[AustinCarlile] Live Forever

[AustinCarlile] Live Forever [ChapterThirtyThree]

Author's Note:
So, Adam doesn't stutter when he's telling the story. I didn't feel like writing it. So, just pretend he has the slight stutter. Um, yeah, enjoy, I guess.

“Adam, this is Austin. Austin, this is my older brother, Adam.” Chewing on my lower lip, I run a hand through my hair, he’s seeing my story, not just hearing it, and it’s scary, I wish I would have hid being the story, showing him is worse. I can feel my heartbeat in my throat, it’s beating so fast, I feel like I'm about to puke. Austin is amazing, I know he is, and there’s no way that he’s going to just walk away, but this, this whole thing, my brother, my mother living here so she can be close to Adam, it’s different, it’s extreme, I don’t have any other concern than him, and now my relationship with Austin is a concern, I have two huge concerns and mixing them together is so overwhelming.

Smiling, Austin walks over to him, extending his hand to shake, and my brother glances at me from the corner of his eye, I can tell that he’s trying to figure out if Austin is someone he approves of, but we used to listen to Austin’s music together, when he was in Attack Attack, and I know that Adam likes him as a musician, and I’ve told Adam about Austin, I don’t leave him out of my life. “It’s nice to meet you, Adam.”

My brother holds out his hand, I notice how it shakes as he tries to steady it, but it doesn’t seem like Austin notices, and if he does notice that he’s shaking he doesn’t care because his face has a smile on it and he wraps his hand around my brother’s in a short handshake. “I wa-wa-want to tel-te-tell you wh-w-why I'm li-l-like th-thi-t-this.” Swallowing the lump in my throat, I realize that this is what Adam wants, he wants me to let a guy in and have him stay, he wants Austin to be that guy, because I can’t wipe the smile away when he’s around.

There was something that my brother always knew, he always knew when someone was worth my time, and he was always right in the end. All the girls that I tried to be friends with who only ignored me and used me because I would always be willing to drive to concerts. All the guys who ended up wanting nothing more than someone to vent to about other girls. All the bands that I wanted to meet, yet when I did they were horrible people.

Michelle walks over, placing her hand on the handle of his wheelchair, running a hand through her hair, sighing softly. “I think we can be done for today. Forget about the ten minutes. We’ll add it on to our session tomorrow, okay, Adam? It’s good to see you, Dev. And it’s nice to see you finally brought someone new around.” I know exactly what she is doing, I know her well enough to know, she knows me well enough to do this, because she’s trying to hint to him that I don’t do this, that even though it seems stupid and horrible for me not to tell him before this that just bringing him should show him that this is huge.

“Talk slowly. Think slowly and talk slowly.” I tell him, watching as Michelle walks out of the room, purposely leaving the Wii on, as if he’s going to ask one of us to play it with him, and I know that it isn’t because he likes the Wii games, but because he wants to show off his new skills and mobility. “Can I move you over to the couches so we can sit?”

&&.

“I was on the way home from the mall, after getting my mom a birthday present. She was always talking about how much she wanted one of those snow globes with the hologram picture of the three of us, when Devon and I were young. I loved my car. I spent years, since I was ten, saving up for it. It was an old muscle car, not really with any protection for the people inside of it. Back then, well, in New Jersey anyway, people were allowed to talk on their cell phones while driving. I mean, it wasn’t illegal like it is now, in New Jersey at least.

“I was in the middle lane. All of a sudden, this woman was driving in the right lane and she began swerving. I noticed that she was on her phone, and she was about to hit my car, so I honked, not realizing that she wasn’t paying attention to the road at all. And she hit me. She said that the honk startled her and she went to turn to the right to get out of the lane but she turned the wheel the wrong way.

“I don’t remember much. I just remember being hit by the car and everything shattering around me. I remember that I couldn’t breathe and the blood was dripping down my face and soaking my clothes. And I woke up two and a half months later. Devon said that they induced me into a coma. She said that when she got there, I was in the coma. I don’t know what happened for those two and a half months from my own memory, but the doctors and my mom and Devon told me.

“Apparently I died twice on the way to the hospital. I couldn’t just die, though. I raised my sister when my mom worked two jobs a day. Devon needed me. I was the one who protected her. I was the one who made sure no one bullied her. The roles are changed now. She acts like my older sister. My mom sleeps in my room instead of hers to make sure nothing goes wrong throughout the night.

“It’s been almost three years since the accident. They told me that I’ll never be able to walk, but that eventually I’ll be at the cognitive and speech levels that I was at before the accident.”

Tears are streaming down my face, my knees are pulled into my chest, and my arms are wrapped around my shins. It always sucks hearing it coming from him, it takes long, it’s a dragged out story, and it hurts even more because I can see everything that the accident did to him, short term and long term. Brushing the water from my cheeks with the back of my hands, I stand up, nodding my head towards our sleeping mother. “I'm going to wake her up.”

Austin Carlile’s Point of View

I walk as she walks over to the bed in the corner of the room, hesitant, like she doesn’t want to wake her mom, but she needs an excuse to get away from the conversation, from the memories. “You're a strong guy.” I don’t know what to say to him, he’s been through so much, and I can see what his accident has done to him and to her, to his mom too, and it’s painful. It hurts them all, in different ways, and no older brother should have to have the roles reversed.

“I tr-t-try to b-be str-st-stron-strong.” He didn’t mention how he pays for all of this, but he doesn’t have to, it suddenly all makes sense: the times one of the guys would pay for her food, the times she fought with them because of it, the comment she made to the lady behind the desk about needing to make money. She has the weight of the world on her shoulders and she’s still the most amazing person I’ve ever met.

This isn’t just his decision, I know that, it’s hers, too, because she needs to approve if I actually get his permission to do this. “I know that we don’t really know each other, but your sister means the world to me. And I know she won’t do this, and I feel like your story deserves to be heard. People should know about Devon’s hero. Can I tell your story?” And raise money for your treatment so Devon doesn’t have to feel so responsible because I can see it’s slowly killing her.