It's Almost Easy

The nurse moved my wheelchair to his bedside. My body was still aching all over, but I was next to Brian again, so I was happy. I looked him over. There were small cuts all over his gorgeous face. I noticed some of his hair had been shaved off and I saw a massive cut that was held together with stitches. I couldn’t see his beautiful brown eyes because he hadn’t woken up from the anaesthetic from his surgery yet. His arms also appeared torn up. The rest of his body was covered by the hospital clothes and a sheet.

I sat there, holding his hand, listening to the constant beeping of his heart that a monitor made. I longed for him to wake up, see that I was here. My nurse had taken a seat in the chair next to me and I knew she wished she had a strong love too. That she could have someone who cared so much about her too.

“You do understand that if he doesn’t wake up soon, I’m going to have to take you back?” she asked softly and I nodded. I felt his hand twitching under mine and I quickly turned to look at him. His eyes were still shut. I let out a long sigh. I wanted to give up. Come back later. I was barely up for this. I felt so exhausted, completely drained of all of my energy.

His eyes opened.

“Brian?” I said, unsure if he could even hear me. His eyes moved slowly from straight in front of him to where I was sitting.

“Ash... leigh...” he scarcely whispered, sounding quite scared. I squeezed his hand tightly. Well, as tightly as I could in my condition.

“How’re you feeling?” I asked as he slowly blinked.

“I... don’t know...” he said, trying to concentrate. “What... happened?” I told him about the car crashing into us. Brian couldn’t remember any of that. He couldn’t even remember being in the studio earlier that morning.

“Your band is here, by the way. But it’s family only in here,” I said. “You’re pretty beat up...”

“I can... tell... I feel... like crap,” he said, managing a small smile which warmed up my heart. I finally felt myself relaxing. Brian was fine. He looked like he was going to make it. He was going to live. “Are you... okay?”

“I’m fine,” I replied.

“Ha. Last... time you said... that... you had a broken... ankle...” He was finding speech difficult. I managed a grin at his joke. He was right.

“Ashleigh... We’d better go now...” the nurse said, not wanting to interrupt our moment too much. She could see talking to me was stressing Brian out quite a bit.

“Alright...” I agreed. “I’ll see you later okay? You hang in there.” I gripped his hand one last time.

“Ashleigh?” he whispered.

“Yeah?”

“You still... look... sexy... in hosp... hospital clothes...” he said with a mischievous grin. I chuckled as he closed his eyes again. My nurse wheeled me out and I kept on listening to the beeping of the monitor that measured his heart beat for as long as I could.

I saw Syn’s band waiting outside my room for me to return. They all jumped up and nearly ran over to me. I knew they cared so much about him too, and wanted to know how he was doing.

“How is he?” Zacky demanded, nearly bowling over me and my nurse.

“Will he live?” Matt questioned.

“He’s fine.” The relief that flooded those 4 men was amazing. One of their best friend’s was still alive, and they were damn pleased about that.

And so was I.

Production for Avenged Sevenfold’s album stopped for over 2 months. I wasn’t allowed back in the studio to work for at least two months. Syn took about 4 months before he felt decent enough to work again. He has a large scar on his head, but his hair has grown back so it was never seen by anyone. Little marks from the shattered glass were all over his body, but no one ever noticed them either. He had had internal bleeding from the accident, but he recovered pretty quickly from that damage. He was left with a small scar on his stomach from the surgery, and whenever I saw it I would always trace it, reminding us of how lucky we were.

I will admit that I was better off than Brian. I was virtually unscathed. Apart from a few tiny scars from the glass that were barely noticeable and when I got a headache, it was a lot more severe than usual, I was fine. My ankle had also healed well and I didn’t limp any more.

I fell even more in love with Syn. It seemed impossible to do that, but I somehow managed to. I treasured every second I spent with him. I definitely took life for granted. Each day was a gift.

And I was so heart broken when the day came that we had finished making their album.

No more Avenged Sevenfold...