“Okay, let’s go,” I agree. He scoops me up in his arms and takes me to our room, putting me down on our bed and disappearing into the closet. I watch as he comes back out carrying a pair of flats. He crouches down in front of me and wordlessly puts them on my feet before carrying me out of the apartment and to the car.
The ride to the hospital is quiet. Nick nervously chews on his fingernails as he drives, and I alternate between staring out the window, wondering how such horrible news can be delivered on such a pretty day. As we drive by the park, I watch the orange autumn leaves fall from the trees, the horses that walk around us carrying laughing families and happy couples, all of them oblivious to the palpable pain in our car; all of them unmoved, their lives unchanged by the news that our friend is hooked up to monitors. The mental image makes me shiver as tears fill my eyes yet again.
When we pull up to the hospital, Nick hands the keys over to the valet and drags me out of the car, away from the reporters standing outside, and pulls me into the automatic doors, into the building that hold answers I’m not ready for. Once we check in and get our guest passes, we take the elevators to the ICU and see a flurry of big bodyguards swarm past us. I catch sight of a somber Gia in the middle of them and attempt to call out her name, but fail. My voice gets clogged in my throat along with every other intestine that has managed to lodge itself there.
“Gia,” Nick says, making her turn around. She looks numb, scared as she shakes her head.
“I can’t,” she mouths before turning around to walk away, her slim body getting lost in the protective front the men have built around her. My heart picks up the pace, assuming the worst—he died. Shea died.
“Oh my God,” I say to Nick in a panic, looking around the white halls that threaten to close in on me.
Don’t break down.
Don’t break down.
Don’t break down.
Don’t break down.
“Rye, I thought you would be sleeping,” I said, walking over to the window and opening the top layer of his curtains. I glanced at him over my shoulders and felt not as if my heart fell through my chest, but everything in my body just plummeted all at once at the sight of him.
“Ryan?” I shrieked, running to him with wide eyes that were already welling up with tears. He looked gray. Lifeless. He was sitting up in bed but looked more like a stone sculpture than himself. I knew. I just knew. A majestic blue band was wrapped tightly around his bicep and his arms were laying over his crossed legs, his face hanging down over his chest, the needle in his right hand …
My heart feels like it’s being pounded on with a knife repeatedly. “I can’t,” I say to Nick, yanking my hand from his. Nick grabs by hand again, but I plant my legs to the ground, bending my knees and pulling the opposite way. “I can’t,” I shout. “I can’t. I can’t,” I repeat it over and over as sobs begin to rake through me and water spills out of my eyes without my consent.
I hear Nick sigh loudly as he wraps his arms around me, holding me tight and moving me out of the hall into a dark nook by the stairwell.
“Look at me, Brooklyn,” Nick says, his voice firm but quiet.
I shake my head defiantly.
“Look at me,” he demands. “We’re going to find out what’s going on, okay? If we can see him, I’ll go in before you or we can go together,” he says.
I blink. Blink. And wipe my eyes as I take a deep breath. “Okay,” I croak.
“He needs you to be strong for him,” Nick says, his voice wavering. He pinches my chin with his fingers so that I look at him. His eyes are etched with pain, full of quiet turmoil as he consoles me. “I need you to be strong for me,” he emphasizes gravely.
That makes me cry harder. Nick pulls me into him, letting me bury my face in his chest as he wraps his strong arms around me, offering me whatever strength he has. When I feel like I can breathe again, I nod my head and step away.
“Okay. Okay. I can do this,” I say in a chant as Nick takes a hold of my face, wiping my tears with his thumbs. When he drops his hands, I close my eyes and begin inhaling deep breaths. God, please, please, please, help my friend. Please help him. I promise I’ll do whatever I need to do, just please help him. Please don’t take him from me. I’ll give you whatever you want. Just please help him. Please save him. Please let him be okay.
A sense of calm envelops me and I peel my eyes open and look at Nick, who has both arms over his head and his own eyes closed, his lips slightly parted. He remains unmoving as I wrap my arms around the middle of his body and lay my head on his chest.
“I love you,” I murmur quickly against him. I don’t care that he hasn’t said it. I don’t care if he doesn’t say it now, but I realize that life is so precious, so fragile, and being in this situation cements that further for me.
He lets out a breath and wraps his arms around me tightly. “I love you too, baby. So much,” he murmurs, kissing the top of my head. “Are you ready?”
I sniffle, dropping my arms from him and taking a step back. “Are you?” I ask quietly.
He looks at me for a long moment, searching my eyes, taking something from me and replacing it with something of his own. He runs the pads of his thumbs over my cheeks. “If you’re with me, yes.”
“Always.”
Nick gives me a small smile and pulls me back to the hallway, walking us to Shea’s room. Despite feeling ready, I take another deep breath when we reach the door and are told we can walk in because Shea’s mother stepped out. I walk in, my eyes filling with new tears when I see him lying in the middle of the room with an IV hooked up to his arm. My first thought is: he’s alive. I let out a breath because of it. Nick’s hand squeezes mine, and I squeeze back before letting go and walking up to Shea’s bed. He looks like he’s sleeping. His tattooed arms are both facing upward, the one to my right has needle marks on it, each one of them picking at my heart, threatening to break it again.
I take a seat in the chair beside his bed and hold his hand, laying my head over his forearm and caressing his Brooklyn tattoo as I cry over him.
“You promised me,” I cry in a whisper. “You promised you weren’t using. You promised …”
When the door squeaks open, I turn my head in that direction, blurrily making out his mom standing there.
“Oh, Brooklyn,” Maria cries as she walks over to me.
We cling to each other, both of us giving each other the strength we need to get through this for the broken boy we love.
“They’re saying he had different things in his system,” Maria explains, wiping her nose once we’re sitting down calmly.
I shake my head. “He said he wasn’t using. He promised,” I whisper brokenly, looking at Nick, who hasn’t said anything to us the entire time, just staring at Shea. He’s standing beside the bed, speaking to him softly.
“Well, he did,” Maria says. “He’s under so much pressure.”
I have a million things to scream to her about that but I don’t. Instead I choose to stay quiet for the remainder of the visit, doing what I do best: wallowing. I sit there for what feels like an eternity, but I don’t mind because I know death knows no time. Shea is wheeled in and out of the room countless times as Nick and I huddle in a corner, speaking only when Maria or Darius talk to us as we stare at the center of the room in disbelief.
“Babe, we have to eat something,” Nick says finally. My eyes graze over the clock on the wall and the slightly open door, wondering if Father Time will appear through them, not wanting to move in case he does.
“I’m not hungry,” I respond in a small voice.
Darius calls out to somebody—I’m assuming the other bodyguard—when we hear chaotic voices down the hall. He steps out and speaks to somebody, my ears perking up at the sound of my brother’s voice. I want to find the will to stand, to see him, but I can’t, energy doesn’t reside in my body.
“Oh my God,” Nina screeches as she squeezes her way inside, her bloodshot eyes scanning the room before staying on me
as she makes her way over and wraps her arms tightly around me. The false bravado I’ve been trying to put on for the past couple of hours falls away from me. Leaning into her, I begin to sob loudly again, letting her rock me as she sobs along with me. Soon I feel my brother’s arms wrap around us, holding us all together.
“They took him to run tests?” Hendrix asks.
I nod, or try to, beneath them, my chest raking in anguish, not allowing me to respond clearly.
“Yeah, CAT scan, MRI. They wheeled him out a while ago, he should be back soon,” Nick responds.
“He’s gonna die,” I cry as my shoulders shake. “He’s gonna die just like Ryan.”
“He’s not going to die!” Nina says adamantly, stepping away from me and drying the tears from her eyes. Her hair is in a messy bun and her face has no makeup, she looks completely unlike herself. “He can’t just die,” she says with a troubled frown as her eyes glisten with new tears. Nina’s dealt with death, but never like this, never actually had to look at it in the face and acknowledge that it can take your loved ones without your opinion or consent.
“He called me last night,” I say, crying again.
Hendrix pulls me into his arms, squeezing me. “It’s not your fault, Brooklyn. This is not your fault.”
“If I would have picked up the phone …” I start.
“It’s my fault,” Nick says, making my head snap to where he’s standing. He pulls on his hair and walks over to me, pinching my chin and tilting my head to look at him. His ocean eyes are turbulent as he pins me with them, making me see them, making me feel them. “If you’re going to blame yourself, you might as well blame me. He called me too, he asked me to go too, so if you’re going to believe it’s your fault, you might as well blame me for insisting we go to bed early. Blame me for telling you to stop looking at your phone for a goddamn night so that you could rest. Blame life for being so short or drugs for having the ability to give you false hope. But I won’t let you blame yourself, Brooklyn, not this time, because whatever happens here, whatever happens with Shea,” he says, his voice breaking, “I’m not losing you.”
I look at the floor, at my feet, at the T’s on my designer flats, training my mind to calm down, my emotions to neutralize, but it’s no use. When Nick clasps his hand behind my neck and pulls me into his chest, I lose it again, bawling into him, letting him soak my tears.
“I love you, Brooklyn. I can’t lose you,” Nick says in a low hoarse voice. “We need to be strong. We need to have faith that he’ll pull through.”
“He will,” Nina cries. “He’ll pull through. Shea’s too much of a pain in the ass to give up.” Her voice waivers and gets lost in sobs, and that’s how the nurses find us when they wheel Shea back in. They don’t even bother to tell us to leave or that there’s a visitation limit. I think our tenacity is painted all over our faces. Until Shea comes back to us, we’re not moving. Flowers and balloons with sentiments are continuously brought in, but we don’t need to bring any of that for Shea because for him, we are the flowers. We are the reminder that we’re here for him. We are the voices of each one of his fans, the ones standing outside of the hospital with signs pleading for him to be okay. And if he would just peel his eyes open, he would see that the family he’s so desperately searching for, the people that would never abandon him, have been here all along.
My eyes open to a darkness that matches my sentiments. Sighing, I inch closer to the edge of the bed, gliding out of Nick’s arms and the plush comforter, unable to lie here any longer. Striding past Nick’s sleeping figure, I notice the indecent time on the clock before my eyes land on Nick again. I should be sleeping in those sculpted arms right now instead of awake and walking toward the kitchen, but it’s no use. The more I toss and turn, the higher chance I’ll wake him and he needs sleep too. Once I serve myself a cup of coffee, I walk over to the massive windows of the guest bedroom and sit on the floor in front of the glass. Lowering my cup from my mouth, I run my fingertips over the condensation of the windows, tracing waves over it to clear the haze outside. The day seems to be waking up as foggy as my mind feels, the beauty of the city wrapped up in clouds of grey.
My fingers brush over my phone, the device that’s become even more of an appendage in the last two days. I’m itching to call the hospital for an update on Shea. The last time I checked was a couple of hours ago, and even though his mother hasn’t left his bedside and the nurse on rotation has my phone number, I feel that I need to call, just in case. The MRI they did yesterday showed a lot of brain activity, which they say is a good sign, but still that little word miracle keeps being thrown out there, which scares the shit out of me. It’s not that I don’t believe in miracles, it’s just that I know enough to know they don’t come true for everybody. He deserves that miracle, he deserves a chance at life, at love. But so did Ryan. What is it about survival that makes me feel so guilty? Is it the fact that I feel that even though I’m successful, I feel like I haven’t accomplished enough? Or is because I have things that Ryan never got a chance to have?
After contemplating but not calling, I decide to crawl into the guest bed and see if sleep consumes me here. I feel bad because Nick has been nothing but great to me and I know he’s suffering too, but there’s no reasoning with me when the bleakness takes over. There are no answers I can give myself that will be good enough to numb the pain.
When the charcoal clouds begin growing inside of me, letting the darkness saturate all the light I know is there, I shut down. I don’t do it on purpose, it just happens. And I hate it. I hate that it happens. I hate losing the wind that normally sails me through the days. I hate losing myself in the stillness of my sadness. Because that’s all I become—sadness.
I turn on my side when the door clicks open and Nick appears in the room only wearing basketball shorts. His chest is glistening, his hair is wet, and the smell of the men’s Dove body wash he uses hits me, letting me know he just showered. He doesn’t say anything as he makes his way over and sits beside me on the bed. Letting out a breath, he begins to run his fingers soothingly through my hair slowly, twirling the ends.
“You have to get out of here, babe,” he says, his eyes in pain as he looks at me.
“For what?” I ask, humoring him, even though I don’t want to hear his answer.
“Because I need you,” he states simply, ruffling the hair on my scalp and laying beside me, turning our bodies toward each other.
Tears well up in my eyes. “I’m so scared,” I admit in a whisper, looking into his eyes.
“Me too,” he answers back, then grabs my hand, holding onto my fingers and running them over his side, where his song notes lay. “I have something to show you.”
He circles his arms around me and pulls me from the bed with him, walking me to the living room. I groan and shut my eyes when the sliver of light coming through the blinds hits me. Nick chuckles knowingly as he sits me on the couch and grabs his guitar.
“You wrote it?” I ask, my eyes darting to his tattoo.
“I did,” he responds, tilting his head as he strums the chords of the guitar to a song I haven’t heard. The sound makes my throat close with emotion.
“Yes, I’m someone new. That doesn’t mean I’m gonna hurt you. Yes, I’m a mess, that doesn’t mean I’m trying to fix you,” he croons softly. His raspy voice makes me want to close my stinging eyes, but the intensity he’s looking at me with makes me keep them open.
“You could stay in the darkness, let the dark become the day. I say don’t wait, come over here. I know I wrote these words,” he smiles slightly, pausing, “and that might mean I’m gonna love you. If you should know anythiiing, it’s that you light me up. You light me up. You could say that you’re too scared, but I’m just as scared as you, please, just see me through, come over here. I’ll be heeere, when you’re ready for me. I’ll be here when you’re ready for me. I’ll be here when you’re ready for me,” he finishes, letting his voice drift with the strums of the guitar.
Nick puts the guitar down on the floor beside him and catches me when I throw myself into his arms, cocooning myself into a ball as he holds me and kisses my head, repeatedly telling me how much he loves me.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper when I finish crying. “That was beautiful. Which verse are your notes on?” I ask, wiping my tears away with the backs of my hand.
He holds my face and kisses my lips softly, deeply, then picks the guitar back up and sings, “You could say that you’re too scared, but I’m just as scared as you, please just see me through, come over here.”
Through tears, I smile. “That’s a great line,” I whisper.
“It’s Paige’s song now,” Nick says as he puts the guitar down.
“Chaplin?” I ask, perking up just a little. God, I love that woman’s voice. I wonder how she sounds singing the song.
Nick makes a face at me, seemingly reading my thoughts. “Yes, and she sings it better, but I wanted to play it for you.”
Leaning forward, I kiss him chastely. “You sing good too,” I say, letting him wrap his arms around me.
The phone rings shortly after, making me jump out of his hold and run to it, sliding my finger across it. “Hello?” I say, frantically.
“He’s awake!” Maria says, laughing, crying, and yelling at the same time.
I gasp loudly, my heart beginning to beat quickly again. “He’s awake!” I announce to Nick, screaming with a smile. “Does he know where he is? Does he remember you? Can he talk?” I ask Maria these questions all at once and then cut off her answers by telling her we’re on our way.
I arrive at the hospital feeling as if I’m walking on clouds. I don’t see anybody, hear anybody, but this time it’s because my heart is bursting with gratitude. I thank God a gazillion times and tell him that I knew he would come through for me, then promise that I’ll make it to church every Sunday from now on, and hope I make good on my word. I have to figure out what religion I am before deciding what church I’ll end up in, I guess.
Catch Me Page 35
