I accidentally drop the keys on the floorboard, and I know I have to calm the fuck down before I end up in a wreck because I’m too pumped up on nerves. I run my hands down my face a couple of times and through my hair a couple of time after that. I inhale deeply, then exhale just a deep, exactly like my mom does when she’s trying to calm herself down.
When the shaking dies down to a minimum, I pick my keys back up from the floorboard and successfully get them in the ignition. I bring my truck roaring to life and gun the engine, leaving tire tracks in my wake.
I waste no time heading out to Bree’s favorite Italian restaurant where we’re meeting for dinner. Yeah, I pay attention to that kind of stuff, sue me. She means more to me than my fucking man card does.
I pull up and find a place to park on the side of the building, taking the opportunity to catch my breath as I scan the parking lot for her car. I don’t see it, and I let out a breath of relief. I’m glad that I beat her here, it’ll give me an opportunity to actually calm the fuck down.
I catch my reflection in the window and see that my hair sticking up all over the place from running my hands through it. I grab my Tar Heels hat from my backseat, and slip it on, facing backward. It may not be the classiest lookin’ get up in the world, but it beats lookin’ like I got electrocuted.
Once I’m satisfied that I don’t look as spastic as I feel, I make my way inside the restaurant. The hostess greets me with a practiced smile and guides me to the booth where I sit and wait for Bree to show up. I’m determined to walk out of here with her on my arm. Determined on getting her to agree to come to LA with us.
With me.
I have my eyes glued to the front door, holding my breath each time it opens, hoping that it’s her. I sag back in disappointment each time anyone else walks through, quickly deflating in the booth. I have to wait another 10 agonizing minutes before I see her walk in.
She has her gorgeous dark brown hair pulled up in a messy bun and her breathtaking indigo rimmed eyes are searching the restaurant for me. She smiles warily and waves to me, pushing the nonexistent hair off her forehead as she makes her way to the booth. That’s one of her signature moves to show she’s nervous and uncomfortable and I automatically have a gut feeling that this night isn’t going to go as planned.
I take her in as she approaches, clearly just coming from work like I was. She’s wearing skin-tight jeans that I quickly want to shield from anyone else’s eyes and a shirt I bought her a few years back. It’s coral, her favorite color, with a silhouette of North Carolina on. The writing is a dark grey cursive that reads ‘NC born, NC bred, and when I die, I’ll be NC dead.’ It was funny at the time because she’s always been the beach girl with the southern accent. She’s a true Carolina girl, through and through. Now it just feels like another bad omen.
She takes a seat across from me and places her giant purse next to her on the cushion. She closes her eyes and exhales a breath as if she’s trying to gain her bearings.
The waitress takes our drink orders and Bree tells her we want to talk before we order. The waitress agrees and scurries off, leaving Bree glancing up at me with a questioning look on her face.
“You look stressed.” I tell her.
“Is that a nice way of sayin’ I look like hell, Dex?”
“Not at all. You know I’d never say somethin’ like that to you, Breezie.” I smile at her, trying to brighten her mood.
“It’s just been a long day. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring my work baggage here.” She tells me, blowing out a breath and rubbing her palms into her eyes.
“Hey, we’ve all been there. Ya wanna talk about it?” I ask.
“No, not really. You said you wanted to talk to me about somethin’?” She asks, setting her arms on the table in front of her.
My vision follows the movement, without my permission, and I see fresh ink on her left arm.
“Wow, you got a tattoo?” My voice goes high, reflecting how shocked I am.
Her response is filled with defensiveness, catching me off guard.
“Yeah, so? What’s the big deal? You and the guys have been getting’ ink done since your 18th birthdays. Hell Dex, you have your damn throat tattooed so why can’t I get one? I’m 21 now Dex, I’m not a child.”
“What’s with the attitude, Breezie? I never said it was a bad thing. Just shocked you didn’t ask one of us to come with you.”
“Again, Dex, I’m a big girl. And it’s a small tat. It didn’t take very long. I know y’all are busy with gettin’ ready for LA. It was just easier to go by myself.”
She won’t even look at me as the words leave her lips, letting me know how full of shit she is. She doesn’t even believe the lies she’s telling. She’s hiding something and for the life of me, I can’t figure out what it is.
“Well can I see it at least?” I ask her, curious what the first thing she decided to ink permanently on her body is.
She extends her arm, and I hold it in place, noticing the goosebumps that raise on her arms as my skin connects with hers. The words are black. It’s a simplistic, yet beautiful, tattoo that clearly means something important to her.
Courage is to feel the daily daggers
of relentless steel
and keep on living
“Why did you get this?” I ask, desperate to hear what those words mean to her. To know why they resonate so deeply with her that she needed them branded on her skin.
She jerks her arm back and folds her hands in her lap, removing the tattoo from my line of sight.
“Why am I here, Dex?” She asks me, refusing to sate my curiosity about her tattoo.
The girl sitting across from me is not the girl I’ve known all my life. I don’t know who this girl is, but she’s fucking killing me… I want MY girl here. I need her to be the one I reason with, to beg to move to LA with me.
I inhale another breath, bracing myself for the biggest quest of my life. My entire future hinges on how this unfolds.
“I want to ask you to move to LA with me.” I confess, voice barely above a whisper, still shocked at her behavior tonight.
Her distance.
“It’s really sad to me that Abel sent you as his last line of defense. And you should know me well enough by now to know when to stop pushing me about shit. I could see Brody agreeing to this. But you? I expected more of you, Dex.”
“No, Breezie, you got this all wrong. What I mean is…”
She cuts me off.
“I said no, Dex. I’ve said it a hundred times. But you guys refuse to respect anything I say. I’m not Abel’s responsibility anymore. My life is here. Y’all have a future in LA. I don’t.”
“But you could, Breezie, if you’d just listen to me.”
She cuts me off again with a swipe of her hand through the air, tears brimming in her eyes. I’m so goddamn lost as to how quickly this whole night is going to shit. How quickly all of my plans are going out the window. If she would just listen to me. If she would actually hear the words that I’m saying…
I didn’t ask her to come to LA with us. I said I wanted her to come to LA with me.
With me.
For me.
To be with me.
“Going to LA with you guys would hurt too much, Dex. I just can’t do it. I have to let you guys go. And I have to stay. It’s how it has to be.”
I don’t get a chance to respond before she grabs her purse and runs out of the restaurant, leaving me to wonder what the hell just happened.
Three and a half years later, I look at those same words inked on her supple skin as the tears roll of my cheeks. I saw her rubbing those words with her right hand the night I told her I love her. I finally got the confirmation I wanted but was always scared to ask for. She never outright said it, and I never outright asked, but I always suspected. Always feared.
Those words are about me.
She got them as a reminder of how to live her life with us g
uys leaving Deacon Hill, no guarantee that we would come back.
I was her dagger back then.
But all I want to be now is her salvation.
I pick up my phone and play some music for Bree like I always do late at night when it’s just the two of us. I choose one that always makes me think of her. Exactly like it always has.
Tom DeLonge’s voice comes through the speaker, playing with one of his side bands, Box Car Racer. Bree loves Blink 182 and introduced me to all the member’s side bands several years back. If she only knew how many times I played this song over the years, thinking of her, wishing I had the balls to say what the fuck I actually felt.
I rub the words seared into her skin with my thumb, swiping back and forth. I wish the movement was enough to wipe them from her skin forever as I listen to the words that convey the years of loving her from afar that I went through. That apparently we both went through.
About a year after we moved to LA, I wrote Bree a letter. An actual old school, snail mail, legit fucking letter. I never told Abel. I couldn’t. His relationship with his sister really deteriorated when we left. I know a part of her resented us for leaving, and I figured she blamed Abel for that.
If only I knew back then what I know now, I would have done things so differently. The letters were just another thing in the long list of selfish and self-destructive things I’ve done, refusing to let her go. I never wrote what I truly wanted to say, but I let her know that life in LA wasn’t the same without her.
Every so often, I’d ask her to come see us. She would. She’d call Abel and tell him that she wanted to come see us. He excitedly agreed, and of course, refused to let her pay for her own ticket every time. Her visits were never long enough, but I enjoyed the time we got with her nonetheless.
I still have every single one of the letters she wrote to me. I’ve read them all so many times since we’ve been back home. They’re what finally convinced me to man up and tell her how I truly feel about her. I’m hoping that somewhere in the recesses of her mind, she hears this song. I hope that she hears my plea and comes back to me.
‘Those notes you wrote me, I kept them all. I’ve given a lot of thought of how to write you back this fall. In every single letter, in every single word, there will be a hidden message about a boy that loves a girl. Do you care if I don’t know what to say? Will you sleep tonight, will you think of me? Will I shake this off, pretend it's all okay? That there’s someone out there that feels just like me? There is.’
“I’m gonna break the chain baby. I’m gonna love you ‘til the day I die. With all my heart and soul. I walked away from you back then because I thought it’s what you wanted, but I know better now. I won’t walk away from you again. I love you.” I tell her, speaking above the music.
I lean forward intending on sealing my vow with a kiss to the ink on her arm. As my lips touch her skin, every machine in the room starts going off, beeping, wailing, and lighting up.
Bree’s body starts jerking around on the bed, and I jump from my seat, not knowing what the fuck to do. My hands go to my hair, tugging on every strand as I stand helpless to what the right thing here is to do.
A parade of scrubs and white coats burst in the room, taking their places around her bed, approaching each machine with a purpose.
“Mr. Wilson, I’m sorry, but we’re going to need you to step out of the room.” One of the on-call doctors tells me.
“No fucking way, not until someone tells me what the hell is going on!” I scream.
He turns to me and places both arms on my shoulders, looking me in the eyes as he speaks calmly.
“This is a good thing, Mr. Wilson. She’s waking up. You need to go to the lobby so we focus on her now. You need to call the rest of her family and get them here. By the time they’re all here, we will have more news. This is a good thing, a very good thing indeed. Now, please go to the waiting room so we can take care of your girlfriend, okay?”
I take one last look at the woman I love as the nurses are pulling a tube out of her throat. I don’t waste another second. I run to the lobby, pulling my phone out of my pocket, clicking on Abel’s name as I try with all my fucking might to hold back the tears of joy that are threatening to spill out.
“Dex, is everything okay?” Abel asks, panic clear in his voice.
“You need to get everyone up here, dude. She’s waking up. Do you hear me, Abel? Bree’s waking up! You guys gotta get up here. Right now!”
“Holy fuck! Max and I are on the way. I’ll have her call everyone in the car. We’re coming man, we’re coming.”
I disconnect the call and slide down the wall, burying my head in my hands. I can’t hold the tears back anymore. It’s too much. It’s all been too fucking much.
The tears come pouring out of me like a summertime storm, cleansing me from the inside out.
She’s waking up.
She’s coming back to us.
She’s coming back to me.
Chapter Thirteen
BREE
I wake up in a very uncomfortable bed with scratchy sheets as my body shrieks out in agony. There’s so much commotion going on around me that I can’t even fully wake up before panic grips at my chest.
I hear people calling out my name but I can’t answer. They’re poking and prodding all over my body, shouting to each other about things that make no sense to me. I hear several weird noises, a constant beeping, and a distant hum.
I try so hard to open my eyes, to be able to find out what the hell is going on. I quickly find out that it takes so much effort that I feel the energy draining out of me just from doing it. The lights are blinding, forcing my lids closed again, burning my eyes like I’ve swum without goggles in a chlorine pool all day long.
I hear so many different voices all around me, but none of them sound familiar. I can hear their words, but can’t concentrate on their meaning. I don’t understand what’s happening.
And the pain.
Holy fuck.
The pain.
I feel like I’ve been in a head-on collision with a train and left on the side of the tracks. There’s not a single inch of my body that doesn’t ache and thrum with anguish. Whatever the hell these people are doing to me, I sure hope they’re trying to figure out why I’m hurting so badly. Something has to be seriously, seriously wrong.
Where is Abel? Where’s Dex? Where’s Max? The last thing I remember was going to the café to get lunch, to get away from DRAB…
Oh gosh, Rob!
He was back, coming after Max!
I have to see her. I have to know if she’s okay. I need to know what’s going on with her and the twins!
“Max!” I try to scream out, but it comes through my lips as a scratchy, burning whisper instead.
I feel someone push down on my shoulders, trying to force me to lay down on the shitty mattress beneath me. I need these people to let me get the hell out of here so I can go see my family. Whatever is going on here can wait, I need to know that she’s safe. I need to see her, to talk to her, to hear her tell me that everything’s okay.
“No!” I choke out, thrashing around, trying to get away from all these damn people. It’s excruciating to move at all, but I can worry about that later, seeing my family can’t. I try and pull my arm out of someone’s grasp, failing miserably.
“Ms. Cooper, please calm down. You’re at New Hanover Regional.”
Hospital.
Hospital?
In fucking Wilmington of all places?
“Why?” I choke out.
“If you’ll let us go through all of our tests, and get you a little more settled, we’ll explain everything to you. For now, please just lay back and try to rest your voice. Your boyfriend is in the lobby, contacting your family. He hasn’t left your side this whole time. You should consider yourself lucky to have such a large support system. “
Boyfriend? I don’t have a boyfriend. Unless she means…
<
br /> Dex?
Dex is here?
***
We’ve all heard throughout the years that no one knows what happens to the mind when someone is in a coma. Doctors say to always assume the patient can hear what’s going on around them because hearing is the last sensory function to deteriorate. But doctors don’t believe that when you’re in a coma that you’re able to feel touch or understand cogitatively what’s going on around you. But let me assure you.
You can.
You can feel everything, understand everything, and hear everything. Sometimes it’s a little muddled, kind of like white noise, seeming far away or like an echo. But it’s always there. You’re always aware. And while some might think it’s a blessing, I’m here to tell you that it isn’t. It’s so emotionally painful that it splinters your soul from the inside out.
The one thing no one else knows about being in a coma... You may feel someone’s hand on your arm, brushing back your hair, kissing your cheek. But you don’t feel your injuries. But let me assure you that you will feel that shit hit you like a freight train when you wake up though.
You feel it all at once, every bruise, every break, every stitch… all of it. The pain blasts through you like a sonic fucking boom, pulsating in every cell of your body. The intensity of it all is all consuming, overwhelming, and immobilizing.
This is, apparently, what it means to go into shock. And going into shock when waking up means that you temporarily lose every memory you had while in a coma. No one knows for how long, I guess it differs with each person.
My memories came to me slowly, creeping up in my dreams around the third day of ‘post-wake-up’ as I’m now referring to it. I wasn’t sure if they were real or if it was something I was conjuring in my own mind, trying to fill in the blanks after hearing what happened from other people.
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