"Eden, what the fuck are you doing in there?" Andreya, a coworker and close friend of Eden's, calls into the bathroom, exasperated. She's used to his shit, but during a shift, really? That is the last straw.
"Thinking, Andie, thinking," He replies monotonically. Eden really doesn't care at this point. He knows she would never go to the boss about it.
"Ah yes," that's the answer she needs, "thinking. Thinking about what, avoiding taking coffee orders and leaving all the rush hour work for me?"
Bingo, he thinks sarcastically. He decides to answer after hearing Andie sigh dramatically, "Thinking about Jayden, actually. About how I miss him," Eden says. There's really no point in elaborating further.
Andreya sighs, softly this time, as she leans against the bathroom door. She never presses for too much information, but it kills her to know as little as she does. Eden would break down if he talked about his and Jayden's relationship in too much detail. She knows he misses him enough for it to hurt, so she just sits on the tile floor and waits for him to come out of the bathroom.
Eden, on the other side of the door, is in the middle of crushing up some sort of pills to snort. He honestly has no clue what they are and doesn't really care to ask questions. So, instead, he just nudges the powder into three thin lines and inhales as hard as he can with one nostril. After all of it is in his system, he flushes the toilet to make it seem like he wasn't just doing opioids during work hours and walks out of the door. He glances down at Andie, who shoots him a dirty look.
"Your nose is bleeding." She says with a straight face, clearly unsurprised with Eden's apparent drug use. He curses under his breath before turning back into the bathroom to grab a tissue.
"Thanks," Eden says, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"You're gonna get caught one day, y'know," Andreya says.
"I know," He replies.
She doesn't push it past that, just leaves it as it is.
They sit in silence for a while. Eden lets the cold floor cool off his sweaty self while Andreya tries to relax before returning to their jobs. Knowing your friend is an addict and not being able to do anything about it is heartbreaking, stressful, and definitely not a god thing to be thinking about at a Starbucks of all places.
Eventually, they both walk back to the front counter. Their coworker heaves a 'finally' and walks off to take his break. Andie throws Eden his apron and pushes him up to the customers. He lets his instincts tell him what to do as he impatiently waits for the high to kick in.
He feels like a child, with how impatient he is. He taps his foot subconsciously and shakes his hand when he writes names on stickers. It's, honestly, pathetic.
About thirty minutes pass before he feels it, and it hits hard. Hard enough to knock him off balance when he turns to hand Andie a sticker for a cup. She gives him a knowing look and a pat on the shoulder before handing the drink to the customer with a smile.
Eden conjures up all of his highschool-theatre-class acting skills and puts on a bright smile as he begins to take orders again. He feels fantastic, but the customers probably wouldn't appreciate an employee acting noticeably high. So, he has to will away the tingly numbness for another couple hours.
Despite his amazing acting skills, he must let himself go for a minute, because when he looks up from what feels like the hundredth coffee cup of the day, there's an angry looking woman staring right at him.
"Excuse me Sir, I've been waiting 10 minutes for my coffee. That is way too long of a wait for a place like this." says the angry lady, or Deborah if he recalls properly.
"I'm sorry Ma'am, I'll have that right out to you." Eden says with a fake smile. He grabs Deborah-the-angry-lady's drink from the back and hands it to her. She glares at him as she walks away.
Eden whispers something about the lady being a buzzkill to Andreya. She snorts a little and they return to their respective jobs. Eden keeps dragging his feet from the counter to the coffee cups every time a customer comes in and Andie keeps grabbing the cups he hands her and filling them up with too-sweet coffee.
An hour, not that Eden can tell how much time is going by, passes before his actual break begins. He takes this time to sleep with his face pushed into the table of the break room. If he sleeps his life away, he won't have to deal with his guilt. Simple solutions to not so simple situations.
He sleeps dreamlessly for thirty minutes. The warm embrace of dreamless sleep is welcomed with open arms. Usually, he has crippling nightmares when he sleeps. Thankfully, his mind isn't tormenting him too much anymore.
After a while, Eden feels different, to put it in words. He's asleep, but he knows something is wrong; something is very wrong. He startles awake and takes in a deep breath before passing right back out. Everything goes away after that.
—————
"Eden, wake up," Andie urges him with a little shove, "Our break is over. Time to go back to the counter." He doesn't move. She panics, shaking him violently right away. He stays unmoving. Fuck, this isn't right. Andreya calls out for help but doesn't hear herself. Her ears ring and dread settles at the bottom of her stomach as she fears for her friend's life.
She scrambles to fish her phone out of her apron pocket and dials 911. The phone beeps once, twice, three times, before someone answers. Andie sighs in relief and tells the women that she works at the Starbucks in the middle of town. Time goes by so agonizingly slowly after she hangs up the phone. The hospital isn't far away, so the ambulance can't take but two or three minutes to get there, but it feels like hours.
When the ambulance gets there Andie's a mess. She watches as the paramedics wheel Eden out on a cot and into the ambulance. Not being able to handle watching a very passed out, very close to death Eden, Andreya takes her own car to the hospital. The car ride there is even slower than the wait for the ambulance to get to Starbucks.
Once Andie gets there, she's a sobbing mess. Her bawling alarms the receptionists and other people in the waiting room. Somebody asks her if she's okay and she wheezes out a polite, "yes, thank you." In hindsight, it probably wasn't a good idea to drive alone at night while crying her eyes out.
Andreya waits as patiently as she can for news about Eden. The hospital takes their sweet time letting her know anything that's going on. With silent tears streaming down her face, she gets up to get some tea from a little counter. She tells herself that tea should calm her down, but in reality tea just reminds her of Eden and makes her cry harder at the prospect of him not being okay.
She curls up around two itchy hospital waiting room chairs and lets her tears soak through their cheap fabric. Andie doesn't really care if anybody around her is judging her for it. She feels like shit and she's not gonna let the fact that people are around stop her from getting comfortable. Well, as comfortable as she can be after watching her unconscious friend get wheeled into an ambulance.
Once she's angled to watch the news channel on the TV, she wipes her face on her apron and unties it from behind her. Andie realizes that she must look ridiculous crying at a hospital in a bright green Starbucks apron.
It must be obvious to onlookers that someone might be dying. It's easy to tell when somebody knows something like that. They get this look on their face that tells you they know more than they should. Other than that , there are a few people giving her sympathetic looks and a couple giving her why-are-you-sitting-like-that looks. Thinking about what they're thinking about makes Andreya uncomfortable. Being in the hospital in general has always made her uncomfortable.
Since she met Eden, the ER has always reminded her of him. Unsurprisingly, this isn't the first time he's overdosed, though it is his first unintentional one. Andreya has been with him through the last two, has waited in two different hospitals in two different towns for a doctor to tell her if her best friend is dead or not. She's watched him lay still in a coma for weeks, watched him foam at the mouth from a concoction of chemicals she couldn't even name. And, here she is again, in another hospital in another town waiting for another doctor to tell her if her best friend is going to make it.
Eden's drug addiction causes everyone close to him so much stress and pain. Andie wishes he would admit to his problem and seek out the help he needs, but she knows he won't unless he's forced.
If his dumbass survives this one, he'll be forced to. That's the only good that can come out of this sort of thing.
Eden means a lot to her. They've been friends since middle school and have lived together for the past three years. Andie has seen him at his worst and at his best. She's grown up with him and she doesn't know what she'd do if he was finally successful in killing himself- She doesn't want to think about it.
Instead of thinking, Andreya sleeps. Her and Eden have always had that same habit. She supposes she probably sleeps for thirty minutes or so, but it's hard to tell.
A tall, thin lady walks up to her and taps her shoulder at one point, "Excuse me, are you with Eden Rivera?"
Andreya startles awake and shakes her head yes. The doctor must see how impatient she is because she starts talking again without hesitation.
"Well, I've got some good news," the doctor says as Andreya sighs in relief, "and some bad news."
Andreya groans under her breath. She knows what's coming next. She's been through this same process before.
"We got Eden's vitals stable and pumped his stomach, but unfortunately he is still unconscious. We don't know how long it's going to be before he wakes up." the doctor relays the news. She gives Andreya another sympathetic look, identical to the other people in the waiting room.
"Okay," Andie says, plain and simple. She gives a half-hearted smile.
"Okay," the doctor replies, "would you like to come back and see him?"
"Yes please." She answers solemnly.