Breathe

sleepless.

~tw whole chapter~

It took three days. Three days of George waking up to Nick shaking his shoulders to snap him out of the nightmares that lingered in his sleep. You had another nightmare, dude. Three days of waking up and forgetting about Clay's attempt and thinking we should record a video, only to realize that Clay wasn't awake, and the doctors didn't know if he would be. Three days of panic attacks that shook him to his very core.

Please come back to me.

Three days of Nick screaming in his sleep at the sight of Clay's broken body in the bathtub. Three days of not being able to face his monitor. Three days of calming George during his panic attacks whilst not being able to calm his own.

I said I would keep you safe. I promised.

It took three days for the two boys to compose themselves enough to go see Clay in the hospital. Three days to collect their emotions and put them away long enough to see their brother. Three days to accept the fact that Clay overdosed and slit his wrists to try and escape the cruel world in which he lived. Three days to accept the fact that they might have to get used to a world without him.

That morning, George walked numbly into Nick's room, where he sat on his bed, staring at nothing and everything all at once.

"We should go see him," George said as he sat down next to Nick.

Nick didn't respond. As much as he wanted to see Clay, he didn't know if he could handle seeing the tubes and wires, the monitors and machines that connected to his best friend. He didn't know if seeing Clay breathing with the help of a machine because the damage the Tylenol did to his brain left him unable to breathe on his own was something he was going to be able to handle.

He didn't want to hear the steady beeping signalling that Clay was still alive, because every beep was on borrowed time. Every beep could be Clay's last.

After a minute of silence, George sighed. "He needs us, Nick. We can't just sit in our beds all day every day thinking that it's not real, because it is. The longer we try to convince ourselves that this isn't happening, the worse it's going to be when it comes back and bites us in the ass."

Nick whirled around to face George, tears forming in his eyes. "What about us, George ?" he cried. "What about the fact that seeing him scares me more than I can comprehend ? What about the fact that we found his bleeding body in a bathtub ? What about driving to the hospital in an ambulance with paramedics in the back trying desperately to keep him alive ? What about that, George ?"

George was silent. Nick was right. He didn't know if he could look at Clay's body, still breathing only because of the ventilator, and not lose all composure he had. 

"This isn't about us," he said quietly.

"I bet that's what he thought, too," Nick whispered, his body shaking as the sobs came. George pulled Nick close and cried with him. "How could he do this to us, George ? After everything we went through to pull him away from the edge, after all of the sleepless nights to calm him, how... ?"

George shook his head. "He's in pain, Nick. He is in such great emotional pain that I pray neither of us would be able to understand. We tried to help him, we did everything we could. He just needed help that neither of us could give."

"It wasn't good enough ! We weren't good enough !" Nick yelled, pulling away from George. "This is our fault. We should have been there, we shouldn't have left him, we should have-" More sobs cut off his speaking, and he leaned back into George.

After a few minutes, Nick's breathing slowed and his crying stopped. George moved to look Nick in the eyes. 

"This is not our fault," he said firmly. "This is not anybody's fault. Clay wasn't well enough to be able to beat it on his own. It is not his fault and it is not your fault and it is not my fault. No one is to blame here. Now, before you try and convince me otherwise, we are going to go see him today. It doesn't matter how much it hurts, because the reality is, if we don't go see him and support him, it really will be our fault."