The door to my room swings open, and Brayden walks in. He’s such a beautiful boy. Tall and slim and sleek, brown hair and such uniquely dark blue eyes, such killer fashion sensibility. He’s always put together. Brayden’s constant presence has been a reassurance to me in the past few years. He’s always there, and he’s always handsome and sophisticated, and so talented; those delicate, manicured hands of his can make a mandolin sing like an angel.
Yet, as he enters my hospital room, he’s not put together. He has dark circles under his eyes, he’s unshaven, and he’s wearing the same clothes as yesterday. He looks haunted, exhausted.
He drags a chair over to my bedside, and he sits down, stares at me without speaking. When he does, his voice breaks, and his eyes waver, shine, fill with tears. “Fuck you, Echo Leveaux. Fuck you for doing that to me.”
That is so not what I expected from him. “Bray, I—”
“You what? What can you say to me, Echo? After all we’ve been through, you…you try to kill yourself? What can you say to me? What can you possibly say that can erase what I just went through? Watching you collapse, watching you make a fool of yourself in front of a hundred and fifty people? Watching you vomit all over yourself, all over Ben? Watching you puke blood? Watching you—watching you stop breathing? How could you…how could you be so—so fucking selfish?” He shouts that last part so loudly I flinch backward, shocked and horrified. Brayden is not a loud or angry person, making this so, so much worse.
“That ride to the hospital…that was the longest ride of my life, Echo. You’re all I have left. You know that. You know that! You were there when I told them, Echo. You—you heard what they said. ‘No son of ours’, they said. ‘Never show your face here,’ they said. And you heard it. I’ve never pushed you, Echo. I always let you have your space. I let you push me away when you’re hurting. I let you drink yourself into a stupor because, god, I know how bad you need to do that sometimes, and I fucking get it. You can’t trust anyone, and I get it. I don’t trust anyone either, except you. Except now…can I even trust you anymore? I don’t know. You—you fucking O.D. on my goddamn Vicodin? How could you?”
I get angry. “It’s not about you, Brayden!” I shout.
“That’s just your problem, Echo! You don’t realize that it is about me!” He’s shouting back. “You just don’t see that there are people all around you who care, who want to be there for you, but you just won’t let us! You don’t see that all of us in the band love you! And you don’t see that we have our own drama to deal with, no, you only see yours. Vance? His dad is an alcoholic, and beat him bloody every single day of his life until he finally got away. Atticus? His brother offed himself last year. But you didn’t know that, did you? Because you’re so sucked into your own head all the fucking time! Mim is the most normal of us, and she’s so fucking insecure about herself that she dresses like a guy to disguise her body, and god only knows what happened to make her that way. Will does coke, did you know that? He snorts mountains of the shit. He’s gonna be the next one to O.D., I’m guessing, which is just super. And me? The one who can’t figure out if he likes girls or boys better? My parents disowned me, and my brother hates me because his best friend fell in love with me, his male best friend, and we won’t even go into my sister.
“Didn’t know any of that, did you? And oh, wait! There’s Ben, who you didn’t fucking tell me about! Ben, who sat out in that waiting room for six hours, who you vomited on, who was fucking sobbing over you. I don’t even know what the deal is there, but I can guess. He likes you, but you just can’t have that, so you push him away because god forbid you give anyone a chance. God forbid you let anyone in, even a little bit. Yeah, I’ve been hurt and betrayed and cheated on too, and that’s by guys and girls, and I still take a chance on people. But you…oh no. You just shut us all out, and when it’s all too much, instead of letting us help you, you pop a bunch of Vicodin and wash it all down with a bottle of whiskey. Because that’s better than trusting me, or Ben, or anyone, apparently. But yeah, you’re right. It’s not about me, is it?”
He stands up, moves toward the door. “I love you, Echo. I want to be there for you. I have been, and I will be. But I will not sit by and watch you do this to yourself. This is your last chance with me, babe. Do this again, and I’m gone. And if I go, so will the band. It’s not an ultimatum, or a threat. It’s just…the facts.” He gives me one last sad glance. “Get help, Echo.”
And then he’s gone without a goodbye or a backward glance, and I’m trying to cry, but I just can’t, because it’s all stuck inside me. Just…stuck.
Moments later—or maybe it’s minutes, or even hours—the door opens again, and Ben comes in. I groan and slide down to the horizontal, cover my face with the thin white scratchy blanket. “It is you,” I say. “I was hoping you were a hallucination.”
“Wow. What a welcome.” He sounds bitter, unsurprisingly.
“I don’t want you to see me like this.”
“Too late. I’ve already seen you at your worst, Echo, or did you forget how we met?”
I’m not done being self-destructive, clearly, judging by my next words. “Go away, Ben.”
“So it’s like that, is it?”
I shake my head. “No, I—” I fight a sob. “You deserve better than this, Ben. I—I regret how I ended things. But…I just…I need some time, okay? I need—I need to get—” It’s too hard to even finish. It’s all a hot wet hard knot in my throat, Brayden’s righteous, justified anger, my embarrassment, my regret, my guilt, it’s all too much.
“Okay, Echo. It’s fine. I get it.” He stands up, and I notice he has a new cane, a polished length of shiny brown wood with a curving silver handle.
I reach for him, grab at his arm, desperate to make him understand. “No, Ben, please, just wait a second.”
“You just told me to go away, that you need time—”
“But I’m not…I’m not pushing you away, okay? I just—I fucked everything up. I’m a mess, an awful shitty mess, and I want to—clean myself up, I guess. I don’t want you to go away, not forever. I just want you to see me when I have something to offer besides…” I choke on my words, my tears, “besides what I am right now.”