Braden was laughing hard again as he reached down to pull me up by the waist. I was in the middle of letting him help me when the crash and thud sounded from the kitchen. Our eyes flew to each other, our laughter dying.
“Ellie?” Braden shouted out in question.
Silence.
“Ellie!”
When she didn’t call back, my eyes widened on his and I jumped to my feet because Braden had already let me go to run through the apartment.
“Ellie!” I heard him cry out, and the fear in his voice had me picking up speed.
The sight that greeted me in the kitchen floored me. I stood frozen, watching as Braden kneeled on the floor, his hands hovering over Ellie whose body twitched in convulsions, her eyes fluttering rapidly, her mouth slack. “Ellie?” Braden’s pale face snapped up to me. “Call 999. I think she’s having some kind of seizure.”
I rushed out of the room, adrenaline making my hands shake and my coordination clumsy as I grabbed for the phone on my bedside table and dropped it. Fumbling, I cursed, utter fear choking me as I hurried back into the hall as the operator picked up. “Emergency, what service do you require? Fire, police or ambulance?”
“She just passed out.” Braden sat next to her helpless as her body went limp. “I don’t know what do? Fuck, I don’t know what to do.”
“Ambulance.” I heard the line go on hold and then two seconds later the ambulance control room picked up. “My roommate,” I spoke breathlessly into the phone, panicking because Braden of all people was panicking. “We heard a crash and we rushed into the kitchen and she was convulsing and now she’s unconscious.”
“What telephone number are you calling from?”
I rhymed it off impatiently.
“What is your exact location?”
Trying not to get angry at the robo-speak of the woman on the end of the line, I rhymed the address off too.
“Is this your roommate’s first seizure?”
“Yes!” I snapped.
“What age is your roommate?”
“Twenty-three.”
“Is she breathing?”
“She’s breathing, Braden, right?”
He nodded, his jaw clenched as he watched me.
“Okay, can you move your roommate into the recovery position as a precaution?”
“Recovery position,” I repeated to Braden and watched as he immediately re-arranged her gently.
“The ambulance is on its way. Please keep any pets out of the way of the ambulance crew when they arrive.”
“We don’t have pets.”
“Okay. Please stay on the line until the ambulance arrives.”
“Braden,” I whispered, still shaking. “What’s going on?”
He shook his head as he brushed Ellie’s hair off her face. “I don’t know.”
A noise drew us up tense.
A noise from Ellie.
I rushed over to them, falling to my knees to bend over her. Another groan escaped Ellie’s mouth as her head turned slowly. “Wha…” her eyes flickered open, dazed. And then they widened as she saw us hovering over her. “What happened?”
***
Despite regaining consciousness, the paramedics took Ellie away in the ambulance and Braden and I jumped into a cab to follow them to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. Braden called Elodie and Clark, and he called Adam. When we arrived there was a lot of waiting around and no one really telling us anything, and when Elodie, Clark and Adam arrived there was still no word.
“We left the kids with our neighbor,” Elodie whispered, her eyes wide with fear. “What happened?”
Braden explained as I stood silently by, my mind racing over all the worst outcomes. Being in the hospital was freaking me out, and I just wanted Ellie to come out and tell us everything was okay. I didn’t think I could handle anything else.
“Ellie Carmichael’s family?” a nurse called and we all stampeded her. She stared at us wide-eyed. “Are you all immediate family?”
“Yes,” Braden answered before Adam or I could respond.
“Come with me.”
Ellie was waiting for us, sitting up with her legs dangling off the side of a bed in the ER. She gave us a typical little girl Ellie wave and my heart lurched in my chest.
“What’s going on?” Elodie rushed to her side and Ellie grabbed at her mother’s hand reassuringly.
“Ellie’s family?”
We turned to find a forty-something bookish-looking doctor hovering over us. “Yes,” we all said in unison and Ellie cracked an exhausted smile.
“I’m Dr. Ferguson. We’re sending Ellie up for an MRI as soon as it becomes available.”
“An MRI?” Braden’s features grew taut as he glanced back at his sister. “What’s going on, Els?”
Her eyes were wide as she took us all in, our worry blasting out at her. “I haven’t felt right for a while.”