Riley

JOSH IS CALLING…

Chris looks at the phone through squinted and blurry eyes, it’s 4:32am, and Josh doesn’t call this late.

Not unless something is wrong, and that alone is enough for Chris to sit up, answering the call with a click.

“Hello..?” His voice is rough and hoarse when he speaks, grating and harsh through the speakers.

“Heyyyyyyy Chris,” He replies in a upbeat tone that doesn’t sound quite right.

“Josh? What’s up man?”

“Jus’ wanna call my best friend. What’s wrong with that?”

Chris reached around blindly for his glasses, tucking the phone between his shoulder and ear.

“It’s 4 in the morning.”

Chris grabs his glasses, sliding them on before grabbing the phone again, perched on the side of his bed.

Something about this didn’t feel right.

Chris can hear Josh moving around on the other side, his footsteps making soft thuds, but he doesn’t respond.

“Josh,” Chris’ voice is firm, this was starting to get worrying.

“Mhm?” He answered softly.

“What’s wrong, be honest with me.”

Chris stood up, flicking on his light and searching for his shoes quietly as he waited for Josh to respond.

It took him a few minutes to actually respond. Almost like he was toying with the idea of what to say.

“I love you.”

Chris froze, hand hovering over his pair of shoes. A nice pair Josh got him two years ago as a birthday gift.

He heard the sound of something fall across the line, ratting as it rolled away. Thudding against something hard.

“Josh. What are you doing right now?”

“Sitting,” He hummed, soft and slow, almost slurred.

“Joshua. Where are you sitting.”

Chris slipped on his shoes, grabbing his keys. His heart was hammering in his chest. Something was wrong. Something was so very wrong.

Josh huffed, his head making a soft thud as he dropped it against something, “you didn’t say it back.” His voice was soft, slow even.

“Say what back?”

Josh didn’t respond, soft breathing meeting his question instead.

“Josh. Cmon man keep talking.”

Chris was jogging to his truck now, swinging the door open and jumping in, putting the car in drive before he even had time to fully shut the door. The phone dropped onto the center console.

“M’ tired, Chris,” his voice was slurred now, like each word was weighed down in his tongue.

“I need you to stay awake for me Josh, come on man.”

He was pushing 70 at this point, racing to get to him, because if he didn’t? He didn’t want to think about what would happen.

“I miss my sisters,” Josh’s voice cracked. Raw and broken from a year of unbridled guilt,

“I know you do, buddy. You were a great brother. You ARE a great brother.”

“Not good enough to find them. Wa’ too drunk to even know they were gone.”

“Wasn’t your fault man. It was supposed to be just a fun night together and it went to shit. None of that was your fault.”

Chris could hear sobs wracking through Josh’s body at this point, full uncontrollable sobbing. He wasn’t sure if Josh was sober—he didn’t stay sober much after his sisters deaths—but he did know he wasn’t all there right now.

“I should’ve been there. Should’ve been able to.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“But it was. If I had been sober then I could’ve foun’ them. They’d be alive. They wouldn’t be missing.”

Chris could hear how bitter Josh’s voice sounded. Like he was ashamed of himself. Ashamed of the fact that he let his sisters disappear.

“We don’t know if their dead Josh,” Chris pleaded. He didn’t know how to make him believe that it wasn’t his fault.

Josh gasped, coughing and choking in between sobs, clothes rustling as he moved around.

“Josh, what are you doing?”

“M’ trying to get comfortable,” he replied sluggishly.

Chris’ hands tightened on the steering wheel, knuckles whitening from the grip. Taking a sharp turn down the street, trying to get to Josh as quickly as he can.

“C’mon man, why don’t you sit up? Keep talking to me.”

“M’ don’t want to. Wanna sleep,” he mumbled, sniffling and coughing, not sobbing as hard as before, but not fully stopped.

Chris frowns, wracking his brain for something to get Josh to keep talking, his eyes darting between houses as he gets closer.

“Rememeber when we were 12? And you kicked my ass at baseball?”

Chris hears the way Josh lets out a half hearted laugh in between sniffles, a small win, but anything works to get him to laugh, for him to keep talking.

“Yeah, an’ I broke your glasses. Your mom was pissed. Wouldn’t let us hang out for the rest of the summer,” he replied, his voice becoming more slurred with each word. He was struggling to stay away now.

“Yeah, took us begging forever for her to let me come back over afterwards. Even with your dad offering to pay to fix my glasses.”

“He felt so bad. M’ felt awful for weeks.”

Chris eyed Josh's house getting closer, slowing down as he pulled into the drive way, turning the ignition off as he grabbed his phone. Flicking through the keys to find Josh’s house key.

“I know, you kept apologizing every time you saw me. But you did say it made me look less like a nerd without them,” Chris joked.

He jams the key into the keyhole, turning it with shaky hands and slamming it open.

He could hear the way Josh jumps over the line, his body making a soft thud as he hits it against the wall. His breathing picked up slightly.

“Chris?”

Chris bolts up the stairs towards Josh’s room, yanking open the door, his eyes searching every crevice of it just to come up empty. He turns to the bathroom connected to his room, heading to it quickly, and giggling the doorknob.

Locked.

He tries to turn it again, it doesn’t move.

“Josh, open the door man come on.”

He can hear the way his voice echoes from Josh’s phone, and he can hear him moving inside, and the clock of the phone being hung up.

“Come on. Please open it. If you won’t open it I’ll break it down.”

Josh didn’t respond, and that worries him. He steps back, and rams his shoulder into the door, hard. Making a loud thud as he makes contact. But it doesn’t budge. He tries again, and again, until finally, it busts open.

Josh is slouched against the tub across the room, his face pale and his eyes half lidded and glassy, barely conscious.

Chris grabs his face, searching and checking to make sure he’s breathing, resting fingers over his pulse, being met with slow beats, not too late, but almost.

“Hey buddy, keep your eyes open for me. Can you do that? Come on, look at me,” Chris pleads, tilting his face up.

Josh’s eyes flicker up to meet his, and they crinkle in that soft way they do when he smiles. Except, this isn’t a time he should be smiling.

“Hey, Chris.” He greets, he’s got a dopey smile on his face, his eyes glassy like he isn’t fully here.

“What’d you take?”

Chris looks around, trying to find a bottle, reaching for his phone with one hand and dialing 911, the other holding up Josh’s head.

Josh blinks up at him, as if he’s not processing what he’s saying at first, “mmm…just some pills.” He replies slowly.

Chris goes between looking over Josh and responding to the operator, requesting an ambulance as he tries to move him closer to the toilet, one arm under Josh’s own as he drags him closer, situating him so his face is hovered over the bowl.

As he moves him, he reaches up towards his mouth, plunging his fingers inside. Purposefully trying to make him puke. Making sure to remove his fingers quickly as Josh starts to gag, heaving and and wrenching as bile quickly rises out from his mouth. Removing the half digested pills from his stomach.

Josh groans, his eyes half closed as his flushed face rests against the toilet, heaving and gasping.

Slowly, Chris pulls him away, moving to rest him half slumped against his shoulder, checking his face, resting a hand on his forehead.

“Come on man, they’ll be here soon. Then we can make sure you're okay,” Chris says softly, frowning.

“Should’ve left me alone. Didn’t want you here.”

“I’m not gonna just let you die. You know that.”

Chris watches the way Josh’s face scrunches up, his brain too muddled with the drugs still running through his system.

Chris hears the sound of footsteps thumping up the stairs, a group of paramedics making their way into the small bathroom. Crowding around them both as they try to assess the situation, moving Chris away as they start to look over Josh, leading Chris out into his room.

Chris watches as they start to load him onto the stretcher, attaching stickers and monitors and things he didn't understand or know the use for. Watching as they give him something that doesn’t make him much more alert, but he watches the way Josh’s eyes dart around, searching for something.

Searching for him.

Chris stands before the paramedic questioning him can stop him fast enough, following them out Josh’s room and out the house, watching as they load him onto the ambulance.

“Where’s Chris?”

Chris tries to go to the ambulance, climbing in quickly, nearly falling as he tries to get closer to him, desperate to stay by him, to make sure he’s okay.

“I’m right here man, right here.” He says, reaching for Josh’s hand, startled by how cold it is, but squeezing it anyway.

Chris watches the way he relaxes, the tension easing out of his body slowly, his hand tightening around his own.

Josh flickers between looking around and looking at Chris, his eyes unfocused and glassy, his body slow and sluggish, even with the medicine pumping through his body to counteract the ones he took.

“I love you too.”

Chris watches the way Josh blinks, registering what he said slowly, his eyes half open.

“Yeah?”