Image created by me using Dalle. E3
Back then in Uni, I had these two sisters, Kate and Helen who were my friends. The younger one, Kate, was my roommate and the older one, Helen, was my course mate.
Both sisters were orphans and do not get along well, for reasons best known to them. But somehow, I find myself being the bridge between the both of them.
Every so often, I’d talk to Kate to take it easy with Helen and get closer to her, but she’ll say, “I don’t have time to chase after people who feel the world is an island.”
“But she's your sister, like it or not, she's your only family.” I’d try to convince Kate, but my words often hit a brick wall.
So one day it was Kate’s birthday. Surprisingly, Helen had gotten Kate a present, but then she had also left Kate a message that she won’t be present for the birthday party as she's under the weather. You know, with Helen, she’s the keep to yourself kind of girl. You never know what's going on with her, as she barely expresses herself.
She has very few friends and even with her roommates, she's a loner.
I wasn’t in school that period, but I had come from home to attend Kate’s party at a resort close to school.
At almost dusk, the food, and drinks were at the brink of exhaustion when I asked Kate about Helen’s refreshment as Kate already gave me the load down of Helen's absence.
“You could pack up some snacks for her, she's lucky she got me something. Otherwise, I won't have given her anything” Kate responded in a nonchalant attitude. I wasn't going to mind her, as she's the type that just says things as she feels.
I packed up some snacks with a bottle of Fanta, and as Kate was taking a swim with the others, I proceeded to pick up our personal items since we would be leaving soon.
We got to school at about 8pm, and we were all hungry as the snacks didn't do justice to preserve our tummy. After dropping off our things in the room, Kate and me, with another of our roommate/friend Jessica, needed to go out and get food to eat. As we were stepping out, I carried Helen's refreshment pack along.
“Why are you carrying that?” Kate questioned with a furrowed brow.
“Oh I just thought we should go drop this with Helen first before proceeding for dinner as it might be too late to go to her hostel by the time we are coming back” I had responded calmly.
“You like carrying load, eh…” Jessica chipped in, referring to me.
I looked at the pack wondering if I was carrying faeces or probably a ticking bomb. I mean, what's with the commotion and disapproval?
We stood at the entrance of our hostel for a while, which was between the restaurant area and Helen's hostel. We had a brief argument as Kate wanted me to go drop the pack back in our room.
“When we come back from the restaurant, we would take the pack to her, go and drop it” Kate said to me like a command.
But for some reason I don't even know, I kept on dragging and then told Kate, “You'd either choose between us taking this pack to your sister or I take it with us to get food.”
I continued, "It will be too much of a walk not to mention stress too, that I'd go drop this off, we'd go get food, come back and then be coming out again to your sister's hostel.
I added: “Hope you people have not forgotten that they use to lock her hostel by 10pm?”
By now, the girls were already considering my argument
Still referring to Kate, I concluded, “remember you don't like eating cold food and there's no way we can eat when we come back before going to drop this pack off”.
Jessica herself wasn't a lover of cold food, neither was I and there's no alternative to heat the food if it gets cold.
We also cannot keep the snacks until tomorrow as it will get bad since there was no means of preservation.
After considering and exploring all available options, Jessica had no choice than to side with me and then turned against Kate who was obviously irritated with my stance, “let's just go and give your sister the pack Kate, because there is no way that pack is coming with us neither can we get it across to your sister on time after we've gotten and eaten our food”.
Reluctantly, Kate agreed and said we needed to be quick in dropping it off so we don't get to buy the leftovers as it was running late already.
We arrived Helen's room and knocked on the door, but there was no response. Kate pushed on the door, and it opened, we entered inside and from a distance, we saw Helen Lying naked on her bed. She was the only one in the room as it seemed her roommates were off for the weekend.
We moved closer to her, thinking that she was sleeping, probably that's why she did not respond to us. But we met a shocker as we saw her in the pool of her vomit with foam coming out from her mouth. Immediately, the pack fell from my hands as I rushed at her to see if she's still breathing.
Kate was too devastated to know what action to take as she broke down crying and screaming, “My sister! They want to kill my only sister for me, just like they killed our parents.”
Helen was much weightier than my strength could carry and while I battled to position her head to open her airways, Jessica was trying to calm Kate down.
Helen needed to be clothed, I had thought, so I called out to Jessica to please help me in sustaining the position of Helen's head, so I can look for clothes or wrapper to cover her up.
As we were trying our best with Helen, Kate ran out to call for help, still crying and screaming. In no distant time, people started trooping in.
We tried to do a combined effort to carry Helen to the school's clinic, but a random heavily built girl hijacked Helen from us, put her on her back and started running with her to the Medical area.
We all ran after them, but the girl couldn't sustain Helen on the back. Furthermore, we managed to get to the Boy's hostel area, and luckily, we bumped into Chester, a friend of Helen's ex.
“Jesus! What happened to Helen?” Chester asked, raising his voice. He didn't even wait for any of us to respond as he quickly collected Helen from the girl, carried her like a baby, and we all continued with our race to the school's clinic.
We got to the Clinic, and we were all screaming emergency, the medics were quick to action as they rolled out a bed. The doctor rushed out and on seeing Helen's condition he said they do not have the capacity to handle it, so they called in the school's Ambulance to take us to the city.
As the Ambulance was packing to pick up Helen, I overheard the doctor communicating with the nurses on duty in my mother's dialect, which I understood.
Immediately the Ambulance stationed, me, Chester and the girls got in with one Nurse and the driver drove like crazy because Helen was gradually slipping away.
“You cannot leave me Helen, I promise to be a better sister, please don't just die, do not leave me like our parents did.” Kate pleaded with Helen's unconscious body as she sobbed softly.
She continued, “I apologize for all the time I was distant, I apologize for not being available, I apologize for fighting with you when I could have just made peace, Helen, please don't leave me all alone in this wicked world, if you go I have nothing left to live for, I will just die too.” As she sobbed, I gently rubbed on her shoulders while I try not to cry myself.
Jessica on the other hand being a light skinned person was already red as she has been crying. While I tried to keep strong for the girls, Chester was trying to contact Helen's ex. As he got through to him, telling him what has happened to Helen, he hissed and responed "so what's my business? Am I a doctor?" Before Chester could say anything again, the line disconnected.
It was at Helen's unfortunate situation, we knew she and her boyfriend were no more.
We got to the hospital at the City and Helen was rushed to the Emergency unit. We waited until she was stabilized and then Chester, Jessica and I joined the Ambulance back to school while Kate remained to tend to Helen.
On reaching the School, I turned to Jessica, “babe, let us go to Helen's room to do some snooping because earlier when we brought her in, the Doctor was telling the Nurses that Helen was reacting to poison, and he is suspecting a suicide attempt.”
Jessica gasped and her eyes widened. She held on to my arm firmly and said, "we need to act fast then because if the school authority gets to her room before we do and find anything suggesting a suicide, Helen could be expelled upon recovery”.
We rushed straight to Helen's room and started snooping around. By her bed side, we saw a bottle of gin and squeezed limes, we also saw some unidentified drugs, and we packed them all to discard them.
Jessica had wanted us to clean up the room, but I stopped her because we needed to be careful not to raise any suspicion.
Satisfied with our damage control, we snuck out to avoid being seen, the same way we snuck in.
The following morning, the school authority had come to search Helen's room for anything incriminating. Later that day when Kate got back, I told her everything that had happened in her absence and she couldn't help but express her immerse gratitude.
Helen did get better and faced the disciplinary committee, but she was set free since no substantial evidence to support the doctor's suicide claims.
Moving forward, Helen and Kate sorted out their differences and bonded as sisters.
