For the Monsters That I've Been 7/21/06-7/22/06 (not factual)

Andie was rushed to Cedars-Sinai hospital in LA by ambulance. She had sufferred severe internal injuries. As the delivery truck impacted the right side of her car, her head shattered the driver's side window, causing a severe blow that nearly broke her neck. Her brain was jarred so violently, it was hemorrhaging. Her spleen had ruptured. Several of her right ribs were broken. One rib punctured her right lung and the lung collapsed.

The ER team had to insert a chest tube to remove air from Andie's chest cavity so that her lung would expand again. They were then able to perform the repairative surgery to the lung and remove her spleen. With the amount of trauma her head had suffered, they did a CT scan and discovered the hemorrhage on her brain. This was the most serious of her injuries as it could become fatal. A neurosurgeon was brought in to perform an endovascular coiling procedure. He would insert a tube through the artery in her groin and carefully advance it to her brain where the blood could be patterned to flow properly. It would be days, maybe weeks, before the neurological procedure would be considered successful. It would depend a great deal on Andie's body's ability to recover from the injury.


**SOUNDTRACK: "STRICKEN" BY DISTURBED**
www.myspace.com/andieredmond or http://www.projectplaylist.com/node/4858324

Gerard woke up in a cold, shivering sweat. He sat up in his bed and looked around his room, not recalling what day it was, much less what time of day. By the light coming from the closed curtains, he realized it was daytime. His eyes wandered to his cellphone on the bedside table. It had a missed call from Andie. He dialed her number only to reach her machine, saying she was away on a job and would be back in a few days. Her cellphone number went straight to voicemail. In a panic, he tried both numbers over and over again relentlessly, only to get the same recordings. Eventually, he made himself upset at Andie for not being able to be reached and then upset that he made himself miserable over it. He threw that fucking cellphone across the room.

That tightening feeling came creeping back up into his throat. He stumbled to the bathroom and vomited again. Damn his fucking ankle hurt. When was the last time he took his pills? What the fuck time was it anyway? Sitting down at his desk, he turned on his computer to check his email. According to the computer, it was 8:23am. He checked his email. Nothing from Andie. Ray sent him some songs they had been working on. He turned off the computer and stared at the blank screen as his emotions took him inward to a place he hadn't been for a very long time.

She didn't want to see him. She just couldn't tell him to his face. Well FUCK THAT! He didn't need her. She was a liar anyway! She never intended on coming to Jersey! He should have fucking known! Another lying bitch!

He threw his desk lamp against the wall.

"Gerard?! What's going on in there? Are you ok?" his mom was at his door.

"Leave me the FUCK alone!!" he screamed at her. But the voice didn't sound like his own. He sounded like a monster. He felt like a monster.

He took the bottle of Oxycodone and washed a few more pills down with a half empty water bottle. Fuck them all. He would be the monster again. And everyone could just fuck off! He didn't need them anyway. Just like before. He was better off alone.

He felt his stomach churn. That's right, those fucking pills would make it all go away.

Gerard looked around the room and grabbed his head with both hands. What was wrong with him? What was so fucking wrong with him that Andie didn't want to be with him? How come he could never get the love he felt for someone in return? Didn't anyone love him? Wasn't he worth the love he gave others? Maybe that was it. Maybe he wasn't worth it. The tears welled in his eyes until they overflowed. He was shaking so hard...he couldn't stop. He was freezing, yet he was in Hell. What had he turned into?

He found his cellphone across the room and dialed Andie again. There was nothing...just...nothing...

He laid down on his bed and stared at the ceiling. The room began to get fuzzy. His tears fell into his bed and turned it into a pool. He started sinking...sinking...further down into the water. He was so tired...so very tired. He was so very tired of it all. It wasn't worth it anymore. Life wasn't worth it anymore...

Gerard had overdosed on Oxycodone. His heart rate and breathing were slowing steadily until he was no longer conscious.

As someone who had a previous drug dependency and had suffered from clinical depression, he should never have been prescribed this medication. On top of the mood swings and physical sickness it brought, he had made himself believe Andie had blown him off, that she didn't care about him afterall. The Oxycodone took him inward where he could not handle the rejection.


Hours passed. But thankfully, Gerard's mom called Mikey when she thought something might be wrong and then couldn't get into his room. Mikey, Ray, and Frank broke down the door to find Gerard unconscious in his bed. They tried to wake him, but when they weren't able to, they called 911.

The dispatcher told Mikey an ambulance was on the way but instructed them to get Gerard to a bath or shower to attempt to wake him, if they were physically able to do so. They dragged him to the bathtub and turned the shower on him. Gerard started coming to and vomited.

When the paramedics arrived, Gerard was semi-conscious and soaking wet, sitting in the bathtub in his own vomit. They wanted to take him to the hospital for observation, but he convinced everyone he was fine. He said the medication had just made him sick, that was all. The paramedics checked out his prescription and verified the information before leaving.

Gerard sat on the bathroom floor with his knees drawn up and his head in his hands. He couldn't take those pills again. Ever. He cried quietly to himself. He had worked so hard before to come clean.

Mikey came back in the bathroom to his brother. He sat down on the floor with him and put his arm around him. "What were you thinking?"

"I don't know...I just...don't know..." Gerard tried to find the words as he wiped his eyes.

"Yeah well...you should have known you couldn't take those. Why didn't you tell anyone?" asked Mikey.

"I thought I could handle them... I thought it would be okay because things were different now." Gerard looked defeated.

Mikey stayed with Gerard while he got himself showered and changed into some clean clothes. When Mikey helped him to his bed to sit down, Gerard noticed Frank and Ray both with a look of dread on their faces.

"What is this? Some kind of intervention? Look, I know! I won't take them again. It's not like that..." Gerard explained groggily.

"No, dude...it's not the pills..." Frank looked solemn.

"Well what then?" Gerard asked looking around the room at them, trying to read them. "Toro? Mikey? What is it?"

"It's Andie..." Mikey started.

"What? What about Andie??" Gerard tried not to panic.

"Something happened...there...was an accident." said Frank.

"What? What kind of accident? Where is she?!" Gerard couldn't control the panic now. What if she was gone? He had known something was terribly wrong. And he never told her he loved her. OH GOD. Why?? He started shaking again.

"Listen...she's in the hospital...in LA...they're taking care of her there." Mikey tried to calm his brother down.

"She was in an accident the first day she got back. She's been in the hospital since then. But we didn't know. Nobody knew..." said Ray.

"Yeah, Mikey called Sam and Sam called her agent." said Frank. "We just found out about an hour ago."

"Well what's wrong with her? Did they say?" asked Gerard, ready to get up and leave.

"Her car was hit by a truck, Gerard..." said Mikey carefully. "She hit her head really hard...and her brain was hemorrhaging. She's still unconscious and...well...they don't just know what will happen."

"What do you mean they don't know?? Well I have to go!" said Gerard trying to get up. But the dizzyness of the Oxycodone in his system brought him right back down on the bed.

"Why did you take those pills, dude?" Frank asked. "You know you can't take that kind of shit."

"I thought...I thought it would be okay...but it's not...It's really not..." he confessed to his friends. "I...I broke my lamp...and I hurt my ankle worse...and I yelled at Mom...and...and I hated Andie...and she was all alone and hurt..." Gerard buried his face in his hands and cried. "What have I done?"

Mikey hugged his brother. Frank came over and put his arm around his friend. "Gerard, you didn't hurt anybody but yourself, man."

"Yeah," Mikey offered. "Mom's okay. And I'll help you get to Andie."

"Yeah, man, and I'll go too." said Frank.

"And me too," said Ray.

"I love you guys," Gerard looked at his friends and tried to smile as he wiped his eyes.