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Travis is warm.
Warm like the sun on a hot summer day, basking in the sunlight with water treading bare skin. Natalie pressed her back against his, head loopy, staring down at the ground. Even in her high state, she clings to the news that Shauna is getting married soon. In a week, to be exact. To Jeff Sadecki of all people. It makes her stomach hurt. Taissa wanted them to be sober.
She doesn't want to go to a shitshow wedding sober. The motel they've holed up in is shitty, peeling paint, and the stench of old surrounds like an iron grip. Hell, the channel selection coming from the television makes her older than she is. Flashing colors dot in her vision, the lingering high feeling fading. Nausea spreads. It blooms in her stomach like a tree seed, exploding in her throat. Something doesn't feel right. "Travis," Natalie mutters, choking down the sour bile that claws at her throat like rose thorns, prickling against the insides of her, "Travis." She repeats, louder than last time.
He looks up. Natalie can't see his expression, but she can sense a flicker of confusion, of worry. She wants to get up, drag herself with heavy limbs to the bathroom to throw up. But when she digs her hands into the carpet bed, moving an inch, she gags. "Hey," Travis says, getting up, barely concealed panic in his eyes, "Hey, no, Nat, what's wrong? What's wrong, baby?"
Natalie's answer is foamy vomit, the pills they consumed like dinner coming out of her just as fast as they went inside. Last time, last time she threw up, it was just stomach acid and saliva. Something about an empty stomach, she thinks her stomach is too full this time. Drugs bend to make room, push around, and jostle her system. It's toxic in its bad moments, but addictive in its good. Her whole body trembles, head spinning. Something doesn't feel right. Something doesn't feel right. The thought keeps repeating in her head like a hymn, an offering to a thing that she never believed in. She's so cold, so sweaty.
Travis was warm.
In an instant, Travis is by her side, tucking sweaty strands of hair behind her ears. He notices the cold sweat that spreads over her like an omen. He rubs her back, guiding her into him. "It's okay," he says in an attempt to soothe her, stroking her hair gently, "You're okay. It's okay." If she listened hard enough, he was trying to convince both of them. Whispered promises from their huts, the cabin. They were going to make it out. Grow old. Grow boring. Many a whispered promise from a hotel room somewhere in Canada that they were never going to kill themselves because that wasn't them. An oath of trust, sincerity.
Natalie thinks she's dying, though. She thinks she's dying.
She doesn't want to die.
With shallow breaths, her chest constricts. It's hard to breathe, harder than it was in the winter. It only makes her panic more. "Travis," she croaks out, voice underwater, "Travis, I don't feel good." Something isn't right. The drugs were scattered on the motel bed. Taunting them like a reminder, a crime complicit in her death.
Did they fail the world? Or was it the world that failed them?
Natalie thinks. Natalie can't.
Her vision tunnels as she goes limp in Travis's arms. What happens next is in blurs, flashing in and out. When Travis gets her conscious for the first time, he has her on her side, more vomit trickling down her mouth, her chin, holding her hand tightly as he grabs the rotary phone, dialing the numbers with uneasy hands. "It's okay, Nat, it's okay, it's okay, I'm gonna help you," is what she hears before she goes dark again.
In, out.
Breathe.
This isn't her time, Natalie thinks somewhere in the back of her skull. Etched in the black nothingness, no stars, no planets, walking a fine line between dead and alive in a void. She's not supposed to die like this. Twenty-something in a skeevy hotel room, pumped up with far too many drugs.
She's not supposed to go.
Bright, flashing lights greet her vision. Travis is shaking her, saying things that don't sit well with her ears. Natalie thinks there's a siren, but her head hurts, and she can't hear without it sounding like she's drowning. Is she drowning? Is this an elaborate hallucination? "I got us," comes muddled. "It's okay." Natalie chokes on something, vomit, saliva, anything that pours out of her mouth like the blood of an innocent. A hand reaches out, gripping Travis. Not yet. She can't go out this way. She still has life to life, something to do. She can't.
"God, it's okay, I gotta unlock the door, it's okay, we're okay," Travis says, voice trembling. She wakes up in a hospital bed. Her teeth and mouth taste like charcoal.
She's alive. Travis is asleep, head against the bed, holding onto her hand. She's alive. Natalie falls asleep. Too tired to deal with the blowback when Tai inevitably comes to the hospital that they've found themselves in.