Read Online Seeing Red by Sidney Halston - Free Book Online Page A

relieved they’d been
interrupted. She wasn’t sure that sleeping with Oliver was a good
idea. In fact, it was a terrible idea. It was a surefire way to end
their eighteen-year friendship.
    Both were dressed and in the car in less than
fifteen minutes, barely a word spoken the remainder of the way to
the hospital.
    When they arrived in El Paso, they went straight to
the hospital and directly to Alexander’s room.
    “Xander! Oh my God. We were worried sick. What the
hell is wrong with you?” She hugged him and punched him lightly on
the shoulder at the same time.
    “Ow! Watch it. I have all these needles sticking
me.” Oliver and Jill looked down and saw the IV on his arm but also
saw all the old bruises and track marks. Oliver went around the
left side of the bed and grabbed Alexander’s other arm, looking for
marks. His left arm was full of the remnants of all the needles
he’d been using to administer his drugs. He let Alexander’s left
arm fall back onto the bed.
    “Alexander. This is . . . How could . . . I don’t
know what to say. Do you want to die? Because that’s where you’re
headed.”
    “I know, Oly. It won’t happen again. I was mad and
got a little carried away.”
    “A little!” Jill barked.
    “Don’t tag-team me, guys. I feel like shit.”
    “And look like hell.” Jill added.
    “Jeez, Jillian, thanks. I appreciate that.”
Alexander said sarcastically.
    “So, what’s the plan, Xander? I am not taking you
home this way. You need help. You need to check yourself into
rehab.”
    “You just want me out of your hair. You made that
abundantly clear yesterday.”
    “No, I didn’t. I told you that I needed to start my
life. I explained how I was not going to renew my lease and how I
wanted you to sober up and get your life together. I didn’t say run
off to Mexico and overdose.”
    “I don’t need you, Oliver. I can take care of
myself. I don’t need the lectures. You want me to move out—fine.
Consider it done.”
    “Why are you getting so defensive? Clearly, you do
need me. I am in fucking El Paso General Hospital—seven hours away
from my apartment—and you’re lying in a bed, full of marks and
bruises on . . .”
    “Stop it! You guys need to stop it, right now!” Jill
yelled.
    “Xander.” Jill took a deep calming breath, “Oly
didn’t mean to come here and start lecturing you,” she held her
finger up to Oliver, who was about to interrupt her. “He is worried
about you and so am I. We aren’t kids anymore. Well, we sort of are
kids, and you’re just being a typical eighteen year old, but we, ” she pointed at the three of them “don’t have the luxury
of acting like stupid drunken teenage party animals like most
eighteen year olds, because we don’t have people around to
always pick up the pieces.” She sat on the edge of the bed and
grabbed Alexander’s hand. “Oly is going to go and be a photographer
for a big magazine, and he’s going to travel the world and live out
his dream. He’s going to have adventures all around the world, and
you’re his brother—his twin brother—the person he loves most in the
world. Do you want him to have one hand on a lens cap and one hand
on his cell phone, waiting and hoping that Miriam doesn’t call with
worse news than this? He can’t help that he worries, and he isn’t
going to stop worrying. Don’t you want him to have a happy life? Do
you want him suffering instead of succeeding? The only way he can
go and flourish is if you get healthy and flourish too. I am going
to be gone in a week, and when I finish at Georgetown, I’m going to
law school, and then I’m going to be a bigwig attorney at a big law
firm somewhere—a very hot and rich attorney, by the way.” She
winked and laughed, trying to lighten the mood. “But even if I’m
not around, I worry. I want you to be something great, Xander,
something that makes you happy and fulfills you. Please, I want you
to get better. What can we do to help make you