“Lindsay Christianson,” Landon announces at the desk. The nurse checks her computer before turning back to Landon.
“We’re just getting her settled into a room. You can take a seat in the waiting room down the hall and a doctor will be in to speak with you before you can see her,” she says with a short smile. We walk down the hall where the nurse directed us and open the door. Jess sits sleeping, curled up in a ball with her head resting on the shoulder of whom I presume is Gabe, her fiancé.
Gabe looks up and nods at both of us before gently waking Jess. Her green eyes pop open and she jumps up quickly from the chair and walks to Landon. He immediately pulls her into a hug and she starts crying against his chest. Landon comforts her, shushing her and rubbing her back. I chance a look at Gabe, who looks uncomfortable and quickly stands up.
“I’ll let you all catch up. I’m going to get some coffee,” he announces and slips out of the waiting room, leaving the three of us alone. Jess finally lets go of Landon and pulls tissues from the Kleenex box on a table to wipe her eyes.
“Hi, Matt,” she says, giving me a quick hug. I didn’t get the chance to spend a lot of time with Jess when she was in North Carolina, but she looks exactly like I remember her. Landon reaches out to Jess’ wet cheek and I can’t help but notice how, even though it’s been two years, he’s just as caring with her now as he was back in North Carolina. This is a side of Landon we rarely see.
“So tell me everything,” Landon encourages Jess as we all sit down together. She takes a deep, cleansing breath, folds her hands in her lap, and lays out the last twenty-four hours in gory detail.
“When I got to her condo about two-thirty yesterday, the place was a disaster. Just so out of character of the Lindsay I remember,” she starts. “I brushed it off, knowing that she’s busy with her new job and just getting settled, but immediately, something just didn’t seem right. You know what I mean?”
“She’s the poster child for OCD,” I remark and Landon nods in agreement before Jess continues. “Another thing that I noticed right away was how skinny she was and how tired she looked.” Landon buries his head in his hands.
“Fuck, she used to starve herself in college,” he mumbles, his face still buried. It’s killing me as I’m listening to Lindsay’s past and present collide, knowing I wasn’t there to help her when she needed it. My heart thrums as I think back to her telling me she was leaving for Phoenix. What an asshole I was for acting the way I did. I was selfish. Maybe if I had been more accepting, if we had tried to make it work long distance, she wouldn’t be in the hospital today.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Landon says, looking at me. “There was nothing you could have done or I could have done. There is nothing anyone could have done. I thought she was better and past that,” he says quietly.
“Go on,” Landon tells Jess.
“I didn’t know about her anorexia either,” Jess admits. “We went to dinner and she had a couple of drinks, but just picked at her dinner. She didn’t eat. When we got back to the condo, her next door neighbor, Jonah, stopped us and invited us over to a party at his place. I thanked him for the invitation and we went inside and started picking up her room and making the bed when a couple of guys showed up from the party.”
“Did she know them?”
“I think so. She was talking quietly with one of them when I left the bedroom to see what was going on.” Landon and I look at each other. “Anyway, we go next door, but just for a little bit, maybe twenty minutes. I was talking to a couple of girls and, all of the sudden, Lindsay was upset and wanted to leave.”
“Did she say what upset her?”
“No, just that she was ready to go home. So we did. When we got home, we opened some wine, and she finally told me about how miserable her job has been, her anorexia, you.” She looks at me with sad eyes. “She misses you so much and thinks you hate her.”
“I don’t hate her; I could never,” I say quietly.
“That’s what I told her.” She inhales sharply. “So we had a couple of bottles of wine and were talking, when she suddenly got up and said she needed to go to bed. I decided I’d clean up the kitchen and that’s when I heard the thump. I went to check on her and that’s where I found her, bleeding from the head on the floor with the baggie of pills next to her.”
“Do you know what the pills are?” Landon asks Jess.
“No. I showed Gabe and he thinks they’re Oxy. He runs into it a lot on his calls,” she says.