Fall Apart

by SE Culpepper

  “A couple hours ago!” Alarik exclaimed. “And they’re only talking to his parents now?”

  Franco rubbed at his brow, the stress deepening the lines on his face. “It took them a while to figure out who to contact. Their IDs were in Damon’s truck and the Sheriff’s Department didn’t find them until after the medevac helicopter left.”

  Alarik reached out and gave Franco a squeeze on the shoulder. “How did this happen?”

  Franco shook his head. “Not sure. The Sheriff that talked to Leo said that two other climbers were above Damon and Todd. They saw them fall, but… I guess Todd was higher than Damon.” Franco cleared his throat and looked away. “Leo didn’t want to say much more. He’s the one who talked to the Sheriff.”

  With nothing else to do but wait, Alarik followed Franco to the grouping of chairs that Damon and Todd’s friends and family had taken for themselves. Mandy realized he’d arrived and she jumped up to throw her arms around him. “Are you okay?” she asked, her voice tearful.

  Alarik gave the barest of nods; his eyes were frozen on Molly, Leo, and Luke, trying to forecast the news from their expressions. Based on that alone, the situation appeared dire.

  Several minutes later, after a lot of nodding and back-and-forth, the three returned to the group and sat down. Molly must have been voted as the representative because she did all the talking. She swallowed a couple times and looked straight into Alarik’s eyes. Her own were red rimmed and scared.

  “The Sheriff’s Department offered all the information they had to the trauma team, but it seems that Damon and Todd fell from at least twenty-five feet. Damon has a concussion; he lost consciousness for some time.” Molly had to pause for a moment and they all watched as she knotted her fingers tightly together. “He has two broken ribs, a broken wrist, which needed surgery, and…there’s…there’s just a lot of trauma and bruising. He’s asleep right now, but the doctor says when he was awake that he was very disoriented. He doesn’t understand everything that’s happening.” Molly took another deep breath and Alarik felt Max take his hand in a tight grip. Some distant part of his mind shifted in surprise. “So…our Damon is under observation in Intensive Care because of the head injury. They want to monitor him. We might be able to see him soon.”

  Alarik’s breathing sped up and his eyes stung. He wanted to run through the halls until he found Damon and could see with his own eyes that he was alive. He had to keep reminding himself that some news was better than no news.

  “What about Toddy?” Franco asked, holding onto Sandra like a lifeline. His brown eyes were large in his face and Alarik had to look away when tears caught on the other man’s lower lashes.

  Molly’s lips trembled and Leo pulled her close, hiding her face against his neck. He spoke to all of them and none of them in particular, “I-it’s not lookin’ real good, kids.”

  ***

  Whispers. Damon heard them, but every time he tried to open his eyes and see who was talking, he failed. The sound stopped for a while and then started up again. His body felt so heavy, like he had the worst case of the flu he’d ever had and each movement required tremendous effort. Was someone talking to him?

  I can’t understand… Can’t hear you…

  He tried to remember how to open his mouth and say something, but everything was just so heavy. Too difficult.

  So much whispering and no one would speak up.

  Where was Todd? Shouldn’t he be with Todd?

  He gave talking another try and again, nothing happened. Todd, is that you? Are you okay?

  Something wasn’t right, but he couldn’t move, and he couldn’t speak. A thought floated down through his mind—a dark thought that he wanted to avoid: Maybe I’m not supposed to remember right now…

  He decided to let himself forget for a while. Forget and sleep.

  ***

  Someone was squeezing his arm. Hard. Damon let out a groan of discomfort, hoping whoever was doing it would stop, but the grip tightened further. “Ssstop,” he mumbled. Very slowly, the squeezing relaxed and he sighed, happier.

  Whispering that seemed familiar began and then a voice sounded near him. “That’s the automatic blood pressure cuff—how are you feeling, Damon? Can you open your eyes for me?”

  “Mmmphf.”

  The question made him think. Could he open his eyes? He didn’t know for sure. That seemed like a lot to ask at the moment.

  “Damon, I’m Dr. Kaegy. You’re at Ventura County Medical Center. If you can hear me, I’d like you to go ahead and open your eyes; can you do that for me?”

  After what seemed like a tremendous expenditure of energy, Damon’s eyes fluttered open, though the right one didn’t feel like it was working properly. Fucking bright lights!

  “Bright,” he rasped as a hand touched his head and flashed a light right in his face.

  “Sorry about that. I’m just checking your eyes, okay? Only once more.”

  Before Damon could protest, there was pressure and a sudden pain on the right side of his face, and then the light came and went again. He tried to curse and it came out garbled.

  “Sorry. I’m done; I promise. Do you know why you’re in the hospital, Damon?”

  The questioning continued as information trickled down into his consciousness. His whole right side ached terribly and he was stiff from head to foot. Each time he tried to talk, his bottom lip got in the way.

  He realized suddenly that he was in the hospital. “What happened?” he asked himself. Doctor Whatever was talking to him again, but he didn’t listen. This was serious; he remembered something bad happening. What was—

  Falling. We were falling.

  Damon opened his eyes all the way and finally got a blurred view of a guy in scrubs and a white lab coat. His parents were standing beside him and he tried to absorb that new information. Thinking seemed so hard.

  “Mom and dad?”

  Molly was more upset than Damon had ever seen her, which soured his stomach further and scared him. Leo was sad, wounded.

  Damon knew his heartbeat was speeding up because the machine in his room began beeping faster, but he couldn’t feel much besides that fear creeping in.

  “We fell…” he told them and they both nodded. “Todd fell. I fell?”

  They nodded again and tears that Damon didn’t understand coursed down his mom’s cheeks. His dad’s eyes were wet, too.

  Everybody’s crying, he thought.

  And, just like the moment when he realized where he was, clarity hit him like ice water on his bare skin. “Where’s Todd?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Alarik was sitting between Max and Sandra, holding tightly to their hands. Franco was on Sandra’s other side, his brow resting in his hand and his eyes shut tight; his lips were moving silently. Jess was by herself, staring out a window into the parking lot. They were all waiting for something to happen.

  Molly and Leo had been allowed back to see Damon, and Luke and Mandy were with Todd. Alarik knew the worry was festering within all of them. What were they going to say to Damon?

  ***

  Damon’s question was still sitting there in space and no one was answering him. He cleared his throat, thinking that he hadn’t been clear and asked it again. “Where’s Todd?”

  When his dad finally met his eyes, Damon tried to reach for him, but his left hand had an IV attached and his right arm was completely immobilized, wrapped in bandages and hanging in a sling. This confused him for a few seconds until the fog cleared again. He’d fallen.

  I’m hurt pretty bad. Todd is hurt, too.

  Leo asked the doctor if he could have a minute alone with his son and after a quick pat on Damon’s ankle, the doctor walked out. Molly came closer, her hands shaky as she laid them gently on his leg. “Hi, baby,” she whispered, the tears coming faster now. His dad gave him a kiss on the forehead and his eyes were wet, his mouth trembling.

  “So glad you’re safe, Day.”

  Damon nodded stiffly and his thr
oat began to close as a sneaking suspicion crept up his back with its icy fingers poised to dig deep.

  “What’s wrong?” His voice was rough and muffled because of his swollen lip. He poked at it with his tongue and winced; his mouth tasted like plastic and blood.

  His dad took a shuddering breath and slipped his hand inside Damon’s, taking care with the IV tube. “Well, I uh…don’t know how much you remember, son, but you and Todd had a climbing accident today.”

  Damon’s patience wasn’t what it should have been and he grunted his acknowledgment. “Todd fell first. Couldn’t see him.”

  Leo bit down hard on his lip as Damon spoke, taking rapid breaths, and that sinking sensation grew worse.

  “Damon, you guys fell a long way. It took some time for the Sheriff to get there and for you two to be airlifted out,” Leo sucked in another breath. “Todd—the way he landed caused a lot of damage. His helmet cracked and, well, he’s…pretty bad off.”

  “How bad?” Damon’s lungs compressed and his eyes stung. “Dad. How bad?”

  Leo swiped at his eyes and gently rested his palm against his son’s cheek. “He’s in a coma, Damon. The…swelling of his brain and the other injuries… They’ve done all that they can for him right now.”

  The whimper that escaped Damon’s throat was too much for his father who squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his forehead to his son’s. Aching, torturous sobs rose up from Damon’s chest and fiery pains radiated down his right side. “Where is he?” he cried, struggling for breath. “He’s dying? My best friend is dying?”

  Molly wrapped one arm around Leo and reached for Damon with the other. “Oh, my baby. My sweet baby. I’m so sorry. So, so sorry.”

  Damon’s voice cracked as another wail broke free. “Todd is that bad? He’s that hurt?” It didn’t make sense. How come Damon was okay after the same fall?

  “Mom?”

  All Molly could manage was a nod as she looked into his eyes and Damon thought he might be dying, too; the heartache was so bad.

  “No, mom,” he sobbed, his eyes looking back and forth between his parents as the worst kind of agony he’d ever experienced coursed through him. “Please don’t tell me this. Dad, please.”

  “I’m so sorry, Day,” Leo spoke through his tears. “I wish I could fix all of it.”

  Another thought occurred to Damon and he ended up gasping as his body tried to move on its own. “Is he alone…?”

  Molly stroked his arm and shook her head. “No, baby. Luke and Mandy are with him. He’s not alone.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He’s in another room here in Intensive Care.”

  “I wanna be with him—” Damon tried sitting up and Molly and Leo both moved to hold him where he was. His right side throbbed so badly he was close to vomiting; the pounding in his head wasn’t helping. He was barely able to gesture for a bedpan in time to throw up the contents of his stomach.

  His dad lowered him back to the mattress and Damon took the deepest breaths he could stand, even as the grief swallowed him up. His head fell slowly to the side and his tears dripped down over his face to the pillow.

  “Dad,” he pleaded. “Take me to him. Please.”

  Leo brushed the hair off of his son’s forehead and nodded. “Let me talk to the doctor.”

  ***

  Damon was barely aware of Luke and Mandy as nurses wheeled his gurney into Todd’s room. The air was stifling inside and a hazy feeling settled on him. He could only see to the immediate left of his bed because his discomfort was so complete that even moving his head was too much. Another set of nurses moved equipment that was beeping, clacking, or sighing, out of the way.

  Damon saw Todd’s right foot first; it was beneath a sheet. Then came his hand, which was swollen. His friend’s arm was bandaged and his body covered with a hospital gown. Sheets were tucked beneath his chest. When Todd’s face came into sight, Damon let out another sob. Bandages surrounded his head and the bruising over his skin was nearly black. There was a tube down his throat and his friend looked nothing like the Todd who flopped down on the couch that afternoon.

  A nurse lowered the left side of Damon’s gurney and the right side of Todd’s, and Damon noticed the moisture in her eyes. Someone else moved his bed in beside Todd’s and after a moment, he felt Todd’s hand placed on his own.

  “Can everybody go away?” he whispered. “Just…go away?”

  He heard whispers and the shuffling of feet, but he couldn’t drag his eyes from his friend. When he heard the curtain slide closed and the door shut, he tried to grip Todd’s hand tighter.

  “Toddy?” he breathed through his tears. “Buddy…?”

  Damon wanted to scream and kill and fight this blackness in his gut, but he didn’t move. If he said he believed in miracles, could he have one? Would God hear a guy who hadn’t ever said much to him? Would God know how much Damon loved Todd and see how they needed each other in this life?

  He would break all his other ribs begging for mercy if God would only hear him crying out.

  “He’s my friend. He’s good…” Damon choked out. “God, he’s so good. Better than me.”

  Damon brushed his fingertips over the skin of Todd’s hand. The fog in his mind made it hard for him to think, but he kept trying. Kept praying and begging.

  From the recesses of his memories, he saw Todd as he was in high school, when they first met. Just a skinny kid. A guy waiting in the on-deck circle to help Damon whenever he needed it because he knew that Luke wasn’t always around. And now, all Damon wanted was for Todd to wake up so he could tell him he’d be loyal to him forever. He’d be his best friend forever.

  “Toddy, brother, I’m so sorry and I don’t know if you can hear me, but I really need you here. Is that selfish of me to say that—to beg you to get better? To wake up?” His chest shuddered as he tried to hold back from weeping. “Do you hurt really bad?”

  He lay in silence for a long time, afraid to move or even breathe too loudly, as though anything too sudden would send Todd away. He slept, too, unable to fight the pull as his body dealt with its injuries. Now and then, he’d open his eyes, frightened and trying to reassure himself that Todd was still with him, their hands still together. Other times, nurses or doctors would come in and check on them, taking in Damon and Todd’s joined hands with sad faces.

  Sometime in the night, his eyes snapped open and a wave of heartache hit him. He just knew.

  “I love you, Toddy. I love you, I love you, man. You’re my best friend and I love you.”

  A new beeping sounded in the room and a sudden flurry of activity followed. Nurses and doctors surrounded their beds, pushing Damon’s gurney to the side and separating their hands.

  “No!” Damon cried out. “Todd!!”

  A nurse stepped to his side and hid Todd from his view, and he couldn’t move her out of the way. “It’s okay,” she whispered to him. “It’s okay.”

  “Not okay. It’s not okay!”

  Todd!

  I love you forever.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The day Damon left the hospital was beautiful with a clear sky and no breeze at all. Alarik followed Leo in Damon’s truck. Two days before, he and Franco had made the drive to the tiny lot on the side of the highway to retrieve it. It had also been their job to clear all of the gear from inside—anything of Todd’s that Damon might find later.

  In unspoken agreement, they hiked down to the base of the cliff where the accident happened, some inexplicable desire to see the scene forcing their legs onward. When they found the spot, Alarik realized how bad an idea it was. There’d been a lot of blood on the ground. He and Franco kicked dirt over the stains, hiding them, and left, neither of them willing to spend another minute there.

  Todd’s car was still parked in front of Damon’s house, but Luke and Mandy were supposed to pick it up that afternoon and take it back to their place.

  Everyone was in a state of grief-stricken disbelief; their lives had become
a series of whispered conversations in hallways and waiting rooms. Death lowered the volume on life until you strained to hear anything at all, and no one was getting much sleep because anguish was their bedside companion.

  Alarik had been with Damon only once, the day after the accident. Seeing his boyfriend’s appearance made him a little sick to his stomach as he realized how close he’d come to losing him. He had to take a lot of deep breaths to battle the dizziness.

  Angry bruises in a riot of colors were visible down Damon’s right side, his lips were split, and his right eye nearly swollen shut. His wrist was in a sling, wrapped heavily, with pins in place. It looked like all the damage was limited to Damon’s right side, but as he thought that, Alarik saw livid scratches that traveled all the way down the other man’s left arm and over the back of his hand.

  The mental image as to the cause of the scratches made his vision blur. Alarik hadn’t known what to say.

  Damon watched him enter the room without any reaction and Alarik wasn’t sure he should approach. The man he knew wasn’t in that hospital bed. That man lying there, watching him, was a shattered stranger.

  “I love you,” Alarik whispered to him, slowly coming closer.

  Damon turned his face away like the movement pained him and Alarik hesitated. There was nothing appropriate to say that would fill the hole that Todd’s absence created.

  “I’m so sorry, love. I wish…”

  Damon cleared his throat, otherwise remaining silent, but that small noise told Alarik his apologies were not wanted or needed just now.

  “Is there anything I can do for you? Anything at all?”

  Alarik waited in tortured silence for Damon to say anything, but when he finally spoke, the words stung. “Would you leave? I don’t want anyone here right now.”