Paralyzed

Chapter 30 : Back home

Chapter 30

Later...

Riker POV

I woke up to the sound of everyone coming back to the dressing room.

"Dad, you need to do something about Riker," Ross said.

"What do you mean?" Dad asked.

"He's keeping us up all night with his panic attacks. He's making us late for our shows. None of us have time to take care of him or help him recover. He's at risk of someone getting a picture of him and his secret getting out. I don't think he should be on tour with us," Ross said.

"You think he should be back home?" Dad asked.

"Yes. I know you don't like that he's dating Avery, but she was taking good care of him and keeping him safe. And he wasn't panicking like this back at home. He's scared he's not going to recover," Ross said.

"How would we even get him back home?" Dad asked.

"Ask Avery to come pick him up," Ross said.

Dad sighed. 

"Please let me go home," I said, softly.

"Fine. I'll have Avery meet up with us," dad said.

I hugged him tight.

"But I need you to focus on getting better. Not dating."

"I'm not focused on dating. All we do every day is things to help me get better. We work on different things every day. Avery knows what she's doing. I promise. And it's working. I'm getting better."

Everybody packed up and grabbed their stuff. Dad picked me up and we headed for the door. Ross went to go outside first, but he didn't go out and he shut the door instead.

"There's people out there. Waiting for us," Ross said.

"How are we going to get Riker out?" Rocky asked.

"Maybe they'll go away if we wait long enough," Ross said.

Later...

Avery POV

Mark called me and told me he changed his mind and he wanted me to come pick up Riker. And I guess they had stayed at the venue they played at tonight because there were fans or reporters waiting for them outside and didn't want Riker's secret to get out.

It was a couple hours before I got there, but the people were gone when I arrived.

Ross put Riker in my car, and I started driving us back to Riker's house. Riker was out for the whole drive home. He looked exhausted. Ross told me he's been having like nonstop panic attacks since yesterday. And nightmares. I feel so bad.

"Rik, wake up. We're home," I said, gently shaking his shoulder.

He slowly opened his eyes.

"I know you're tired, but you'll be so much more comfortable inside."

I helped him get out of the car onto the office chair and took him inside.

"Do you want dinner?"

"No."

"Water?"

"No."

"Pain medicine?"

"No. Just sleep."

He got settled on the floor, so I got settled beside him. It was close to 2:00 in the morning.

"Can you at least tell me what happened?" I asked.

Riker slowly reached for me, wrapped his arms around me, and then pulled me close to him.

"Just panic attacks. And nightmares. I was paranoid that I wasn't going to get better if I was stuck on the tour bus. I really feel like the pool has helped a lot in my recovery."

"I do too. But at least you're home now. You can just rest and relax and sleep. And I'll be right here if you have more panic attacks."

"I think part of the reason I had all those panic attacks was because I was away from you. You know what you're doing. My siblings don't know how to help me recover."

Riker turned his face into my shoulder.

"I'm going to bed. I'm too tired to talk any more."

"Ok. Wake me up if you need something."