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My face heated, but not with embarrassment. Clenching my hands into fists, I refused to speak until they were standing in front of me, and when I did, I spoke so that only the two of them could hear me. “What have I done? That must be a joke considering Olivia is going to be put on a twenty-four-hour suicide watch once they’re done because she overdosed on antidepressants that were prescribed to your wife!” I hissed.
Mrs. Reynolds scoffed and crossed her arms. “Now you’re trying to lay blame on us?”
“What antidepressants?” Mr. Reynolds asked.
Grabbing the bottle from my pocket, I tossed it at his chest and said the information from memory. “Duloxetine, otherwise known as Celexa. Thirty pills prescribed to Cathy Reynolds, filled four days ago. All thirty were gone, and the bottle was next to Liv when I found her unconscious in the bathroom this morning.” I turned and took two steps toward the chairs before turning back around to face them. Throwing my arms out, I leaned forward and whispered sardonically, “Which, by the way, is probably why she wasn’t answering her phone.”
Mrs. Reynolds took a step closer to me. “Those are in my name because she was too scared to get them herself. She was afraid of what you would do to her if you knew she needed them.”
I laughed, but I didn’t know if it was because Olivia’s parents were so blind, or because I was just that much closer to breaking down after all this time. “Are you—are you fucking kidding me?” I said through gritted teeth. “I have never hurt Olivia. I told you she was suicidal, and you didn’t listen. I have been trying to get her help! I have been trying to get her to realize on her own that she needs help. The other night she called me saying she needed to be with Tate, that she couldn’t live without him anymore, and then she hung up on me. When I got home, she was talking to you on the house phone like nothing was wrong except for the fact that I scare her and shattered her phone. When she got off the phone with you, she told me she broke her cell herself because she wanted a new one. How do you not see that there’s something wrong with her? How do you not see what she’s doing? She’s trying to turn you against me because she knows you’ll give her what she wants. I’m the only one who’s trying to fucking help her! And how do you repay me? You put in a formal complaint with my chief?”
“Excuse me, sir, I’m going to have to ask you to step outside if you want to continue this conversation.”
I turned to look at the security guard standing there with one of the nurses, and my shoulders sagged. “It’s fine. I said what I needed to say.”
We sat on opposite sides of the waiting room for another two hours until the director of a psych ward in a hospital in Portland called me back. Stepping outside, I talked with him for well over an hour about Olivia, what had been happening since Tate passed, the escalation in the last few weeks, and what had happened that morning. He told me about how things were run on his ward and the benefits for Olivia of being treated there; once he got the report from Olivia’s doctor, he told me, we could talk again about the possibility of her going to his Portland facility for care.
Once the call was over, I hovered over Kamryn’s name for a few seconds before putting my phone in my pocket. I wanted to tell her what was happening, but I wanted to be able to hold her when I did. I was finally going to get Liv help, but I’d almost been too late. And my stomach dropped every time I remembered how last night and this morning I’d been wondering if all this had been a game to her.
Walking into the hospital, my steps quickened when I saw Liv’s parents speaking to the doctor. He eyed me warily, and my forehead creased in confusion. We’d spoken twice that morning, and he hadn’t been back out since the Reynoldses arrived. I didn’t know why he’d be talking to them and looking at me like I had no place in being there.
“What’s going on? How’s she doing?”
Mr. Reynolds’s back stiffened, and he turned to glare at me. “You disgusting piece of trash. What was this going to accomplish for you?”
“What?”
“You think throwing a childish fit and trying to make us believe you’re the only one who wants to help her would make any of us believe that our daughter would have done something so tragic?”
I shook my head slowly as I tried to comprehend what he was saying, and why his wife looked like she was about to kill me. Looking past him, I asked the doctor, “What the hell happened?”
He glanced at Liv’
s parents, and her mom urged him to tell me. With a slow breath out, he squared his shoulders and looked at me. “Your wife’s toxicity report came back. There was no trace of the antidepressants, or any narcotic for that matter, in her system. We’re running tests to see why she fainted. There’s always the possibility of a seizure, that kind of thing.”
My jaw dropped and I shook my head once. “No . . . she was completely unresponsive. Her breathing was too shallow. I was with her for five minutes trying to wake her up, the EMTs couldn’t wake her up. And if she didn’t take the pills, then what did she do with them so that they were all gone and the bottle just happened to be there next to her?”
“Or what did you do with them,” Mrs. Reynolds said under her breath, and my head jerked back. “She said she was afraid of what would happen if you knew she needed them. I find it disturbing that we get her help, and she winds up in the hospital just days later.”
“This has got to be a joke,” I said, breathing hard.
Kamryn
June 16, 2015
“I THINK it needs to be Sunday every day of the week,” Kinlee blurted out.
Laughing, I dipped my spoon back into the pint of ice cream and ignored her laughing when I moaned through my next bite. “Shut up,” I grumbled.
“Oh, whatever. It’s cute!”
“Lee, it is not cute! You try moaning like this when you eat sweet stuff! Think about never being able to try something sweet when you’re out. Never being able to try flavors at the frozen yogurt shop, just having to hope you’ll like it. Think. About. It.”
Kinlee’s face morphed into a look of horror. “No fro-yo samples?!”
“Exactly.” I pointed the spoon at her.
Jace was working, so we’d spent all day at her house in our pajamas, doing nothing but eating and watching movies. I felt so sick. So fat. So lazy. And so ridiculously happy.
