Michael had softened my attitude about it a little bit when he had told me how to look at things from Adam’s perspective and been honest about the fact that he would have been tempted to do something similar before just letting me go. It was too difficult for me to stay mad at Adam, so even though I still felt hurt that I had been lied to; I wanted to quickly resolve it and have a heart-to-heart with him so that we could move on. I needed to hear from him why he had lied to me and then I knew that we could find a way to repair the trust that had been broken. Adam and I had been through too much together to let that go.
I could see out the window that Rob was already up and had gotten an early morning start at working on his bike. I was glad that he had a project he was so interested in to keep his focus off all of this other craziness. He seemed to be the most level-headed thinker of us all right now.
“I’m going to go talk to Adam,” I said as I slowly let go of Michael’s hand and got ready to walk back down the hall toward the bedroom.
“Before coffee?” he teased. “I don’t envy Adam this morning.”
I let out a small laugh as I walked away. Michael had a way of making things feel like they were going to be okay no matter what. Even in some of the most ridiculous situations, he was somehow able to make me laugh, and I was grateful for it. I gave myself a little pep talk on the way to the bedroom. I would be patient, and calm, and I would try not to get angry or cry; at least not until I heard what Adam had to say. The only thing that I knew that would definitely set me off right from the start, was if Adam still tried to deny that he had lied, because it was very clear that he had. When I walked into the bedroom, I had expected to see him getting up since he normally didn’t sleep in late. But instead of finding him awake, I found him in trouble.
“Adam!” I screamed as I ran over to the bed and put both my hands on the sides of his face.
He was feverish, and convulsing, and foaming at the mouth.
“Michael!” I screamed at the top of my lungs until he came running into the room to see what was wrong.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with him,” I cried.
Michael quickly called the paramedics as I tried to wake Adam and make sure that he was still breathing. It looked like he was choking on something but there wasn’t anything in his mouth. He was burning up and his skin was so hot that it looked as if someone had applied a thick layer of blush to his cheeks. I listened to his heartbeat, which was racing out of control, and heard his labored breaths. As soon as Michael had hung up the phone, he pulled open Adam’s eyelids with his fingertips and saw the whites of his eyes only. I cried until the tears were dripping onto Adam’s face.
“The ambulance is on its way,” Michael said in as reassuring a voice as he could manage.
“What happened to him?” I asked. “Last night he was having nightmares, but I thought he was okay when I got out of bed.”
“I don’t know,” Michael said somberly as he watched Adam shaking on the top of the bed.
Rob showed up in the doorway just a few moments later with the paramedics. He had no idea what was happening until the paramedics had pulled up in front of the house.
“What happened?” he asked us.
Michael and I both looked at him with blank faces. Neither of us knew what was wrong with Adam. We backed up and let the paramedics do their job. They talked quickly among themselves and one of them went back out to the ambulance and returned a minute later with a syringe that they injected into Adams’s arm. I heard them mutter the words “toxin” and “system flush”. I held onto Michael’s chest, with a wad of his shirt fabric clenched in my fist as we waited and tried not to hysterically interrupt the emergency workers. When they loaded Adam onto a stretcher and got ready to carry him out to the truck, one of the paramedics came over to talk to us.
“Your friend was poisoned,” he said. “Any idea how that could have happened?”
“Poisoned?” I asked in shock.
I started to cry again.
“It’s okay ma’am,” the paramedic said. “He’s going to be fine. Looks like it was either a low-dose or a weak toxin that he ingested.”
“How can you tell?” Michael asked.
“Because based on his symptoms, if it wasn’t, he’d be dead already.”
“What’s going to happen to him now?” I asked.
“We’re going to get him to the hospital where he’ll receive some more meds and fluids to purge his body of the toxin. He’ll feel like crap for a couple of days but then should make a full recovery. We already gave him a shot of something that will calm his heart down and steady his breathing. It’s good that you called when you did. Any longer could have cost him his life.”
“But you said it was a weak toxin,” I said.
“Any toxin is still poison,” the paramedic answered. “Some are just easier to treat than others as long as we get to them in time. You’re welcome to ride in the truck to the hospital with your friend if you’d like.”
“Yes please,” I said as I wiped my eyes and nodded my head.
“Rob and I will follow behind the ambulance,” Michael said as he kissed me on the forehead. “We’ll see you at the hospital.”
“Okay,” I nodded. I felt like I was dreaming. Who would want to poison Adam? And how could they have even gotten inside the house?
Unless, they were already here.
“Hey,” I smiled when Adam opened his eyes in the hospital bed. “We really all need to stop spending nights in hospitals together.”
Adam chuckled but then coughed, which looked like it hurt.
“What happened?” he said. “All I can remember is having some wicked nightmares and then waking up here.”
“Well, according to the doctors, you ingested some poison,” I said. “Do you have any idea how that happened?”
Adam furrowed his brow.
“Yeah, actually; I think I do. But before I tell you about that, I need to apologize,” he said as he sat up straighter against the head of the hospital bed. “Lisette, I lied to you. I lied to everyone. I never wanted to lie to you. You have to know that I would never do anything to hurt you.”
“But you did hurt me,” I said as the tears came to my eyes again. “I never thought you would be dishonest with me, Adam. I have always trusted you.”
“I know,” he said as his eyes got glassy too. “And I’m not sure how to fix that now, or how to rebuild the trust that we once had. I just couldn’t imagine a life without you. I didn’t want to. I know that I made that agreement with Michael and Rob, and I know that I should have kept it. But Lisette, I just couldn’t think clearly when I thought about not being able to be with you anymore. It was stupid and horrible of me to do, and I am so sorry. I can’t ask you to forgive me for that.”
I leaned forward and kissed the side of his cheek.
