Calling his cell phone, it goes straight through to voicemail. The messages I’ve sent over the last couple of hours obviously wouldn’t have gotten through to him yet. What’s taking so long?
Something’s going on. There must be.
Grabbing my purse from the coffee table, I head over to his place. If he’s there, great. I’ll slap him in the face a couple of times and leave again, but my instincts are telling me he hasn’t even come back to campus since he left earlier this afternoon.
I’ve been standing by his main door and knocking repeatedly, for the past twenty minutes. Nothing. I think I need to make a call.
I feel sick and my whole body is trembling as I grab my cell phone from my purse with my shaking hands, and make a call to Neil.
15.
Reliving the Past.
“Alex, just think!” Even though Ryan’s tone is low, I can tell that he’s snapping at me. He never snaps at me. This must be bad. “What were his exact words?” His tone is a little softer now as he stands in front of me, with his hands placed on my shoulders. Staring into his eyes, I can see the worry and concern within them.
“I don’t know. A friend of his called and told him someone had gotten in touch and they had information. I don’t remember if he said a place or …” My voice is weak and tears are brimming in my eyes, as I try to think back to when we were at the lake.
Ryan steps back, turns around, and only just manages to restrain himself from slamming his fist through the opposite wall. We’re standing outside Brandon’s dorm and he, Neil, and Alyssa all got here just a couple of minutes ago. They came over as soon as I called Neil, and all of their faces have been grim ever since they approached me.
“THINK!” Ryan shouts harshly as he lurches forward, and grabs me by the shoulders with a little more force. He looks just as scared as I’m feeling.
“He didn’t say a place!” I scream back at him and tears begin to flow down my cheeks. “He just said …” I close my eyes and lean the back of my head against the door. My stomach is tying itself in knots. Why they hell did I encourage him to go? They’ve already explained that it’s dangerous. Shit! Why the fuck did I tell him to leave me? Oh God, please let him be okay.
“Ryan, getting angry isn’t going to help,” Alyssa speaks softly. When I open my eyes, I notice she has a hand on his shoulder and see him immediately taking his off of me, before stepping away. “Alex, did he say anything else?” I shake my head at her question as the bile fills my throat.
Neil is pacing the hallway and punching numbers rapidly into his cell phone. I’m guessing he’s trying to reach all of their contacts back over in Olympia. If he can get a hold of at least one of them and spread the word, then perhaps they’ll be able to tell us about the meeting place or something.
Checking the time, I feel tightness in my chest, “Maybe he just got delayed …” My voice trails off when I see all of them watching me. I notice that each and every pair of eyes are grave. “We … need to go and help him! It’s almost midnight … and … and he’s been gone practically all afternoon!” I try to shout through my sobs. Alyssa places her arms around me and pulls me into a tight embrace, and although I should feel comfort from this, I don’t.
“Anything?” Ryan’s clenching his jaw as he turns and looks towards Neil. Neil’s shaking his head and glancing between the three of us. “Fuck.” Ryan sounds defeated now, and his shoulders slouch low as he looks down to the floor.
“Oh my God!” Lifting my hands up to my mouth, my whole body begins to shake. “Do you think that he…?” I cry, a lot. I can’t hold it in anymore. My whole body convulses and Alyssa squeezes me tighter. “I should have …” I can’t breathe, my airway feels restricted, and my mouth and throat have gone completely dry. I cling tightly to Alyssa as though my life depends on it.
Neil’s cell phone starts to ring, “Is it him?” I immediately pull away from Alyssa and head straight over to Neil. “Dammit, Neil! Is it him?”
He shakes his head with sorrowful eyes as he reads the message on the screen, “Alex, we need your car,” he says flatly, with his eyes turning dark. I nod and glance over at Ryan, who is now standing behind Neil and reading the message over his shoulder. “None of the guys have heard from Brandon since they told him about the meeting.”
“He went on his own?” Fuck! “Did they say where the meeting place was?” I ask and see Neil nodding in reply.
Neil closes his eyes and I can no longer see any emotion over his face. “It was … um, at the same … at the same place that he found Holly.”
No. Shit. No. Please no. “We need to leave! We need to go now!” Shaking my head vigorously, I feel the tears dripping through my shirt as I grab onto Neil’s arm and pull him towards the main doors of the building. “We need to go!” I scream at him, before my legs give way and I fall onto my knees.
“Neil, go and grab Alex’s keys and we’ll meet you at the car,” Alyssa tells him as she tries to help me up onto my feet. “Where did he find Holly?”
Why would he go and meet with someone he didn’t even know, at the same place he found her? Why didn’t he just sit back and think for one fucking minute that things didn’t seem right?
“Outside a bar, on the other side of the Seattle,” he replies while walking briskly away from us and over to our building.
She died here in Seattle? I thought what happened was back in Olympia, “Can you stand on your own now, chica?” Alyssa asks, while letting go of my arm slowly.
“Alyssa, what if we’re already too late?” My voice breaks as I ask the question. I turn to face her and notice the woeful look in her eyes. My stomach rolls and I burst forth with more tears. I don’t think I could handle it. My chest is hurting too much as it is. If we’re too late, then I’ll have lost the one and only guy I’ve ever fallen in love with.
***
Alyssa, Ryan, and I met Neil by my car in the college parking lot. There was definitely no way I could drive. No way at all. Although I know it’s no use, I keep calling Brandon’s cell but it’s still going straight through to the voicemail. Some part of me wants to leave him a message, just in case he switches it back on before we get to him. If we get to him.
I feel like I’ve died inside. Why couldn’t I have protested and demanded that he stay with me? I shake my head at my own question because I already know the answer to that. I knew how important it was for him to have the information he’s been looking for, and I didn’t want to be the one to hold him back. My eyes are sore and swollen and the tears have dried up, but I think this is only because I haven’t any left in me.
“It’s right over there,” Ryan points from the front passenger seat. I snap my head to see where he’s looking, and as soon as Neil slows the car, I jump out before he even manages to park completely.
“Alex, no. Stay here,” Ryan grabs my arm and tries to hold me and stop me from running towards the side alleyway that Neil is heading down. “Listen, just, please. Don’t do this.” He glances to Alyssa who’s now holding onto my other arm. Ryan nods at her, and then turns and walks after Neil.
They expect me to just wait over here? No fucking way. Fighting my way out of Alyssa’s grip, I march straight over to the alleyway they just headed down, but pause when I see bloodstains on the pavement. Please God. No.
“Ryan!” I scream out for them to come back. Slumping to the pavement, I run my hands over the dried blood. We’re too late. “Help him, please?” I beg him as I rock back and forth on my knees, while hugging myself and wishing for the pain to stop.
“He’s not down there,” Neil tells us, as both he and Ryan appear back out from the darkness. “I’m gonna go check and see if anyone from the bar saw or heard anything.”
Ryan has tears forming in his eyes too, and his lips are formed in a tight line, “We’ll find him, Alex. I promise.” He wraps his arms around me and I grip onto him with everything I have. We stay like this until Neil reappears from the bar.
“Did they?” I demand fr
om him as soon as he walks out of the doors. “Did they see anything?” Standing right in front of him now, I anxiously wait for some information as he takes a deep breath, while keeping his eyes trained on mine. It’s almost as though he’s searching my face and trying to find the right words to say. “Tell me!”
“They saw about five guys run out of the alley and jump into a van at around three o’clock,” his voice is unsteady as he answers me. “When the manager went out to see what was going on, they saw a guy matching Brandon’s description. Alex, they said that he was unconscious and—”
“What?” Why is he even hesitating? “Just fucking tell me, Neil! Where is he?” My fists are clenched at my sides and I’m getting really frustrated by the way he’s trying to shelter me from knowing anything else.
“The bar manager found him and called 911. An ambulance came and took him away,” he averts his eyes to anywhere around him but on me as he speaks. “Alex, from what they told me, it doesn’t look good.”
***
Alyssa uses her cell to call all the nearby hospitals as she tries to find out which one he was taken to, while Neil starts the car. When she said Brandon Taylor into the phone, it suddenly occurred to me that I didn’t even know his last name.
Neil drives towards the university hospital because it makes logical sense that they would admit him into the closest one.
I just stare out of the window. Neil’s words keep running through my mind, over and over again like a broken record.
It doesn’t look good.
There were five guys? Five guys on one? The nauseous feeling rips through me while I try to imagine what he must have felt like when he realized it was a set up. When he walked away from me, although he seemed a little hesitant, he had hope in his eyes. I can’t believe I told him to even come here.
If he’s in the hospital, then they’ll be doing everything they can. Okay so, he was unconscious, but at least he wouldn’t have been able to feel any pain, right?
When I feel the car slowing down, it snaps me out of my thoughts and I see Neil pulling up into a parking space just by the emergency doors of the hospital.
“Did you have any luck on the phone?” I turn to Alyssa, and see her biting her nails. She never bites her nails, not even when she maxes out one of her many credit cards and has to call her father for a new limit. She’s thinking exactly the same thing as I am.
She shakes her head at me as we all step out of the car.
Neil seems to be handling the situation a lot better than the rest of us. Ryan looks worried as hell, and Alyssa, well Alyssa is looking really concerned too. She keeps giving me a sorrowful look whenever I make eye contact with her.
Hurrying towards the front desk, Neil moves me aside and asks the woman sitting behind it about the possibility of Brandon being here. What if he’s awake and all alone? I tap my fingers on the desk impatiently as the attendant appears to be taking her sweet ass time. Should she really be working here if all she can manage is to type two freaking words per minute?
I’ve really had enough of this!
“Listen, lady!” I snap while pushing Neil out of the way. “How would you feel if this whole situation was reversed and it was you standing here, wondering if the guy you’re madly in love with is still alive? Is Brandon freaking Taylor in this hospital or not?”
“Fourth floor, room four zero five.” She mumbles under her breath as she hands us a small bottle of antibacterial spray each. “You might not be able to see him—”
We don’t wait around to let her finish. Oh, I’ll be able to see him.
As we ride the elevator up to the fourth floor, all three of them are eyeing me cautiously. I’m guessing it’s because they just witnessed my patience completely running out. This is only the second time this has happened, the first being with Matt last week.
“You fell in love with him?” Neil’s eyes have widened some as he reiterates his question, “You’re in love with Brandon?” I dip my head at him and turn away from his gaze. It’s the first time I’ve admitted it aloud, and I would do it a million times over if it meant that he’d be okay. I love him. There. I said it.
Exiting the elevator, we walk towards his room and I pause, close my eyes and take a deep breath before reaching for the door.
“I’m sorry but you can’t go in there right now,” A nurse approaches us with a soft voice and places her hand across the door to his room, blocking our path. “Are you a relative?”
“I’m his girlfriend,” I state firmly as I hold my head up a little higher. She nods, and then points over to the seats in the waiting area just opposite to his room. “Why can’t …?”
“If you would just take a seat, I’ll explain,” I don’t like the tone of her voice whatsoever. She takes a seat beside me, but Alyssa, Neil, and Ryan remain standing. “I’m not supposed to give patient information out unless it’s to family, but we haven’t been able to locate his next of kin, and I feel bad for him. Poor guy, he’s all alone in there. So, for now, if anyone asks, you’re his wife,” she instructs in a hushed voice. I don’t even have time to contemplate what the repercussions of lying could possibly be, or what Brandon’s reaction might be, not that it matters so long as he wakes up. I’m brought back from my thoughts as she continues, “Mr. Taylor suffered some very serious injuries and until the swelling around his brain settles, we won’t know if—”
“No, no! I need to see him, please? Let me just—”
“We’ve stabilized him. He was unconscious when he was brought in and we’re keeping him in a medically induced coma until the swelling reduces. He’ll be taken for a brain scan to see if there’s any long term damage in due course.”
Oh my God. This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening, “Will he be okay?” I whisper as tears stream down my face once more. “He won’t die? He can’t die!” Shaking my head and squeezing my eyes shut, I feel the nurse gently stroking my hand, as though she’s trying to comfort me.
“We’re going to keep a very close eye on him. He’s in good hands.” she tries to reassure me but her words don’t help in the slightest. They’re just words. I’ve heard them all before. They’re the exact same words the doctors used when my mom was brought in here, and she never came back out.
“When can I see him?” Blinking a couple of times as I try to take all of this in, I turn to face her again and see her smiling slightly at me.
“The doctors are in there now and once they’re finished, I’ll check to make sure it’s okay for you sit by him. We still need to contact his parents,” she pats my hand before walking over to her desk.
Neil and Ryan give each other a glare that I’m unable to interpret, as they follow the nurse over to her desk. They’ll be able to give his parents details because I really don’t know anything about them. Come to think about it, he hasn’t mentioned them to me before, not even once.
It’s almost three in the morning by the time the doctors finally exit from Brandon’s room. They nod to the nurse as they walk away and down the corridor. They looked anxious too.
I stand up and walk over to the nurse. She tells me I can go and sit with him, but there’s only one visitor allowed in at a time. When I turn back to Neil, Ryan, and Alyssa, they all nod for me to go in first.
“Just be prepared. There are a lot of machines and with the amount of swelling and bruising, he’ll be looking a lot different right now,” she reaches the door handle and opens it up for me. Closing my eyes and taking a breath, I walk in.
Cautiously walking over to his bedside, I feel a sharp pain stabbing through my chest and lower abdomen. My whole body is shaking from seeing him like this. I think I’m going to be violently sick.
He’s hooked up to at least three different machines and there are so many wires and tubes everywhere. I reach out to take his hand as I sit beside his bed. The only sounds I can hear are those from the heart monitor, which keeps beeping every other second, and the sound of the machine that’s giving him oxygen. He’s badl
y bruised, everywhere.
“Brandon, I know you probably can’t hear me, but, I need to say this. I need to say it in case …” It hurts too much to even speak. “I love you, Brandon. I … I think I’ve loved you ever since we first met.”
I lean over him and place a light kiss on his forehead. I need him to wake up and be okay. He’s already been through so much hell over the past couple of years. He deserves to be happy and I want to be the one that makes him happy.
Please stay, please come back to me.
16.
The Declaration.
“Alexis,” Brandon’s voice is still croaky. “You look like shit.” He has such a way with words, it’s no wonder I fell for him as soon as I laid my eyes on him. He’s such a romantic guy. Who wouldn’t be madly and hopelessly in love with him?
“Yeah, well, Brandon,” I answer him with a sarcastic smirk, “You look like fucking shit, too.” He laughs at my reply, although he really shouldn’t have. He winces from the pain his laughter just caused him, and he’s now holding his ribs with discomfort.
He woke up five days after being brought to the hospital, and I can’t even begin to explain how I felt the moment I saw his eyes open. The first time was only for a couple of seconds, but it was long enough for him to be able to say something. It was only one word, but it meant the world to me. He said my name.
When I heard the nurse requesting Brandon’s parents’ contact numbers, I’d assumed Neil and Ryan shared their details with her, but they hadn’t. This is when I learned he doesn’t have any parents, not anymore.
Ryan explained that once Brandon was taken into custody, they’d disowned him and said that he was a disgrace to their entire family. I wanted to cry for him. His own parents abandoned him when he needed their love and support the most. It’s unforgivable.
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