Deepest Blues

by Heidi Hutchinson

Mike fought to stay asleep, but the ringing in his head wouldn't stop. His bedroom door flung open, Sway stalked across his room and answered the phone beside the bed.

  “Mike's phone,” Sway barked as Mike fought to sit up in his bed.

  He'd been having nightmares where he was running... or was he chasing? The sheet was a tangled mess around his legs. Ghostly images still filtered through his mind and it was hard to distinguish what was nightmare and what was memory.

  Sway shoved the phone against his face.

  “Hello?” Mike rasped.

  “Mike? It's Charice. Ilsa—God, I can't believe this is happening.”

  Mike was suddenly awake and he stood up fully. “Charice, Ilsa what?”

  “She was drinking when I got home. A-and she took some p-pills. Oh, God! The whole bottle is empty!”

  “Charice, where is she?” He already had his jeans pulled up and was yanking a shirt over his head.

  “She told me that she was fine! She said not to worry!”

  “Is she there? Is she conscious?” Mike couldn't believe this was happening. Charice was not helping. Her panicked sobs were only increasing his agitation.

  “No.”

  Mike's blood ran cold and he stopped moving. Paul's blue lips and dead eyes filled his head.

  “No what?”

  “She's not here. She said she had to see you, she took my car.”

  “No.”

  Mike looked up at Sway, who had been watching this catastrophe unfold.

  “How long ago did she leave?”

  Charice answered with a sob.

  “Dammit, Charice, how long?!” Mike yelled, but it didn't matter. The sound of crunching metal and concrete shook the condo.

  Mike dropped the phone.

  ***

  Sway got there first, Mike right behind him, while Harrison dialed 911.

  Sway wasn't an expert, but it didn't look so bad. The car had hit the condo hard enough to trigger the airbags, but the damage seemed minimal.

  Sway yanked on the driver's side door, but it was wedged and he really had to pry it open. The sound of twisting metal made Sway's skin crawl. Ilsa's body was almost entirely in the passenger seat. She must have lost consciousness just before impact. It was a miracle she had made it all the way there.

  “Ilsa!” Mike shouted, climbing into the car after her, and Sway noticed his bare feet. Mike pulled her limp body from the vehicle, falling and fumbling on his way to the ground. He cradled her lifeless form, trying to hold her head upright.

  “Ilsa! C'mon, baby! She's not breathing!” Mike's terrified eyes swung to Sway, who took Ilsa from his arms and helped lay her flat on the ground. Then he began chest compressions.

  “Ilsa, baby, you gotta breathe for me!” Mike yelled in her face. “Wake up! Dammit! I can't do this again! Wake the fuck up, Ilsa!”

  Sway focused on keeping time with his compressions even as Mike's words registered in his head.

  The street lit up in blue and red, and in another thirty seconds the paramedics had taken over for Sway.

  “What did she take?” one of them asked Mike.

  He shook his head, his hands visibly trembling. “Pills. Alcohol. I'm not sure.”

  ***

  Harrison handed Mike a terrible cup of coffee. He had tried to make something work with the machine to make it less awful, but there really was no point. He should have left and gone somewhere with real coffee. But he was scared to leave.

  Mike took the cup, but didn't look at it. Didn't even acknowledge it was there. Harrison stood next to him in silence as he faced the window, watching the first streaks of dawn color the sky.

  They'd been in the waiting area for hours. Mike hadn't been allowed in the ambulance and he'd thrown a shit conniption about it, too. It took both Sway and Harrison to hold him back from chasing the ambulance down the road. Then it took another wrestling match to get the keys to the Volvo away from him. And a screaming match to get him to put shoes on. Harrison was thankful he'd been working out with Bo and Brady at the gym for the past couple of weeks, he needed the extra bulk to lock down Mike.

  Harrison pulled his hat lower over his eyes, then rested both hands on his hips as he stared at the floor.

  He'd called Luke, who called Blake. They were all there, Lenny and Lucy waiting next to their men.

  But Mike was somewhere else entirely. He hadn't spoken since they arrived, having shut down as soon as they got him settled and into the car. Harrison wasn't sure what to say. None of them were. The girls tried, but they couldn't get Mike to respond to them either.

  Harrison had never seen him like this. He was awake, and walking around, but his eyes were vacant. Haunted. Whatever was happening in his head was worse than what was happening out here.

  Sway had ducked into the hall to make a call. Harrison hoped it was to the same person he was thinking of, the only person who might be able to snap Mike out of this.

  “The coffee is terrible, but it's what they had. Do you need something to eat?” Harrison asked Mike.

  No response.

  Harrison shuffled back to his seat, but before he sat down, he saw Clarke hurrying down the hall to their location. He reversed trajectory, glancing over his shoulder at Mike. Still no movement.

  He and Sway intercepted her as she entered the room, her eyes going straight to Mike. She'd obviously come as soon as Sway had called, because she was wearing jeans and a faded gray sweatshirt, her hair a messy pile at the back of her head, and no makeup. Still one of the prettiest girls in the world if Harrison was being honest.

  “I didn't know who else to call,” Sway explained quietly, his face tight with worry. “He went bonkers when the paramedics took her. They won't let him in since he's not family. He's locked up now. We can't get him to respond to anything.”

  Clarke swallowed and nodded, a look of fear stealing through her eyes.

  “He needs somebody,” Harrison found himself saying. “Someone who can reach him.” He rubbed the stubble on his chin and up the side of his cheek and looked to Sway.

  “He's reliving something,” Sway murmured and Clarke's eyes swung back to the drummer. “When he was doing CPR... he yelled at her that he couldn't do this again.”

  Clarke's eyes slammed closed. She knew. Whatever it was that was haunting Mike, she was aware.

  Taking a deep breath that was more like a sigh, she gave them a wan smile. Then she squeezed Harrison's shoulder as she moved past them.

  Harrison and Sway watched as Clarke approached Mike. She came around in front of him, her arms encircling his waist, and pressed her cheek to his chest. Mike's hands came out of his pockets and surrounded her tightly. His head dropped to press against hers, and then his shoulders began to shake with emotion.

  “Finally,” Sway said, with obvious relief.

  Harrison agreed. But he couldn't voice it.

  ***

  “She's asking for you,” the nurse repeated as Mike stared at her.

  Hours.

  He'd been virtually lost for hours. Tripping over his own memories and his own inaction. Stuck. Helpless. He looked down at his hands, recognizing the calluses formed over years of gripping wooden drumsticks. His tools for keeping rhythm. They always did their job, without question.

  Until he needed them to do something to save the day.

  “The only thing they're good for is keeping track of the time,” he mumbled, his voice grating against the inside of his throat like sandpaper.

  It was the first time he'd spoken since arriving at the hospital. He was surprised his voice worked. He'd screamed until he was positive his vocal chords had snapped when Sway and Harrison had to lock him down. He tried to swallow the tightness and tasted copper.

  Clarke placed her palm against one of his and squeezed his hand. “Go, Mike. I'll be right here.”

  He looked into Clarke's eyes, the brown nearly nonexistent, the blue and green battling for supremacy. They were always different when he looked at her—yet the same. Eyes f
ull of color, full of emotion.

  Eyes full of life.

  Until Clarke had shown up, Mike had been trapped in the night that Paul died. He couldn't stop reliving it. Knowing there had been at last six different ways he could have saved her brother. Saved his friend.

  But then Clarke had wrapped her arms around him and he was back. She held him anchored, instead of letting him list on the waves of his fears, lost, alone.

  He owed her a better explanation for what had happened that night. He owed more than he'd ever be able to pay. He had never even checked to see what had happened to Paul's body. He had no idea how many days Paul had been left unclaimed.

  “It was the thing that did it. That finally ended everything,” Mike spoke slowly, trying to hold her gaze even though it hurt in places he'd never hurt before. “Everyone says it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt. But you assume that hurt doesn't mean dead. Or you assume it'll be you that gets hurt, and you think you can handle it. Because obviously it would be you.”

  Clarke shifted closer to him on the couch and squeezed both of his hands with hers. “Can you give us a few minutes?” she asked the nurse.

  Mike knew, he was worrying her. Hell, he was worrying everyone. Sway and Harrison had taken up positions behind him like sentries. Luke and Blake were seated directly across from them, their wives beside them.

  His whole family in one small, cramped room.

  They had no connection to Ilsa. They weren't here for her. They were here for him.

  And Clarke... Well, Clarke was here, and he didn't want to examine the reasons why. He just knew he didn't want her to be anywhere else.

  “He should be here,” Mike declared.

  “Who?” Luke asked softly, leaning forward, elbows to knees.

  Mike looked up at him and felt a new stab of guilt tear through his gut. Luke had no idea. Best friends for years, by his side through every step of recovery, and Mike had never told him about that night.

  “Paul. He should be here,” Mike said. Luke's head tilted slightly, a frown testing his features.

  “Mike,” Clarke reprimanded him gently. “Now is not the time—”

  “How did you find out that Paul died?” he asked, turning back to her.

  “What?” she breathed, confusion coloring her expression.

  He hated making her think about that day, that moment. But he had to know.

  “How did you find out? Did someone call you? Were you alone?”

  “Bud,” Luke leaned forward, “maybe we should talk about this later.”

  “I have to know,” Mike persisted, not taking his eyes off of Clarke's. “Before I can go in and face her. Before I can face what's between her and me, what's always been between us. I have to know what you went through. What happened to Paul after I just left him there?” He took a deep breath, closed his eyes. Opened them.

  He didn't want to know.

  “Um,” her voice trembled as she tried to fight the emotion surrounding the facts. “His passport was on him. They got a hold of my dad... he called me.” She blinked at the memory, frowning at their clasped hands momentarily. “We, uh, we had him cremated there... after the autopsy. He, um, arrived a week after the funeral....”

  Slowly, painfully, Mike finally released what he'd been carrying around inside him. The truth that burned in him for three years. “It should have been me that night. I'm so sorry it wasn't.”

  Tears fell from Clarke's eyes and he had no idea why. He didn't mean to make her cry. He just wanted her to know that he understood who it should've been. Paul was good and right and clean. Mike wasn't. He was the one who had deserved to stop breathing that night.

  Her warm hands let go of his and framed either side of his face. She drew closer still and he could feel her breath brush across his cheek.

  “Shut up,” she demanded in a tortured whisper, tears running steadily from each of her amazing eyes. “Don't you dare think that this world would be any better without you in it. Paul made his choices. That's the reality we have to live with. I do not blame you for what he did.”

  Then she kissed the corner of his mouth. His lips reacted belatedly and he tasted the tears she left there.

  Something stirred in his blood.

  A reawakening.

  Moving on their own now, his arms pulled her to him, crushing her against his chest. He buried his face in her neck. She clung to him tightly, a soft sob ripping though her body. He focused on breathing. Trying to memorize her scent, her touch, her heart.

  This woman.

  For her to give him such a gift. The gift of her strength. Her forgiveness. Nothing in the world had touched him more. Moved him so deeply.

  They held each other with a mixture of letting go and grabbing hold taking place. He didn't know if he'd ever truly be done with the guilt he carried from that night. Or if he'd ever not feel a measure of responsibility for Paul's death. But it was less.

  And that was everything.

  She believed in him. She believed he was better than that moment.

  Maybe he finally could be.

  Somewhere inside he found what he needed—what she gave—to make the next move.

  Letting her go, he stood and nodded at the nurse, who was standing nearby. She led him away to Ilsa's room.

  Mike looked over his shoulder one last time, his eyes seeking Clarke. She gave him even more—a small smile and a thumbs-up.

  So he kept going.

  ***

  “They say I can go home later,” Ilsa said hopefully after several minutes of silence.

  They'd been kind of speaking around the issue for the better part of an hour. Mike was trying to figure out the right words. What to say so that he wouldn't hurt her, but so that she would still understand.

  “I was hoping I could stay with you for a while...” her voice trailed off. He glanced up to see her picking at the blanket across her lap.

  Even after overdosing, passing out, and crashing a car into the side of a building, she looked beautiful. She would always look beautiful. Maybe she really was moonlight and that's why the harder he tried to hold onto her, the faster she faded away.

  “Are you ready to get help?” he finally asked.

  Her eyes flew to his. “Yes, absolutely!” she agreed immediately.

  Of course she did.

  “No, I mean, real help?” he clarified.

  Her mouth fell open and she looked caught.

  Mike looked at the ceiling before exhaling and then dropping his gaze to the floor. It was hard to look at her and have this conversation. When he looked at her, he saw so much of what he wanted her to be.

  “I can't do it for you,” he said, resigned.

  “Mike, let's go away from here,” she pleaded. He rolled his eyes, but she didn't catch it. “I'm better when I'm with you. I can get better for good if we go someplace. Just the two of us. All I need is you. With you, I can do this.”

  Mike pursed his lips and stared at his hands that were laced together in front of him. She wasn't lying. She really would try as hard as she could to stay clean with him.

  “Don't you see, that if you're not doing it for yourself, it's not real?” he asked. He didn't have to look up to know the look on her face. Probably agonizing realization.

  “What are you saying?”

  He stood and paced across the room in agitation.

  “You almost died tonight, Ilsa.” He stopped and faced her. “In my arms!” She flinched, but he continued, “You have to get help. Real, honest to God help.” He paused, his breathing heavy. “I can get you signed up at a facility. And you'll always have my friendship. But I can't be your live-in sponsor. What we had is—it's been over for a very long time. You can't rely on me to keep you strong. I can hardly rely on myself.”

  “Mike—” her voice cracked and tears spilled unchecked down her beautiful face.

  “Pills, Ilsa,” he said heavily. “You've been taking pills. The whole time. Charice told me.”

  More tears.r />
  Damn, she was even perfect when she cried.

  But Mike was done. In a really quiet, really final way.

  “I'll call your agent, the one you fired,” he said gently, ignoring her soft sobbing. “I'm sure he'll take you back. I'll set up everything through him to pay for your treatment and anything else you'll need.” He took a deep breath and waited for a second before he looked at her again. “I need to be gone from here for a while. I have to... figure some things out.”

  Her bottom lip quivered with a shaky inhale as his words sank in.

  “No,” she whispered.

  He only nodded, looked to the floor and tried to think if there was anything else for him to say. Or if he'd covered it all.

  After all that had happened between them, all he thought was still potentially there, he could see the vacant places he'd tried to fill in with hope.

  They were empty.

  Depleted.

  Done.

  “Hm,” he heard himself say as the ending became final.

  He heard her cry his name twice as he strode down the hall. Suddenly the next step seemed so clear. He knew what he had to do, even if no one would understand.

  He made it to the waiting room and his friends were still there, as he expected them to be. One by one they noticed his arrival and gathered around him.

  But Mike focused on Clarke.

  “I have to go away for a while. I don't know for how long and I don't know where yet,” he said quietly.

  The band all started to bombard him with questions, but Clarke's reaction was the only one he cared about.

  She nodded in understanding.

  The pressure that had been building in his chest eased.

  “It's important I straighten some things out. And I will,” he told her.

  “Yeah, you will,” she agreed with a knowing smile.

  That's all he needed. Her calm reassurance. Her warm understanding. The predictable rhythm of her energy.

  He was going to miss her.

  Chapter 18

  I Won't Turn Back

  The ocean stretched out for years. Well, of course, it was actually miles, but it didn't feel like that. It felt like years. All the years before and all the years to come. The waves were like the respirations of his life. Taking in and letting out. Some breaths were more labored than others.