Don't do drugs, kids

As if it had been any other day, Taylor had made a cup of coffee for Lauren and a cup of tea for herself. It was like a ritual after a day at school and whatever Lauren had been doing. Her sister had been in her own room for quite a while, so Taylor knocked on the door with her foot. There was no response. “Lauren?” she asked and waited for a moment. “Lauren?” she said again frowning a bit. Had she fallen asleep? Using her elbow, she pushed the doorhandle down and slowly opened the door. Her sister was laying on the bed, with her arms and legs spread like a starfish. Taylor shook her head with a little chuckle and put the two cups by the nearest shelf. She had to move a little bit of clothing to have the cups stand there a little unsteady. Lauren's room was quite the opposite to Taylors. It was quite boring colors and there was used clothing on most of the floor. Under her bed as a giant box with drugs that she sold, only slightly visible from the doorframe. Clothing was sticking out from drawers and shoes laid randomly around. Taylor approached her sister and realized she had a bluish tint to her skin which made her frown a little and move just a tad quicker so she finally could reach for one of Lauren’s hands. It was sweaty and cold. Quickly she put a hand on Laurens’s cheek to find it very cold too. Shit.

“Lauren, are you there?” she said with a loud voice seeing noticing how the eyes flickered a bit. Taylor quickly put two fingers against the pulse at the neck and found the pulse to be very weak. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she mumbled while she tried to pull the duvet a little away so she could try and make Lauren sit upright. It took quite the tried and power before Lauren sat up against the walls, with her legs along the bed. She clapped Lauren’s cheek a couple of times. “Lauren? Stay with me,” she commanded angrily, even though her eyes were filled with worry and slightly blank. “What did you take this time?” she asked and corrected Lauren’s head which barely could stay upright. It sounded like Lauren was trying to say something, so she leaned a little closer to listen, but only found her sisters breathing to be quite slow and raspy.

The doorbell rang.

She cursed. It could be her mother who might be able to help, or maybe it was one of the serpents who hadn’t heard from her or something. She just needed help. “Stay there!” she said and quickly ran towards her sister’s door, but shut it behind her, hearing how one of the mugs fell onto the floor. She didn’t care much for it. Help was needed. She rushed to the door and opened it. It was clear that this was the worst time that he could arrive at. She closed her eyes and took a deeper breath in, “This is really a bad tim-”
She could hear something fall onto the floor from Laurens room, “Fuck,” she cursed and turned around running towards Lauren’s room, “Call 9-9-9!” she yelled to Kemuel and quite quickly opened the door to Lauren’s room. She jumped like an elephant over the pool of hot coffee on the floor, only to land right next to Lauren who had tried to get out of bed – failing miserably. “Lauren. Lauren!” she shook her sisters’ shoulders to make sure she was conscious, but it only resulted in her sister puking. “Oh my God,” Taylor whispered in slight panic and pulled her sister into a side position to make sure she wouldn’t choke on the puke.

Taylor could hear how Kemuel was calm as he called the emergency line. As soon as she had gotten Taylor onto her side, she tried to get any residue stomach content out of her sister’s mouth by turning her sister a bit more and knocking on her back a bit. She looked up at Kemuel as he asked what Lauren had taken. She shook her head, but he put it on speaker. “I-I don’t know what she has taken. But I know it’s an overdose… She has been overdosed before,” she explained and moved her gaze from the phone to her sister and noticed how tears dripped onto her sister’s shoulder from Taylor’s jawline. “She has a slow pulse. She’s cold.” She shook her head trying to memorize what she had been told to explain last time. “I… She has an abnormal breathing, and her skin is slightly blue… I think it’s something that has lowered her central nerve system,” she spoke. The emergency caller on the other side of the line had listened carefully and told them that an ambulance where on the way. They were to stay by Lauren’s side. Lauren was not allowed to drink or eat anything, and they should keep an eye on her consciousness. Almost as the woman said it, it was like Laurens’s head tilted a bit more towards the floor.
“Lauren! Lauren!” she cried and tried to shake her sister back into consciousness. She let a hand cover her mouth as she sobbed. She looked towards Kemuel. It was so difficult to look at someone you loved and cared for lay unconscious on the floor. “She’s uncons…” she muffled behind her hand. She had definitely not hoped that Kemuel should be witnessing the drama in her householding. It was no fun to have a drug addict inside.

“Breathe Taylor, we’ll get her through this” he said and pushed her a little away from her sister so he could take over. He looked towards the bedside table and took a couple of wipes to dry of her mouth and make sure nothing else was in her mouth. He understood why Taylor had a hard time doing anything rational, this was her sister after all. After his mother had found out that Tien was using opioids, she had been keeping naloxone in the house. They could really use that right about now.

He kept checking if she stopped breathing, getting ready to do CPR if it came to that. But it didn’t take long before it pounded on the door, Kemuel looked towards at the distraught Taylor and quickly got up and ran towards the door letting the paramedics in. A smile was sent his way, clearly, they recognized him. Wasn’t that hard when your mother had been one of the best in her field. It didn’t take long for them to put a diagnosis and got the unconscious body on the stretcher and ran towards the ambulance. Asking if Taylor wanted to drive with them. “I can take her in my car, we be right behind you” They both nodded and drove off. Kemuel turned to Taylor “Alright, you need to call your mother and close down the house, you might want to take some of Laurens stuff with her, so she has necessaries while being admitted, okay?” he looked at her placing his hands on her shoulders “She be okay, alright? One step at the time, then I’ll drive you to the hospital”

She closed her eyes as he told her they would get her through this. She knew that she had done more than the first time she had seen Lauren lay like this but having experienced it before didn’t help a damn thing. It was still overwhelming, and she couldn’t even imagine how Kemuel managed to stay so calm – beside him not knowing her sister. She moved out of the way as Kemuel took over. She watched how he handled the situation, being impressed by everything he did. She did her best to support her sister and help keeping an eye out for Laurens breathing, even though she found her own breathing to interfere with her hearing, alas feeling Laurens breathing on her skin was still a possibility.

Someone knocked on the door and before Taylor even got to her senses Kemuel was on his feet going to open the door. Paramedics got inside and quickly gave Lauren some medicine, before she got onto the stretcher, and they ran out. Taylor was about to reply that she wanted to come with them when Kemuel said he would drive her, she looked over at him, still not really knowing what was going on. The then drove off without her. She wanted to tell him, that he didn’t need to drive her if he had other things to do, but he just explained what she had to do. She closed her mouth. She nodded a little and took a deeper breath in. It was like she could calm down a little now that Lauren was in good hands. As he placed his hands on her shoulders, she opened her eyes and looked up at him. “Yeah,” she breathed out, “Thank you,” she said calmly. She looked down between them thinking about where her phone was. She let her hands slide from her front pockets to her back pockets. “Can you call my phone and find it? I don’t know where it is,” she said looking up at him again.
“I’ll just find her phone and her jacket,” she mumbled to herself, not really noticing how her mind was pacing, “And my keys,” she looked a little around Lauren’s room. It wasn’t in her sister room. She grabbed his arms with a bigger breath. “Thank you,” she said and looked up at him trying to pull his arms of her. She walked around Kemuel to get over to the door and find her sisters gang jacket behind the door. She laid it over her left forearm and turned around to the bed, noticing the drug stash. With a bigger breath she pushed it underneath Laurens’s bed with her foot and started searching the top of the bed for Lauren’s phone. As she found it, she put it in the jacket. “Keys,” she mumbled and went into the kitchen to find the keys near the sink.

In her room, her phone would be by her bed on the night table. Her room was neat and looked like it was taken out of a magazine. Her desk was filled with multiple smaller projects, bracelets, candles, skincare, and small electronics. She had a bouquet of dead, dried flowers hanging on the wall, and in that corner, right next to her desk was a piano and a professional microphone and a headset. Underneath her phone were multiple mathematical books stacked on the night table.
“Did you find my phone?” she called from the kitchen.

He gave her a small nod as she told him thanks. He couldn’t really say no problem, or anytime. Because he rather not be put in this position again. This wasn’t really what he had hoped for coming here tonight. All he really wanted was to talk through things. But how it had all turned out, he might have to wait even longer because you couldn’t demand that she would be up for any kind of talking before she was sure that her sister was alright. Then you had to drive her home. He sighed and let her go as she pulled at her arms and nodded again as she told him what she would do. his eyes traveled towards the leather jacket with the giant serpent logo. Great, and the sister was a gang member as well? What the hell had he gotten himself into. He started looking around and walked inside what he thought would be her room. He didn’t even need to call it, as it was lying perfectly placed on her night table.

Now, Kemuel wasn’t a messy person. But she wasn’t this neat, not with her drawing equipment laying all over the place. He looked around, and a small smile formed on his lips. It was very much her. But stung in his chest once more, that he had fallen for a person that had ended up not telling him the truth. If she had just been honest, or at least told him that she had a boyfriend at the time. So, he wouldn’t have ended up getting hurt as he had done. He shook his head and came back to reality as he called if he had found her phone. “Yes!” he called back and walked towards where she had been calling from.

“Maybe you should bring her pair of fresh clothes as well” he told her as he handed over her phone “when my brother was at the hospital, my mother almost brought his whole room to make sure that he was comfortable, given he had to stay a little longer than your sister hopefully has to, but, I think it would be nice for her since she did throw up” he gave her a small smile, putting his hand in his pocket, playing with his car keys.

Taylor smiled a little as he said he had found her phone. They met almost out of the door, when he told her Lauren might need some fresh clothes as well. “Oh, yeah, of course,” she said and took her phone from his hand. Her dark brown eyes looked up at him as he shared a memory of his brother who had been at the hospital. She nodded a little. Lauren hopefully wouldn’t need that much of her clothing, but some fresh clothing might be good for her. She handed him the jacket, “Carry this please?” she asked before she would walk back in and open Laurens closet to find some of the clothing she knew Lauren liked to walk around in and threw it in a bag. She walked out with the bag open so he could put the gang jacket into the bag. “Okay,” she breathed out, “I got what I think she needs,” she mumbled and looked up at him pulling on a little smile. “I’m really sorry,” she mumbled realizing why he had arrived and what he had suddenly been pulled into.

He took the jacket and looked down at it. To be fair he didn’t really understand why it was a good idea bringing it. He didn’t know much of the Serpents, other than his mother always telling him to stay out of the southside. Which he had, and it scared him a little having a connection to a gang. Hopefully it wouldn’t have any consequences, but there was still a small voice in his head telling him that he needed to be careful about this. The last thing his family needed was him bring more chaos home. His sisters, and brother did more than enough of that already. When she came back he looked at Taylor as she announced that she got everything that her sister needed. He gave her a soft smile “let’s just get through tonight” he said and opened the door to walk towards his car. Opened the door to the backseats to put in the jacket, turning it so the symbol wasn’t noticeable. Then she let her put the rest of the things in, before he got in the driver’s seat and started the motor. Only to drive off when he was sure she had sat herself down and put in her seatbelt.

To Taylor, she hadn’t even thought twice to bring Lauren’s jacket to the hospital. The jacket meant a lot of things both for Lauren and for visitors. Of course, she didn’t know how long it was going to take this time, but it still meant a lot. The serpents were nice people who cared for their members and their families, so them bringing the jacket would only make things easier if a member dropped by. They stood up for each other… Lauren had once told Taylor all the laws like a mantra. It was quite incredible how much they put into the laws.
Let’s just get through tonight. Well, that definitely sounded like everything had gone just right. Her sister’s overdose was going to scare him more away, if he hadn’t already made up his mind about that before he arrived. She followed him and locked the door on her way out. Everything inside could way for another moment. She put the bag on the backseat, just like he had done with the jacket. She closed the door and got in on the passenger’s seat and as if it was natural, she just put on her seatbelt. Then Kemuel drove off and occasionally Taylor couldn’t keep her anxiety from making her talk. It wasn’t anything that deep but mostly chitchat.

//Timeskip

Taylor signed a form and nodded as a doctor was talking to her. She was trying to remember everything that she was told, but sometimes the doctors simply spoke way too fast or with way too many medical words. “Yeah, I got it,” she repeated for the fourth time before the doctor walked away with the signed paper. She had only just arrived with Kemuel and put the things into the part of Lauren’s ‘room’. She turned towards Kemuel, “Thanks for getting me out here,” she exhaled. “I would’ve loved to invite you to dinner with my sister and I, now that you showed up, but eh, yeah,” she scratched her forehead shortly and looked up at him, “I… I promise she’s more stable than that,” she excused and crossed her arms over her stomach.

Kemuel had never really been good with the small talk. He had always been an easy target for bullies, especially when his sister hadn’t been around to protect him. After their kidnapping because of something with his dad’s job, he had stepped up, and he had tried to protect his sister from the things she was going through. What a good job he had done at that. Now with his sister a fallen angel, and him not being there after their mother had died. Well now she was back to life, but that just wasn’t the same. Not when both Seraphina and Tien had been there in the woods seeing her die, right in front of their eyes. That was the thoughts that ran around in his mind, and now he was driving around with a serpent jacket in his car, having ties with Taylor whose sister was a drug dealer, maybe, but definitely a part of one of the gangs from Southside. Now one could dress it up all they wanted, but it was still a gang. They were still criminal, and they were not good news. Not something he could drag with him home to his family, not when Tien was still struggling to stay clean.

With his hands in his pockets, he tried to translate what the doctor was telling Taylor. Growing up with a mother that was a doctor, did give some insight. And truth be told, it hadn’t been that long since he had been admitted himself after shooting a nail into his foot, with a nail gun. He walked after Taylor a little hunched over, mostly because he had no idea what the hell to say about all of this. “Yeah, don’t mention it” he mumbled, scratching the back of his head before putting his hand back into his pocket. He looked towards Lauren that seemed to already be recovering. Wouldn’t take long before she would be fully conscious and maybe Taylor could already take her home tonight. He wanted to tell her that she shouldn’t make excuses for his sister, but he of all people knew that you did. Even if didn’t do any good, it wouldn’t make them better. You just helped hide away the pain they were trying to conceal with drugs they were taking. Sometimes knowing what you could lose would be the thing that helped you get clean. Other times, you just weren’t ready to get clean. But one thing that was always true, it wasn’t the people closets to them. “Things happen, we can’t be in control all the time” he ended up deciding to say shrugging a little. He licked his lips and looked back at Taylor. “I’m sorry Taylor, but” he shook his head. “My big sister is a recovering addict, and my twin she – I can’t risk having this in my life, and with this I don’t mean your sister overdosing or having trouble with drugs, but the serpents, I can’t bring that kind of ties with me home, I’m a son of a police officer, you can see how that would end up tricky, it wouldn’t be the first time criminals has used his ties to us to get to him” he let his hazel eyes find hers. “You understand, right?”

Taylor dragged a little smile as it seemed like he didn’t really mind that the puzzle hadn’t really fitted in this night that her sister had gotten an overdose. To be fair, he seemed to be quite down to earth with it, which for now calmed her a bit. As he looked at her, she could almost sense something was a little off. Of course, things were off. Nothing was right! He started to explain how his sisters seemingly wasn’t doing very well, which of course got straight to the young girl’s heart. But when he started to talk about the serpents and how his father was a police officer, it was like her heart sank. She swallowed a lump in her throat. She hadn’t really expected to hear that from him. “Yeah, I understand,” she said with her throat quite dry. “My father was a doctor and used to aid wounds for the serpents and on the hospitals,” she crossed her arms feeling slightly uneasy. She didn’t say her father was gone, no she simply mentioned that he didn’t do it anymore. “My mother is a lawyer and she doesn’t really like having Lauren around,” she glanced towards her big sister shortly. It was always so interesting how their mother tried to frame Lauren for whatever. She looked back towards Kemuel, “I know it might seem scary and all, but I promise you the serpents are cool,” she tried with a soft smile. No, cool wasn’t the right word, but there was no need to worry about the serpents. Her big sister and her two cousins were a part of the serpents after all. It couldn’t go wrong. “Or, I mean… You don’t have to worry about them,” she was rambling, “I can… No… Sorry, you don’t want the ties, yes, sorry, I got it,” she mumbled and waved her hands a little. “You don’t have to stay here if it’s too close,” she said with a sad smile and looked at him, “I’ll stay by Lauren's side for tonight. You can go home,” she nodded a bit as if she was very sure of what she was saying, “Take care of your family,” she said and looked up at him shortly.

He listened, like he always did. Something he had always been good at, listing to people around him. That was how you stayed on top, how you made sure you weren’t going to be the next punching bag for recess. He gave her a soft smile, as she finished her long talk, he had quite grown fond of that about her. Always talking endlessly around a topic, getting of topic before getting back on track. He rolled a little on his feet. This wasn’t about that the serpents was nice, and cool. Didn’t have to worry about them. He looked towards Lauren and back at Taylor. “I’m sorry Taylor, but even though you have close ties to them, and see them as family, they are still criminals, and just because there is a rule that all serpents stick together and help each other” he licked his lips “but that curtesy doesn’t extend to the serpents enemies, which are people that Cael didn’t really have a great relationship too” he exhaled before taking in a deep chunk of air.  “I’m sorry I really wish to help, but, right now I have to choose my family” he gave her a soft smile “please stay safe, okay?” he whispered, before leaning towards her, letting a his hand find her cheek. He placed a soft kiss towards her forehead. “I hope your sister has a speedy recovery” he told her before turning around walking towards his car again. How had things become so complicated.

He apologized again. She wasn’t getting anywhere with this, and it was all okay. But she didn’t want Kemuel all out of her life. Serpents enemies. It ran cold down her spine. How could he say- Oh yes, of course with his father in the police. She nodded as he took a sharper breath in. “I understand,” she continued and nodded. A slightly hurt smile spread on her lips as he asked her to stay safe. “Of course, and you too,” she reminded him. She felt like her heart stopped for a short second as he leaned closer to her, and when his hand found her cheek her heart started galloping again. She closed her eyes as he kissed her forehead. “Thanks,” she replied as she watched him turn around to walk towards his car. “Drive safe,” she called for him. As she was sure he wasn’t going to look back for her she turned her head to look at her sister in the room and shortly after she went in to sit on a stool next to her sisters bed so she could be there for when Lauren woke up.