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Chapter Eleven

Brian


I was getting frustrated.

I was still bed-bound almost a week later and I think everyone was getting sick of me asking about Nick. Kevin, Howie, and AJ had been by to visit me, as had Eddie, a couple of our bodyguards, and, of course, my family. I asked every one of them if they'd been to see Nick and if they had how he was looking, if Jane was up there, and what the doctors were saying about his status.

"I know you're feeling... all kinds of stuff," Kevin said gently during one of his visits after I'd made him go up to check on Nick to give me a status update, "But I don't know if this is, you know, healthy." He paused and chewed his lip, "Brian... I hate to say this, but I kind of agree with Jane."

"What?" I stared up at Kevin in disbelief. "You agree with his mother?" I demanded. "His mother."

Kevin shuffled his feet, "Brian, he ain't lookin' good up there, and -- it gets worse every time I come."

I looked at the blankets. "He's gonna pull through," I whispered. "He has to. I saw him, he's alive somewhere, Kevin."

Kevin's eyes were sad. He pulled up a chair. "Brian... that night, the night when the accident happened, I saw the whole thing. It wasn't your fault, man."

I refused to look at him. My heart felt like it might explode I was so angry with him. With him and with every other person who thought Nick was going to die (and yes, that was including myself at times). I stared away across the room where Leighanne had left a bag of yarn and some knitting needles. She was knitting a scarf for her father for Christmas. We were almost at the end of September. I chewed my lip.

"Yeah, you braked late, yes the car hydroplaned, Brian," Kevin said. "But so did the truck. That truck had it's right turn signal on, and it veered way to the left when it hit you. It was out of control on the ramp."

"We were fighting, Kev," I said.

"When weren't you fighting?" he asked.

"Exactly," I said. I shook my head. "Exactly."

"You can't take this on yourself, Brian," Kevin said, "And frankly, there's no amount of guilt you'll feel that could change it so you shouldn't allow it to sneak in." He smoothed the edge of the blanket in a nervous sort of way. "You know when my Dad died, I blamed myself for weeks?"

"Why?"

"Because I went to see him when I wasn't feeling too great," Kevin said. "It was just jetlag, and I knew that then, too, but I had myself convinced that I'd had a cold or something and that he'd caught it from me and that was why he died. But you know, even if I did have a cold and he did catch it from me, it still wouldn't be why he died. He died because it was his time. And if Nick dies, it's not because of you, it's because it's his time."

I shook my head.

"Or because of Jane," Kevin added.

"She been around?" I asked as casually as I could. I'd been spending all my time desperately trying to find some law that would help me keep her from pulling the plug on Nick, but I couldn't find anything. It wasn't the first time Google search had failed me but it was the first time that I needed an answer as desperately as I did now. I picked at my fingers.

Kevin's voice was level, "She has."

"And?"

"I told you, Brian, I kind of agree with her. I think if he doesn't wake up soon that it's... time."

I looked up at him. "Nick wouldn't have wanted ---"

"Nick did want that, actually," Kevin interrupted. And he turned and rummaged through a small duffle bag of stuff he'd brought me. He pulled out a journal. "I found this on Nick's tour bus," he confessed. He hesitated, turning it over in his hands and looking at the leather. It was one of those nice journals you can get at Barnes & Noble. "I... perused a little through it," he said.

"Nick is gonna kill you," I said. He was such a private person.

Is.

He is such a private person.

Kevin slid his finger through a page he had earmarked and he held it out to me. "This is enough to uphold Jane's request to end futile life support," he said.

I took the journal.

Nick's chickenscratch handwriting filled the page, a scrawling, rambling mess of thoughts and doodles that, for most people, would be hard to understand. If you knew Nick, though, if you knew how his mind worked, it was like opening up his head and looking inside. I stared down at the page.

Its bad to say it but I'm kind of happy for Leslie in a twisted kinda way. Nobody would understand that I don't think except that at least she's done with suffering. She didn't die slow and she doesn't gotta be sad again. She just is dead, just gone. Lingering isn't anyway to live and I think she's been lingering for a long time, like being on those pills were her life support machines and she just finally pulled the plug. I believe in pullin' the plug I guess. I dunno. I mean she's gone, I miss her. But she's happy now. Happier then we ever made her here and I wish she wasn't gone and I don't believe in suicide but sometimes it harder letting go than it is taking the leap. I don't know. I don't know what to believe sometimes. I know if I was dying, if I was mostly dead, I'd wanna be let go. Lingering isn't anyway to live.

This diatribe was peppered with doodles of the logo of some video game that he played constantly and a pretty accurate life-size, three-dimensional sketch of a pack of tic-tacs.

I looked up at Kevin.

"This was written when he was depressed about Leslie," I said.

Kevin took the journal back and unfolded his earmark. Underneath was the date. It was dated two days before the accident.

My heart ached. He still hurt and thought this much about Leslie, nearly two years later? I closed my eyes. How long had Nick been screaming out for someone to talk to, someone besides this bloody journal, and I'd just been ignoring him, too absorbed in my own life and my own anger with him to even notice that he needed me.

"I don't care," I said, "I don't care what he said two days before the accident, I don't care what Jane thinks, or, for that matter, what you think. I'm his best friend and I've maybe fucked up a lot in the last ten years but I owe it to him to stand up for him and protect him. I owe him my belief in him." I shut the journal heavily. "Nick is a fighter, he's always been a fighter, and he needs us to remember that part of him and fight for him, Kevin."

Kevin sighed. I could tell he wanted to argue with me further but that he knew it was pointless to try. He turned back to the duffle bag and rummaged around again. A moment later his hands emerged with Nick's iPod.

"What's that for?" I asked.

Kevin was raveling Nick's earbuds around the player. "I thought he might... I dunno... respond to some music or something."

"That'd be nice," I said.

Kevin slid the iPod into his pocket. "I'll be back in a little bit. I'm gonna go visit him."

I nodded.

"Say hi to him for me," I requested.

Kevin saluted in reply and stepped out the door of my hospital room. I looked down at the journal on my lap and ran my fingers over the cover slowly. I felt like I was holding his soul. I looked up the ceiling, pictured him a few floors above me.

"You gotta wake up, buddy. Prove'm all wrong. Just like the old times," I begged quietly. "You got this. I know you do. Just wake up... please."