My Fault

I hear both of your voices all the time now. At first it was just you, whispering pleas for me to take you back, for me to love you. Then Zacky's voice joined yours. I think I'm going insane. Jimmy's always there, though, when I think that. Always telling me I'm not. Always telling me that I just miss you, that it's natural.

I haven't been the same since that night at the cemetery. I feel more melancholy, more like death's stalking me. Maybe he is. Maybe he wants all five of us in the afterlife, if there is one. Jimmy keeps telling me everything will be fine, that everything will work out. He has such faith in that, so I never argue. For all I know I could be over-reacting.

I stare out the windshield, sighing to myself. The day was so beautiful, the sun bright, birds flying and singing happy songs, the clouds white and fluffly. Hell, I may feel impending doom, but even I had to rejoice in the beauty of it.

Jimmy sat in the passenger's seat, staring out the window, off in his own world. This never surprised me. Jimmy became very quiet after you all died, more thoughtful. He could have passed for a philosopher before, now he was one. Always thinking and brooding.

We were headed to the store, just for basics. I gave up alcohol the day you broke my heart. I almost went back when you took your own life. Jimmy stopped me. Even gave it up himself. That amazed me, actually. He gave up everything that could fuck up his body, everything he had fun with. He hasn't touched a drum set, much less drumsticks, since that day. Not that I blame him. I can't see my bass without crying, without thinking of you.

"Stop think of Bri and Zacky," Jimmy chided me.

"It just happens," I replied, raising my eyebrows. I shouldn't have been surprised, he always seemed to know what I was thinking. I swear he's fucking psychic.

"I know, Love," he turned to me, blue eyes boring into my soul. At least it felt like it. "I understand. Matty constantly invades my thoughts, but it never leads me into a melancholy mood like what you go into."

"I'm sorry," I whispered, turning away from those blue eyes.

"You can't help it, Johnny. You loved them, it's only natural," he replied, turning to stare back out the window. "You talk in your sleep alot. Mostly calling for Brian, sometimes Zacky, every now and again Matt."

"Does that make you jealous?" I asked him.

"No, why would it?" His voice was tinged with surprise. "You were there for him, and he for you. It's natural you would call for him, when he saved you before."

"He was yours," I replied, slightly shocked by his well-thought words.

"I never owned him," Jimmy turned back to pin me with another stare. This shocked me. Everyone knew Matt was wrapped around Jimmy's finger. Except, apparently, Jimmy himself. "I wanted to spend my life with him, yes, but own him? Never. I never wanted to. He owned me."

"And he's gone now, because of Brian. Because of me," I whispered, hoping Jimmy didn't here me. He hated when I blamed myself.

"Never your fault, John, never yours," Jimmy replied. Damn, he did hear me.

"I hurt Brian, Brian took Matt. My fault," I reasoned.

"You didn't place a gun in Bri's hands," Jimmy tried to reason. Why couldn't I have let it go?

"I might as well have," I replied. Jimmy sighed, and turned away once more, defeated now.

I pressed harder on the gas pedal, like the speed would make all of my problem's disappear. Tears started to blur my vision, and I pressed harder. I never saw the other car.

"Johnny!" Jimmy cried, going for the wheel.

He never made it. The car slammed into ours, and for one split second everything was clear. The windshield shattering, glass piercing Jimmy's pale skin, and mine, the eyes of the other driver. Stunning pale blue rimmed with black eyeliner. Eyes filled with fear and pain as glass pierced his skin, burrowing into the flesh of his face. The familiar eyes of Jacoby Shaddix. And the familiar black and pink hair of James Hart, already soaked, and from the color the pink was rapidly turning I knew it was blood that wet his hair.

And then there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not even blackness. Made me wonder whether I was dead or alive.

I slowly became aware of a beeping noise. So incessant and annoying. And then I heard voices, faintly and faraway sounding, but I could understand them, barely.

"The other driver died on scene, right?" A woman's voice.

"Yeah, and his passenger, too. Jacoby Shaddix and James Hart. This one's passenger died two days ago. Name was James Sullivan." A man answered.

Jacoby's dead? My idiocy killed him. And James Hart, too? And Jimmy? Jimmy's dead? He left me. Am I hearing this right? Or are the drugs making me hallucinate? If I'm even still alive. Am I alive? I'd like to think if I were dead you would be here with me.

"And him?" It was the woman again.

"Jonathan Seward, been in a coma for two weeks now. We don't think he'll make it. He lost a lot of blood, and we have to continually pump his lungs, because a small blood vessel broke, and is filling them slowly with blood," the man answered.

So I'm dying.

And Jacoby's dead. His babies are fatherless. James is dead too. My fault.

Jimmy's dead. I killed him. My fault. I deserve to die. I killed them. My fault.