Bullet

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 f*ck?”

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

Brad was already behind me. “Spit it out, man. What the f*ck 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, f*ck, 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, lying 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, “F*ckin’ 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.

Brad had gone to work the first Monday morning we were back, and Nick and Zane were sleeping. Ethan and I sat at the kitchen table sipping coffee. He broke the silence. “You were there the whole time, weren’t you?”

“What?”

“You never left the hospital room. You stayed with me the whole time.”

I was strangely calm. “Who told you?”

His smile was subtle. “No one. I just knew.” He reached over to me and took my hand in his, much like I had his the week before when I was begging his comatose self to come back to me. He squeezed it. “I love you, Valerie Quinn. You are…” My breath was gone, and it was all I could do to just hang on. “You are the music in my heart, the breath in my soul. You are my reason to be here, my reason to stay. My reason to live.” I blinked. I could barely believe what I was hearing. He stroked my cheek with one of his hands. He acted like he wanted to say more, but he didn’t.

My voice was soft. “I love you too, Ethan.” But I didn’t trust him enough to try again. He’d hurt me so many times now, and I loved my own self enough to want to protect myself from the pain he’d learned to so easily inflict upon me. But I didn’t know he was getting ready to pump a bullet into my heart, one from which I wouldn’t be able to defend myself nor recover.

“Marry me.”

My breath was gone. Where the f*ck had that come from? “What?”

“Marry me. Val, I’m done with the shit. I’m done with the drugs.” I could maybe believe that. He’d been in a rehab program since we’d returned. He’d tossed out all his shit—not just liquor and any stray drugs hiding in his room but even paraphernalia. So maybe I could believe he was telling the truth. But what about…? “And I’m done f*cking around on you. None of any of the other women I’ve ever been with would have done what you did. Jesus, Val, when everyone else gave up, you were there.”

Oh, no. I wasn’t going to have him believing that. “No, Ethan, the guys never gave up on you. They just made sure they got a shower once in a while.”

“It doesn’t matter. You were there, babe. You were there, holding my hand, talking to me, pulling me through. You believed.” His eyes searched mine. “So marry me.”

I was finding it hard to breathe. “That’s no reason to get married.”

“You love me, right?”

I couldn’t find any words to answer him. First of all, whether I believed him or not, whether I loved him or not, I didn’t know that I wanted to marry Ethan or even if it was a good idea. Did I want to spend the rest of my life with this man? He must have been able to read my hesitation, because he took my face in his hands.

“We don’t have to get married right away, Val. There’s no law says we have to do it right now. Just…” This was a turning point. If I told him no right now when he was in this fragile state, it could very well send him running back to his self-medicating ways. I could see it in his eyes. Somehow I’d transformed from his so-called muse to being his entire f*cking lifeline. It was a huge responsibility, one I didn’t want but one that Ethan had thrust upon me without any regard for what I wanted.

Truth was I did love the man. I knew that and he did too. I had for a long time. And even if I said yes, it didn’t mean I’d have to actually marry him down the line. No…once he was strong and himself again, then, if I didn’t feel comfortable with the prospect, if I knew we weren’t ever going to make it, I could break it off. For now, though, I was obligated…or I might as well have just stuck the needle in Ethan’s arm myself.

When I gave him an affirmation (I don’t remember if I said yes or okay or something entirely different), he took me in his arms and kissed me. Yes. I knew right then that I still loved him…more than I ever should have allowed myself to.

* * *

It was several weeks later, long after the secret was out, that Brad approached me on a Saturday morning. “Let’s go to Starbucks.”

Part of me was thinking that—now that I was a woman engaged—it would be inappropriate, but there were two things that made me want to do it. The first was that Brad and I were friends, first and foremost, and there was nothing Ethan could do to stop it. Brad was his friend too, and I didn’t think Brad would intentionally hurt his friend, not when I clearly had chosen Ethan. The second was that we had a lot to talk about, and we’d never had the opportunity. If I told him no, not only would I be a Grade A Bitch, but I’d also destroy the trust and openness he and I had always shared.

I wasn’t about to do that to Brad, whether Ethan was my fiancé or not.

All the guys were still asleep, Ethan himself still in my bed. So I pulled my hair back into a loose ponytail and grabbed my purse.

I was finally working again, this time waiting tables at a café during the graveyard shift three nights a week, but Brad insisted upon buying. “Mocha, right?” I nodded, and I missed what he got for himself, but it wasn’t anything fancy like mine.

We sat at a table outside in the warm sun. I could tell it was going to get hot later, but this early in the shade it was beautiful. Brad slid his sunglasses back on. I didn’t like that. Brad telegraphed so much through his eyes, and I suspected he was putting his sunglasses on to hide from me. It was bright outside too, but under that umbrella, it shouldn’t have bothered him so much.

He really was a gorgeous guy. He was fully a man now, and—Ethan or not—I appreciated Brad’s beauty. His hair was long now, way past his shoulders, and his jaw was firm and strong. His normally clean-shaven face had a shadow that made him look that much more attractive. And his display of tattoos grew season by season. I saw a new one, an arrow on his forearm, and I wondered what it meant.

But I wasn’t going to ask.

“Val, I don’t want you to feel bad, okay, but we need to talk.”

I nodded. “Yeah, we do.”

“That night…did it mean anything to you?”

Oh, God, no. No. Why did he have to ask? Why did he need to know? I started clenching my jaw, trying to stop the tears from filling my eyes. But I knew Brad could sense it just by looking at me. I blinked, hoping the tears wouldn’t come. My voice cracked. “Yes.”

He nodded. God, I wanted to see his eyes. But I wasn’t going to ask him to take his glasses off. He swallowed and then sipped his coffee. “Do you love him?”

Jesus Christ. Why was he asking me all these things? Was he trying to hurt me, hurt himself? I couldn’t do this. It was raw. It was too much. “Why? Why do you want to know?”

His voice was calm, steady. He let out a smooth breath. “I need to know.”

“Why?”

He was at war with himself. I could see that the part of him that was just my friend wanted to tell me everything, but the part of Brad that had made love to me just a few weeks ago was protecting himself. He was vulnerable. “If you love him, I’ll support your decision, and I’ll never say anything about that night again. Ever.” He took off his sunglasses and looked at me. How he managed to make his eyes look so emotionless, I’ll never know.

“But if you tell me you don’t, I’ll fight for you.”

I sucked in a deep breath, because I suddenly felt like the star quarterback who’d just been tackled by the other team’s entire lineup.

I too was battling myself inside. I couldn’t lie to Brad. By the same token, if I told him the entire truth—that, yes, I loved Ethan, but I wasn’t sure where it was going to go—he’d do what I knew in the back of my mind he’d already been doing. He’d told me so long ago, when we’d first met and we both recognized that there was something inexplicable between us, that he would wait for me. He would ride out whatever feelings I had for Ethan. And I knew…right now I knew just looking in his eyes that if I was completely honest with him…if I told him the truth, that I didn’t feel like I could completely trust Ethan, that I couldn’t completely give myself over to Ethan, and that deep down I wondered if it would work…I knew he would continue to wait. And that wouldn’t be fair. It wouldn’t be fair to me, to Ethan…but, mostly, it wouldn’t be fair to Brad. He deserved more. He deserved better. And I wasn’t going to do that to him.

So I had to tell him the truth, but I wasn’t going to tell him about my reservations. I swallowed. “I love Ethan.”

He nodded. Then he took a deep breath and a sip of coffee and looked out at Colfax Avenue where the cars were whizzing by, in a hurry to go somewhere. He was quiet. Really quiet. And I dared not say a word. I wasn’t going to make it worse by talking and saying something stupid and f*cking insipid. He had to sort through this, and if his insides were only half as jumbled as mine, he was a mess. He needed to process, didn’t need a stupid girl talking while he had to do that.

I rested my chin on my fist and just looked down at the metal table. I wanted to stop being an adult now, but this was a mess I helped create, and I needed to deal with it. I just had to make sure I didn’t cry right now.

After several minutes, Brad said, “Thanks for being honest with me, Valerie.” He took another deep breath and slid his sunglasses back on his face. He stuck out his hand. “Friends?”

I took his hand. “Of course. Forever.”

And I meant that. Brad had been and would always be the best friend I’d ever had, and I was so grateful that wasn’t going to change now.

* * *

Several months passed as Ethan eased into sobriety. He was taking baby steps. I wasn’t a part of his rehab, but he attended a couple of classes a week, and he had someone he could call when things got tough. And, as Fully Automatic, we literally banded together, foregoing parties and drinking altogether in support of Ethan.

For a while, things between Brad and me were stiff. We’d made the pledge to be friends, but that didn’t mean it was easy on either of us, but for him in particular, I knew it had to be hard, and, frankly, I questioned my decision at times, but when I saw how strong Ethan was growing from day to day, and I saw the changes he was trying to make in his behaviors, I was glad I’d done it.

In November, both Brad and I heard from Clay. Last Five Minutes had just wrapped up recording on their first studio CD, one they called Point of No Return, based on one of my favorite songs of theirs, now the title track. That particular song was also being released as a single later that month along with their first video. Clay called one night, and we talked for a while. I was excited and happy for them, and I told Clay that. Of all the indie bands I’d met in the last couple of years, his band was one of the most deserving.

“So, how have you been, Val?”

“Oh, you know…not much has changed since I saw you last.”

“You seeing anybody?” Oh…how could I tell him? I couldn’t forget when he’d said he wanted to punch Ethan’s teeth out. But I was too slow in forming the words. “Okay…I guess the better question would be who are you seeing?”

I let out a breath. God, I was transparent to everyone. “Ethan and I are back together.”

He didn’t say anything at first. His silence was damning…either that, or I was feeling guilty. “You happy?”

I tried not to hesitate. “Yeah.”

“Was it true—he was in a coma for a couple weeks when you guys were playing a show in Texas?”

How had he heard that? Well, it didn’t matter. “Yeah, it’s true.”

“Promise me, Val. Promise me you’ll always choose yourself over Ethan’s bullshit.”

“Lot of faith you’ve got, Clay.”

“I have faith in you, Val. But I also know what an a*shole Ethan has been to you. Sorry. No offense. I shouldn’t say shit.”

“It’s cool.” But it was time to change the subject. “What about you? You seeing anyone?”

“Eh…no one worth mentioning. When I told her she had a long way to go to live up to my last girlfriend, she got a little pissed.”

“Jesus, Clay. I wonder why.”

He laughed. “Heh. She wasn’t talkin’ to Clay. That was her first mistake.”

We talked and laughed for a while longer, and when I hung up, I realized how easy our friendship had become. I hoped Brad and I would eventually get back there too. We had to.