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Chapter 32:

Nastasia jumped into her car and sped off down the road. Panic and fear was rushing through her. She didn't understand why. She had been sitting with Howie after Chase had stormed off, when a sudden feeling hit her and A.J's name flashed in her mind. She felt the sudden need to get to him as quickly as possible. Something was terribly wrong - she could feel it.

She tapped her hands impatiently on the steering wheel, waiting for the traffic light to turn green and once it did, the cars ahead of her seemed to move extremely slow. She slammed her hand down on the horn repeatedly.

Nastasia panicked more and more as each minute rolled by. She felt as if she were in a race against time. What scared her even more was that she didn't know what was happening - why she was feeling this. All she knew was something was wrong and she had to get to A.J.

Finally, she reached A.J's street and then his house and pulled into the driveway. Everything looked peaceful from the outside, but that didn't calm her fears. She rushed up to A.J's door and burst into the house. An eerie silence roamed the place.

" A.J? " Nastasia called out, but only silence replied. " A.J?! " Where was he? She ran into the kitchen looking desperately for her friend, a sickening feeling growing in the pit of her stomach. He wasn't in there. She was about to leave the kitchen when something out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. It was a piece of paper pinned to the fridge. She quickly ran over to it and snatched it off.

' My world has been turned upside down and has crashed around me. My love is gone. I see no meaning anymore...why live? Tell my son, Chase, that Daddy loves him. - A.J '

Nastasia's hands shook tremendously. " HOLY SHIT! " she cried, dropping the note and running out of the kitchen. She ran down the hall, her heart beating a marathon. " Please God, no... ' she thought as she reached A.J's bedroom. It was dark except for light escaping from the bathroom from the door not being shut all the way. She swung the door open and screamed in horror.

A.J lay on the bathroom floor unconcious, the bottle of pain medication spilled around him. His right hand was swollen and had cuts on it.

Nastasia dropped to her knees beside her friend's seemingly lifeless body. " OMG, A.J, sweetie wake up. Please wake up. " She shook his shoulder, but recieved no response. " A.J! Wake up, damnit! WAKE UP! " she screamed, still shaking his shoulder. The tears were now streaming down her face. " Please A.J, wake up... " She brought two fingers to the side of his neck to feel for a pulse and was glad to find one. He was breathing, but she knew if he didn't wake up and get the drug out of his system, he would be in trouble.

All of a sudden, A.J's mouth parted and he began to take in deep breaths of air, then his eyes opened, but his beautiful brown eyes were clouded over with confusion. He looked up and saw Nastasia sitting beside him, the tears streaming down her face. How did she get there? He didn't remember calling her to come over again. " S-Stazzie? " he asked hoarsly, not fully alert.

Nastasia wanted to scream at him with anger, tell him how stupid he was, but she knew that wasn't what he needed. " A-are you ok? "

A.J shook his head, but regretted it. His head was pounding. " I think...I think...I'm going to be sick... " he murmured, shutting his eyes.

" A.J, sit up sweetie, " Nastasia ordered gently, trying to hoist A.J into the sitting position with much difficulty. She was able to get him to sit up just as he began to let it all out.

*****

A.J moaned in his sleep as he tossed and turned in his bed. He slowly opened his eyes and had to squint from the bright sun light that shone through his window. He was in his bed, still in the pair of dark blue baggy jeans and black tank that he was wearing the day before, but he couldn't remember how he got there. Everything was all so hazy. He stretched his arm out to his right, expecting to find his girlfriend laying there, but was dismayed to find the right side of the bed empty. " Amanda? " he asked the silence, but got no reply. Then everything started coming back to him. The final moment of their relationship, the slamming of the door; the depression that followed and how he had wanted to end it all. Images flashed through out his mind of him unscrewing the cap of the medicine bottle and reaching in for the first pill. Had he actually done that? How could he have been so stupid?

All of a sudden he bolted up from his bed and shot into his bathroom, feeling extremely queezy. He began to mentally kick himself for the mistake he had made.

Sitting on the bathroom floor, he leaned against the wall and took a deep breath, and the tears began to fall.