I just called Chris and got word that my sister is in the ER, barely hanging on and now I’m racing to the hospital. I’m on Bluetooth with mom, she had just called me as I locked up my car. “How is she?”

“Mom, I don’t know how she’s doing.”

“Aren’t you there with her?”

“I’m on my way there right now.”

“Why aren’t you there with her yet?”

“You called right after I got off the phone with Chris.”

“What are you going to do when they release her?”

“I can promise you and dad that I’m going to find this Pete guy and kick his ass.”

“Why would you do such a thing?”

“Mom, nobody has the right to put their damn hands on her! Not even Tyler and I do it and she’s our baby sister.”

“Why risk getting arrested?”

“She’s the baby, making it my job to protect her. When will you and dad decide on coming out to see her?”I reply, changing the subject.

“Once you know something.”

A truck hits the side of my back bumper, making me fish tail for a few moments and I curse as I fight to regain traction. “You bastard!”

“Joshua!”

“Mom, a guy hit my rear bumper and made me fish tail.”

“Are you going to call or text me once you find something out?”

“Yes, mom, I will.”

“I love you. Pass it on to your sister.”

“I will, mom. Talk to you soon. Love you, bye.”

“Bye.”

I haphazardly pull into a parking space, jumping out of the car and run into the ER. “Can I help you, sir?”

“Yes, my sister, Samantha Chasez, is here in the ER.”

She quickly checks the information and pages security, one of the guys in blue shirts and black pants with a utility belt greeting her. He glances at her screen and smiles at me. “Follow me, son. Your friend, Chris, has outright refused to leave her side.”

“He’s like a sister to him. We’ve known her since she was barely a teenager and my parents adopted her soon after to protect her.”

“Why is that?”

“Her past wasn’t very, uh, good.”

“Here you go, son,” he tells me, opening the door and motioning for me to go through the green curtain.

I enter the room and sit right on her bed, Chris begging her to hold onto to life. “You can’t let go; we need you here, we can’t be without you.”

“Sam, come on. Pull out of it, you can do it.”

I grab her hand and hold it, it’s warm. “We want you here, you need to stay here with us.”

“Move your fingers if you want to come back to us.” We painstakingly for about 5 minutes, but she doesn’t move other than the breaths she’s taking due to the ventilator. “C’mon, Oshannie.”

“Come on, you can’t leave us in the insane world without you; we would lose our fucking minds,” Chris half jokes, but is also being serious.

I look at him and he nods, silently telling me that I should start talking about some memories she and I share. Justin walks into the room and back out, a loud thump informs us that he punched a wall. I kiss her forehead and leave the room to check on Justin. He has his arms on the wall, his head on one with both hands fisted and one is resting on the side as he angrily cries. I pull him from the wall and allow him to cry on my shoulder. “Man, I’m gonna kill that fucker! She doesn’t deserve this and everyone that knows her would gladly go to jail to avenge her.”

“J, she will pull through and come back to us.”

“How do you know?”

“Who’s to say how long she was left waiting for death to take her? We don’t even know how much blood she had lost in that time. Does she have brain damage? Is there broken bones? Are there damaged tissues? The doctors needed me to show up and consent for her treatments.”

“Mr. Chasez, we need CT scans, x-rays and blood work done,” Dr. Malone tells me. Yes, I’ve been here about half an hour and met with the doctor twice already.

“Do what you have to, I just want my sister back to being herself.”

“Alright, we just need you to sign the treatment consents to run any and all tests necessary and to treat her accordingly.”

I quickly read over it and sign it, having understood that it’s to diagnose and treat her. “Do anything you believe is best and all we ask is to have her back to being up, bouncing around and annoying us,” Chris confesses, nearly ready for the water works to spring a leak again.

“We’re hoping that no permanent damage has been done, but we’ll know more once we run these tests.”

Chris and I launch into memories and start laughing, Justin sitting beside her. He has one leg folded on the bed and the other on the floor, blocking Chris in as he strokes her face. “I still love you, I always will and nobody will ever be able to take your place.”

“You do realize you didn’t have to whisper it?”

He gives me one of the guiltiest looks I’ve seen on his face since he’d been with Britney, but that’s a whole different story in and of itself. “How?”

“PopOdyssey.”

“Wait, I thought you knew before that?”

I wave a hand in Chris’ face and he falls silent. “You know I’ve gotten closer to her and she’s told me more since she was on our final tour together,” I reiterate.

Justin’s eyes travel back to her and he kisses the corner of her mouth, gently stroking her cheek affectionately. “I need my sanity back.”