We Knew That Time Would Kill Us

I woke up hours later, not feeling as rested and refreshed as I wanted to be, not nearly. On my stomach, I lay in my bunk for a few minutes and thought about how the next few hours were going to play out. Or the next few days; or more dramatically, the rest of my life.

All I could think about was if Tyler didn’t die. Not what would happen if he did. Because I just didn’t know. I didn’t know how I would react to losing another person who’d been in my life for years and had such an influence on me.

Without him, I wouldn’t have even picked up a guitar. I know that much for certain. And I sure as hell wouldn’t have sung on that stage last night. I wouldn’t have sung in front of anyone.

God, I owed him so much... this was the least I could have done. For him and for his parents.

“How long before we get there?” I mumbled groggily upon entering the living area, not surprised at all to see everybody up. They’d probably gotten less sleep than I did, and were just as stressed out as I was. As that thought crossed my mind, I decided not to argue with anyone today, or for as long as I could.

They looked hesitant to answer me, as if they were afraid I would lose my cool yet again. I wasn’t surprised, and the fact that they were on their toes around me only made me feel guilty.

“A half hour or so,” Johnny replied, seeing as not even Matt had spoken up. He shifted on the sofa, casting me a worried glance.

I smiled weakly in his general direction, and mumbled a small thank you to Johnny before sitting down between him and Matt. “You guys should’ve just gone home, you know. You didn’t have to come.”

Home with the family they’ve been missing for months is exactly where they should have been. Not with their sort of niece on a road trip to go see her drug addict of a best friend. It wasn’t worth their time, as all I’d done in the over the last year and a half was lie to them countless times, why should they sacrifice their time for me?

“You’re kidding me right?” Brian asked, while the rest of the guys gave a much-needed laugh. It worked, too, and the bus didn’t feel so thick with tension anymore.

“Yeah, right. Matt’s clueless, P. You need all the help you can get,” Zacky reached over and ruffled my hair, grinning. Obviously, it was a joke, but he may have just been correct.

Nonetheless, I smiled at his half-serious joke as I realized exactly how many people I had behind me. I wasn’t completely alone in this; in fact I was the exact opposite of being alone. As I looked around, I realized that the people in this bus were always going to give me their support, and I would undoubtedly do the same for them if it ever came to it.

Catching my quick look, Jimmy smirked and pulled me into another bear hug. I let out a relieved sigh; I’d never be able to go without Jimmy’s hugs, not ever. They seemed to make everything better, even in such a situation.

All the time spent on riding in the bus after that was in silence, and I thought about everything from home, the one we were heading to and Huntington Beach, to Evan then back to the entire reason I was even considering going back, Tyler.

I wondered again how tumultuous the day would be, and if I could get through it all in one piece. Meeting Derek and Melissa for the first time in over a year wouldn’t be too bad, or at least I hoped. But actually seeing Tyler after what happened... and in a hospital room? I didn’t know if I could handle it. But even if he was unconscious when I visited, I had to somehow try and make things right between us. There couldn’t be any bad blood between us. At least not any more.

Soon the bus slowed down and we entered more rural, familiar areas. I couldn’t bring myself to look out the windows. I couldn’t believe we were even there, in the place I’d grown up, with my new family. I was scared that it wouldn’t feel the same, without Tyler, and I didn’t want to know how much I really had changed since I’d last been here. A lot of those changes had been good, but some...

Some, well... some weren’t that great. And I didn’t know how well I would cope with being in a place where I used to be a completely different person, and without the rock I had when I was here; Tyler.

Then we arrived at the hospital. The only reason I was aware of that was because the bus had come to a complete stop. I guessed we were in the hospital’s main parking lot, as there was no need to hide the bus like we sometimes had to. My home town and the ones surrounding it were small—A7X didn’t stand much of a chance at getting recognized.

I looked around at all the guys, only then realizing that they were all standing up, waiting for me. After emitting a short sigh I stood and made my way toward the door of the bus, dreading what I was about to go through. We all filed through, and I took my time going down the small set of steps before I finally jumped out, with only Matt behind me while everyone else had gone ahead.

Everyone stood, as if waiting for me to dart back onto the bus.

But I refused to take the coward’s way out. I couldn’t just leave Tyler in his darkest hour, and maybe he hadn’t been there for me in the past, but the saying ‘two wrongs don’t make a right’ was never more fitting. He could die, and I wouldn’t even be there to say goodbye.

Goodbye, I stopped myself there. That wasn’t going to happen.

The hospital was the same as it always had been. I’d been there before but never for something as serious as this. Not even when Mom had passed did I go there, and my hands were shaking at such thoughts. Since he was almost hovering over me, I took Matt’s hand into a lax grip as walked toward the entrance, although I was feeling anything but.

Would I be able to see Tyler right away? It was early in the morning. I may not have known the exact time, but I guessed it was around nine AM. Were there visiting hours... or would I even be allowed to see him at all?

Next to me, Zacky put an arm over my shoulder and smiled, seeming oblivious to my panicked thoughts once again. “Sorry about last night, P, I was just tryna’ help.”

“It’s—it’s nothing, it’s fine Zacky,” I said, not really knowing exactly what was coming out of my mouth. I didn’t really blame him for anything that had happened last night, as I knew his heart had been in the right place.

Dad, however, noticed my nervous chatter and stopped, causing my hand to slip from his. I looked down, unable to meet his eyes. I knew that if I did, I wouldn’t be able to hold it all together anymore.

At heart, I’d forgiven him. I didn’t know how much I would trust him with things from then on, and only time could tell. But any further than that, I wasn’t holding it against him. Besides, that would have been pretty damn hypocritical if I did, because I lied to him countless times before and yet here he was, still by my side.

Another thing had been on my guilty conscience, too. Way back last year, I lied about the very thing that had Tyler in hospital. Drugs. Really, if the blame was going to be placed on anyone, it would be me.

I didn’t need a journal or a talk with Matt to figure that out. It was nobody’s fault but mine.

“Are you sure you can do this?” Dad questioned, and I nodded once in response. No, I wasn’t sure if I could do this, but it wasn’t a matter of if I wanted to or not. I had to.

I was not going to run. And I wasn’t going to turn a blind eye to this... at least not anymore.

Before Matt could tell me otherwise, I began walking forward again, and refused to think any further about the matter and practically made myself numb as I walked through the main doors, an ambulance having been parked right up by the curb.

The secretary peered at me once I made it to the lobby’s main desk, and her piercing stare made me uncomfortable, so I gave her a pointed, ‘What the fuck?’ look. I really wasn’t in any mood to be scrutinized. “Lauren...” She muttered, tapping her pen against the counter incessantly. What she said made me drop my attitude in an instant. “Wilson!” She cried, and I felt Matt’s arm on my shoulders, in a protective gesture.

Going into this, I had hoped no one would recognize me. I didn’t want to rehash bad memories, and it looked like that was exactly what this lady, or Natasha as her nametag read, was about to do. “I’m your mother’s old friend,” I didn’t remember her, and she seemed not to care that I hadn’t uttered a single word so far. Or that she was mentioning my dead mother. “You’re... you’re uh, Paige?”

“Payton,” I finally spoke, sending a heated glance toward my father.

Behind us the rest of Avenged stood, actually quiet for once. I partially leaned into Matt, finding his presence comforting. “We’re looking for Tyler Sterling’s room.”

A deep frown set itself into Natasha’s middle-aged features at the mentioning of Tyler, and everyone knew what was coming next. “I really am sorry, Paige, but it’s against hospital reg—”

While I was cringing at the name she’d called me, I heard a familiar shout behind us, by the doors. I turned around as soon as I heard Melissa’s voice, but I didn’t make any move to approach her any further than that. I didn’t feel as if I had any right to.

She surprised me when she pulled me straight into a hug as soon as she got close enough. I let out a relieved sigh and tentatively returned the hug, before pulling back. Almost as intense as the secretary, Melissa stared at me for one long, hard minute before she broke out in a strained smile. From the looks of things she hadn’t done that in a while, because there were harsh, nearly purple circles underneath both of her eyes and worry lines creased in her forehead.

Had Tyler’s habits been the cause of that, or me for letting it go on?

“I’m sorry,” I began, but she was quick to hold up a hand, telling me to stop.

“You’re here now, and that’s all that matters.” She said, sounding sure of herself.

That wasn’t true. I could have—should have—stopped all of this before it even started; after all, I’d been Tyler’s best friend. It was supposed to be my duty to take care of him, as it had been for him with me for so long.

Derek knew it, too. The look on his eyes said everything his stoic expression didn’t, I picked up the hostility straight away. The resentment. He blamed me for this, and I was beginning to think he was the only rational one left.

All I could do was smile. He had every right to feel that way...

If I continued to do this to myself, I wouldn’t even be able to make it to Tyler.

“Nat,” Melissa said, looking toward the secretary with hopeful eyes. The nickname surprised me, but I said nothing. “Payton really wants to see Tyler, so I’m gonna take her in. Is that okay?”

“As long as it’s two at a time,” Natasha replied, staring idly at her computer’s screen.

I sent a look toward Matt at that, feeling my heart jump several times in rapid succession. I’d been counting on him being there with me when I went to see Tyler, and the thought of him not being there had me already sweating. This visit without him wouldn’t be a long one.

Taking my hand in hers, Melissa led me away from the lobby and away from my family. No, I definitely couldn’t go anymore than a few minutes without them, not then. Not when I needed them most. “He’s in the ICU,” Melissa said, her tone void of any emotion.

I balked, partly because I hadn’t known that, and because we’d entered the unit. It was a lot like the emergency room, with just blue curtains separating the patients. I may not have been able to see past them, but I could hear the constant whoosh of a breathing machine and the beeping of what I assumed was a heart monitor.

To make it all worse, it looked like Tyler was the only one in there. I watched as Melissa pulled back the curtain enough to let the both of us in, and she nearly hauled me in there before stepping into the tiny room herself.

Really, I don’t know what I’d been expecting. I wanted to see him like he was before I ever left him—alive and well, full of life. Happy. Hell, I would have taken him as the he’d been last spring break with the sunken in eyes, twenty pounds lighter and all.

That was how bad it was.

No, he was worse than that. A machine was breathing for him like I’d predicted, one arm in a cast, a tube stuck down his throat and his head was wrapped in a large bandage. With all of that, I barely took notice of the IV attached to his wrist or the various other wires monitoring his vitals.

I didn’t recognized the guy in front of me. It wasn’t him... it wasn’t Tyler.

Unsure of what would happen, I took a step closer to his bed and then hastily turn around, my hands covering my eyes. If Dad were there, he would have either hugged the life out of me or taken me from the room altogether. And right then, that was all I really wanted.

“What happened,” I dared to ask, my voice shaking pathetically.

“He was in a bathroom when it happened,” Melissa said after a moment, once again emotionless as she explained what happened to my old friend to land himself in the Intensive Care Unit. “Not ours—he hadn’t been home in about a week. And when his heart... when it malfunctioned, from the overdose... he, he fell. We know for sure that he hit his head on a sink, but we don’t know how he broke his arm.”

A horror story was what it sounded like to me. Something that you heard about, but it never happened to you or anyone close to you. Yet there Tyler was, lying motionless in the hospital bed just a few feet away from me.

Melissa let out a sob, and I briefly contemplated just straight up running from the room. “They don’t know how much brain damage he’ll have when he wakes up... if he wakes up. And his heart, oh God, Patey. His heart.”

Not able to take it anymore, I turned back toward her and engulfed her into a hug. I couldn’t take her crying, and I most certainly couldn’t handle my own tears either.

I didn’t know what the next few days would entail. I didn’t know if Tyler was going to wake up, and I didn’t know what was going to happen if things went either way. I didn’t know if was going to be able to make things better.

I may not have known much, but I knew that my father and my family were waiting out in the lobby for me. And that was enough to get me through everything.