased when he pulled her pants down a little to reveal her thong. He traced a finger across the wet line in the crotch.
[###One thing to consider here… what if the conflict in the romance part of the story is that Matt feels taken advantage of and decieved by his professor. The professor convinced Matt in his freshman year that he was gay. He took Matt as his lover, and it was a few years before Matt realize that he loved this one man, not all men. Matt found the professor with a woman one night, and they had a loud and bitter argument during which Matt declared that he wasn’t gay, and that he felt like he had been deceived, molded into what the professor wanted as a lover, and betrayed. Since that argument shortly before Celeste and Matt meet in Starbucks, the professor hasn’t really been involved in the project. Sometimes he hangs about the fringes of the library, but he hasn’t really spoken to Matt since. Matt is completely attracted to Celeste, but he’s never been with a woman before really, and he’s having a really hard time trusting Celeste enough to let her close physically. [There’s an additional possibility of exploration of hetero/homosexual relationships that might be interesting, or it might work to make Matt’s professor a woman, cut out the date rape thing, and have it work that way?] This should be the scene where Matt finally lets himself succumb to the attraction, and Celeste should feel some sort of joy that he was willing and able to. ###]
[### Insert more sex scene here ###]
Matt shuddered long and had as he came inside her. When he had finished, he collapsed against Celeste, and she smiled a secret smile of joy. Trying to make him understand that he was definitely able to phyically please her, and take physical pleasure from her, rather than just make an emotional connection, was a huge stepping stone in their relationship, and he had just surpassed it.
Matt breathed deeply, and pulled himself out of her. Celeste frowned in diappointment at the loss of contact, but he had only turned to get the box of kleenex to help her clean up. Very gently, he wet a handful of tissues in the cup of water sitting on his desk, and he wiped his seed and stickiness away. When he was done, he very gently kissed her there, and then turned to clean himself.
Celeste was remarkably touched by the gesture, but rather than making a big deal out of it and embarrassing him, she turned and started to re-dress. He did the same, and in short order they were put back together as if nothing had happened.
Celeste lingered for a few minutes, enjoying the closeness that they now shared, before she said, “I’ve got to go home now. Jeanne will be home in an hour or so, and she still shouldn’t be home alone.”
Matt nodded, “I understand. Can we…meet up… sometime tomorrow?” he blushed. “I didn’t mean it to come out like that…” he stuttered and blushed even redder.
Celeste took pity on him. “How about lunch tomorrow? I can meet you here at… one?”
“I have class until two,” Matt said, looking crestfallen.
“Ok,” replied Celeste. “Two, then. No Cambodian, this time, though. How about just burgers?”
When Celeste got home, there was a message on the answering machine. “Jeanne, this is Doctor XXX, I’m calling at two-fifteen on Monday, please give me a call back as soon as you get this. I’ll be in the office until eight tonight.”
Celeste waited anxiously until Jeanne returned home, and then gently relayed the message. “We’ll go out for a quiet dinner somewhere after you return the call,” she coaxed.
Jeanne shook her head firmly. “Nothing happened that I didn’t ask for in my stupidity, Celeste. I was an idiot to bother with the rape kit thing, you can’t rape the willing and you yourself said I certainly seemed willing.” She shrugged, relenting a little. “You call him back if it’s so important to you. I’m going to bed.”
“But itt’s only six o’clock,” Celeste said. “And you haven’t even had dinner yet!”
“I don’t feel well, I’m going to take a nap. You go ahead and eat without me.”
Celeste protested, but Jeanne ignored her, walked into her room and shut her door.
Celeste dialed the doctor’s office. “Doctor XXX, please?”
She sat on hold for a few minutes, before the doctor finally came on the line. “This is Dr. XXX, how can I help you?”
“Doctor, this is Celeste, I’m calling on behalf of Jeanne. She’s acting like an idiot right now, she says its all her fault, and that she’s not feelign well, so she went to lay down in her room. She said she wouldn’t call you, but that I should if I felt it necessary.”
He made agreeing noises, then said, “We got the tests back on the three major date-rape drugs. It looks like she tested positive for GHB, and just between you and I, she’s really lucky. With the amount that she had in her bloodstream, I’m surprised she didn’t have an adverse reaction and die from it.”
“So what exactly is…GBH, you called it?”
“GHB,” Dr. XXX said. “It’s most common street names are Liquid Extasy, and EZ Lay. It interacts with the dopamine in the brain to make the person feel uninhibited and generally relaxed. People under it’s influence tend to be easy going, and more or less go along with anything anyone suggests, even something they wouldn’t normally consider. At higher doses, like what Jeanne was under, they eventually pass out like you would with alcohol, but it very quickly becomes deeper, literally in a coma until the drug wears itself out of the system. God knows how Jeanne got herself up and moving in time to get the my office in enough time for it to still be in her system.”
“Oh,” said Celeste. “So what now? Jeanne should be relieved that it really wasn’t her fault.”
“Well, she’ll have to start by giving a police report, you’ll have to also since you actually saw the guy. From there, it’s up to the police, we can only hope they’ll find the guy who did it.”
“Ok,” Celeste said, “I’ll talk to her. I’ll call back if she decides to go to the police today, otherwise, if she’s still feeling sick, we’ll probably go tomorrow.”
“Sure,” the doctor answered. “And Celeste, make sure to check on Jeanne every hour or two. She’s in a weird state of mind right now, and I’m sure she can use any support that you might be able to give her.”
Celeste agreed, then hung up the phone.
She did a quick google search on ‘GHB’ and found more than three million sites with references to GHB. She found out out a bunch more information about it – there was nothing like the world wide web for filling in the gaps of one’s drug knoweldge. Within five clicks, she found out how to manufacture, use, and recover from GHB, not to mention what it looks like, and the best substances to dissolve it in if you’re trying to give it to an unwitting victim.
She gave it a couple of minutes thought, then decided that Jeanne really ought to be told what the doctor had to say immediately. Celeste opened Jeanne’s bedroom door slowly, cautiously, not wanting to wake Jeanne if she was sleeping.
Jeanne was laying on the bed, her head propped up by a couple pillows, her shoes still on, her eyes wide open, and Celeste walked in.
“Good,” Celeste said, “I didn’t want to wake you.”
Jeanne sat up in bed a little. “What did the doctor say?”
“You were given a date-rape drug. He said it was called GHB, and that it made you really agreeable to anything anyone would want you to do, and eventually it would make you pass out into a coma. He said it was really surprising that you woke up as early as you did, much less didn’t die.”
“I wish I had,” Jeanne muttered.
“Don’t say that,” Celeste insisted. “He said that we need to go give a statement at the police station, but that we could do it tomorrow if you weren’t feeling well after your nap.”
Jeanne rolled over on her side, facing away from Celeste. “Fine, we’ll go tomorrow, then. I’m not feeling well right now, could you please just let me try to sleep?”
“I can do that,” Celeste said slowly, as she got to her feet, “But I need to make sure that you know this wasn’t your fault. I wouldn’t tell you that it it weren’t true. You didn’t do anything that I haven’t done, that Jessica hasn’t done, that the hundreds of thousands of girls in this city haven’t done. You should be able to go out and get drunk, if you want to, without worrying about some old guy giving you some drug to make you have sex with him. This isn’t your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong. He did, and you need to make him pay for it, and keep him from doing it to someone else.”
“Uh huh,” Jeanne said in a dead sort of voice. “We’ll go to the police tomorrow, Celeste.”
Celeste shut Jeanne’s door behind her, and walked into the kitchen to fix herself some dinner. Maybe the smell of comfort food would make Jeanne feel better.
Celeste puttered around the kitchen for a little while, starting to fix her mother’s recipe for chicken and dumplings. She turned the radio on, and hummed along with some country music songs, and while the chicken was boiling, she decided to call her mother.
“Mom,” she said.
“Hi honey, how’re you doing?”
Celeste turned the faucet on high, hopefully the running water would mask what she was about to say, so there was no chance Jeanne would hear it. “Not so good, mom. Jeanne went out the other night, and some guy slipped her a date rape drug. She brought him home, but she seemed so normal that I didn’t think anything of it. It turns out she doesn’t remember any of it, and she’s insisting that it’s all her fault.”
“God,” her mother said. “Does her mother know?”
“I don’t think so,” Celeste said. “She told me not to tell anyone, even Jessica, and I don’t think she has. I’m only telling you because I need some advice about what to do. I’m really worried about her. She agreed to go to the police tomorrow to give a police report, but I don’t know if she really will or what. I know she considers herself more at fault for drinking and accepting a doctored drink, than she blames the guy that raped her.”
“First of all, Celeste. I know you, so I know you’re thinking this – it wasn’t your fault. You can’t very well give every guy Jeanne brings home the third degree, and as long as you thought she seemed normal, that was the limit of your responsibility. Now you’re being a good friend, and trying to take care of her and respect her privacy. No friend can do more.”
“I know,” Celeste said. “It doesn’t make me feel any less guilty, but I do know.”
“As for Jeanne,” her mother continued, “I think the only thing that you can keep doing is to be there for her when she needs you – as a shoulder to cry on, as protection, as a distraction, whatever. She’ll probably ask a lot from you, but if you’re the only one who knows, until she’s willing to open up to someone else, you’re it. Make her favorite meals, keep telling her it’s not her fault, go with her if she wants to go out but is scared to. Whatever. Push her into taking care of herself –doctors appointments, police reports, whatever’s necessary, as well. And most importantly, just keep remembering yourself that she’s the victim here. Some horrible person took advantage of her horribly, she had no means to stop it, and all she needs is help recovering.”
“I know, Mom.”
“I know you do, sweetie, but it’ll be easy to forget when she starts to get demanding of your time and attention. You might also want to consider, not right now, but after she starts feeling and acting a little more like herself, getting her and yourself involved in some project or activity – something to get her to focus on something outside of how she’s doing and how she’s feeling.”
Celeste hung up with her mother, and proceeded to pull the chicken, and make up the dough for the dumplings. She dumped the pulled chicken back into the broth, and put the dumplings in to cook. She had about twenty minutes before she had to do anything else for dinner, so she settled down with a relaxing book to try and take her mind off the last couple of days. This one was billed by Barnes and Nobel as a romance, but she had seen reviews on some newsgroups claiming it was anything but romance. More adventure than anything really. She had only just gotten into it, and already fallen in love with the male lead character with his Scottish accent, when the timer went off for the chicken and dumplings.
She finished preparing dinner, and then tapped lightly at Jeanne’s door. There was no answer, so she quietly opened the door, and poked her head inside. No Jeanne, but the bathroom door was shut, and the light and fan were on inside.
“Hey Jeanne,” she said in a loud voice.
No answer, but Celeste knew she herself hated to be bothered while on the toilet. Sometimes it felt like the only few moments of piece you could grab out of a day occurred while taking a dump.
Celeste knocked on the door. “Hey Jeanne, I’m sorry to bug you, but do you want me to set a place at the table for you? I made chicken and dumplings for dinner.”
Jeanne still didn’t answer.
Celeste knocked again. “Jeanne, please answer me, I’m not trying to bother you but you’re worrying me now.”
Again, Jeanne didn’t say anything. Celeste turned around to face the bed, just to double check that Jeanne wasn’t laying there curled up under the blankets or something. No such luck, so she gritted her teeth and tried the bathroom door.
The door was locked, but it was the kind that unlocked if you shoved something long and thin into the doorknob. Celeste found a cheap bic pen laying on a notepad on Jeanne’s desk, and she disassembled it, taking the ink out. She shoved the little plastic tube full of ink into the doorknob, wiggled it around a little, until she heard a click.
Celeste’s pulse was racing, and she was scared of what she might find. With all the noise that she had been makign trying to get the door open, Jeanne would have responded if she were in there and able to.
Celeste opened the door slowly, and as she had feared, Jeanne was lying on the bathroom floor, about ten empty prescription pill bottles surrounding her. She had thrown up in the toilet before she passed out, and her head was resting against the bottom of the toilet bowl. Celeste took her pulse at her wrist, and couldn’t find one. She felt around Jeanne’s neck trying to find one there, and felt one. Very faint and fluttery, but there. She held a hand in front of Jeanne’s mouth. Still breathing a little.
She propped Jeanne up, and tried to shake her to wake her up. “Jeanne, wake up. Jeanne, I can’t believe you did this! Oh my god, Jeanne, you’re not allowed to die.” Jeanne didn’t show any signs of stirring
Celeste left Jeanne on the floor and ran into the kitchen. She looked madly aorund for where she left the phone, and finally had to run over to the base station and press the “locator” button in order to find it under some papers on the coffee table.
She dialed nine one one. “Nine One One, what’s your emergency?” the nine one one dispatcher said in a brisk voice.
“I just found my roommate on the floor of her bathroom. She’s unconsious and there are about ten bottles of pills all around her, all empty.”
“What’s your name?”
“Celeste XXX,” she said impatiently.
“Where are you located, Celeste?”
“3863 Centre Street, Somerville Mass. It’s at the end of a one way street, purple house. Door on the left. She’s on the floor in the bathroom, and she had a faint pulse but I had to leave her to get the phone. I’m walking back in there now, and oh shit she doesn’t seem to be breathing any more. My number is 555-555-5555 if we get disconnected, I’m going to put you on speakerphone while I give Jeanne CPR and mouth to mouth”
“You do that, ma’am, the ambulance is on the way. Is the door downstairs locked or unlocked.”
“Not sure,” Celeste said, in between breaths. “Spare key under doormat.”
She continued doing mouth to mouth and chest compressions until the paramedics arrived. Every now and again, the nine one one dispatcher would ask for a status update, and Celeste would tell her, in between giving Jeanne breaths.
Jeanne’s lips were bluish, but her throat was clear, and air was getting into her lungs, so hopefully, if she survived, she wouldn’t be brain damaged. Please, let her survive, Celeste prayed.
Finally, after what seemed like forever, she heard the key in the door, and felt a huge surge of relief when they walked into the bathroom. One of them took over the mouth to mouth for Celeste.
Jeanne still wasn’t breathing by herself, and the paramedic also started CPR. Over and over again, he pressed on her chest to get her heart beating, breathed into her mouth to make up for the breathes she couldn’t take on her own. Over and over again, Celeste prayed, begged, cried for Jeanne to come back, not to go away, not to have this be the end of their friendship. Not for this. Not for something that really, honestly, truly, wasn’t her fault. Not for one night of stupidity.
Finally, finally! Jeanne’s heart started beating on it’s own again. The paramedics put a mask over her face, and were squeezing oxygen into her that way. Celeste breathed a sigh of relief at that much progress, any way.
As the paramedics were loading Jeanne onto a stretcher to carry her out to the ambulance at the foot of the stairs, Celeste gathered up her purse, cell phone, and all the empty medicine bottles that had been scattered around the floor. She followed the paramedics outside and into the ambulance, and as the ambulance took off at high speed, with sirens roarding, she handed the baggie of bottles to one of the EMT’s who were working on Jeanne.
“Two expired bottles of tylenol with codeine, two different kinds of muscle relaxants, xanax, prilosec, zantac, allegra, prescription strength bendryl. Great. This’d be enough to kill a moose, much less a girl as small as she is.”
Celeste nodded, that much she’d figured out on her own.
“Was she depressed?” he asked, gesturing with the xanax bottle.
“Not until very recently. She got the xanax because she had panic attacks every now and again.”
They were pumping Jeanne’s stomach now. Celeste could see the charcoal flowing down the tube, and being sucked back out with everything else in there. Again, she prayed that Jeanne would be all right.
Celeste leaned against one of the walls, bracing herself with her feet to keep from flying about. She dialed Jessica’s number on her cell phone.
“Hey,” Scott answered. He must have recognized her number from the caller ID.
“Scott,” she said briskly, “don’t ask any questions right now, there really isn’t time. Get Jess and come to…” she held the phone away from her mouth for a minute, and asked one of the EMTs “Which hospital are we going to?”
“Somerville Hospital, Miss,” he answered.
She held the phone back to her mouth. “Sorry about that,” she said. “Get Jess and come to Somerville Hospital. Jeanne tried to commit suicide, I’ll tell you all about it when you get there. She doesn’t seem to be doing well, so hurry.”
Scott didn’t even say goodbye, but as he hung up the phone she heard him screaming for Jessica. It was good to know they’d be there soon, she didn’t know if she’d be able to be strong for much longer.
Celeste’s next call was to Jessica’s mother in Chicago. “Mrs. XXX?” she said when a woman answered the phone.
“Who’s is this, please?’ Jeanne’s mother asked politely.
“This is Celeste, Jeanne’s roomate. You need to come up here immediately, Jeanne’s in the hospital. She’s been having some problems lately, and I found her on the floor of her bathroom tonight overdosing from some medicines that she took. We’re in the ambulance right now on the way to the hospital, but she needs you.”
“I’ll be on the next flight in. This is your cell phone number? I’ll give you a call from the airport to let you know the flight details.” Jeanne’s mother promised, before virtually slamming down the phone.
The ambulance slammed on the brakes in the hospital parking lot, and unloaded Jeanne. Celeste didn’t even get to hold her hand for a second as they unloaded her before they rushed her away, leaving her standing, alone, in the parking lot.
Celeste went inside and spoke to the nurse at the reception desk, and found out that they [### insert medical procedure…maybe more stomach pumping? ###]. Celeste’s only medical knowledge was what could directly apply to her own allergies and the few other minor medical mishaps that she’d had. Other than that, the only reason that she even had the slightest idea what went on in a hospital was thanks to medical dramas like “ER” and “House.”
Celeste stepped out into the breezeway of the hospital so that she could call her mother without bothering any of the other people waiting for treatment.
“Mama,” Celeste said as soon as her mother picked up the phone.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“Jeanne tried to kill herself. She took ten bottles of prescription medicine – literally everything that was in her medicine cabinet or mine, short of including Advil. I had to give her mouth to mouth and CPR until the ambulance got there. I’m so scared for her, Mama.”
“Oh, baby,” Celeste’s mother consoled. “Poor Jeanne, to feel so overwhelmed and like everything was hopeless. Just hold it together a little longer, Celeste. Jeanne’s strong, she’ll pull through.”
“I hope so,” Celeste said. “I called Jessica and Scott and Jeanne’s mother, and they’re all on their way here. Jeanne’s mom should be calling soon from the airport to let me know when her flight will be getting in.”
“Do you want me to drive down? I can take the rest of the week off work, if you want me there.”
Celeste wanted to say yes, desparately wanted her mother there to organize everything and take care of everyone. Unfortunately, she also recognized that even her mother wouldn’t necessarily be able to make Jeanne better. “I don’t know, Mama. I wish you could come down and fix everything, like you always do, but I don’t think even you’d be able to fix this. Maybe I could call you to come down if I can’t take it anymore?”
“Of course, sweetheart. Give me a call, and I’ll be there in three hours. I’ll tell Marie that your calls have first priority at the office as well.”
“Oh Mama, what if she’s not ok?” Celeste suddenly wailed.
“Don’t think like that,” her mother ordered. “Positive thoughts. Stand up straight, paste that smile you’re so good at on your face, and pretend you’re at one of your father’s political dinners. If you pretend to be positive long enough, you’ll feel positive. And that’s about the only thing that you can do to help Jeanne right now – project all the positive thoughts you can her way. That, and pray for her.”
Celeste did as her mother directed, down to the fake smile. “Ok, Mama. I’ll be ok, and so will she.” Celeste’s phone beeped, it was Jeanne’s mother.
“Mama, I’m going to go, Mrs. XXX is on the other line. I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.”
“Love you, darling. Don’t forget, stay positive for her.”
“I will. I love you too.”
Celeste pressed the call waiting button on her cell phone, to hear Jeanne’s mother’s voice. “How is she, have you heard anything? What happened?”
Celeste steeled herself, but she didn’t feel like it was fair to Jeanne’s mother to lie, when there may even be no point any more. “Jeanne went out with some friends on Friday night, and had a lot to drink. She wound up talking to an older man, a man who looked like he was in his fifties or so. He slipped something called GHB in Jeanne’s drink, which made her lose all inhibition, and be very very agreeable to anything anyone might suggest. He, as far as we can tell, suggested that they go back to her, I mean, our, place.”
Celeste’s voice was cold, emotionless, at the retelling. “I was awake when they arrived at the apartment, and I saw them come in. Jeanne smiled at me, shrugged like she knew it was weird but that she was ok with it, and pulled him into her bedroom. I went into my bedroom, shut the door, turned the volume of my tv up, and tried not to think about it. As far as we can tell, what happened is that once they were in Jeanne’s room, he must have dosed her a few more times with the GHB. He raped her, without using any protection. She was probably comatose during all of it.”
“Oh my god,” Jeanne’s mother said.
“Jeanne woke up the next morning, and didn’t remember anything. She’s never really gotten drunk all that often, but she’s never ever blacked out before, so I thought it was strange. I convinced her to go to my doctor, and he tested her blood and urine, but it was a couple days before the tests came back to conclusively prove that she had this drug in her system that literarlly made her do what anyone asked her to do.
“In the meantime, Jeanne convinced herself that it was all her fault. Her fault for going out alone, her fault for getting drunk, her fault for taking an open drink from someone, and her fault for bringing him home. I tried to tell her that it wasn’t her fault, that she didn’t do anything wrong, and that the guy did something that was horrible and undeserved. And definitely unasked-for.
“The doctor called tonight, and said that he had definate proof that Jeanne had GHB in her system the next morning. He said that she had enough left in her urine and bloodstream that he was surprised she hadn’t died, or at least, wasn’t still comatose. He suggested that we go to the police station tomorrow, and file a police report. Jeanne agreed to go tomorrow, but said she wasn’t feeling well tonight and wanted to be left alone.
“I talked to her. I tried to tell her it wasn’t her fault. I made her favorite dinner so that she might think about coming out to eat, or at least sleep on the couch. I went in to call her for dinner, and I found her lying on the floor of the bathroom in her own vomit. I gave her mouth to mouth and CPR until the paramedics got there. Now, I’m just praying for her. I’m so so sorry.”
Jeanne’s mother was crying now, literally sobbing into the phone. Celeste felt terrible for throwing it all out there like that, but she didn’t know what to say, or what not to say. And once she started telling what happened, it all flowed out.
Jeanne’s mother hiccupped, took a deep catching breath, and said, “My flight leaves in ten minutes. Which hospital are you at?”
“Somerville Hospital, on Highland,” Celeste replied.
“My flight is three hours and ten minutes long, it leaves in ten minutes. I’ll catch a taxi at the airport to the hospital, and I’ll see you there. I’m leaving my cell phone on in the air, text message me if anything happens.”
“Ok,” Celeste said. She didn’t have text messaging on her phone, but she was pretty sure Jessica did, and even if she didn’t, Celeste would figure out some way to text message her.