We Knew That Time Would Kill Us

After being in the Intensive Care Unit for just a few minutes, and watching Melissa hover over Tyler’s bed, I decided it was time to get out of there. At least for right then, it seemed like the only thing I could have done. And while Melissa wasn’t actually telling me to leave, I could tell she wanted to be alone with her son.

As I made my way out through the various hallways and into the main lobby once again, I almost wished I stayed back a little longer. The guys had all migrated from the entrance doors to stand around my dad. He was staring at Derek—who hadn’t moved an inch from where Melissa had left him—with an intensity I’d only seen a couple of times before.

None of those times ended well, not for me, and not for anyone. Matt was about to rip into Derek, and I had to put a stop to it before it started. Natasha stared from behind her desk, a hand hovering over her phone, ready to call security.

I may not have known why they stared, across the lobby with their arms crossed over their chest, looking as if they wanted to kill each other. But it was almost a given that it had something to do with me.

Hesitant, I approached Matt with care. He didn’t so much as even acknowledge my hand tugging on his arm, and I didn’t dare chance a look at Derek, afraid he might have focused his glare on me instead. I just wanted to get out of there, and conflict between the two would only prolong the visit.

Still determined to gain Matt’s attention, I pulled harder on his arm, mumbling a small “Matt,” to try and get him to focus on me. Finally, he managed to tear his eyes, but the harshness within didn’t soften as much as I hoped it would. I suspected my continued use of his first name was the cause of that.

No matter if I’d forgiven him or not, I didn’t feel comfortable calling him ‘dad’ all the time, not after last night. When he saw the tears in my eyes and exactly how close they were to overflowing, he let out a defeated sigh, wrapping an arm around my shoulders.

My half-put together, almost calm facade was beginning to crack, and I didn’t want to do that with Derek just a few feet away from me. I could feel his eyes on the back of my head as we all left, the guys off to our sides.

It seemed that Matt completely forgot about his altercation with Derek, and he’d be unwilling to talk about it. For once, that was fine with me. I didn’t question what had happened once we got on the bus, instead choosing to sit on the sofa like I had before we got off the bus.

If I were being truthful, none of this seemed real for me. The Tyler I would have liked to remember didn’t get holed up in a hospital bed, and he didn’t have (or want) his parents crying over him.

And he didn’t snort cocaine, either.

What had I been expecting? To get some sort of closure, that somehow things would be okay again if I went ‘home’? I wanted to know who the hell I was trying to kid. I still couldn’t even think about Evan, or the aspect that I might have actually lost him, too.

With my head buried into the sofa’s cushion, I let out a long, exhausted yawn. Thinking wasn’t doing any good for me, yet again. I would have liked to not even touch on any of these subjects, but with everything here, right up and in my face, it looked as if I had no choice but to get through everything.

I turned my head to the left, and I saw that everyone, including my father, was watching me anxiously, like I’d explode if they took their eyes off me even for the briefest second. They didn’t have to worry. I’d already done all the stupid things I possibly could have.

“What do you want to do now?” It was obvious Matt didn’t want to ask that question, and I observed him for a while, not really taking him seriously.

Go to Disneyland, maybe?

“I want to... go to the house.” I answered after what must have been a few minutes, and his head snapped toward me, already know exactly which house I meant.

“What house?” Johnny quipped, his warm brown eyes filled with curiosity.

Jimmy smacked him upside the head, and I couldn’t help but crack a smile at the exchange. A hint of normalcy in such chaos felt nice; it looked as if their antics would suffice.

“Her old house, dumbass,” Brian said for Jimmy, removing my legs from the sofa for the briefest moment so he could sit, and then replaced them on his lap. I paid no attention to that, only focused on Matt. He seemed to be on the verge of flipping out.

“Why?”

“Why not?” I shot back, sitting up. I was there, just a few miles away from it. Not only did I have to get it over with, but it was the only plausible distraction I could come up with, because jumping a plane straight back to Huntington probably wasn’t the best way to cope, even if it was all I wanted to do at that moment.

Every time I closed my eyes, I could see Tyler, lying motionless in the hospital bed, with Melissa still at his side and Derek in the doorway. I could see the tubes and wires and everything they injected in his body, just to keep him alive.

All of it was just too much. Too haunting.

However temporary, I needed this distraction.

Unfortunately, Matt wasn’t as enthusiastic about the idea as I hoped he would be. Not even close. “It’s not a good idea,”

“But why,” I groaned, choosing to take the childish route with this. Really, I just didn’t know how else to convince him, or how I would shape up in an argument with him while in such a state.

“Because it’s not a good idea!” He repeated.

“Okay, be a broken record,” I turned back away from everyone, and heard him huff at my lame comeback. I couldn’t help but sneak a glance at that, and was shocked to see him heading back into the bunks, his footsteps heavy.

“Drama queen,” Zacky waved him off, but I couldn’t do the same. It wasn’t like him to just up and leave right in the middle of an argument, especially one he could have one very easily. It made me wonder what he could have been up to back there, I couldn’t imagine him sulking like Zacky suggested, however amusing the mental image was.

I decided to give him a few minutes to calm down. Both the sofa and Brian’s lap were awfully comfy, and for a split second I almost felt like I was back in Huntington Beach; I revelled in the feeling.

Maybe Dad had been right. Maybe going on this tour hadn’t been such a good idea after all. Sure, I might still have been here, waiting on Tyler and not knowing what I could do to make things better, but at least I’d be home. The weight of Evan leaving me wouldn’t be weighing down on my shoulders, and I could have been hanging out with Dannii instead of worrying about all of this.

Back before it all started, I may have wanted adventure. Now, all I wanted was my ‘mundane’, everyday life back. Where all I had to worry about was a flunked test or two.

Matt surprised me again, actually vacating the bunks in just a few minutes, without any prodding from me whatsoever. I sat up then, sensing there was a small chance we might be revisiting our previous argument. Across from me, he took a seat at the table and gave me a long look.

“If you can give me one reason why it wouldn’t be a bad idea, we’ll go.” He said, with an air of finality in his tone.

He caught my hesitation straight away. I had a feeling ‘just to get it over with’ wasn’t nearly a good enough reason for him. “Exactly,” He sighed. “It would only rehash bad memories, Patey.”

Those memories aren’t bad, they’re just... tainted, I silently corrected him. As much as I wanted to say I enjoyed looking back on my life before I moved to Huntington, I would be lying. It only made me realize how far things were from being okay.

With a pleading look, I resorted to begging. “Please. I just... I feel like I should. Please.” I didn’t know what else to say. I didn’t want to say any of what I was thinking about, and doubted I ever would.

No, I didn’t know a lot of things, but going back to the home I’d grown up in just seemed right, although I sort of knew in the back of my mind I wouldn’t be thinking the same when I got there. Something I felt sure of, however, was that this would be my last time within a hundred mile radius of the place. That is if I ever went on tour again—which I was seriously doubting.

So it was now or never.

“Okay,” He said lightly, surprising everyone in the bus. Why had he even gone back to the bunks if he were going to give
in so easily?

“Okay,” I repeated, staring at him through my eyelashes, not exactly trusting. I’d been expecting much more of a fight. “That’s it? Really?”
“You’re already under enough stress,” He said, his tone gentle, before he reached forward and gave my hand a squeeze. “I don’t want to add to that.”

The guys stared at him, as if someone had taken the real Matt away and replaced him with a much calmer, more rational person. But we all knew better—and that this probably wasn’t as good for him as it wasn’t helpful to put more stress on me.

“Oh—alright,” Was all I could manage to say. That, and what the hell has gotten into you? Though I suspected it would ruin the moment, and let’s face it. These days they were few and far between, and I had to make the most of them while I could.

Before I could think too hard about Tyler or Evan or everyone back in Huntington, I focused on the smooth bus ride to my old home, as I’d just decided to call it. Not exactly a place I could ever see myself living in again, but it had once held so much comfort, where things were so easy.

Now, Matt was partially right. It was going to bring back a truckload of memories, and I couldn’t call them good anymore. They still deserved to be brought up, I stilled deserved to have one last glimpse into the past.

Matt argued with the guys about who got to go into the house—just the two of us—until they eventually had to give up. He may have been playing the role of the understanding, nurturing father right then, but he was still as bull-headed as ever.

For that, I was actually thankful. Although I may have grown to be much more comfortable with my family over the past year, the last thing I wanted was for them to see me cry. Especially over something they had no control over, something that wasn’t even their fault.

On the way out of the bus, Matt grabbed my hand in his and gave it another comforting squeeze as we approached the front steps of the house. The salty scent of the ocean filled my nostrils as soon as I left the bus; I’d been too out of it to notice it at the hospital. At that time, only Tyler had been on my mind.

It used to be the smell of home. When I smelled it then, all I could think of was how it smelled so similar in Huntington, and wondered how it was possible. It was just water, yes, apart from that, the similarities in the two places ended there.

I stood there, smelling the ocean, looking up at the place for a good few minutes... just taking it all in, for the last time. I wouldn’t be back here again after today, and the decision I’d already made was going to assure that. It looked the same as it always had, with its typical brown vinyl siding and white shutters. Since the last time I’d seen it, the lawn was the same too. Brown and dead with the winter.

You could tell no one had lived in it for a long time. It had that same empty feeling to it that had begun to set in before I left to live with Matt, just amplified a thousand times.

“I had someone come and unlock the door for us,” Dad said casually, noticing my quirked eyebrow when he simply opened the front door without a key. “Every so often I send a couple maintenance guys out to make sure the place is kept up.”

Makes sense. And it only made me feel worse, because maintaining the place had to be costing Matt a pretty penny. No one was living in it; it was needless. I wondered why he’d never told me about it—had he been afraid to even bring up the house, because it was a part of my past? Up until then, I thought I knew exactly how much he worried about me.

I couldn’t have been more wrong, but the one thing I couldn’t do was overreact. I wasn’t in any position to get angry with him for caring about me.

The door swung open further, giving me a decent view of my used-to-be entrance and living room of the house. If I wanted to, I could peek in a little further and see the beginnings of the kitchen. After locking eyes with Matt, I gave a slight nod—almost to assure myself that this wouldn’t be as overwhelming as I suspected it would be—took a deep breath, and stepped in.

It was cold. Not quite as freezing as it was outside, but again, it was obvious no one was there. My mother wasn’t waiting for me in the kitchen, and Tyler and I wouldn’t hang out in my room ever again, regardless of whether or not he made it out of the hospital.

All the furniture had been moved, and the first thing I noticed was how utterly huge it all seemed, even though the house was relatively small. At the same time, it all felt suffocating, as if with each step I took another breath of air was knocked out of my lungs.

The only things left in the kitchen were the larger appliances, like the refrigerator and the dishwasher. I breezed past it, determined to get through this without shedding a tear. Under me, the hardwood floors creaked just like they used to, and I swore that just for a moment, I could smell my mom's baking.

I imagined her scurrying around the kitchen, clanging pots and pans wherever she went. Outside her work, the majority of her time was spent in here. For a second it almost seemed too real, and I realized that my memory of her hadn’t faded even the slightest bit.

It was a comforting thought. Wherever I go in life and whatever I do, or however much I fuck up, I want a piece of her to always be with me. And I don’t want those memories marred by her death, or any of its aftermath. I wanted to remember her just as life with her had been: painless, happy, and carefree.

For the most part, at least. But the small fights we’d gotten into had only brought us closer together. At that moment, I was completely blocking out the fact that, for a while, she’d been planning on sending me off to California to live with Matt long before she died.

Because in the end, none of it mattered.

I remembered the couple of times Matt and I had been in that kitchen together, too. I remembered the confrontation we had when I’d snuck out to say goodbye to Tyler one last time. I remembered the awkward breakfasts we’d shared, too. With a small, amused smile, I came to the conclusion that our relationship was doomed from the start.

“Uh... Payton? Are you okay?” Matt asked, somewhat wary, like it was completely unexpected that I’d be smiling here.

If only he knew exactly what I was smiling about.

“I’m fine,” I said. I sounded much more sure of myself than I felt.

Behind me, was the place I’d actually met him. It was hard to believe, and seemed like such a long time ago. Tyler had been there with me then, too. Tyler had been everywhere with me.

One by one, I went through each room, recalling both big and small memories as I passed, all the while trying to keep my tears contained.
When I got to my room, there wasn’t much I could do to stop them.

The walls hadn’t been painted. I didn’t expect them to be, as nothing else in the house had changed even the slightest since I’d lived there, but somehow I was hoping they would be. I saw the writings and the drawings on my walls, containing everything from hilarious drawings to heartfelt conversations between Tyler and me.

Basically, my whole life was depicted on these walls.

Hands shaking, I reached back to brace them on the doorframe. Seeing as I was unintentionally blocking his way, Matt stayed behind me, unsure of what to do. The only thing I could do was stare.

I could hear Tyler’s laugh fill the air, and recalled how it used to almost calm things down and take the seriousness out of any obstacle in our way. I could see us rough-housing on the floor like we used to do on a daily basis. For the thousandth time, I had to ask myself what happened. I knew where I went wrong—I knew it from the start. That still didn’t answer my question... it didn’t answer why Tyler had felt like he needed to do drugs, it didn’t answer why I hadn’t done anything to stop him. Why I didn’t try harder.

Hastily, I turned around so quickly I gave myself a head rush, and crashed into Matt’s waiting arms. I knew I should have been angrier with him for the stunt he’d pulled, but when I looked back into the past, where had all my anger gotten me then?

Here, it got me here. My mother was dead, my best friend was dying, and I didn’t even know where my boyfriend was, or if he could even be called as such.

Matt cursed, feeling exactly how tight my grip was around him, and the slight shaking of my shoulders. My face cheeks were wet with his tears, and in a moment so would his shirt. “This was such a bad idea,” He muttered, mostly to himself. I wondered, through my tears, if he was actually worse than Zacky was at this. “I shouldn’t have let you do this—I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry, P.”

I got the feeling he wasn’t just apologizing for letting me come back here, and that was actually sort of shocking. Matt wasn’t into admitting he was wrong much, if at all.

As quickly as I took him into the hug, I pulled back. I hoped I’d built up enough courage for what I was about to say, and his reaction to it.

“I want to sell the house.”