Asleep or Dead

Five years.

Five years ago I met the person who, without my knowing it, would change my life forever.

I could still recall the day I met him.

”Jimmy,” Zacky gushes, pulling me to one side, “I have someone to introduce you to.”

“Someone else?” I mutter. Zacky must already have introduced me to half the party by now. I haven’t even had time to get drunk yet, with all his dragging me around.

“I’m doing you a favor, Jim,” he smirks. “I’m helping your social life.”

“Yeah, and what if I don’t want a social life?” I mumble. Zacky doesn’t notice me. He’s already introducing me to the next guy on his list, a tanned, good-looking man with black hair. “This is Brian,” he announces, smiling widely.

“Jimmy,” I mutter. I’m already losing interest in this. Not because I don’t like Brian, he seems like a nice guy, but because he’s about the fifteenth guy I’ve been introduced to in an afternoon, and a guy’s brain can only take in so much. While Zacky gushes on to Brian, my gaze starts to wander amongst the crowd, hoping to find someone even mildly interesting. I see a couple of faces I’ve seen before but can’t recall their names, and lots of ordinary-looking strangers. Nothing really worth paying attention to, I decide.

Then I feel someone’s gaze on me.

My head snaps up, and I peer amongst the crowd, trying to find the person who’s looking at me…

…And I suddenly find myself looking into a pair of brown eyes that are fixed on me.

It’s only a second, but there’s something in that look… something that attracts me like a magnet and draws me in like no other look has ever done before.

In the precise moment I break eye contact, Zacky calls, “Hey… Johnny?”

My eyes glance at the stranger again, but he’s not looking at me anymore. He’s looking at Zack, and I see his face break into a smile of recognition. Zacky excuses himself from Brian (who looks oddly disappointed) and runs over to the stranger, without even bothering to drag me after him… although I suspect it wouldn’t really be necessary this time.

I stand rooted to the spot as Zacky runs over to the stranger and they hug like they haven’t seen one another in years.

Zacky looks over his shoulder and catches sight of me standing there like an idiot. “Jimmy, come and say hi,” he calls.

For once, I obey.

Zack and the stranger pull apart. Zacky still has a huge smile on his face. I suspect they’re long-lost friends or something, since I haven’t seen him this happy in ages.

“This is Johnny,” he grins. “We used to be best friends in primary school.”

“I was wondering why you were so happy,” I smirk.

Zacky’s grin broadens. “You have no idea how much shit we got up to together,” he laughs. “Remember that time we stole a hamster and stuck it into the teacher’s handbag? Or when we convinced that kid that the tree in the corner was full of poisonous flesh-eating snakes, just because he’d taken our spot?” Both men laugh in unison.

“I never imagined I’d find you here. Where exactly did you come from?” Zacky asks.

“Oh, a friend of mine dragged me along, saying she knew the host’s cousin… or something,” he smiles. “You?”

Maybe it’s my imagination, but I think that question is meant more for me than for Zacky. Whatever. I’m probably seeing things again.

“Zack knows more or less everyone in this damn city,” I answer. “There’s not a party in Huntington Zacky Baker doesn’t go to. Or hear about, at least. I don’t think he has time to go to every single one.”

Johnny looks at me, brown eyes twinkling. “And he drags you along too?” he asks playfully.

“Just to this one,” I grumble. “Apparently, I have no social life.”

Zacky’s gaze is wondering amongst the crowd again. Probably looking for Brian, I guess. I smile inwardly. They definitely have a thing for each other. They’d make a cute couple and all, I think to myself.

“Go find Brian again, Zacky, we’ll live.” I grin as he goes firetruck red, stutters “You- you don’t mind, right?” and delves into the crowd again.

Johnny laughs. He has the cutest one I’ve heard in a long time.

“So, where were we?” he smiles. I look into his eyes again, and I feel sucked in by them. There’s just something about him that makes him different from anyone I’ve met before, and that’s weird… considering I’ve just met him.

“Uh, my lack of social life?”

“Oh, that. So, no girlfriend for you, then?” Am I imagining the double meaning behind the question?

“Nope. Single as fuck. And that would be boyfriend, actually.” I’m generally pretty open with my sexuality. If someone doesn’t like it, they can fuck off.

“Oh, so you’re gay?” he asks curiously, but other than that, his face doesn’t change in the slightest. Good. I hate homophobes.

“Yeah,” I reply easily. “I don’t see why I should hide it.”

The corner of his lip turns upwards into a half-smile. “You know, I love that kind of people. The ones who don’t give a flying fuck what everyone thinks of them.”

There’s a moment of silence between us. Not an awkward silence, but one of those silences that’s full of meaning and a slight edge of tension. I feel his brown eyes smoldering me on the inside, and my heart rate picks up. I can even feel butterflies in my stomach. Which hasn’t happened in a long time.

What… what’s happening to me?

The weird thing is, Johnny looks as though he’s feeling the same as me.

None of us dares break the moment. The tension increases, and I know something has to happen. My gut’s telling me I should do something, now.

I know what I want to do. I know what my body wants to do – yank him towards me and kiss him. Are you fucking crazy?! my mind screams at me. We’re almost complete strangers! I can’t do this… I can’t…

But my body feels like it’s acting of its own accord. I close the little space in between us, breath catching in my throat, shaking like a leaf all over.

“Jimmy…?” Johnny whispers, and I hear him even over all the noise in the room. I’ve stopped caring about everyone else a long time ago. It’s just us, in our own little bubble, cut off from everyone else.

I lean in closer to him. My heart is pounding so loudly it’s practically the only thing I can hear, my hand is shaking like crazy as I cup his chin with my thumb, and I pray that I’m making the right decision as I move closer and closer to him and kiss him.

I walk along the familiar white corridor, my steps echoing along it. Although I’ve been here every single day for almost two years, it still gives off the same feelings as the first time. Hostility. Unfriendliness. Cold.

I pass a young nurse, brown hair tied back and wearing the same smile everyone at a hospital does.

“Hi, Jimmy,” she nods. Have I seen her before? Probably. I don’t pay much attention to the people that work here, though. For me, the center of attention, the only person that matters here is the one I’m visiting.

“Hello,” I mumble. I try to smile in return, but it doesn’t come out properly. I haven’t really smiled in two years. I can’t even recall what my own laugh sounds like. There’s a laugh, though, I’ll never be able to erase from my memory, no matter how hard I try or how many years have passed.

I leave the nurse behind without saying anything else. I don’t feel like talking. I never do. Except when I’m pouring my heart out to the person who’s lying in a bed somewhere inside this hospital.

I wasn’t always like this. I used to be carefree, optimistic, living for the day. I used to have an easy laugh and an easier smile, and I’d constantly be making everyone else smile too. And the main reason for this was that he was always there, by my side no matter what, making me feel loved and caring for me. He’d be with me if I was drunk as fuck and couldn’t even see straight, if I needed someone to cry to, or if I just wanted a hug and the promise that everything would be all right, because he’d always be there with me. Always. He was my heartbeat, my life, the reason for my entire existence.

And now…

I blink hard, trying to hold back the tears, which are sure to come sooner or later.

Room 217. I’m here already.

I don’t even know how much time I’ve spent in this room. But when I think back on the last two years, the main part of my memories are about the time I’ve spent in here. With him. That’s the only thing that seems relevant.

I push the door open slowly.

“Johnny?”

I’m only answered by the faint beeping coming from one of the machines he’s attached to, the ones that are keeping him alive. But I’m used to that by now.

“Hi, baby. Sorry I’m a bit late. There was this massive traffic jam on the way here.” My voice echoes along the dim white room, empty except for the unconscious figure lying on the hospital bed. My eyes rest on him for a moment. He could almost be sleeping, except for the tubes wrapped around his arms and torso, and he could almost be dead, except for the beeping coming from one of the machines, signaling the beating of his heart, and the gentle rising and falling of his chest.

I remember how, at first, there used to be doctors and nurses in here all the time, checking on him constantly. They even refused to let me in a couple of times. But now… nothing. It’s almost like they’ve abandoned him here. A nurse comes to check on him every once in a while, but he’s been like this for two years, and they don’t say it, but I don’t think they expect any improvements soon.

I grit my teeth. Don’t think about that.

I drop myself into the empty chair beside the bed and stare aimlessly into space for a second. Then I remember what the doctor said, that he should be talked to, because that means a bigger chance of him waking up.

“Five years today. Right?” I attempt to plaster a smile on my face. “It’s been five years since we met, at that party, remember?” I take his hand, which is wrapped in clear tubes, and I begin tracing the lines on his palm gently. “You know, I think that party was also the one where Zacky and Brian got together,” I muse.

Zacky and Brian. Complete opposites, but somehow firmly bound by a fervent love towards one another.

Kind of like we used to be, I reflect, and regret the thought immediately.

Of course, we were like that. Always together, no matter what. Never seen without the other. We weren’t afraid to show our love in public, either – holding hands, kissing, anything, never caring what other people would think, because honestly, what did it matter?

Now, everything’s different.

I’m a shadow of the man that I used to be. Before, people used to stare at me out of… shock? No, actually, it was never me, it was always us. Johnny and me, inseparable, wherever we went. We’d received looks of disgust, aversion and distaste, but also ones of admiration and interest. Now I’m alone everywhere I go, and the few people that actually dare look into my eyes look away almost instantly. Out of what? Fear? Intimidation? I don’t know, and honestly, I don’t care.

That’s it. Thinking about the past is a sure-fire way of making my armor shatter, the whole façade disintegrate, revealing what I was really like on the inside, behind the seemingly coherent mask and the smiles that never reached my eyes.

“Johnny…” I whisper brokenly. “Johnny, come back, goddammit…”

And I can’t help the flood of memories that I’ve been holding back for too long crash into my mind, submerging me completely.

Every smile, every kiss, every touch pierces my heart like a bullet, shattering it. His fingers caressing lightly over my bare skin and interlocking into my hair. The sound of his voice, his scent, the laughter that always seemed to be in his eyes. The times we’d made love, his fingers gripping my flesh as I slowly eased myself into him, our sweat-drenched bodies moving as one… and the times after the sex, when he’d fall asleep in my arms and I’d cradle him softly, vowing I’d never let him go…

I don’t realize I’m crying until I feel something warm and wet fall on my hand from my cheek.

All I can think about is that I need him. I need him to put his arms round me, stroke my hair like he used to and whisper that everything will be okay. Only this time, it’s not going to.

And it’s all my fault.

I’m wrenched back to the last memory, the most painful one of all.

I’d been planning on proposing to him that day. I still have the ring, hidden somewhere, so there’s no chance of stumbling upon it by accident. That would be far too painful… I get haunted by thoughts of what it’d have been like every single day. He’d have said yes, of course. I can imagine the look on his face if only I’d gotten to ask him, and it tears me up inside.

But the past still isn’t done with me, and I’m forced back to that warm April morning…

“I’m gonna be late for work, Jimmy,” Johnny says as he pushes me away, despite the obvious fact he doesn’t want to.

“Stay a little longer,” I whisper into his ear. “Your boss can live without you for five minutes, right?” Without waiting for an answer, I pull him towards me. Resistance is futile, and my lips are soon connected to his again.

“Why is it that I can never resist you?” he smiles, and that smile makes my heart melt.

I can feel myself burning with anxiety to ask him now. To fetch the ring from upstairs, get on one knee and ask if he’d be mine forever… but I had to wait until tonight. That way, we’d be able to, uh, celebrate properly. I smiled to myself.

Although missing a day of work wouldn’t kill him…

I feel those thoughts being pushed to one side as our lips meet again, and this time, his tongue runs across my bottom lip, silently asking for permission to enter, and I give it to him more than willingly. My hand moves down to his back and I push us even closer together, despite knowing full well that I’m going to have a slight problem to deal with afterwards.

He breaks the kiss again, and I stick my bottom lip out in a pout, playing the forlorn puppy.

He laughs at my expression. “I’ll be back soon, okay? Look, maybe I can get the boss to let me come home for lunch.”

I plant a kiss into his hair. “Please.”

Our fingers interlock for a second, and he sighs and pulls away. “I really have to get going. I’ll see you in a bit, okay?”

“Okay,” I agree. I can’t keep a hint of disappointment from coloring my tone.

“Hey, seriously. I’ll be back so soon you won’t even notice.” He pulls me closer and plants a goodbye kiss on my lips. “I love you,” he breathes into my ear before pulling away and walking out towards the door.

I watch him go with a mix of sadness and anticipation. Sadness because he’s leaving, and anticipation at the fact that I’m going to propose to him the next time I see him.

I move to the window and catch sight of him slamming the gate shut and about to cross the road. He senses my gaze on him and turns his head to face me, corners of his lips turning upwards.

Everything seems to happen in slow motion.

He moves over to cross the road, his eyes leaving me.

Then he turns his head back… but not fast enough to see the black Ford heading towards him, which attempts to skid to a halt seeing the pedestrian it’s about to hit.

Again, not fast enough.

And a scream fills my throat and emerges into the air around me as I see the body of the man I love being hit by the car and hurled across the air to lie, broken and seemingly lifeless, on the hard tarmac ground.

I can’t hold it in anymore.

I’m sobbing, gasping for air and clutching Johnny’s hand like there’s nothing else left in the world. Because all of this is my fault.

If I hadn’t met Johnny, this wouldn’t have happened. If I hadn’t asked him to stay with me for five more minutes, he wouldn’t be lying helpless on this hospital bed. If I hadn’t been standing there at the window watching him leave, we’d both be happy, married and carefree.

I know this is probably not a good thing to do, but I couldn’t care less, as I carefully lift him up and hold him close to me, tears cascading down my cheeks. I’d do anything – anything – to have him beside me again. I’d give up my life in an instant if it meant he’d come back and live a long and happy life.

And I sob as I hold him, because I know, deep down, it’s never going to happen.