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Chapter Twelve

Nick


The city was the weirdest thing I'd seen yet in this paused world. There was just so much going on, even in the middle of the night. There were people braving the night and the rain, carrying cups and newspapers and holding their jackets and hats close to them. One guy had an umbrella that was about to turn inside out. And there was a maze of cars to maneuver through, too, and as the city became more and more congested the closer to the center we got, we had to drive the car slower and slower until finally I couldn't go any further and I stopped the car. "I think we're at the end of the line," I said.

"It's only a little further," Margo said, pushing her side door open, "Like two or three miles."

A few months before, two miles wouldn't have sounded so terrible. But since Lauren -- Well, I hadn't been exercising lately. All the machines at the gym reminded me of her. Especially the ones that she did better than I did. I was falling into old habits of pizza and video games. Except for that one kale salad. But I legitimately liked the kale. So... Kale's a good topping on pizza, by the way.

Now two miles sounded as ambitious as attempting to climb Mount Everest.

I followed along behind Margo anyways, headed for the hospital, feeling an awful lot like the first few episodes of the Walking Dead when Rick walks into the desolate streets of Atlanta on that horse that ends up being Zombie feed. It's a good thing that there wasn't anything except the two of us around to make unexpected noises or else I would've been jumpy as fuck thanks to the idea of zombies traveling through my mind. As it was, I started looking extra carefully at all the paused people whose glassy eyes were frozen looking exactly where they'd been lookin' when I hit the pause button.

Since Margo knew where she was going (and I didn't even know what city we were in). I watched as she led the way, her hair swooshing as she walked. She was pretty but in a normal sort of way, you know, like real-girl-pretty as opposed to celebrity-girl-pretty. The kind of pretty that the girl next door would be, or the kind of pretty that the person still appreciates being told they're pretty.

So I blurted it out.

"You're pretty."

Margo stopped short and I almost walked into her. The green lights of a four-way intersection glowed down on us, the criss-cross pattern of the headlights broke the dark... if stuff suddenly unpaused we'd be flattened by a stampede of taxi cabs. She turned to look at me. "Why in the world would you say that for?" she demanded.

I shrugged, "Why not?"

"Because you're lying," she answered."

"What?"

"I ain't pretty, you don't think that I am, so why say it?"

"I wouldn't have said it if I didn't think it," I said, "You dunno what I do and don't think." Margo studied me for a long moment, her eyes seeming to judge me or something. She licked her lips as she thought - in a cute, sexy lil way that was almost hypnotic. "Now you're sexy," I said thickly.

It was nice feeling --- whatever this was --- for someone again, I thought.

I took a step closer to her, took he hands in mine.

Margo shook her head and pulled her hands away, "Uh-uh," she said quietly, "No. Don't start this unless you're gonna finish it."

"Oh I'll finish it alright," I said, and I stepped closer again.

"What if we unpause and you - you change your mind once you're back in the real world doing your real life things?" she asked. "You're not gonna be interested in someone like me anymore then, are you."

"Of course I will," I replied.

She snorted.

"I will," I said.

"What if we can only unpause you?" she asked. "Don't start it unless you can promise me I won't be alone again."

"I promise," I said. "If we can only unpause me then -- then I won't unpause ever. I'll stay here with you forever. You'll never be alone again. I'll be here. I promise."

It was rash, but as the words came out of my mouth I knew they were true. They felt right, they felt good, they felt real. Realer than anything else in this weird little paused world. And for the first time in my life I had the weirdest thought.

This is what Brian felt like when he met Leighanne. Like nothing else in the entire universe - in either universe in my case - mattered, other than being with her. Of course he didn't wanna play basket ball or fight about which superhero would kick which other superhero's ass.

He was in love.

And that's when I realized something else.

I was in love, too.




Brian


When Kevin returned to my room he had a dire look on his face. He stood in the doorway, his hands in his pockets. I was eating a plate of food they'd brought me that included incredibly bland macaroni and cheese, dry chicken nuggets, and a bowl of cream corn. "I'd kill for a burger," I said when he first walked in, before I noticed the expression on his face. I put down my spoon with a clatter on the tray. "He's okay?" I asked.

Kevin nodded.

My heart rate slowed. I picked the spoon back up.

"For now," he muttered.

I looked at him, a bite of mac and cheese halfway between the tray and my mouth. "For now?" I asked, lowering it back down.

Kevin walked across the room and sat on the edge of the bed. He picked up one of the chicken nuggets and chewed it contemplatively. I stared at the side of his head, waiting for him to say more. Finally, he said, "Jane's giving him three days."

I choked. I don't know what on, I didn't have anything in my mouth. I just choked. I started coughing like crazy, so hard my esophagus felt like it was coming up through my neck and my eyes watered. I held my arms up, trying to stop the chokage and Kevin jumped up and patted my back 'til the coughing fit subsided.

"THREE days?" I squeaked the moment I could get any sort of words out of my mouth.

Kevin sighed. "Yeah," he said. "Three days."

"But -- but I thought --" I shook my head, "Three days isn't enough time --"

"Brian." Kevin looked down at the tile as he spoke, avoiding my eyes, "I told you already what I think."

"Kev... I saw him, I talked to him."

Kevin shook his head, "Brian, you had a dream."

"No, Kev, I know dreams. I know dreams and this was no dream. This was real. As real as you and me right now talkin', man. Just as real as this. I couldn't talk to him, but he talked to me. I know he's in there, Kev. I know he is. We just gotta figure out what'll wake him up and --"

Kevin interrupted me, "He's brain dead, Brian. His brain does not function. It's like he's turned off."

"Maybe he's just paused," I said.

Kevin shook his head, "He's dead, Brian. All that's there is a shell. Some body tissue that's shaped like Nick. But Nick isn't in there. He can't be, or he'd be responding in some way."

He'd said the D-word.

It was like all the oxygen in the world had been sucked into the blackhole that was the D-word.

"I can't believe you," I snapped, "What happened to sticking together through everything, to the Backstreet Family, to all of us being there for each other? What happened to we can make it through anything?"

"Brian, you gotta know I'm right about this. Nick wouldn't have wanted to just lie in a bed, breathing because machines are making his chest rise and fall. He wouldn't have wanted that. And if you were really his family, if you were really his best friend, you wouldn't want that either. He deserves peace for once in his god-damned life!" Kevin's voice rose at the end and he slammed his fist on the rolling tray and my lunch bounced.

I looked down at my hands.

"Doesn't he deserve some peace?" Kevin asked thickly.

I nodded.

"But he deserves a chance, too," I mumbled.