Point of View: Nick
I had finally drifted to sleep.
I hadn't been sleeping very well. I'd spent more hours in the dark, staring at the wall after the lights went out, the blankets laying over me, waiting for morning to come than I care to try to describe. Hours and minutes blurred together, forming an ice-like sheen in my memory. Standing on any one place of it too long caused me to slip around it uncontrollably.
I felt like a ship - a tiny one - being chucked around on hurricane gales in the middle of the ocean.
But I'd finally managed to pass this impossible stage, finally begun to actually sleep, to dream...
(I was dreaming of being home. It was a simple enough dream, but like I said I'd been thinking in shapes and forms rather than actual words, so I was impressed my mind was able to create a dream still. In it, I was laying in my own bed in my own room surrounded by my own stuff. Stuff that, in reality, was nothing but ash on my old property. Stuff like my CDs, my studio, my books, my journals, my guitar [poor Helga]... even the bed itself no longer existed.)
...when the door opened to the room.
I jumped awake and found myself staring at that same warden from before - the one that showed up the day Tattoo tried to attack me. I blinked up at him, my heart racing from being suddenly awoken. He stared down at me, surprise lit up his face at my appearance. He hesitated. "You... have a visitor..." he said finally.
A visitor? The words ran through my mind, though I'd tried to speak them outloud. My mouth kind of flopped like a fish a second, and I couldn't quite form it, so I closed it. I could feel tears of rage at my inability to communicate form behind my eyes and my nostrils flared, trying to repress them.
The warden frowned. "Come with me, son."
I struggled to my feet and followed him. He slowed by the common restrooms. "Did you...want to uh, to clean up a bit?" he asked. "I'm sure he'll wait..."
I hesitated, then nodded, and slipped into the bathroom. I turned on the light and made my way to the sinks. A ghost floated into view in the mirror. I stared at the reflection. There's no helping that, I thought, staring at myself in shock, horror, and a feeling of resignation. Hopefully it's not Kayla. I don't want her to see me.
I reemerged from the bathroom. The warden looked me over and frowned. I met his eyes, but I didn't say anything. He sighed and led me to the visitor's room. He reached for the knob and unlocked the door and pushed it open for me. I stepped inside, and he closed the door.
Kevin was sitting in a plastic chair at the table, hands folded on its top. He was staring at his hands. I could see the tension in his jaw when I stepped into the room, he closed his eyes and braced himself. "Nick?" he asked before looking.
I didn't answer, I couldn't.
Kevin looked up and his eyes fell on me. He stood up and walked around the table, standing about four feet away from me, staring. I felt his eyes traveling across me, scanning my hair, my eyes, my mouth, chin, neck, chest, stomach, arms, legs... I was filthy from head to foot, the seafoam scrubs hanging off me, cinched at the waist to keep from falling down. My chin was a thick wooly mass, my eyes sunk in and purpled around the rims...
The longest pause ever, with the heaviest silence I've felt in an extremely long time - loaded with unspoken words and fears and emotions and all kinds of weighty stuff - hung over us.
"Bloody fucking hell Nick," he gasped suddenly, his voice torn apart with emotion. He moved so quickly, grabbed me so fiercely and hugged me so tight to his chest that I couldn't breathe from the squeeze. He held me even though I smelled. He was shuddering... and I realized he was sobbing. "I'm so sorry," he cried. "I'm so sorry, Nick."
I felt tears come to my own eyes.
I struggled to form the words that were in my mind, to pull them from the memory buried somewhere below all the mush of triangles and rectangles and shadows and contours and penciled images that filled me. I reached into the past and found the echo of the nasty things I'd said that night in that hotel room... and I used all my strength to whisper...
"I'm not better off without you... You were right. I was killing myself, I was making so many mistakes and look where I got me? Look where I landed myself all this time later? Kev, if only I'd just listened to you... maybe I wouldn't be here right now. I'm so sorry I said all that mean stuff. I love you, Kevin."
