0330 (Open)

[Malachai Roen]

What was he doing?  Kai didn't know anymore...

The nearly-graduated college student meandered around the rose garden off campus a few blocks, sort of lost in a daze like he had been for the last several days.  Work was piling up, but he couldn't even force himself to look through it.  He just... Didn't care.  He knew he'd graduate on time anyway, who cared if his last term was less stellar than all the rest?

This wasn't like him... Why had he let this happen...

He had discovered these gardens by chance last year, and usually did his best to avoid them - lots of flowers meant lots of bees, and Kai usually didn't have a death wish.  Since he'd be sent to the hospital with just a single sting, he typically stayed away from such places.

But, as determined earlier, he just didn't care.  And they weren't supposed to bother you if you didn't bother them, right?

He paused at an intersection in the dirt pathway, glancing over at a gazebo not too far away.  The weather was sunny and pleasant, and there were people laughing and enjoying their breaks from work or school or whatever they were doing.  Kai stood with his shoulders slumped and his hands in his pockets, staring blankly at those smiling, happy faces.  He wondered how people could be so carefree.  Had he ever been like that?  He couldn't remember anymore...

[Jade Parrish]

Jade hated being cooped up in a stuffy room doing her homework, she preferred to get outisde when it was nice and it finally was in Pilot Ridge. Not sweltering hot like rowing up in Texas had been, but warm. There was a rose garden a few blocks away from the college campus and so Jade packed up her things from the newspaper office and headed down the road, picking a picnic table to sit at and spreading her things out across it.

Finals were approaching and she groaned thinking about it. She just had to throw herself into her work and everything would get done. She had a kickass work ethic.

[Malachai Roen]

Kai eventually started walking again, but his pace was slow, and slightly unsteady, as though he wasn't putting in the effort to keep his balance on the uneven dirt path. He needed to get away from those people enjoying themselves while he sulked in his misery. He thought this would help - but it wasn't helping at all.

He ended up meandering towards an area that seemed a little quieter, with only a few people milling around more quietly, and someone at a picnic table. Kai glanced at the person sitting only to realize that it was probably the absolute last person he wanted to see now, or ever. And yet, it made him pause, expression drained and uncertain. She seemed busy, maybe she hadn't even noticed him. He should be leaving. But his feet weren't letting him move. Maybe due to the fact that she, even as much as Kai knew she didn't like him, was... Some sort of attachment to Zach. Somehow, that was enough to keep him frozen. But he didn't say anything - just stared intensely from a short distance.

[Jade Parrish]

Jade looked up momentarily after scribbling several paragraphs into her notebook, mostly to just take a breath and enjoy the fact that it wasn't bitterly cold out anymore in Vermont. Her eyes landed on a familiar tall, Asian guy whom she'd paralyzed weeks ago at a party in her apartment. And he was staring at her, blatantly staring at her.

And Jade did the only thing she knew how to do. She narrowed her eyes at him, capped her pen and said, "Don't tell me you're still picturing me with my shirt off" which she said quite loudly so he could hear from the distance.

[Malachai Roen]

Kai should have left. He should have took one look at the girl who he'd come to despise since that night, the one who had made such a fool out of him in front of Zach. Hell, she obviously didn't want them to... To be together in the first place. A spark of anger ignited in Kai, but he did nothing more than clench his fists and continue to stare (although it was more of a glare at this point).

When she looked up and spoke, he still didn't move. Finally, after a moment, he shifted, scowling. "That was a cruel joke you played," he accused her. "You had no right to interfere with... With me and Zach. What are you, his mother?" She had acted like it, for all her words towards Kai. "I'm sure you're ecstatic about what happened, aren't you?" Because he was sure Zach was over him and laughing at everyone about how dumb he'd been, 'falling' for Kai.

((Just to make sure, this has to happen after Zach told her they split, since Kai's getting hospitalized after this is through ))

[Jade Parrish]

"Maybe it was a necessary crude joke," Jade snapped back at him. "Maybe a bruise on your ego is good for you." She wouldn't deny that he was attractive. He was, Zach was right about that. But she got a vibe from him. "And I'm not his mother. It's called looking out for your friends when they're dating a douchebag." The sass was turned up all the way today.

Ecstatic wasn't quite the word. More like relieved. "Maybe I'm happy about it, but it wasn't like he broke up with you because of something I said. I believe that was your own doing."

[Malachai Roen]

Maybe a bruise on your ego is good for you. Kai cringed slightly, his hands tightening into fists before going slack again. His shoulders were hunched, and he looked at the ground. What Zach had done had bruised, no, broken any sort of ego he had beyond repair. "Well, thanks for preparing me to be hit even harder," he scowled, sarcasm thick in his voice. "A douchebag? Is that what you think... Is that what I am?" Kai was questioning everything now. Maybe he was awful and horrid and that's why no one stuck around for too long. "... Maybe you're right..."

He felt so off, he couldn't even find it in himself to care. "Yeah, it's all my fault, of course it is," he mumbled, turning his back to Jade to face some nearby roses. A couple bees were floating around them, but he just didn't. Care. "If I hadn't been such a fucking idiot and had asked what he wanted...!" He growled in frustration, though at the same time, the corners of his eyes pricked with emotion. He couldn't take this.

[Jade Parrish]

Jade slowly got up from the bench, setting down her notebook.

The closer Jade got to him and looked at him, the more she realized that Kai did not seem like himself. He seemed insecure and lost and maybe he'd been that way all along. Maybe he just put up a hell of a good front. Although, it was one thing to be tough and another to be a douche. He started out angry and then he was questioning what she said, as if he really didn't know who he was.

"Look, not like I enjoy you being a douche, but this whole 'woe is me' thing...just no. It's not like Zach isn't brooding either. He's not walking around all high and mighty becaue he broke things off with you. Do you not know him at all? He's crushed."

[Malachai Roen]

Kai liked to think he was good at putting up fake facades. It was how he got on people's good sides so often - he usually knew how to please people, what made them tick, what to say to get the best reactions. Zach had thrown all of that ability away. His front was crumbling and he couldn't do anything to stop it. He didn't want Jade, of all people, to see this. But he couldn't move, couldn't leave. She was at least something for him to feel closer to Zach than he had been in weeks.

"Wh... What?" he mumbled, blinking as he finally realized Jade was talking again. He tried to absorb what she had said. "It's... Been weeks since it happened.... I thought he probably just forgot about me by now..." Okay, that wasn't true. He knew... Or at least hoped... He wasn't that forgettable. Still, the fact that Jade said he was 'crushed' sent... Anger through him. "W... Well if he's so crushed, why did he end it in the first place!?" he demanded, waving a hand wildly in the air. In the process, he smacked the back of his palm against one of the flowers. He didn't notice the bee that suddenly set its sights on his flailing hand. He didn't. Care! "I told him I would change, I would... I would do anything... And he still..."

[Jade Parrish]

"So, what, are you actually a douche? Or do you just act like one because you somehow think people like that? I never understood that mentality. Besides, way to act like you're in high school," Jade said with a roll of her eyes. She was just trying to understand Kai and why he acted the way he did. Some people were just douchey and others were for stupid reasons.

"You thought he forgot about you? Yeah, right. Zach was infatuated with you. He can't just forget about you even if you do have a little mini me running around." What kind of a comment was that? "Seriously, check out of the feeling sorry for yourself shack, because it's not a five star hotel." And now he was getting angry again. "He ended it because he couldn't handle you having a kid! I don't know, or maybe he actually wants to have a real relationship. He's writer! I don't know! Maybe he wants something better! I'm not the fucking all knowing." Even if she acted like she was sometimes.

She just wanted him to calm down.

[Malachai Roen]

Was he a douche? Kai didn't know. He sure felt like one. If this was all his fault, then didn't that make him a douche by default? "I guess I am," he mumbled, brow still furrowed. It wasn't his fault.... Kai was raised to be like he was!

"Infatuated?" he repeated dumbly. Okay, maybe Zach had acted sort of attached sometimes, but.... Kai was starting to doubt his memories of what they'd done. Hadn't he just forced the older man into doing everything? "He... He told you about Christian?" Kai pressed his palm to his forehead. "He... I didn't even know about him until that night! It was two years ago! How was I supposed to know it happened!?" That wasn't fair. It was just one night! "I would have... I would have made it right..."

He was mumbling off into silence when he felt the prick on his hand. Kai yelped, jerking the limb up to see the determined bee having already stuck its stinger into his hand. He blanched, adrenaline shooting into his system at the sight. "Oh, fuck, no, shit, no...!" In desperation, he plucked the thorny barb from his hand, but he knew the damage had already been done. "Fuck, my epinephrine....!" He didn't have it. Kai fumbled for his phone, but in his panic, he dropped the device. "J-Jade, c-can you please call 911?" he pleaded. It wouldn't be too long before he began to feel the effects. "I-I n-need an ambulance, f-fast..."

[Jade Parrish]

"Fuck if I know what the kid's name is," Jade said. "But yeah, he told me. And so what if you didn't know? it's a big deal to someone who is dating you or whatever you two were doing. It made him self-conscious, like you would do it again. I mean, let's be honest here. You were trying to sleep with me at my party. You could have put a baby in me." She cringed as she said it, the thought being too much to bear, although she was just trying to prove a point.

Kai didn't say much else and then began swearing a ton out of no where. "What?" she asked. What was he freaking out about now? What was epinephrine? Then he was grabbing for his phone and dropped it. "Kai, what the fuck is wrong?" She stared at him when he pleaded her to call 911, saying he needed an ambulance fast, but Jade wasn't really sure why. "What's wrong?" Jade wasn't often so easily panicked, especially by people she didn't like, but staying cool during emergencies had become a lot harder since the burning of her family's beautiful home in Texas.

She took her own phone quickly from her bra, where she usually kept it and dialed 911 for the second time in her ife.

[Malachai Roen]

Kai flinched at Jade's words; they were true, and he knew it. "... I had a condom with me..." he mumbled, as if that made everything better. He tried to practice safe sex, but sometimes his drunk brain just made dumb decisions. It wasn't really an excuse, though.

However, that entire situation had completely left Kai's mind as panic really set in. He'd only been stung once before in his life, and that had been awful. They'd said it could be even worse if it happened again. "B-bees," he stammered vaguely, trying not to show how terrified he was externally; he wasn't doing very well. "I'm... Really allergic, and I didn't bring my EpiPen...." Stupid, stupid!

At least she didn't need convincing. Kai managed to pick his own phone off of the ground with shaky fingers and slipped it back into his pocket, shaky and pale as he fumbled over to a nearby bench and sat down. Was he imagining it, or was it getting harder to breathe already? He tried to take deep breaths, but his throat rasped dryly. His hand burned and tingled where the stinger had broke his skin. His heart was racing, and he felt a little dizzy, but he didn't know how much was his own anxiety and how much was from the venom of the sting itself.

[Jade Parrish]

Nothing mattered. Everything they had been talking about before didn't matter because Kai's life was in danger and Jade wasn't a heartless bitch. She wasn't about to allow another person to die when she could have stopped it. Shaking, she dialed 911 and held the phone to her ear, seeing Kai in her peripheal move to a bench slowly.

"I need an ambulance," she said, in the calmest voice she could muster when someone picked up. She rambled off where she was and hung up. She didn't know how long it took for a bee sting to start affecting you, but she assumed it was different for everybody who was allergic. Kai seemed to be panicking and so she tried to calm herself, so that she wouldn't make him panic more, sitting down beside him on the bench and putting a pale hand on his arm. "You need to try and relax. You're making yourself feel worse," she told him. "It's going to be okay."

She's back at her home, standing on the porch, barefoot and with trembling hands. She lights up.

Inhale. Exhale.

Headlights shine in the driveway. A half-burnt cigarette is left on the porch. Burning embers. A fiery blaze.

Mouth agape and staring. She's horrified. She cannot move. She can’t breathe without it getting stuck.

There is screaming. Who is screaming? Is the voice her own? Her mother’s as she flees from her car, having returned home from a church fundraiser?

Flashing lights. They are there when her eyes flutter open. Her head is spinning.

When did she move?

Smoke invades her lungs and she spiral into a coughing fit, a raspy sound.

Jade's eyes dart around frantically. Where is she?

Someone is above her now, a man. He tells her to calm down. He puts something over her nose and mouth. “Breathe,” he whispers.

She takes greedy, shallow breaths.

All that’s left is ashes.

She tries to shake the memory as she looks at Kai, repeating the same words the firemen did to her. "Breathe, Kai."

[Malachai Roen]

Kai vaguely heard Jade talking to someone nearby, but he was a world away, completely overwhelmed by he pounding heart, the rushing sounds in his head, the pain crawling up his arm, as though the venom was slowly invading his bloodstream and moving towards his chest. He didn't realize he was gasping until the woman sat next to him, and he jerked, eyes wide and alarmed.

Relax. It's going to be okay.

"I can't die," he managed to get out. He took another raspy breath. "I can't... Zach still hates me." Even with the poison in his veins, the writer was all he could think about. If he died now, he'd never... "J-Jade," he pleaded, ignoring her order to breathe. He just took in another shuddering, painful suck of air. "Please.... Please, if I don't... If I..." Kai couldn't say it. "Please tell him I'm sorry. Please... Tell him... I still love him."

He heard sirens in the distance. His chest ached; he slumped back against the back of the bench. His arm burned, and his hand had swollen up where the bee had stung him. Kai wanted to sleep away the pain, but he forced his eyes to stay open.

By the time the ambulance arrived, though, he was barely conscious.