Phil P.O.V.
I feel the familiar tap on my shoulder, the same one that comes every day.
"Phil?"
I held my gaze at the window, the window that stood hundreds of feet above the ground.
"Daniel?" I could feel the hot tears boiling behind my eyes.
Two hands grab my shoulders, making me look away from the night sky and at the person.
"No, Phil. Its me." Martyn's voice echoes around the empty room. Its the only sound I ever hear except for the occasional nurse asking me how I'm doing today. With both his hands on my shoulders, he looks me right in the eyes. "Are you still thinking about him, Phil?"
I wipe the stray tears off my cheek and nod. "Everyday."
His hands drop to his sides and he steps back nodding his head like he expected this is what i would say.
"You know, Phil, you're never going to get out of here if you can't accept the fact that it happened. Nothing you could do could change that!" He was raising his voice now, that never helped. "God dammit Phil, it's been over a year! When are you going to figure out that looking out of this hospital window everyday for the rest of your life, wondering what you could have done differently...that's never going to get you anywhere!"
I slide off the window sill, my feet connecting with the cold tile floor.
"Is that what you come here to say to me? Everyday you say the same thing. You say it's going to be okay, it will get better. Someday it will get better! But you know what Martyn? Nothing will ever change! I may have killed the only person that I have ever loved. And you think I can live with that?!"
He walks over and sits on my bed, his head in his hands.
"We...we all understand how hard these past few months have been for you. But you have to realize that you put yourself here. If you..." he takes a deep breath. "If you hadn't tried to kill yourself after Dan died, we wouldn't need to put you here."
I could see the glint of tears in his eyes. His hands shook as he tried to fold them and look calm. Martyn was the only one who visited me everyday. Everyone else could only make it once a month. But I knew the real reason why they never came. They thought it was too hard to see me like this. Too hard to see my life wasting away while I wasted away over a lost life.
"Well, you know Martyn...maybe next time I won't try." My voice was cold and menacing.
"Phil... " he stood up to come over to me but I put my hands out.
"Maybe you should leave." This was always my way of kicking him out when things got too deep. When I just couldn't handle it anymore.
He turned on his heel and headed for the door. As he was about to step out he turned for last words, "Dan wasn't the only one that loved you, Phil." With that, he turned the knob and let himself out.
I watched as the last sliver of light vanished from the door before I fell onto my bed.
Curling into a ball on the small bed I grab fistfuls of hair between my fingers. Rocking back and forth, holding myself like my arms were the last things that were keeping me from completely falling apart.
"Why can't they just listen to me?!" I scream into the pillow. "They'll never fucking understand!"
As if on cue, which it probably was, Jackie, my nurse, came in with my nightly medicine.
"Hey, how ya doing baby?" Her deep southern voice echoed throughout the room.
I turned onto my back to see her familiar dark face with those ever growing wrinkles.
"Not good, Jackie." I confess, wiping the salty tears from my face.
She sits on the bed next to me, the weight difference making me lean toward her. "I know, hun. I heard." Then she tries to lighten the mood, "Hell people in Berlin could hear you yelling at your god damn brother." She says with a chuckle.
My lip starts to curl up, the slightest look of happiness could be seen on my face for the shortest moment.
"Phil, here take a picture of me."
"Dan, no you already have like a hundred."
"Pleeeaassee." He begs me, holding the phone out.
I take it as he strikes his signature 'peace sign' look.
Click.
Another memory to regret.
"Hey baby, you alright?"
Jackie's voice brings me back into current reality.
"Where'd you go just now?"
I tell her about the trip Dan and I took to Berlin two years before, the light in her eyes softens to a hazy glow.
"Do you miss him?" She asks, the sincerity and concern in her voice was that of if she were talking to her own son.
"Yeah, I do. I really, really do." I say softly, barely audible. But she hears me, placing her hand gently on my shoulder.
"Whenever you need to talk, you'll always have me right outside this door, ya hear?"
I nod and she sets my cup of four pills down on the nightstand.
"Thanks for...you know, everything, Jackie. It means a lot."
She nods, a small smile creeping across her face. "Anytime, baby."
She closes the heavy door behind her as the last light fades from the hallway outside.
I take the cup from the nightstand and, reaching under my pillow, pull out the plastic bag containing multiple previous doses of anti-depressants. I take the thirteen pills (the exact amount of months since Dan) in my hand, popping one at a time. I had told myself before, while planning to do this. I would wait thirteen days, collect for nearly two weeks before I did the task. And exactly two weeks from the day I thought of that plan would they find me.
I walk over to the window sill, carefully sliding up onto it, feeling the cold touch of the floor for the last time. I lean my head against the solid glass, watching out over the starry, fluorescent sky line. I take that last picture I have of Dan out of my back pocket, holding it between two shaking hands.
"Until I see you again."
The last memory before my vision got dark was of his face, both on the photograph and staring at me from above, welcoming me home. Home with him. Forever.
