“More comfortable? Right. That’s why you left, huh? Cause I make you feel so damn comfortable.” Nick shot harshly, jumping to his feet.
“Nick, I…” I started, backing away from his glare.
“Fuck, El, you have no idea how bad you scared me when you just disappeared like you did. All this shit kept running through my head, what did I say, what did I do to scare her off? Again!” He took an angry swipe at his eyes.
“Nick, you didn’t-“
“I didn’t what?” He shook his head as he paced back and forth. “And what was the other thing you said? Safer? That’s right, you said I made you feel safer. Tell me, El, just which incident with Leon did I make you feel safer? The first time when he grabbed you? Or in the hallway when you backhanded you and gave you a black eye? Or when he trapped us in the elevator? Wait no, I bet it was outside that damn convenience store when you called your cell phone. And let’s not forget him trying to strangle you! I did a lot of good there, huh?” Nick’s voice continued to rise and the tears kept falling.
“Nick, please! I said I was sorry! I made a mistake okay? What else do you want me to do?” I exclaimed.
“Nothing. I don’t want you to do anything! And I don’t want your bullshit words about how it’s all going to be okay and that he won’t give up!” He nearly yelled.
I froze. “What? What are you talking about?” I whispered, shocked by the complete 180 degree shift of his words.
Nick all but collapsed back onto the couch, pressing his fingers to his eyes. “It’s what you said earlier. About how he won’t give up because of his faith. You can’t say that, Ellie. You can’t say he won’t give up. You may believe he won’t because this miraculous faith has worked for you, but what’s to say it’s going to work for him? He’s already gone through this once, not counting when he was five. How many times can a person go through something before it becomes too much?” He demanded.
“You’d be surprised.” I said softly.
Nick looked at me. “Don’t you understand? I don’t know what you’ve gone through that makes you so confident, but I’m sorry if I can’t share that. I want to be, trust me, but tell me what happens if I believe he’s going to be okay and I put as much stock in this ‘faith’ that you do and then he isn’t okay? What happens if his voice doesn’t get better? What happens if all this stress makes something happen to his heart again? What happen if Leon gets to him? I couldn’t do it, El.” His voice broke and he clenched his fists in an effort to keep control.
Tears welled up in my eyes. “Nick, it’s not as easy for me as you seem to think. Yes, I have faith. But I’m also scared, really scared. I learned a long time about that if I gave up and I lost my faith, then I had no chance. I don’t know Brian as well as you guys do, but in the time that I have spent with him, I’ve learned that he’s the same way. You can’t be faced with something like he’s faced with and stay the kind of person that he is without faith.”
“What do you mean?” Nick asked softly.
I sat down next to him. “Ever since all this started, what has Brian been trying so hard to do? I mean in regards to all of us.”
“He’s tried to protect us.”
“Exactly. I don’t think I have seen him put himself first once. He’s been more worried about the other guys, especially you. Even me who he’s known for less than a week. Remember that little girl with diabetes? He was so sweet and gentle with her when he had to have been stressing about surgery the next morning. You see where I’m going with this?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s his faith and strength that keeps him the way he is. It would be so easy for him to become bitter or angry about everything that he is going through. Just the fact that he still has been so wonderful shows how strong he really is. I’m really scared Nick, you know I am, you can probably see it, but his strength gives me faith that he’s going to make it through this.”
“Ellie, I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have anything to be sorry about.” I glanced at him.
“Yes I do. I had no right to get so upset with you. I mean, yeah, you scared me when you left, but I wasn’t ever really mad. It’s just that…you’re trying so hard to be strong for Brian and here I am, trying not to fall apart.” His head dropped.
“Nick, hun, believe me, I feel like I’m this close to falling apart.” I smiled weakly, holding up two fingers smooshed together.
He smiled back. “You talk about Brian’s strength, but you’ve got some in you too.”
I shrugged.
“Really, you do. Why is it that you have this strength, El? There’s something you haven’t told us, isn’t there?” He asked softly.
I hesitated and he put a gentle hand on mine. I took a deep breath.
“Yeah, there is. I-“
“Hey, you guys sleeping? I brought back some-“
“Oh damn, are we interrupting something?”
I jumped at Howie’s voice and looked up just in time to see the waiting room door open and him and AJ walk in with some coffee from the vending machines along with a few bags of chips.
“Oh for…” Nick sighed in exasperation. “Nice of you to rejoin us.” He sneered at AJ.
“Nick, don’t even start. I take it you two have made up?” Howie smiled at me.
I nodded. “Something like that.”
Nick rolled his eyes. “Are you gonna give some of that or should I take it by force?”
AJ walked over to us and handed him one of the coffees and dropped a bag of fritos in his lap. “El, you want some? We brought plenty.”
I shook my head. “This has been one of the longest days imaginable. I just want to get some sleep.”
“How’s your throat?” AJ knelt down in front of me to get a better look.
I gave him a wry smile. “Sore, but it still works so it’s all good. I didn’t get to say it before, but thanks, ya know, for pulling the alarm and stuff. That was pretty quick thinking.”
He grinned. “I’m just glad it worked. Get some sleep darlin, aight?” He gave me a tight squeeze.
“El, you want us to turn the lights off?” Howie called.
“Nope, I’ll be out in about two seconds and it won’t even bother me.” I smiled curling on the couch and burying my head under the pillow. Nick still sat at the end of it and I kicked at him with my feet.
“Hey!” He protested. “I was here first!”
“The least you could do is sit on them and keep them warm.” I mumbled, sleepily. I heard soft laughing and I felt one of them drape a blanket over me. Nick squeezed my foot gently.
“We okay?”
“Mmm hmmm. Wake me up if anything happens okay?” I mumbled.
“We will, go to sleep.”
“She’s out, isn’t she?” Howie asked. He was sitting at the table with his feet kicked back on top of it. Normally he wouldn’t do something so rude, but at this hour and after this day, he didn’t care. It was comfortable and that was all that mattered.
“Yup, out like a light. You think we can turn one of these lights off at least? I know she said it won’t bother her, but we don’t need that big beacon on, do we?” Nick replied, gesturing up to the overhead light.
AJ got up from the other couch and flipped off one of the switches. The big light turned off, leaving only the small lamp lit. “Those are some pretty nasty-looking bruises on her neck.” He observed somberly.
“It could have been worse.” Nick commented.
“Yeah, but that still doesn’t make me feel a whole lot better about what did happen,” replied AJ, sourly.
“Well it doesn’t make me feel much better either, so we just need to make sure that she isn’t alone from now on.” Nick folded his arms across his chest.
“Yeah, that did a lot of good. I was with her and so was Brian.” AJ snapped.
Nick snorted. “Oh Brian’s a real help in the condition’s he in. And you didn’t-”
“I didn’t what, Nick?” AJ interrupted angrily. “Tell me what I should have done? Tell me what you would have done cause I would just love to see how your way would have been so much better than mine.” AJ spat.
“Knock it off you two!” Howie hissed, taking his feet off the table. “You want to wake her up? Nick, lay off AJ, you know this wasn’t his fault and he did what he thought was best in the short time he had to make a decision.”
Nick sighed loudly. He was about to shoot back a reply, but bit it back. He snuck a look over at AJ and found the tattooed singer scowling back at him. Nick knew AJ well enough to know that look. Nick’s heart gave a shameful tug.
“Look man, I didn’t mean it. I don’t blame you, okay? Truth is, if you hadn’t done what you did, Leon could have really done something worse. It just kills me that-“ Nick stopped, his voice choking. He took a breath. “It kills me that he had you guys cornered like that. That he tried to strangle Ellie. And most of all that he’s still out there and if he doesn’t get what he wants, he’s going to go after Brian again.”
“Nick, it’s gonna be okay. Security is going to be so tight that none of us are even going to be able to move without one of them being in our constant shadows. Kevin arranged to have a guard outside the ICU doors at all times and outside Brian’s door as much as possible.”
AJ nodded. “What happened tonight is as close as it’s going to get.”
The guys fell into silence, each absorbed in their own thoughts. Howie’s head started bobbing and finally let it rest on his hand that was propped up on the table. Nick wasn’t too far behind when AJ softly spoke.
“So what’s her story, ya think?”
Nick shrugged. “She was getting ready to tell me when you guys walked in. At least, I think she was.”
“You think?”
“She was sort of hesitant to talk about it.”
“Oh.”
“AJ?”
“Yeah?”
“What time is Brian’s speech therapy tomorrow morning?”
AJ hesitated. “They wanted to try to get him walking after breakfast, but he looked pretty sore tonight. The speech therapy is supposed to be after that.”
“Do you think it will go better than this morning’s?” Nick’s voice sounded very small.
“It has to, Nicky. We can’t take another day like today.”
