A few nights later, after Dawn’s show,
everyone came back to the hotel and headed to their rooms. D lay down on her bed and sighed. She was getting really worried about Dawn, her drinking hadn’t gotten better like she hoped it would after she confronted her about it. As a matter of fact, it had gotten worse. She was now going out every night and drinking way too much. She sat and tried to figure out what could be making Dawn start to rely on alcohol so much."Her relationship with J is good," she said aloud.
She knew Dawn was trying to pull away from AJ a little bit so she wasn’t so dependant on him, but seeing how she was going about doing it, she couldn’t help but think maybe it wasn’t such a good idea. Something else had to be bothering her, but what could it be? She decided to try to talk to Dawn about it again.
She got up
and headed to Dawn’s room. She passed the table in the kitchen and noticed a piece of paper sitting there. She walked over and picked it up."D ~ I went out with Noah for awhile. I thought you were sleeping, please don’t be mad. We won’t be too late. Dawn"
"WHAT??!!" D felt like she was going to explode. "What is wrong with that girl??"
She paced the floor.
"Oh my god, she’s alone with Noah! Shit!! J is gonna kill me!"
She sat down
and thought for a minute about what to do. Suddenly, an idea came to her."I wonder if her cell phone is on? If it is, I’ll just find out where she is
and head out there."She picked up the phone
and dialed Dawn’s cell number. It rang a few times then her voicemail came on."Shit!" D exclaimed
and slammed the phone down. "Oh, I can’t wait until she gets home. Just wait until I get my hands on her!"D turned on the
television and made herself comfortable on the couch. Before she knew it, she had dozed off.Dawn opened the door as quietly as she could. She stopped when she realized the
television was on. Noah didn’t notice that she stopped and walked right into her. They both burst out into drunken laughter."Ssshh," Dawn whispered putting her finger against her lips. "Be vewy, vewy qwiet."
They both laughed again
and stumbled in the door. Dawn walked as best she could over to the wet bar and grabbed the bottle of Jack Daniels out of the cabinet, popped the top off and took a big gulp. D heard the noise they made and awoke from her light slumber on the couch. She looked at Dawn first, then Noah. They both reeked of alcohol."Where have you two been?"
She asked, shooting Noah a dirty look.She noticed the bottle in Dawn’s hand
and knew that she had to do something."And where’s Steve?"
She asked, referring to Dawn’s bodyguard."Steve just went back to his room. We decided to go out for a few drinks. I left you a note…"
Dawn pointed to the table where she had left the note.
"Hey, where’d it go?"
She asked getting on her hands and knees, crawling under the table."I got the note, why didn’t you tell me you were going out?"
She asked with her arms folded."I didn’t realize I needed anyone’s permission,
Mom,"Dawn said, attempting to stand up, then, realizing she was too drunk, she crawled over to the couch and plunked herself down in it."She was in good hands, D. She doesn’t need a babysitter."
"I don’t want to hear anything from YOU," D said,looking him directly in the eye. "As a matter of fact, why don’t you just leave."
"Wait a minute," Dawn said getting up from the couch. "I don’t know what your problem is, and frankly, I don’t care. I just know you better get over it because I
invited Noah here.""My problem? MY problem??
!? Why don’t we discuss YOUR problem…your drinking problem!!" D shouted at her."I don’t have a drinking problem, I’m just out having fun. I can’t help it if you don’t like that.
You're the one who suggested I start going out more anyway!""I didn’t say you should go out
and get drunk every damn night! What would AJ say about this? Do you think he would like you drinking so much so often??"Dawn walked over to her so she was only inches from D.
"Let me tell you something, AJ is
not here. He is not my father either. If I want to drink all day, everyday and go take off my clothes in the middle of the dance floor somewhere then that is my business. You just keep your nose out of my business and stop telling me what to do!!"She stumbled towards the door, still clutching the bottle of Jack Daniels.
"Come on Noah, let’s go somewhere else." She said,grabbing his arm.
He turned
and gave D a smirk she wanted to smack right off his face. She didn’t know what to do, she couldn’t let Dawn leave with Noah. There was no telling what Noah might do."Dawn, where are you going??" D yelled after her.
"Don’t worry about it, leave me alone!!"
With that, the door slammed behind them. D sat on the couch almost in tears. She didn’t know what was going on, but she knew it was something big, something way out of her control. If she didn’t do something about it soon, she was afraid something terrible was going to happen to her best friend. She glanced over at the clock.
'
Three fourty-eight, It’s not too late over in the States,' she thought for a minute. 'She has given me no other choice.'She picked up the phone
and dialed AJ’s number."Hello?"
He answered in a groggy voice."J, I’m sorry to wake you up, but we have a problem and I don’t know what to do," she cried.
He sat straight up, suddenly he was wide awake.
"Calm down, tell me what’s wrong. Is it Dawn?"
"Yes," she cried. "Her drinking is out of control, now she’s off with Noah and I couldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t stop her, I tried, really, I did. I swear. I’m so sorry," she sobbed.
"Okay, wait a minute, back up. Start from the beginning," he tried to remain calm.
D took a deep breath
and tried to calm down and stop crying."Well, after the show tonight, we all came back to our rooms. I thought Dawn was going to bed, so I didn’t think anything of it. I was sitting in my room thinking about this whole situation with her drinking, which, by the way has gotten worse since the last time we spoke…"
"I
told you if things got worse to call me!""I know, but I didn’t want to worry you, there was really nothing you could do being so far away. I thought I could handle it!"
"Damn it, D!"
"I’m sorry. Please don’t be mad!"
She started to cry again.AJ took a deep breath
and tried to calm down again."Okay, I’m sorry. Tell me what happened tonight."
"Okay, well, I went to go to her room to talk to her about this again
and I saw a note sitting on the kitchen table. It was from Dawn, it said that she went out with Noah and wouldn’t be too late.""She didn’t come
and tell you she was going out?""Nope. She said she thought I was sleeping. My guess is either Noah convinced her not to tell me or she was afraid I would give her a hard time."
"What has gotten into her?"
"Oh, that’s not the best part. They both strolled in about
three thirty, drunk out of their minds. The first place Dawn went to was the wet bar and grabbed the bottle of Jack out of the cabinet and started sucking on it like a baby.""Oh my
God…"AJ put his face in his hands."Yeah, then all hell broke loose. I told Noah to leave, Dawn went off because she said she invited him
and if I didn’t like it that was too bad, I better get over it. Then she said she didn’t care what you thought about her drinking because you weren’t here and you weren’t her father. Then she told me to keep my nose out of her business and leave her alone.""Christ, where is she now??"
"I don’t know, after our screaming match, she grabbed the bottle of Jack
, then her and Noah went somewhere. I asked her where they were going and she just said not to worry about it and to leave her alone," she started to cry again. "I don’t know what to do now, J, tell me what to do, please…" she sobbed.He thought for a minute.
"Okay, calm down. Do you have
any idea where she could have gone.""No, not really. Not unless she went to Noah’s room or something."
AJ cringed at the thought of his fiance’ being alone with Noah in his room, drunk, on top of it all.
"Okay, just try to find her. When you do, I don’t care
what you have to do, tie her up, lock her in the bedroom, I don’t care, just keep her in the room. I’ll be there as soon as I can.""J, I’m sorry. I honestly thought she was going to be okay. I feel so helpless right now. I feel like I failed her in some way."
"It’s not your fault, it’s mine. I shouldn’t have been so adamant about making her stand on her own two feet before she was ready. I have no other alternative now, I have to come out there. I know if I just call she won’t listen to me. If I’m there, in front of her she has no choice but to listen to what I have to say."
"If she’s going to listen to anyone, J, it’s you. I’ll do everything I can to keep her here once I find her. One more thing, please, remember that she is not herself. She may say things, terrible things that she doesn’t mean. Just remember that she loves you, and remember that tough love sometimes is the best way to go."
He sighed, "I know. I just hope we caught this before it got too out of control."
He felt tears start to well up in his eyes.
"Damn it, I should have done something about this when I was there. I had a feeling. I should have acted on it."
"Don’t blame yourself, it’s
not your fault. It’s not anyone’s fault. It just seems that Dawn needs to depend on someone, or something. You’re not here, she turned to alcohol. This is not the time to dwell on what you could’ve or should’ve done. Dawn needs you to be strong right now.""I know, I know. Okay, I’ll be on the first flight out in the morning."
"Okay, see you tomorrow,J."
"Oh, D?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you. I know I’m a pain in the ass
and sometimes demanding, especially where Dawn is concerned, but I love her so much. Thank you for being there.""No problem," she smiled. "Bye, J."
"Bye. See you tomorrow."