Rewrite Your Happiness (A Ryan Ross Fanfiction)

Locked Away In Permanent Slumber

We all piled into Jon's car and sped to the hospital as fast as we could. Spencer explained everything to us on the way.

Like I'd mentioned before, we never did get much word from Brendon after he went out to LA. If we did, it wouldn't be directly. I guess he was still mad at us or he didn't want to admit he was wrong. The only person he would keep in contact with was Sarah, and only Spencer really kept in touch with her, so news was usually sparse.

There would be an update every two or three months, saying he was well and tell everyone he said hi. But around August last year, the calls just stopped, bringing us to now. Apparently, Brendon had built up the reputation of a starving artist in the past two years, getting small gigs here and there to get by. He would have come back sooner if he wasn't so confident in his gift or fanning the fire that was his egotistic pride. Brendon just stayed in LA so long that he didn't know the consequences until it was too late. At some point Sarah admitted that she missed him and told him she wanted to see him again.

So, he stopped making pay phone calls so he could save up, get back to Las Vegas, and finally see everyone. When he arrived at the bus station hours earlier, he collapsed. A man by the name Dallon Weekes (whose name sounded oddly familiar,) was the one who made the phone call to send help. Apparently, Brendon hadn't been conscious since he arrived.

We quickly made our way down the halls of the ICU, the same hall Ryan had to walk to watch his father pass on, until we stopped outside the room that held Brendon. A man, who I could only assume was Dallon, was standing outside the door and talking to the doctor. We turned to look into the window next to the door. And there he was, our old friend, sitting in a hospital bed.

His glasses lay cracked on the table next to his bed, along with a dirt covered notebook with frayed pages and a vase filled with roses. His hair was trimmed up immensely and made him look merely unrecognizable, slicked back over the top of his head and pushed away from his sweat covered face. They probably cut it before we arrived, so God knows what it looked like before we got here. There was a large bandaid covering a scar on his right temple and eyebrow, perhaps from the collapse they mentioned.

He was on a respirator and a fresh IV was pumping fluids into his arm in hopes of stabilizing his dehydrated condition. His face looked tired even in his comatose state and his body looked skinnier than it was when he left. To say that was quite mortifying since he was pretty lean to begin with. To say he was skin and bones was an over exaggeration. If one were to describe how his skin covered his bone, it would have been like saying a cheap restaurant napkin was covering a wound in need of stitches, or a marshmallow melting through the stick holding it over a fire.

Seeing him in this state hurt. I know he tried to burn bridges with us all those years ago, but that didn't stop us from worrying. He could've asked for help so this didn't happen...but it did. My heart was aching and I wished to look away from all the pain as my eyes welled up. Is this how I would have felt if I was able to visit Ginger when she almost overdosed? Just like her, to see someone I knew well, once so energetic and lively, end up here brought me to tears.

We could see though the glass window that Sarah solemnly holding his pale, bony fingers. Tear stains covered her face as her eyes looked nowhere but the hospital bed. Brendon's family was sitting in the chairs by the door with the same expression as Sarah: cold, quiet, and worried. This was probably one of the first few times I had seen his whole family in one room, let alone ever seen his family. Seeing that Brendon still wasn't on good terms with his parents even after he graduated, this surprised me. Did this change the dynamic? Was he somehow forgiven in their eyes? I was afraid to walk into the room and break the silence. That's when Ryan put his hand in mine and guided us all to the door. We had to do this, as his friends.