Bullet (61 page)

And what the hell was that emotion burgeoning in my chest?  It was so intense all of a sudden that I felt my eyes well with tears.  I let it manifest itself physically as I wound my fingers into his hair and pressed myself into him.  I felt as though someone else was possessing me, driving me, and I was letting it happen.  I knew, though, that I was trying to overcome that heavy, raw emotion that I didn’t want to name or even think about, and I was trying to override it with sexual desire.

He wasn’t pushing me away, but his kisses were sweeter, more tender, less demanding than mine.  Maybe I was being too aggressive for him, because he moved his lips to my shoulder where he kissed me, open-mouthed, and moved to my neck.  Okay…so I could move slowly, but that goddamned emotion.  What the hell
was
that?  It was moving from my diaphragm and into my heart, piercing deep, and I don’t know that I’d ever felt that way about anyone.

It couldn’t be real.  It had to be how tired I was.  It had to be a response to how angry I was at Ethan.  It had to be the heat.  There were so many things it had to be, because it couldn’t be that one thing it was pretending to be.  No.  It couldn’t be that.

I just wondered why it felt that way and why it was wrenching my internal organs and refusing to let go.

But his kisses were pulling me away from the emotions, setting my skin on fire for him again.
  I could still sense that…deep feeling—it was there, but I was able to push it to the back of my mind as our lips met, crashed, melded, as our bodies united as one.  I couldn’t feel the air from the AC; I could only feel the inferno between us, the one that had always been there, burning, smoldering, consuming.  And as he entered me again, driving, a sweet sensation unlike one I’d never known, I felt myself give everything over to him, all that I was.  His hands laced through mine as he slid into me, again and again, making me breathless, until I cried out.  There was a song in my head that played, one that would never be written, one I’d never sing, but one that my soul was singing for him, crying for him, one that would never not need him.

I drifted
off to sleep in his arms after, forcing myself to ignore all those emotions threatening to consume me, drive me mad, and so I wondered if it was a dream or if I really heard him whisper that he loved me as sleep overtook me.

Chapter Thirty-seven

“VAL?  VAL!  ARE you in there?”

It took me a few seconds to get my bearings.  Okay…I was in my hotel room.  There was Brad
lying beside me, and he was waking up too.  He looked as confused and out of it as I felt.  I glanced at the alarm clock with the red LED display on the nightstand next to the bed.  It was only twenty after four.  God.  I was sick of party animals ruining my good night’s sleep.

“Yeah.
  What do you want?”  I was pretty sure it was Nick, but I couldn’t tell.

“Can I come in?”

I sighed and looked over at Brad, rolling my eyes.  “Can’t it wait till morning?”

“No.  Please hurry up.”

It was then that I heard the panic in our drummer’s voice.  Brad whispered, “You want me to lay low?”

I shrugged.  “Think he’d freak out with you in here?”

He smiled.  “We’re talking about Nick. Yeah.  He’ll freak.  Or not.”  He ran his fingers through his hair.  “I dunno.”

“Then just be quiet.”
  I raised my voice.  “Just a sec.”  I gave Brad a quick kiss on the lips and then got out of bed and pulled a fresh t-shirt out of the suitcase by the wall.  I slipped it on and then fished out a pair of panties too and slipped into them.  Then I walked to the door.  Brad had already laid his head back on the pillow…but his eyes were open.

I opened the door.  “Yeah.  What’s so frigging important it can’t wait till morning?”

“It’s Ethan.”

Of course.  What now?  But before I turned sarcastic, Nick’s panic shook me.  It shook me to the base of my spine.  Oh, shit.  “What?  What, Nick?  What the fuck?”

“I’m sorry to bug you, Val.  I tried to find Brad.  But—”

Brad was already behind me.  “Spit it out, man.  What the fuck happened?”

Nick
didn’t
freak out about Brad, and maybe that’s because he’d walked in on us in the van the time we’d started and never finished.  Or maybe he was too panicked otherwise.  But Nick
was
losing it about whatever was going on with Ethan.  And
with
Ethan, God.  It could be anything.  He could be fighting, what with his volatile temper.  He could be hanging out the window, playing reckless daredevil, fueled by his

drugs.

Oh, fuck, no.

“He won’t wake up, man.  He’s like—”

“Where is he, Nick?”

“He’s in the suite.  He’s passed out.”

Brad had his jeans on and was already out the door before I could even process what was happening.  But his motion unfroze me, and I grabbed my card off the dresser and ran out in the hall.  Brad and Nick were already back in the suite, standing next to Zane.  There were a few other people standing around, and I saw a guy from a different band making out with a girl in the corner, pretending we didn’t exist.

And there was Ethan, lyin
g on the couch, his head just resting on the back.  He almost looked peaceful.  “How do you know he’s not just sleeping?” Brad asked.

“He’s not. 
You
try waking him up.”

Brad didn’t look so sure, but I was already walking over to the couch.  I touched Ethan’s shoulder.  “Ethan.  Ethan?  Wake up.”  He didn’t respond.  I could feel panic rising in my chest, but I knew I needed to stay calm.  I grabbed both his shoulders with my hands.  “Ethan.  Wake up.” 
It was more a command that time, but his head just lolled around with the motion.  I had no control anymore as fear set in.  I could hear it in my voice.  “Damn it, Ethan.  Wake up.  Wake up…”  My words deteriorated into sobs, and that’s when Zane grabbed my hands so I’d stop roughing Ethan up as though shaking him would pull him out of whatever had taken hold of him.

I heard Brad ask, “How long has he been like this?”

Nick said, “I don’t know.  We just tried to get him up a while ago.”

Brad’s voice was calm but firm.  “What’d he take?”

“Hell if I know, man.  With Ethan, it could be anything.”

Zane
added, “Or everything.”

Someone behind us said, “I’m pretty sure he did some
smack.”

I wasn’t sure what that was, but I was able to figure it out
when Brad muttered, “Fuckin’ heroin.”  He was louder when he asked, “What else?”

Zane
:  “He was drinking.  We all were.”  Brad nodded.  “But there might have been more.  I don’t know.  He was with a couple of guys and a girl a while ago, and they’re gone.”

“Do you know their names?”

Zane’s voice was dry.  “You’re kidding, right?”

I was losing it.  “Shouldn’t we be calling the ambulance?”

Brad looked at me.  “Do you think they’d get here in time?”

I heard the panic in my voice again.  “We have to do
something
.”

He nodded.  “
Zane, help me load him in the van.  Nick, you still have that GPS app on your phone?”

“Yeah.”

“Then you’re comin’ with.”

Zane
said, “I’m comin’ too.”

I didn’t say it, but I planned to come along as well.  They couldn’t stop me if they tried.  But they didn’t.  I ran back to my room and threw on jeans and sandals
and grabbed Brad’s t-shirt and shoes for him and joined them at the elevator.  No one said a word.  Nick was Googling the address of the nearest hospital, and by the time we got to the bottom floor, I went in front to open the van doors.

They lay Ethan on the middle seat. 
Zane sat in the back, and I sat on the floor next to where Ethan’s head was.  Brad said, “Nick, I need you riding shotgun as my navigator.”  And I lost my sense of time and direction as my body swayed with the motion of the van.  I didn’t even know how quickly Brad was driving.  I was focused on Ethan.  I was brushing his long hair out of his eyes, rubbing his forehead.  “Ethan, if you can hear me, don’t give up.  We’re getting you help.”

When we arrived at the hospital, Brad had driven into the ER entrance.  It was all a blur to me, but later on I remembered hospital staff lifting him out of the van and taking him inside on a gurney.
  They rushed him back in a room and wouldn’t let any of us back there.

A nurse asked us questions.  Brad answered as many of them as he could.  I felt like an emotionless statue.  More than that, I felt numb, unbelieving, and the time seemed to pass slowly, but it
actually flew by.

At one point, they told us Ethan was in stable condition
…whatever that meant.

We went to the cafeteria for coffee.  The guys were talking
, but I wasn’t listening.  I was praying.

We waited and waited and waited.

At some point, they moved Ethan to his own room.  They only allowed Brad and me.  Why?  Because Brad had told them I was Ethan’s fiancée and said he was his brother.  And that’s when they told us Ethan was in a coma.

I asked Brad if anyone had told June.  “She’d flip out, Val…and there’s really nothing she can do.”

“But what if he stays in the coma forever, Brad, and we don’t tell her?  Then what?”

“And how the hell do you think she could even get here?”

“The same way we did.”

He sighed.  “I’ll make you a deal.  If he’s still like this in a week, I’ll call her.”

That was good enough.

I lost track of time.  Nick and
Zane had long ago checked us out of the big motel suite and had found a sleazy motel that was nothing more than two beds and a shower.  More than once, they got Brad and took him back to sleep and shower.  They brought snacks and once in a while brought some fast food.  They all tried to get me to leave, to at least walk outside for a while, but I refused.  They somehow even managed to get a nurse to encourage me to leave for a few minutes, but I heard her telling Brad outside in the hallway, “All I can do is ask her.  She’s in love, so of course she won’t leave.”  No, I wasn’t in love.  That’s not why I was here.  I was worried about Ethan, and I felt guilty.  It was guilt that had prompted me to stay and kept me there beside his bed.

But as the days wore on, I suspected maybe it was more than guilt.

Whenever I was alone with him, I talked to him.  Could he hear me?  I didn’t know, but I talked just the same.  I believed he was in there somewhere, and I thought he might respond, thought maybe hearing me, knowing someone hadn’t given up would help him come back.

I was the only one there that afternoon.  A nurse had been in to check his vitals or whatever it was she had to do.  But then I was alone with him.  I hadn’t slept much the night before in that hard vinyl-covered chair.
  It was already routine for me—I’d slide that chair across the cold tile and take his hand in both of mine, his hand that didn’t have the IV in the wrist and all manner of other crap, and I’d talk to him.  I did the same thing on that day.

“Ethan?  I know you’re in there.  I know you can hear me.”  I took a breath and grabbed the plastic cup of water off the nightstand, the one I’d been drinking out of for days.  “When are you coming back?  Did you know we’re worried about you?”  I felt the tears falling again.  “I’m not mad at you.  None of us are.  We just want you back.  We want you here with us.”

I started sobbing again, something I’d been doing more and more frequently as the days wore on, and I became more tired.  I just laid my forehead on his hand and let the tears fall.  I felt a sting in my nose that just mirrored the sharp pain in my heart.

I felt my breath catch, though, because I felt his hand move.  I held my breath then, questioning it.  But then he moved his fingers again
, and I sat up.  I wondered if I should get a nurse.  When I looked at him, he was fluttering his eyes.  “Ethan?”

He tried to talk
, but it came out as a breathy scratch.  I realized his throat had to be dry, and I grabbed my cup of water.  I held it to his mouth as my tears started to fall again.  He was back.  This was real, right?  And then Brad, Nick, and Zane came in, and one of them called the nurse while a blanket of relief settled upon all of us.

* * *

We were home a few days later.  I’d lost my job.  I hadn’t even thought to call in.  Brad had had the presence of mind to call his boss and also to cancel the upcoming gigs we had, including the ones for the following week while Ethan recovered.  But we all felt like we had to make up for lost time.

I knew I would have to start looking for a new job, but I had some recovery to do too.  The first few days back, I just slept and showered and tried to feel human again.  I’d also lost some weight because I hadn’t been eating well.

Brad and I hadn’t talked about what had happened between us.  At the time, I wasn’t sure why on his part, but for me, I was focused on Ethan.