“She never mentioned you. In Texas, I mean.”
“Not surprising. She’s a master at compartmentalizing.” He doesn’t seem upset that she never even referenced him once.
“I’m learning that.”
We lapse into silence then, lost in our own thoughts. Hours pass. I send a vague message to my parents letting them know to not worry about me. I pace until my knee aches, and then I sit. Brayden paces, sits, paces. He answers a few messages on his phone, presumably from the other members of the band.
At some point in the small hours of the night, a doctor emerges from a hallway, and calls out, “Family of Echo Leveaux?”
Brayden and I both stand up; make our way over to him. “How is she?” Brayden asks.
“Are you immediate family?” the doctor asks.
“We’re all she has,” Brayden explains.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t give out medical information to anyone except immediate family members.”
Brayden paces away and tears at his hair, then returns. “Listen, she doesn’t have any immediate family members! She has one set of grandparents, but they live in Texas and couldn’t be here for days, if they make the trip at all. We are the closest thing to family she has right now, okay? Just…please, tell us how she is.”
The doctor hesitates, his eyes flicking from mine to Brayden’s and back. “All right. Well, she’s doing okay, all things considered. She’s breathing on her own, her heart seems fine, and initial scans make me optimistic that there won’t be any lasting brain damage. You got her here in time, and that’s what really counts. Much longer, and I don’t think I’d be giving ya’ll the same news.”
He sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose before continuing. “She’s resting for now, so you boys might as well go home and get some rest, come back in the morning. I’ve scheduled a psychological evaluation for…later this morning, I guess it is. I think I’m going to recommend detox at least, if not rehab. I’ll have a referral for a mental health specialist for her, on discharge. She’ll need someone, or both of you, preferably, to encourage her to seek the help she very clearly needs.”
“She just lost her mother,” Brayden explains. “And I doubt she’ll cooperate with an evaluation. But we might as well give it a shot, right?”
“She intentionally overdosed on a significant amount of Vicodin and alcohol. That’s called suicide, son.” He shakes his head. “If she’ll try it once, who’s to say she won’t try it again, when one of you isn’t around to bring her in? She needs help.”
“I know that, and you know that. But good luck convincing her of that.” Brayden lets out a long, frustrated sigh. “When can I see her? I can try to talk to her.”
“Tomorrow, late morning or early afternoon. We’ll need to run some follow-up tests, and have her speak with an in-house psychiatrist.”
“Okay, thank you, Doctor.” The doctor turns and leaves, and Brayden rubs his face vigorously with both hands, then looks at me. “Can I get a ride from you? My Jeep is still at the bar.”
“Sure. Come on.”
I drive him back to the bar and drop him off beside his old red Wrangler. Before he gets out, he glances at me. In this moment, he looks young, small, and tired. “She’ll be okay, right?”
I can’t summon a smile. Don’t even try. “I hope so. I really hope so.”
I go home, and collapse facedown onto my bed. I hear my door creak, and I know it’s Mom, checking on me. “I’m fine, Mom. I don’t want to talk about it. A…friend had an…emergency.”
“Is she okay?” Mom’s voice is quiet, compassionate.
How does she know it’s a her? I roll to my side and glance at her. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Being there for a friend who is going through a hard time is understandable, Benny,” Mom says, perching on the edge of the bed beside me, trailing a hand over my forehead. “Just don’t let it bring you down, okay?”
“Doing my best.”
She smiles at me. “I know. Just…sometimes, we have to know when to walk away and let them find their own way.”
“I can’t walk away. Not again.”
Mom nods, her eyes knowing. “Like I said, just…don’t let it bring you down too, okay?”
“Okay.”
I fall asleep and dream of sirens and ambulances, blood and vomit and hanging braids and Echo gasping, apologizing, Oz bleeding, a smoking, crumpled hood, Echo telling me goodbye, Kylie’s face as I walk away…I dream of everything, of hell and pain and all the things that haunt me.
Waking up is a relief.
FOURTEEN: No Man Is An Island
Echo
Waking up consistently sucks. More mornings than not, I loathe the moment consciousness floods through me. Waking up brings pain. Emotional pain, mental pain, physical pain.
I don’t want to wake up. I keep my eyes closed and plead with whatever the fuck is out there—or isn’t—to let me back under, to let me stay under where there’s no pain.
But there’s only waking up, my head throbbing, a viciously raw throat, a stabbing pain in my stomach. I’m dizzy, sore, confused, sluggish. I’m awake for a long time before anyone shows up to check on me. I use that time to try to remember what happened, why I’m in the hospital.
I remember being at home, drinking hard. Hating myself. Hating being me, hating my life, hating being awake. Wanting to sleep, just…sleep. Not think, not feel. I remember not caring that I had a gig. For the first time I can remember, I didn’t want to sing, didn’t want to perform. I just wanted to sleep.
I remember going to the bathroom and happening across a bottle of Vicodin Bray had left at my place, a while ago. I remember how I’d taken a Vic and then had a couple drinks, how tired I got, sleeping for twelve hours straight. If one pill and a couple drinks could do that…
Oh god.
I remember downing all of them, one by one, chasing them with the Beam. And then Bray showed up and physically dragged me to the gig. By which point I’d already finished the fifth, my second in two days. But he didn’t know that, or that I’d taken the pills. It was all starting to hit me, I remember that, too. He dragged me to the show because he knows under most circumstances that getting on stage and singing it out will cure what ails me. Temporarily, at least.
I remember getting sleepy, so tired, being pulled under, feeling sick…