“What happened?” I ran straight to my mother when I got to the sixth floor of the hospital.
One of the nurses had personally escorted me there. Apparently, the sixth floor was one nobody spoke of, where celebrities often were treated but never talked about. Mom stood from her chair and met me halfway, opening her arms for me as I reached her. That alone scared the fuck out of me. Mom wasn’t the most affectionate person. To her, limited affection was key to a successful being. It was one of the many outcomes she’d come up with during the extensive studies she’d done on human interactions. It was an idea my father always frowned upon, being that he came from a family of huggers and over-affectionate people and had obviously turned out just fine.
“What happened?” I pulled away. “Where’s Lincoln?”
“Oh, Amelia.” Her voice cracked, tears filling her green eyes as she looked at me briefly before pulling me into her again. “He’s gone. Lincoln is gone.”
If there was ever a time when I would have fainted, it would have been then, in my mother’s arms, in the middle of a sterile, quiet hospital. A fat tear rolled down my face, then another, and another, but my mind still couldn’t process those words or what they meant.
“What do you mean gone?” I croaked. “What does gone mean? Where did he go?”
Suddenly, her arms felt like cages that I needed to rip away from. I pulled away and stepped back, swaying on my feet.
“Where’s dad?” I asked. “What do you mean gone?”
“He’s dead.” She wiped her face.
I took a good look at her then. I’d never seen my mother without makeup. I’d never seen her wear anything outside of the house that wasn’t tailored to perfection and pressed. She was wearing green and blue checkered Polo pajamas. Pajamas. Out of the house. I’d never seen wrinkles or hair in disarray. I’d never seen grief so blatantly etched on her face. I stumbled back, this time, landing on my ass, and I sat there, on the hard, cold floor. Who was dead? My father? Lincoln was gone, had he killed him? No. He may have had issues with dad, but he wouldn’t resort to murder. Would he? I looked back up at mom, my pent-up confusion and pain rolled together as I wailed.
“Who’s dead? Who died?”
She took a shuttering breath as she walked over and crouched in front of me. I could see that she was doing everything in her power to calm down, to pull the perfect psychiatrist mask over her face in order to help me deal with this, but she couldn’t. Not when she obviously didn’t know how to process it herself.
“Your brother is dead,” she said slowly, taking a breath. “He killed himself last night.”
“No.” I shook my head, tears filling my eyes again.
“Yes.”
“No.” I continued shaking my head. “No.”
“Amelia,” she said softly. “Do you think I want to accept this? That my own son—” Her voice broke. “My own son . . . ”
“No.” I slapped the floor on either side of me. “He wouldn’t do that!”
“He did. He overdosed. He did.”
“He wouldn’t.” My brother was the ultimate health nut. He hated the mere idea of drugs. I stood quickly, pacing, walking down the corridor as I yelled. “Where is he? Where is he?”
“Amelia please,” Mom sobbed. I’d never seen mom sob. I’d never seen her cry—period.
“How?” My chin wobbled. My arms shook. “How could this happen? Weren’t you watching him? Aren’t you a fucking expert in this?”
It was unfair. I knew it even as I blamed her, but I couldn’t help it. My brother. My best friend. My . . . I started to sob, my shoulders shaking as I held myself together. He was a light in this world. Why would he want to extinguish it? How could he? It wasn’t possible. A door opened and shut loudly, and my head snapped up, fully expecting Lincoln to walk out of there. Lincoln, with a presence so massive, he’d take up an entire arena. Instead, it was my father.
“He’s not dead,” he said.
Mom and I both gasped loudly.
“How can that be? Felipe. He was dead. We saw him,” she said rapidly. “How? Did he—”
“They revived him. They revived him,” Dad said, and then he stumbled into the nearest chair, buried his face in his hands and started to cry. “Oh my God, that was so scary. Oh my God. I thought I lost him.”
Mom rushed over to him, taking the seat beside him and wrapping an arm around him. They cried together as I stood there. My brother wasn’t dead. They didn’t let me see him until the next day. When I walked into the room, he was attached to tubes, and needles were protruding from his skin. He looked frail and uncomfortable. It was just the two of us in the room when his eyes snapped open. I stood right beside him, holding his hand. His eyeballs moved to look at me. He looked scared, as if he was trying to tell me something, but couldn’t with the tube that was in his mouth.
“I’m going to call for the nurse,” I said.
His hand squeezed mine slightly. He shook his head no.
“But, Linc, I can’t do anything.” My hand shook over his. “I need to tell them to come—”
His hand squeezed again. He shook his head no.
“Why’d you try to kill yourself?” I asked, unable to keep from crying. I brought a hand up to wipe the tears from my face, but they kept coming.
He squeezed my hand again. Shook his head no, but his own eyes filled with tears.
I stared at him. “You didn’t try to kill yourself?”
He shook his head slightly.
“Why would . . . ” I frowned. “I don’t understand.”
He started tapping on my hand. At first, I thought that was all it was, but then he tapped harder, squeezed harder, opened his eyes wider as if he needed me to pay attention. Morse code.
“Morse code?” I asked, my voice barely audible over the knot in my throat.
He nodded.
I took out my phone and opened my notepad, writing down all of the dots and dashes. I couldn’t remember the alphabet.
“I’ll have to translate this,” I said. He shot me an exasperated look. “I can’t remember the alphabet.”
His eyes twinkled and he made a noise from his throat, as if he wanted to laugh, and then fell into a fit. I hit the button for the nurse and stepped away when they rushed in. His entire body shook the bed and his eyes rolled back.
“What is happening?” I shouted. “What is happening?”
More nurses rushed inside. “Step back, he’s having a seizure.”
“Get her outside,” another shouted. Arms wrapped around me as they ushered me towards the door.
“Lincoln,” I yelled, fighting against the nurse. “Lincoln. I love you.”
Lincoln was forced into a coma that day. In twenty-four hours, I went from having a brother, to losing him, to having him again, but not quite.
Chapter 6
It wasn’t fair.
I walked around my parent’s house in a haze, with that thought in mind. It just wasn’t fucking fair. Travis wrapped his arm around my shoulder and kissed the top of my head.