Chapter 31: Goodbye

-- MONDAY, MAY 8, 2006, SENIOR YEAR --

There came a knock at the door, and moments later it opened without waiting for a response. The privacy curtain just a few feet inside the doorway was already open, and my nurse for this shift smiled at me as she walked inside with my parents in tow.

"Heya, Ben," Dad greeted me with a smile, although there were obvious tension lines at his eyes. He came to a stop at the foot of my bed and turned to smile and nod at my nurse as she left us alone, pulling the privacy curtain shut before going out the door and closing it behind her.

"Hey, Dad," I replied wearily.

"How are you feeling?" Mom asked, obvious concern on her face as she sat on a round stool and rolled it up beside my bed.

"I'm fine. Much better than yesterday," I reassured her. Almost anything would have been better than yesterday. I'd slept through most of it, but my brief time awake had been spent in significant pain and only a little bit of lucidity. Really, I figured the doctors only let me wake up to make sure that I could, and also to reassure both my parents and me that I was alive and in stable condition. We only spoke for a few minutes to confirm the current date and my whereabouts, but beyond that I was only too happy to let the nurses shoot me up full of drugs so I could pass out again.

"Still in pain?" Mom continued, her concern deepening despite my reassurances. She reached out and put her hand on my forearm.

"Only a little," I lied, caring more about her peace of mind than my own discomfort, and I reached over and patted the back of her hand for emphasis. Glancing around them, I asked, "Where's everyone else?"

"Outside," Dad explained. "Only parents are allowed in this unit; not even your sisters can get in here. Hospital policy. But the doctor said that if you pass all their tests, you'll be moved to a regular room this afternoon where you can take visitors."

I blinked and thought about that. "Oh. Okay."

"I know that's disappointing," Mom said gently. "But you'll have to put up with just us for now. Believe me, I think the girls are more upset about it than you are, especially Adrienne and Dawn."

I blinked and raised my eyebrows. "Dawn? She's here?"

My parents exchanged a little look, and Dad explained, "She drove down in the early morning on Sunday. Beat us here, actually."

I nodded. "I'm guessing somebody called her right away."

Mom gave Dad a strange smile. "Actually, no ... Funny thing is, she called her mom. Said she'd woken up screaming your name in the middle of the night. Deanna spent about fifteen minutes calming her down and reassuring her that it was nothing more than a nightmare. Ten minutes AFTER that, DJ called Deanna to tell her you'd been shot while Brooke called me. And then Deanna called Dawn right back, probably freaking out more than Dawn was."

Dad chuckled. "Poor woman. I don't think she knew whether to be worried about your condition or thrilled by the idea of Dawn apparently feeling something happen to you. Probably both."

Mom shook her head. "It's preposterous, of course, the idea that Dawn could feel you get hurt. But ... well ... The point is that Dawn's here, outside in the waiting area with your sisters and hers."

Dad smirked. "And with no less than six other young women who have all chosen to spend their time on the last Monday of classes at a hospital awaiting some word regarding your current health status."

I blushed and averted my eyes, not wanting to attempt explaining what I'd been up to these last few months even while mentally guessing which six were here. Amber, Sasha, and Andie seemed obvious, and maybe Paige. Lynne was also a distinct possibility, and I could hope that Kim would come out of the house for something like this. Of course, some of them would have classes today, so it was really up in the air.

"So, ah," I began, taking a deep breath. "What IS my current health status?"

"Well you'll live, despite your seemingly sincere attempt to alter that fact," Mom replied with a bit of reproach in her tone.

I winced at her obvious disapproval and began, "I never intended--"

"Hey, we're not getting into that right now," Dad interrupted. "Right now we're just happy that you're safe."

"But I'm guessing the girls told you everything?"

Mom and Dad exchanged another look, and Dad explained, "Everything they know about. But nobody knows what really happened in that bedroom. All we have is the girls' account of what they discovered when they ran in and found you bleeding to death."

I pursed my lips and grimaced at the thought of the girls, especially my little sister, having to witness that kind of horror. I went back over everything that had transpired in that bedroom, from busting in to find Carter slapping Elyse, to slamming that letter opener into his chest with my last burst of energy before passing out. Of course, I remembered everything in-between, including the feeling of getting shot, and I raised my hand to the upper-right side of my head to feel the wound.

Of course, I couldn't feel the wound itself. Bandages and gauze wraps blocked my fingers from actually touching it, and with raised eyebrows I looked at my parents. "How bad is it? I don't, like, have bullet fragments in my skull or anything, do I?"

Dad winced. "No, no. Nothing like that. The bullet did manage to carve out a chunk of your head, right down until your skull was exposed, but since your skull is right under the surface, the shock to your brain was more like getting hit in the head with a hammer. The biggest problem was that you had a cerebral contusion that caused some intracranial bleeding. It was severe enough to require surgical drainage, and that's why they kept you doped up. They wanted to allow your body to heal without you having to deal with the pain. Now that's apparently taken care of, and they've stitched up your gunshot wound, so with time and rest you should be good as new."

"But an inch to the right and we probably wouldn't be talking to you right now," Mom said with a frown, her eyes hard as she pointed more or less at the middle of my forehead. She began stroking my forearm, her lower lip quivered, and she had to fight back tears as she added in a shaky voice, "We'd have been burying you instead."

"Hey, hey..." I began, furrowing my eyebrows and rubbing her hand still on my forearm. "I'm fine. I got lucky."

"Got lucky again. This is the second time you've been shot, young man. And I don't ever want to think about you having a third."

I winced. "I'm sorry. I really never thought--"

"You never thought. That's the problem!" Mom cut me off.

"Beth..." Dad soothed, rubbing Mom's shoulder. "We talked about this. Now's not the time. We only have a little while that we can talk to him before our time's up."

Mom squeezed her eyes shut and took two deep, shuddering breaths. But when she exhaled the last she looked visibly calmer, and she went back to stroking my forearm.

"Believe me. Getting shot again is the LAST thing I ever want to happen, and I'll be more careful in the future," I assured her, but her frown said she didn't quite trust me on that. "Look, I was stupid, I know. I'm very sorry for making you worry."

Mom took another deep breath and exhaled it slowly. "This isn't about me. Really, I'm very happy that you're alright. Still, the sooner you're up and about again the more happy I'll be."

I nodded. "Me, too."

With the time we had left, my parents caught me up on the overall situation and their version of the events over the last two days. They'd been awakened by Brooke's frantic phone call around 12:10 in the middle of the night, collected the twins, and drove straight to the hospital. The Evanses were already in the waiting room with my sisters, along with Amber, Sasha, Andie, and a few of the froshlings. My parents, being the only ones allowed into the unit, had stepped in to briefly confirm that I was asleep and recovering well after undergoing surgery and receiving a blood transfusion to replace what I'd lost. Although I had bled out pretty good, Amber's on-the-spot paramedic care had gotten me stabilized well before the ambulance showed up. And so long as I didn't have any adverse reactions to the blood transfusion, or lasting complications from the concussion, the doctors expected me to make a full recovery.

Armed with this information and their visual verification that I was indeed alive, my parents broke up the group in the waiting room and started sending people home to get some sleep. I wasn't allowed visitors yet, anyway. Even Dawn and Adrienne were ultimately browbeaten into leaving the hospital and getting some rest, despite their insistent protests, especially when my parents left the hospital as well. Mom, Dad, and the twins took over the two downstairs bedrooms in my Berkeley house, with my parents in the bigger of the two rooms. But they were really just convenient beds, since the Evanses also used the house as a crash pad rather than commute all the way back to the South Bay. One set of parents had stayed in the hospital at all times.

No one stayed away very long, and several Tri-Delts had come to express their condolences to my family and inquire about my health. Bert, Paige, and Lynne also stopped by, along with some other classmates, but Mom and Dad didn't really remember names. The only person of significance who wasn't around was Amber, who had gone home shortly after their arrival. Neither Lynne nor my parents had any further details on her, other than that they were exceedingly grateful for her medical expertise in Carter's bedroom.

Boredom and parental unit instructions kept all of the students in the waiting room at least attempting to study and do homework for their classes, which supposedly became easier to do the longer time passed without any new information. In the afternoon, I woke up and my parents were allowed back in to see me, but it had been a short visit. And last night had been a repeat of the first, with the two sets of parents taking turns going home to sleep before returning and the various girls doing the same.

The more I listened, the more embarrassed I became over my situation. Compared to my ... well, I supposed one had to call it a dream ... of being in a coma for more than a week, I thought getting grazed by a bullet but not really punctured to be rather ... lame. I was fine, and apart from yet another bullet scar, I apparently would be back on my feet in perfect health pretty soon. And to have so many people clogging a hospital waiting room over me seemed like making a far bigger deal out of the situation than it really was.

I told my parents to tell everyone to go home, that I'd be fine, and that I still had my own Finals to worry about. While this setback all but assured I wouldn't be attending the final two days of classes, I could still probably show up for my Exams, which started on Friday. But my parents insisted that my health, not my academic record, was their number one priority, and Brooke had already informed the school that I'd been hospitalized and potentially wouldn't be able to complete my courses, nevermind the possibility that I might not graduate.

I, of course, was horrified by the notion of repeating my final semester of college, but my parents insisted I focus on getting healthy first and ordered me to concentrate on that. Mom had figured out ten minutes ago that I'd been masking my true pain from her, and she threatened to have me drugged and knocked out again if I didn't own up to the fact that I still had a healing wound where I was missing a bunch of skin and tissue on the upper-right side of my head that had once left my bone exposed, and that I needed to REST. So I caved, told them I'd heal up, and they kissed me goodbye. Besides, Finals didn't start until Friday, and I figured I could get out of the hospital by then.

After a short nap, I went through a battery of tests and was pronounced healthy enough to be moved out of my unit. After my head dressings were changed, my bed was wheeled into a different wing of the hospital where I was placed in a shared room with some middle-aged guy recovering from a heart attack. And then I was told that while I'd be able to receive visitors, I should be courteous and respectful of my roommate's needs for privacy and quiet.

Thankfully, my roommate was just as excited as me to see a whole gaggle of gorgeous college coeds stampede into our room. When he recognized Adrienne, I think the poor guy nearly had another heart attack, especially when she tried to smother my face in her tits while hugging me so tight I thought she might never let me go.

Seeing Dawn again turned out to be rather anticlimactic. While my mind was still awash with questions and ruminations about her "hearing" me in the middle of the night on May 6th, our actual reunion was about as opposite as can be from our reunion in my "dream", which I still remembered with vivid clarity. Really, she just sort of shyly waved hello, and fully aware of more than a dozen pairs of eyeballs on us, she gave me a chaste hug before stepping back.

We didn't get a chance to talk.

The room was filled with the conversation of more than a dozen people talking all at the same time for about an hour before the authorities broke things up, and by "the authorities" I don't mean the hospital staff. Berkeley Police had come by to take a statement from me, and my parents shooed everyone out before returning themselves to supervise.

I explained everything as best I could, and I heard Mom and Dad gasp a time or two during my narrative as they heard a few things they'd hadn't learned from one of the others. I didn't really get into the sex stuff or anything; the cops were far more interested in the fight in Carter's bedroom. Still, by the time the cops left I could tell from Mom's and Dad's expressions that I was in pretty deep shit for my reckless behavior.

But the hammer wouldn't fall tonight. It was too soon, or maybe I was too fragile. Whatever the reason, my parents didn't lay into me just yet. After the police were gone, I found out that pretty much all non-"Family" members had been sent home, including Sasha and Andie. It was still a Monday, and some of them had classes. Bert and Sasha, for example, had to give our final Capstone Presentation all by themselves. What had started out as my Dream Team of six at the beginning of Junior year had been whittled down all the way to two, and the drama of my life was mostly responsible for the absent four.

"The Family" stuck around to further discuss things and plan their schedules. In theory I'd be discharged tomorrow, assuming that there were no complications when they checked my head wound in the morning. My parents would actually prefer that I stay in the hospital a little longer for treatment and observation, but my student insurance plan would rather have me out of the hospital to convalesce on my own.

The good news was that the hospital didn't really have specific visiting hours other than that overnight guests were generally frowned upon in a shared room – not that my family would be stopped by "generally frowned upon". Still, we didn't get to leave everyone here, and there was no spare bed in the room or even a couch with enough room to sleep on. Adrienne successfully bullied everyone else into letting her be my overnight guardian while the others went home, and shortly before dinner they all left, including my parents. She kept me and my roommate company, and I swear the guy couldn't be happier to have had a heart attack that landed him in the hospital, although he had to be careful about wandering eyes when his wife came by to visit after work.

At least she didn't give him too much flack for getting Adrienne's autograph.

Eventually, though, my discomfort levels started rising and the nurse came by to give me my next dose of painkillers. I got pretty sleepy after that, and while Adrienne wanted to spoon with me on my little hospital single, the nurses wouldn't let her do that. She settled for sitting in the rather uncomfortable chair next to my bed and pillowing her head on the mattress beside me, and that was the way I discovered her when I woke in the morning.

I didn't mean to wake her, but in that position she wasn't sleeping very deeply, so she awoke when I gently stroked her hair. Giving me a tired smile after apparently not getting much rest overnight, she was nevertheless quite happy to see me alive and (mostly) well.

For me, when I glanced over and realized my roommate was asleep, I was happy for my very first chance to have a private conversation.

-- TUESDAY, MAY 9, 2006, SENIOR YEAR --

"So there I was, buried inside her and flush with post-orgasmic happiness. I finally had her back, on top of all the other good things happening for me, and I remember thinking, 'Life can't get any better than this.' For the very first time since Dawn showed up at the front door smelling like sex and told me she was breaking up with me, I felt... whole."

With moisture in my eyes as I stared at the far wall, I marveled over the sensation of absolute peace I'd touched ever so briefly. If there was a heaven in the afterlife, I'd found it.

"And then I lost it..."

Inhaling deeply and clenching my teeth, I fought the urge to break down and sob my heart out. I knew my dream hadn't been real, but the memories were so vivid and sharp that it was hard to consider them as anything but actual memories. To have such a clear picture of one way my life could have turned out so perfectly, only to discover myself back at the moment of injury and loss, it was ... well ... it was absolutely crushing.

I didn't know whether to think that I'd actually died and gone to heaven only to be brought back to life by Amber's medical wizardry, or that I'd merely hallucinated the whole thing as my body went hypoxic. If heaven, then I certainly wished Amber hadn't saved me and I'd been able to continue on in divine bliss for all eternity. If a hallucination, then I wished the delusional visions would fade so I would no longer so acutely feel this paralyzing sense of loss.

Or perhaps I'd somehow piggybacked on the mental experience of some other Ben in a parallel universe that branched off as different decisions were made and everything turned out peachy keen. But if that was the case, the very notion that some other Ben got to live that perfect life while I was stuck ... here...

Well it made me want to cry.

"It's okay. You can let it out," Adrienne soothed, squeezing me tight.

She'd climbed onto the bed with me partway through my recounting of my fantasy four months. I'd held nothing back from her, spelling out every detail I could remember, so I could be sure that somebody knew this story lest my memory fade and the recollection be lost forever. My sense of loss had been growing more and more as I talked, and I'd been on the verge of tears for a while now.

I glanced across the room at the other bed. It was still early in the morning and my roommate was still asleep. Had he been awake I figured my ego would not have let me actually break down, but asleep he was and break down I did. As I hunched over, the first droplets splattered my cheeks. And following them came the deluge as the overwhelming weight of everything that had happened to me finally came crashing down.

Adrienne didn't ask questions. She didn't try to analyze my psyche, judge me, or break down the wealth of information I'd shared. She simply held me, reminded me she was there, and whispered over and again how much she loved me.

And I cried.

For the first time since waking up alone in a hospital bed less two days ago, I cried, only now letting the full weight of everything that had happened to me really hit home.

I cried for my lost fantasy vision, for the reunions and reconciliations between me, Dawn, DJ, Brooke, and Kim that had apparently never happened.

I cried for my physical pain, for the open wound in the side of my head that still needed time to heal and would leave a scar upon me for the rest of my life.

I cried for my fear, for the idea that I'd now gotten shot twice, and that if I continued living my life the way I had with such reckless disregard for my own safety, the third time might be the charm that actually killed me.

And I cried for my friends and loved ones, the people who cared about and depended on me continuing to stay alive, and how close I'd come to letting them all down.

For my parents, who had put such faith and trust in me as their son to live and learn from my own mistakes.

For my sisters, who had all counted on having their brother around for protection, advice, and sibling companionship as they grew older and experienced the world for themselves.

For Adrienne, who was my rock and I hers. I was her anchor, the lifelong love she depended on always being there for her no matter where life took her.

For my girlfriends, Sasha and Andie. Though I'd never formally termed them as such, it was a title they both deserved, as they'd both invested so much of their time and so much of their love in a man they hoped would eventually love them back. Sasha especially, since I'd started to actually do so.

For my friends, who all shared their daily lives with me.

And for Kim, the mother of my child who I'd promised I would always take care of, and for our son, who hadn't even been born yet and might never have had the chance to meet his father.

I'd almost let them all down.

Losing my heaven, losing that sense of completion and feeling whole again, that hurt. But the idea of disappointing all those people who'd depended on me, well ... that hurt even more.

I realized how cliché it must seem that this single traumatic event would change my life, but it had. I'd gotten shot before, but this was different. The thing with Adrienne's brother Adam had been but a minor speed bump compared to this. My injuries had been minor flesh wounds, fixed up by bandages and creams. I'd never lost consciousness, and Adam Dennis had gone and gotten himself killed all on his own shortly after. I'd carry the bullet scars for the rest of my life, but they weren't even noticeable unless you looked closely. And likewise, the impact of those events on my present lifestyle had been relatively minimal, save for the way they'd brought me and Adrienne closer together than ever.

This was different. Too much had happened.

Two people had died.

One of them at MY hands.

Although it seemed that everything I'd experienced for what felt like the last four months was nothing but a figment of my imagination, one thing was definitely true: I'd killed Carter. Although my parents wouldn't give me the details of what had happened in that bedroom after I'd gone unconscious, Adrienne, Brooke, and DJ had filled me in last night after the cops left and my curiosity was at its peak.

My letter opener hadn't severed an artery, like in my dream. Instead I'd punctured his heart, and while Cameron's gunshot wound would likely have taken Carter's life, my last ditch effort to end the fight had put a small tear in his left ventricle. The last moments of his heart beating had pushed the life out of him and he was dead on the floor before the paramedics arrived. And as much as I detested what he'd done, the thought of a human being losing his life in such a manner because of what I'd done made me sick to my stomach.

At least Elyse had survived. Carter had shot her at point-blank range, and the bullet had passed straight through her body between her clavicle and scapula, missing any vital organs or arteries by mere millimeters. She'd been placed into a restricted unit as well, and since she didn't even know how to contact her evil stepmother, there was no one allowed to visit her. But the nurses had told the girls that much, and while Elyse's recovery time would be somewhat longer than mine since she'd suffered a good deal more tissue damage than I had, in the end she would be just fine.

Maybe someday soon I could talk to her. Maybe someday soon I could ask her WHY she'd fought so hard that night, for Cameron and for me. Because bottom line: if it wasn't for her, I'd be dead. She'd fought Carter off when he had the drop on me ... twice. She'd saved me. Elyse Laughton had saved my life, and I really wanted to thank her for that.

For now, I had to be content that she'd lived. I had to be content that somebody had lived, because the other woman in that room had not.

I'd actually watched Cameron die. Though I'd suffered a concussion and my vision was blurry, I distinctly remembered looking around the room for both her and Elyse after slamming that letter opener into Carter's chest. She wasn't far away, having sunk to her own knees to sob in anguish while watching Carter die. I'd wanted to reach out to her, to say or do something when she turned that gun around and pushed the muzzle against her naked breast. But I'd been too weak. I'd watched the life flash out of her eyes when the gun went off. And witnessing her body fall backwards onto the floor and twitch for a few painful seconds as her future bled out of her had been too much for me to take.

In my dream, I'd conjured up a last-second rescue. In my dream, Cameron had lived and gone on to start a new life with Amber.

But that was just a dream. And as I stopped to think about the harshness of reality, well ... it was a good thing they weren't giving me solid food, because if they had I would have vomited it all up.

My whole purpose for being in that house had been to rescue Cameron. I hadn't done that, and despite all my best efforts, she was now dead. Just one more person I'd let down. Two, when you figured that Amber had been counting on me to help.

My fault. All my fault. If I hadn't been there, Cameron and Carter both might still be alive. Maybe Carter would still have both Elyse and Cameron in his clutches, and maybe their lives wouldn't be so hunky dory for it, but at least they'd all be alive. Maybe someone else could have done a better job rescuing them at a later date, like ... oh... the police, maybe? SWAT? DEA? Somebody actually trained? Somebody actually qualified to be a hero? Not some self-righteous, stupidly reckless, one semester of Krav Maga and ballroom dancing MORON like me.

Two people dead, Elyse in a hospital room recovering from her own gunshot wound – from a bullet intended for me – and the blame lay squarely at my feet. I'd been too much in shock last night to really think about it, but I was thinking about it now.

One more thing to cry about.

My parents and the twins returned to the hospital mid-morning to hang out and talk to me, although there wasn't much to say and the twins spent most of their time reading, texting, or playing video games. After another round of tests to make sure I was healthy enough to go home, along with careful instructions on how to take care of my head wound and several prescriptions, the hospital discharged me shortly after lunch. Adrienne drove me home in the Mustang, and we arrived to find a whole crowd of college coeds (and Bert) waiting in the house to greet me.

Andie was the first out the front door, and she had to visibly restrain herself from attempting a leap into my arms. She settled for a wraparound hug and seemed content to never let me go until Sasha simply hugged us both ... and then Jamie ... and Peyton ... and Jocelyn ... and Tonya. I think Andie started having trouble breathing beneath all that affection; I know I did. And when Adrienne noticed I was beginning to suffocate she managed to pry everyone off.

The gang spent a little over an hour satisfying their curiosity and asking me questions about what happened. At some point, Peyton started ushering everyone out to leave me and my family in peace during this difficult time. Paige said her family was praying for me. Bert gave me a fist bump, told me Lynne sent her regards, and headed out. Near tears, even Andie departed, but Sasha stuck around since ... well ... she lived here.

My family set me up in my bedroom while Dad drove out to pick up my prescriptions. After another round of painkillers, I conked out for an afternoon nap. And when I woke, it was to the smell of Mom's meatloaf, one of my favorite comfort foods.

I found that the Evanses had come by for dinner, and that Brandi and Dayna had come over from The City. We filled up the living room and spread out across all the available seats, anywhere from three to six different conversations going on at any given time. While nobody avoided talking about the incident at Carter's, we didn't go out of our way to bring up the subject, either. For the most part, conversation centered around the details of how long everyone would be staying in town now that I was no longer in the hospital. The twins still had to complete their Junior year of high school, which didn't finish until mid-June, and of course my parents still had work. They would actually be driving back down tomorrow, leaving Adrienne in charge of looking after my well-being with the promise to return if needed.