"How's he doing?" Levi, Chance, Jinx and Court all walked into the room at the same time.
"The doctor says he's stronger today than he was yesterday, and now it's pretty much up to him if he pulls out of it or not," I told them, gripping his hand in mine. I could already feel the tears building behind my eyes again.
"I should have forced him into rehab months ago, but I was too focused on finishing out the tour to really stop and think about what was best for him. I knew it was bad, but I never dreamed something like this would happen," Court said with sorrow in his eyes and guilt on his face.
"We can sit here all day long and blame ourselves, but we all know in the end that Linc's gonna do what Linc's gonna do. We've known him for over a year now. He is what he is. If you told him not to cross the road after seven P. M. he would be waiting on the corner at six fifty-eight so he wouldn't be late, and at exactly seven P. M., he would walk across that road and flip you off once he got to the other side. It's how he's wired, and add the addiction in and it's a dangerous combination. We need to move forward now and help him get through this and get healthy," Jinx stated.
"You hear that dickhead? We need your sorry ass, so you need to wake up!" Levi grabbed his bare foot through the blanket and gave it a shake. When he looked at me, I could see his own tears building in his eyes.
"I keep talking to him, hoping that somehow it's getting through. That he's hearing me. I keep hoping that he will respond somehow. Hell, at this point I would be satisfied with a finger movement," I told them as I ran my fingers through his overgrown brown hair.
"Just keep talking to him, Honesty. He hears you. If he's going to come out of it for anyone, it'll be you. He was devastated when Jinx told us that you'd left. While you were with us that was the happiest I had seen him in a long time. I have faith he'll come around." Chance placed his hand on my shoulder and gave it a light squeeze. "Why don't you let one of us stay with him and you go back to the hotel and get some rest. We'll call you if anything changes," he offered.
I shook my head.
"No, I'm good. I want to be here when he wakes up." I would have loved nothing more than to have a hot shower and a good night’s rest; one where I wasn’t interrupted every hour by someone coming in and out of the room to check vitals. Where I could stretch my legs out completely instead of sleeping with them drawn up to my chest in the chair, but right now, this was where I needed to be. "Tell me again what happened?" I gripped Linc's hand and looked down at his lifeless body with tubes coming out of it in every direction.
"After the show Saturday night, we all went to our rooms for the night. Levi and Chance each had a girl with them, but Linc didn't. He wanted to go out. Court stayed behind to talk to him about trashing his guitar on stage. He talked to him again about rehab and the possibility of seeing a therapist to get to the underlying problem of his addiction, but he blew up, just as he always does. Court told him that we’d had a meeting after the last show and decided that if something happened again he'd be suspended. We did it with his best interest at heart. You have to believe me. The only thing we want is for him to get better," Jinx said.
"I saw him enter his room as I was leaving mine to go down stairs. I thought when I left him at the venue that he'd hop in a cab and head for a club, but he didn't. I thought that was so unlike him to go back to his room, because if Linc wants to party, he'll do it, with or without us. He always has. Something about it kept nagging at me, so I went to his room to check on him, and when he wouldn't open the door, I called hotel security to open it. I thought the worst that could happen, would be opening the door to find that he wasn’t in there, then I'd look like a fool, but that wasn't the case. He had so much cocaine and alcohol in his system, on top of the pain meds, the E. R. doc gave him, that he barely had a heartbeat. The paramedics almost lost him twice on the way to the hospital," Court told me.
"Oh God! What if you had ignored that feeling? What if you hadn't called security and gone in there to check on him? He wouldn't be here. He would have died and I wouldn’t have had the chance to talk to him again. There are so many things I need to say. He tried to talk to me. He tried to talk to me before I left the venue that night, but I wouldn't listen.” Burying my face in my hands, I let it all go. All the tears, the fear, the pain; I let it all spill out of me and drip from my face onto the sheet covering Linc's body.
"Stop it," my brother said, wrapping his arms around me, pulling me to his chest. "This is not your fault. If it's anyone's fault, it's the bands. We knew he had a problem; Court even addressed it more than once. He even threatened him with rehab, but I'm the worst one of all. He's my best friend, and I turned a blind eye and ignored it. I thought he had it under control. I should have known, between his disappearing acts during practice, and his frequent nose bleeds. I should have confronted him and demanded that he go to rehab." He kissed the top of my head and held me tight against his chest.
"You should probably go and update the fans. I'm sure they're wondering how he is doing." There was a group of fans camped out in the parking lot ever since the news broke that he'd been brought into the emergency room. They had been there ever since. I lowered myself into the hard, vinyl chair beside his bed, never letting go of his hand. "I want to be here when he wakes up."
He gave my shoulder a light squeeze. "You really care about him, don't you? I can see it in your eyes. I thought it was just your way of making me wake up and see that you were no longer a child, but a woman. A sort of in-your-face kind of thing for running off and leaving you alone with mom for all of those years, but, I can see it now. You genuinely feel something for him," my brother said, and I nodded my confirmation, but said nothing. Long moments of silence filled the air, and for once in his life, I think my brother was at a loss for words.
"Yes," I said around the lump in my throat. “I do care about him. I think there's more to the man than he lets other people see. I think, behind the pain in those eyes, is a man dealing with a world of hurt, and unless he deals with whatever is eating him alive, his addiction will end up killing him.
"I'm going to get going. Can I bring you back anything?" he asked his voice quiet.
"I'm not hungry," I told him, knowing that being the overprotective brother that he was, he would bring me back something to eat.
"Alright then, I will be back in a little while." He walked from the room and closed the door behind him.
He looked so helpless lying here. His handsome face was pale, with light scruff along his jaw line, and his eyes were encased in dark circles. His full lips were dry and cracked, and his high cheekbones were sunken and hollowed. The drugs had definitely taken a toll on his body, and he looked as if he hadn’t eaten in a week.
I should have never left him. I should have stayed and kept an eye on him. I could have forced him to take care of himself.
Once they were gone, the room was quiet again except for the sounds of the machines. I crawled onto the side of the bed with the least amount of tubes and curled into Linc’s side, resting my head over his heart. I squeezed my eyes tight and cried while I listened to the steady beat of his heart. I must have drifted off because a shift in the bed startled me, and I realized the body underneath me had just shifted in the bed. I jerked my head up and my heart fluttered in my chest when my eyes landed on his.