Haunted

Closer to the Edge

"Happy Anniversary," Maddox told himself before he even bothered getting out of bed. He looked at the clock and sighed. It was already noon where Brent was so he was probably in the middle of getting ready for that night's show.

Maddox begged for the entire two weeks after his birthday to be allowed to fly down to Brazil and surprise Brent for their anniversary. It took a week to convince his parents it would be okay as long as his doctor and physical therapists said he could go.

"Sounds like a great idea to me," his physical therapist had said. All his therapists agreed - getting him back to normal life activities was the best thing he could do. If only his doctor had thought the same thing.

"We need to get you off these meds before I can let you leave the country," the doctor told him. "Let's start by decreasing your dosage and I'll keep an eye on things," he decided.

Maddox didn't notice a difference at all without the many medicines that were supposed to make it easier for him to move. He was pretty sure he would be fine and that he'd made enough progress to go without them completely. Only his body other plans.

"I think we should wait a week and make sure your blood pressure can stabilize," the doctor said. "It's just a bit lower than I feel comfortable with."

So Maddox found himself waking up at home, alone on his one year anniversary. Yet again the universe had conspired to make sure he didn't get too happy. It wouldn't be right if things went well for Maddox just once.

He dragged himself out of bed though he wasn't sure why and went to the bathroom. On his way back to bed he picked up his guitar. Maddox hadn't even tried to play it since getting sick but he could hear the pieces of a song in his head and thought maybe he could get it to turn into something useful.

Maddox sat down with the guitar in his lap and took a deep breath before he put his fingers on the neck. They curled right into position, like his hand remembered exactly what to do, but when Maddox tried to hold the strings down his hand started to shake and pain shot through his wrist. He was so startled he almost dropped the guitar.

"What the fuck?" Maddox sighed. He tried again but the same thing happened.

On his third attempt, Maddox tried to ignore the pain but he couldn't hold the strings down hard enough to make the notes come out right. The pain went all the way up his arm and Maddox had to give up. He burst into tears. This was it, the exact moment he'd been waiting for since the earthquake. The moment when he could finally prove to everyone that everything would not actually be okay again. That it would never be okay again.

Maddox let the guitar fall out of his hands and curled up on his bed, sobbing. His arm felt fine now that he'd stopped and the first thought he had was that he wanted to find something sharp to tear open his stupid arm and destroy it for ruining his life.

The thought scared Maddox so much he sat up and grabbed his phone. Being alone was not a good idea.

"Hey, I think I have like 5 minutes," Brent sounded so happy Maddox almost couldn't breathe. "I've been thinking about you all day, I love you so much."

"I love you too," Maddox could barely get the words out.

"Dax, what's wrong?" Brent gasped. Maddox could hear the noise in the background get very quiet.

"I can't do this," Maddox sobbed. "I can't do it, Brent, I tried and-" he was almost choking because he was crying so hard.

"What are you talking about?"

"My guitar," Maddox managed to say. "I can't," he gasped. His lungs were burning already.

"Oh my god, Maddox. I'm so sorry. You'll get there though, I know you will."