Chapter 1

There are so many stories out there, stories of love and laughter, loss, tragedy, death, and war, but – if you look closely – most accounts have small parts of all of them; mine is such a story. The ‘when’ and the ‘where’s’ are not necessary, and the names of the ‘who’s’ have been changed to protect the guilty. But my story, like so many others, starts in a bar.

I guess I’d better start with my name; it is always polite to introduce yourself, or so I’m told. So, I’m Pete; I was 20 at the time that this story takes place and halfway through my second year of college, intent on breaking into the world of computer game development but having little realistic prospect of succeeding. That night - as with countless others before it – had been spent in a bar with a guy whom I had never met until starting my studies. A guy that had risen from a stranger to the closest friend I had ever had.

His name was Jimmy, and he was everything that I was not. We were both dark-haired, but that was where the similarities ended. He was tall, easily over 6 feet, and a good head taller than me. He was attractive – at least, the ladies thought so. He’d had more than his fair share of luck with the opposite sex in the time I had known him – I was less so, not unattractive, just extremely average. He had a charm, a wit, and an air of earned self-confidence that I could never quite master. He could strike up a conversation with an absolute stranger about almost any topic imaginable and would be loved for it. I could barely say boo to my reflection. A life of involuntary social isolation had not gifted me with the skills that Jimmy seemed to possess in spades. In every measurable metric, he was ... more. Every metric except one; in terms of intelligence, I beat him hands down. Logical thinking, understanding of the course materials, in almost every way intellect could be measured; I beat him, although I was never sure if it was a fair trade.

That was how we met. On the first day of our first year, our professor bunched our class into groups that we would stay in all year; it was completely random. He would call out a name off the register, drag that person down to the front of the class, then read another five names to join them. Once all six strangers were in the group, they were stuck there, with no appeals, no recourse, no choice, nothing. The student didn’t like it? Quit! Jimmy and I had been put into the same group; as it happened, the four other people in our group either flunked out or did quit, but Jimmy and I stuck it out and became pretty decent friends as the year progressed. Spending 14 hours a week with someone will either turn you into good friends or hated enemies. I guess we were lucky in that respect. After passing the first year’s final exams, Jimmy insisted I come out to one of the parties he regularly attended, but I was never invited to, where – to a multitude of smiling faces – he announced that I was the only reason that he had made it through the first year, that he had learned more off me than he had off any of the professors and that we were - from that night and forever more – ‘best buds.’

Of course, I had assumed he was drunk, primarily because he was! Exceedingly drunk, excessively, mind-numbingly, speech slurringly, vomit-inducingly, forget-everything-that-happens drunk, but, much to my surprise, he meant every word of it and acted on it. I wouldn’t go as far as saying we became inseparable, but we became what I had always imagined a close friendship would be. Life throughout the second year of college was the best for me that it had ever been, all of it culminating in that one night at the bar.

“Dude,” I’m not gonna lie,” Jimmy said in a drunken slur, “but I’m fucked!”

“I know exactly how you feel,” I said back, squinting through the alcohol-induced fog that clouded my vision. “However, you CAN NOT...” a banged a fist into the table, knocking one of the empty glasses over, “ ... even think about leaving until...” I blinked a few times, “ ... I forgot what I was going to say.”

“Your train of thought left without you.”

“My train of thought is an asshole!”

“Trains are all assholes, but...”

“Pick up a chick!!” I interrupted him with a triumphant shout, “That’s what I was going to say; you cannot leave until you have picked up a chick!”

“Errr ... why?” he frowned in confusion.

“Because I can’t do it, and one of us has to.”

“Dude, you need to have more confid ... cofiden ... condef ... you need to have more faith in yourself. I told you, the worst they can say is no.”

“Prove it!”

“What?”

“Prove it!” I repeated, “Call it part of my ongoing training.”

“Fine,” he huffed after a pause. He turned in his seat and surveyed what was left of the bar’s female population. He spotted a girl walking towards a table to the side of us; her outfit just screamed sexuality, and any curve that was not on display was probably not worth seeing. “Hey you!” he shouted over to her, trying his hardest not to slur. The girl looked up with an arched eyebrow. “Wanna come back to my place?”

The girl looked him up and down with an odd expression for a few seconds, “sure.” She shrugged and started making her way over to our table.

“Oh, for fuck sake!” I huffed before emptying the last of my drink into my mouth.

“Hmm ... I genuinely thought that would go another way.” Jim pondered with a thoughtful grin. “oh well, never look a gift pussy in the mouth.” He stood up in one swift motion – albeit a reasonably unstable one – and downed the last of his beer in time for the girl to arrive and link her arm with his. “I’m Jimmy.” He said with a beaming smile.

“I’m chastity.” The girl replied.

“You have got to be shitting me,” I muttered to myself.

“And this...” Jimmy swung his arm in a grand gesture towards me, “ ... is Pete. Think any of your lovely friends would be interested?”

The girl looked me over in the same way you would examine roadkill. “Errr...”

“He’s joking,” I said with a weak smile of my own, saving us both from the embarrassment of her saying no, or worse, her saying yes for one of her friends to say no instead.

“Oh, good,” she mumbled. Even Jimmy caught onto that one.

“What do you mean?” he asked with a frown. “Any of you bitches would be lucky to land this guy.” Another gesture to me didn’t stop me from noticing the complete lack of reaction the girl gave to being called a bitch.

“I ... err ... I think they all have boyfriends.” Chastity answered a little too quickly.

“Oh ... do you have a boyfriend?”

“Does it matter?” she asked, her mouth formed into a seductive grin.

Jimmy narrowed his eyes at her for a moment, “ah fuck it, you were never gonna meet the parents anyway. Come on, let’s go get our freak on. Pete...” he nodded towards me, “ ... always a pleasure, my man.”

“For some more than others, apparently.” I smiled back with a nod of my own. Jimmy turned and guided his newest conquest toward the exit. I wasn’t bitter; to be honest, I wasn’t even that jealous, at least not in a way that made me feel animosity toward Jimmy. It was like watching a guy drive your dream car past you in the street; you look, you call him a lucky bastard, you wish it was you behind the wheel, and then move on with your life.

I picked up my phone and called Moe.

Jimmy and I had been drinking in one or another of the college’s local bars every weekend for over a year; on the very first night – the weekend after the infamous party – I had hailed a cab down to take me home, Moe had been the driver. He had given me his card, and I had called him habitually every time I had needed a lift home ever since.

Five minutes later, I got the text that Moe was outside. It was an awful night, in fact, it had been an awful couple of months – as far as the weather went – even by UK standards, there had been flooding, road closures, and even a few landslides. But this was Britain, home of the stiff upper lip, shitty food, and worse weather; in the bible, it rained for 40 days and 40 nights, we still remember that as the driest summer on record. But tonight, it was torrential, just jogging from the alcoved entrance to the bar and across the street to the waiting cab got me soaked to the skin.

I pulled the taxi door open and threw myself into the front passenger seat as fast as I could, the aging Moe giving me a bemused look as a shook the water from my hair, but on my seatbelt, and settled into my seat. “Nice night we’re having, no?” he asked in his thick European accent. I vaguely remember asking Moe where he was from once, but I was far too drunk on that particular night to remember his answer and was too embarrassed to ask him again.

“Any more of this rain and you’re gonna need to start taking my ass home in a boat.”

“Your ass? What about the rest of you?” he asked, pulling the car away from the street.

“It’s a figure of speech.”

“Ah. I am still working on the English.”

“It’s all good, man.” I sighed, leaning back to my seat, “it’s all good.”

“See, this is why I like you Brits; you are all so laid back ... you in particle.”

“Particular...” I corrected. “but thanks, I appreciate it.”

“Maybe it is not such a good thing. In my country, being laid back will get you in trouble with the wife.”

“No wife.” I laughed.

“Any more laid back, and you would be lying down.” He kept joking. “And that is only good for one thing.”

“Sleeping? Cos I’m not getting much of the other horizontal activity either.”

“Ah, you are young, my friend. There is plenty of time for...” His words were cut off by a loud bang, a lurching sensation, screeching tires...

Then darkness.

Uuurgh, I fucking hated hangovers. I didn’t get them very often, but when I did, they would qualify as a legitimate excuse for suicide. I squinted my eyes open, quickly decided that was a very bad idea, and closed them again, waited a few minutes, and tried again. The streaming sunlight seemed to be openly challenging my eyes to a duel, one that my eyes were entirely unprepared for, a figure walked past my field of vision, blurred against the blinding light from that asshole of a sun and my own inability to focus, but the figure looked distinctly feminine.

“What the fuck happened last night?” I thought to myself with a frown. “If I got lucky and was too drunk to remember, I’m gonna be fucking furious!” the female figure seemed to be fiddling with something on my bedside table. “Probably a goodbye note,” I thought again.

Wait ... I don’t have a bedside table. I squinted my eyes open a little further, now able to make out colors as well as shapes. The woman looked blue, and who the hell painted my ceiling that infuriating shade of brilliant white? “This isn’t even my room!” I thought to myself again, “Did I end up at some girl’s place? Fucking check me out! Superstud Pete has arrived!”

I started noticing more details. “Why is she dressed like a nurse? Why doesn’t she have curtains? And what the fuck is that beeping?!? Look, lady, I know this is probably a bit awkward for you, but this is no way to treat someone who rocked your world last night – probably. My head feels like a fucking anvil that is being used to make hammers, hammers that are then being smashed into my skull! If you want me to leave that badly, you only had to ask. This level of torture has to be a violation of my human rights or something...”

I tried to form my lips in an attempt to vocalize my internal monologue, but all that came out was a feeble groan. Then, as if prompted by my attempt at speech, my whole body caught fire in a wave of pain that I could never adequately describe. But to say that it felt like all my skin had been peeled off, my body soaked in industrial cleaning solution, dried with a blowtorch, fed to fire ants and pissed off wasps, tenderized with belts and barbed wire before having my skin stitched back on, badly, with a rusty needle; would do it no justice whatsoever. I groaned again.

The nurse figure seemed to notice, jerking around quickly at my second groan as the beeps started increasing in speed. “Oh my God!” she shrieked, “shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!!” she leaned over my bed, banging something on the wall that looked an awful lot like an intercom. “Patient is waking!” She screamed at the wall. “Room 406! Page Doctor ... I don’t know ... page everybody!”

Page? Who the hell still uses pagers? And what do you mean, Doctor? Why would there be a doctor at your place? Bitch, if you are married to a doctor, or if he is your boyfriend, I am gonna be pissed! You can’t bring a guy back to your house if you’re married, go back to his, or – better still – don’t sleep around if you’ve got a husband! And an intercom?!? Really?!? What kind of fucked up shit is this?

The nurse figure started fiddling with some tubes hanging on the side of the bed; strangely, my arm was being tugged subtly with every movement that they made. My mind seemed to gloss over that little detail. She seemed to be poking something into the tube, but I couldn’t make out what it was.

“Status!” a voice followed a door-shaped brown smudge being flung open on the wall opposite my bed, and a white-colored smudge marching towards me purposefully.

“Patient started regaining consciousness, Doctor.” The blue nurse lady replied, “I have increased the morphine for the pain, but the Pentobarbital needs to be administered...”

“By me.” The white smudge finished. “Okay, well-done, nurse. He shouldn’t be awake yet. He needs to be brought around gradually after the surgery; otherwise, we risk sending him into shock. Pass me the syringe ... thank you ... make a note of the time and dosage in his chart ... administering now.”

The details and searing pain that had been gradually creeping up on me all seemed to start receding almost immediately. This is a fucking weird house! I thought to myself as my body decided it needed more sleep. Next time I go back to a chick’s place, I’m checking for beeps, curtains, intercoms, pagers, and doctors before she gets in my pants ... ah, who am I kidding? It was worth it, I think ... shame I can’t remember getting my freak on.

Existence faded slowly back into being from the blackness behind my heavy eyelids. I was in a hospital room, the heart monitor next to my head, the sterile walls, and ceiling, and the concerned look on the attractive middle-aged nurse and balding Doctor were all pretty clear giveaways. It all looked oddly familiar, but I couldn’t place why. I just shook it off and concentrated on the more important issue of why the hell I was here.

“Urgh.” I tried to speak, clearing my throat with a labored cough before trying again. “what happened?”

“Slow down, Mister Roberts.” The Doctor said in a voice that in no way matched his looks. “all in good time. First, can you tell me your name?”

“Yes,” I replied with another cough.

The Doctor looked confused for a second before rephrasing the question. “What is your name?”

“Pete ... Pete Roberts.” My mind grappled with the fact that he had already given me half of my name for a few seconds but let it go in the face of more pressing concerns.

“Do you know where you are?”

“I’m guessing I’m in a hospital,” I groaned.

“Do you know what happened to you?”

“I was kinda hoping you would tell me. But whatever it was, it fucking hurt!” Dull aches were starting to announce themselves from all over my body. Those aches grew quickly into searing throbs of pain, and my head felt like it had been split open like an egg.”

“I’ll get you something to ease the pain.” The nurse said before hurrying off out of view.

“What happened?” I asked the Doctor.

“Look, Mister Roberts.” The Doctor said slowly, annunciating every word as if it was for my benefit. “In cases like yours, it is better if the details are given to you by a friendly face, I will be here to answer any questions and to give you the medical details of your condition. But there is someone outside who has been waiting a long time to see you.”

With a nod over his shoulder, the door opened, and Jimmy walked in. Jimmy was the kind of guy that looked strange if he wasn’t wearing a smile. Seeing him with the look of concern and relief etched on his face was more than a little disconcerting. “Hey, dude, how are you doing?”

“I ... erm ... next question.”

Jimmy snorted a laugh. Apparently, my answer was good enough to assuage some of his fears because he visibly relaxed as he pulled up a chair and sat himself next to the bed. I tried sitting up, my body screaming in protest, before I gave up and slumped back into the mattress.

“I ... I don’t know where to start.” Jimmy said after a short pause. “what do you remember?”

“We were at the bar,” I answered plainly as if the question was difficult. “You scored with that chick with the ironic name. I called a cab and went home...”

“And then what?”

“What do you mean? I got in the cab with Moe, and we talked about ... something...” I started to frown. Why couldn’t I remember? “ ... and then I woke up here.” I finished slowly.

Jimmy was nodding. “Good, that’s good, Pete. The Doctors weren’t sure how much memory loss there would be, they didn’t even know if you would remember how to talk, so this is a good sign.”

“Jim, you need to tell me what the fuck is going on and why everyone is being so god-dammed cryptic!” I was starting to lose my patience with the perpetual ‘keep Pete in the dark routine.’

“Alright.” Jim held his hands up in surrender; he took a deep breath. “There was an accident.”

“No shit!”

“We don’t know exactly what happened, but the Police’s working theory was that Moe wasn’t paying proper attention to the road. It was raining pretty hard that night, they think he hit a patch of standing water, the car aquaplaned, he lost control, and the car started to spin ... you ended up being T-Boned by a tree.”

There was another long pause as my mind scrambled to process what I was being told. I sure as shit didn’t remember that.

“The crash was pretty bad, Pete.” Jimmy continued. “they had to cut you out of the car, they airlifted you to hospital. Dude ... you died ... three times before they even got you here.” The look of fear and anguish had quickly slipped back onto his face as he talked. “Your heart stopped. You weren’t breathing. They were amazed you made it through the night.”

Another long pause. The fear on Jimmy’s face had now taken firm root in my chest. “Am I ... I mean, am I alright.”

Jimmy looked up at the Doctor, who had remained quietly stood to one side while Jimmy spoke. “Your injuries were ... extensive.” He said, pulling open my chart. “Both your legs were broken, so was your right arm and collar bone, three broken ribs, one of them punctured your lung, a serious fracture of your 5^th and 6^th vertebrae – probably from the whiplash - internal bleeding throughout your body, but it was the head injuries that had us most concerned.” He looked up at me again before he continued. “multiple skull fractures, including one compression fracture that drove bone fragments into your brain. That, in turn, caused swelling of the brain and hemorrhaging that needed emergency surgery to contain ... when it became clear that you were going to survive that surgery, there were more operations to remove the skull fragments and repair the damage to your frontal lobe, more surgery to repair the damage to your organs and stop the internal bleeding. Another operation to repair your spine and another one for your legs ... then there was the...”

“Woah, Woah, Woah.” I interrupted. “That can’t be possible. I can’t have been here more than a few hours; you couldn’t have done all that to me since last night.”

The Doctor and Jimmy shared a look. “To protect your higher brain function and prevent further damage to your cerebral cortex, we had to place you into a chemically induced coma.” The Doctor said slowly.

“Pete...” Jimmy finished, “you have been out for almost eight weeks.”

I couldn’t even process that little nugget. My mind kept spinning round and round, like a tire trying to gain traction on a sheet of ice. Finally, it latched on to one of the many missing pieces of information that it felt it was entitled to. “What about Moe?”

The Doctor frowned and looked at my chart in confusion. Jimmy just looked at the floor. “Moe didn’t make it.” He finally said the softness of his voice was the best he could do to deliver that blow, “Police say he was killed on impact. I’m sorry.”

I would love to be able to tell you how the rest of the conversation went, or how anything went in the following few hours. I had obviously missed the funeral, but the two men seemed to be intent on talking about anything except Moe, mostly about me. There was some talk about physical therapy and a repeated statement from the Doctor that there was no way to accurately estimate my recovery time ... if I fully recovered at all. There was some off-handed comment about having to learn to walk again, and that was the point where I completely lost my shit!

After a tirade of abuse being hurled at the pair of them – complete with animated hand gestures and a graphic description of what they could do to themselves and the horses they rode in on – I brought my hands to my face in an attempt to hide the tears streaming down my cheeks. My life was practically over ... Moe’s was literally over.

“Mister Roberts...” The Doctor calmly said.

“Look, I’m sorry,” I sighed, still trying to hold back the tears. “I know it’s not your fault. I just...”

“There is no need to apologize,” the Doctor smiled, “this has been a big shock for you, and it’s a lot to take in. Your reaction is perfectly normal. Trust me; I’ve been called a lot worse for a lot less. But listen, there are things to be optimistic about.”

“Oh yeah,” I said with a stare. “like what?” If this guy started giving me some spiel about the Paralympics, I was going to strangle him with my catheter.

“We have been talking for almost an hour now, and I have already seen some positive signs.” He said, “your spinal injury could have paralyzed you from the neck down, yet you are able to move your arms and hands without problems. I have seen you cough and swallow, both of which would not be possible if there were severe or long-lasting neurological or repository issues. That means you will probably be able to eat without assistance, that may not sound like a lot, but it is a huge step towards recovery. If your brain still has control over your body, then physical therapy will be infinitely easier, it won’t be a walk in the park, but it will be a lot smoother than it could be given the severity of your injuries.”

As much as I hated to admit it, this speech was making me feel better. “Moreover,” he continued, “you recognized Jimmy when he came in, and you seem to be able to recall events from the night of the accident with almost no trouble. That doesn’t necessarily mean that there are no holes in other parts of your memory, but it is certainly a promising sign. And ... without wanting to sound indelicate, but given the stress you must be feeling, most people in your situation are unable to hold their ... bowels.” Jimmy and I both looked at the appropriate area of the bed. There was nothing there. “Bowel and bladder control is another excellent sign. I know it may not sound like much; none of these are things that you couldn’t do before. Still, the reality is that this...” he gestured towards me, “ ... is about as close to a best-case scenario as we could have hoped for. It was infinitely more likely that you ended up as a quadriplegic, unable to eat, speak or remember anything about his life before the accident. I know this is hard to hear, but given the circumstances, you are very lucky.”

There was a long silence in the room. The Doctor looked calmly between Jimmy and me, Jimmy looked as white as a sheet, and I was trying to think of something articulate to say. “Well ... fuck!” It was the best I could come up with.

Jimmy nodded, the Doctor laughed, and the hustle and bustle of a working hospital descended on the room in a matter of minutes. The Doc left a little while later, promising he would come back the next morning to discuss the therapy arrangements, Jimmy and I made small talk as nurses came in and out of the room to perform tasks that I didn’t understand, and I paid them even less attention. Most of our talk was about the hotness of those nurses. It’s not that girls were all we ever talked about. It’s just that neither of us could think of anything better to discuss, given the situation. I obviously hadn’t been to classes or out drinking, and Jimmy – who presumably had done both – didn’t want to hurt my feelings by telling me about his life while I was in a coma. Eventually, visiting hours came to an end, and Jimmy got up to leave.

“Hey, before you go,” I started, “I probably already know the answer, but I gotta ask ... did, err ... did you manage to get hold of my parents?”

Jimmy pursed his lips, his jaw tightening for a moment before he nodded.

“They didn’t come, did they?” I asked

He shook his head, “I’m sorry, dude.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I smiled, “Fuck ‘em, right?”

“Fuck ‘em.” Jimmy agreed. “I’ll be back in the morning. Night dude.”

“Woah, wait ... what about classes? Actually, what day is it? Eight weeks...” I tried doing the math in my head, “is it a holiday?”

“Nah, man,” he laughed, “I ... um ... we’ll talk about it tomorrow. Oh, and its Tuesday.” With that, he left.

“He’s a good one.” A voice came from the side of my head. I looked up at a nurse fiddling with one of the machines behind me; I hadn’t even realized she was there.

“Yeah,” I answered. “He’s a good friend.”

“Friend?” she asked with a puzzled look. “You don’t have to be embarrassed.”

I narrowed my eyes at her, “Err ... no, he’s a friend, a good friend, an excellent friend, the best friend I have ever had, but definitely just a friend.”

“Not gay?”

“Jimmy?” I snorted a laugh. “That guy is the biggest man-whore you’ll ever meet. If he is gay, then he is doing an outstanding job of overcompensating.”

The nurse stopped what she was doing for a second and looked down at me. “Ha!” she laughed, “well, in that case, he is definitely a good one!” the confused look on my face must have told her that I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. “Didn’t he tell you?”

“Apparently not.”

The nurse smiled and lowered herself into the chair that Jimmy had left at the side of my bed. “He told us you were ... partners.” She over annunciated the last word

“I’m not following.”

“Partners and immediate family get extra visiting times.” She smiled. “That man has been here every single day since you arrived; he literally hasn’t left your side during the hours he is legally allowed to be here. We had to kick him out to wake you up.”

I literally had no idea what to say.

“A friend of mine was working the emergency room the night you were brought in,” she said, “We had absolutely no idea who you were. For future reference, it’s always a good idea to put emergency contacts into your phone, so the doctors can contact someone in the case of an emergency. You didn’t have one. Jimmy phoned you the next morning; we told him what had happened and where you were, and he was here within an hour. He had barely left since. He said he had contacted your family, but – as far as I’m aware – he’s the only visitor you’ve had.”

I still had literally no idea what to say.

“Gotta say, though,” the nurse said with a smile as she pulled herself up from the chair and started back at whatever task she was doing, “I know a few nurses who will be happy to hear he is batting for the away team.” I laughed. I was sure that Jimmy would be more than happy to reassert his heterosexuality. “I’m Amy, by the way. I’ve been looking after you since you were moved here.”

“When was that?” apparently, I could speak again.

“About six weeks ago, as soon as they released you from intensive care.”

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Amy.” I smiled. The strain of the past few hours was starting to take its toll, coupled with the copious amounts of pain medication coursing around my body, and sleep was approaching fast.

“You too, Pete. It’s always nice to see one of my patients come around, especially ones who have such good prospects for recovery.”

“If Jimmy hasn’t said it already, and in case I don’t get the chance again,” I said as my eyes started to fall shut, “Thank you.”