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Chapter 7: Living Reality

Exhaustion was fighting with all it's might to keep AJ in the land of the unliving, but the seering pain in his right hand brought him abruptly awake. He lay there a second, his eyes closed, unsure if he trusted himself enough to open them. As soon as he did, he closed them as quickly as he had opened them, for the dim lighting in the room seemed to be as bright as the sun and it was killing his head to let his eyes adjust to the light. He'd just settle with keeping his eyes closed. Maybe even for the rest of his life...

"Aje?"

Or maybe he wouldn't. He cringed at the sound of the voice, someone had obviously caught him peeking his eyes open. 'Go away' his pounding mind thought, now fighting to keep his eyes closed. It were as if they wanted to do the opposite of what he wanted to do. He wanted to keep them shut, they wanted to open... He wondered if he wanted them open, would they want to stay shut?

"Aje?" Now the owner of the voice was shaking his shoulder. He tried to shrugged the hand off, but the hand persisted. "C'mon Aje...you have to wake up."

Obviously he had to, but did his opinion matter if he said he didn't want to? The throbbing in his hand grew intensively worse, as if warning him to open his eyes. Slowly, he peeked his eyes open again and was met with a pair of concerned brown eyes. Ignoring the look they gave him, he looked around.

Where was he?

The more he thought about it, the more his head pounded. He couldn't think straight and confusion started to settle over him. His whole body ached, but he didn't know why. His hand felt like it was on fire, but again, he didn't know why. His head was about to explode, and of course, he didn't know why. At first glance, he didn't recognize his surroundings. The only thing he could be sure of was that he was laying atop a bed, an uncomfortable one to be exact.

"Can you hear me, Aje?"

"Yeah..stop yelling," he found himself replying in a gruntled voice. He winced as he tried to sit up, but his body was so weak that he could do nothing more then lift his head an inch off the pillow. "Ow...fuck..." he cried out as his whole body protested.

Howie raised an eyebrow oddly towards his friend. He knew for a fact that he wasn't yelling, he was actually speaking quieter then he usually did. "Take it easy buddy..." he told him as AJ attempted to sit up a second time, but once again cried out in pain.

"Howie, I think I'm dying!" AJ grimaced, squeezing his eyes shut. That had to be the reason why he was in so much pain. He couldn't think of any other logical reason why, so that had to be it.

"You're not dying Aje..." Howie answered, rolling his eyes, but his expressions turned serious immediately. "But you could have last night. Alex, what happened?"

AJ wanted to turn away and bury his face in the pillow, but he was afraid to move. Any sudden movement would result in a sure wave of agonizing pain and he didn't know if he could handle it. "What do you mean what happened?" he moaned, bringing his right hand unknowingly to his forehead. He saw the white gauze wrapped around his hand and he panicked. "What happened to my hand?!"

"Calm down Aje!" Howie answered, eying his friend with confusion. "Do you remember anything about last night?"

AJ didn't answer, instead he remained quiet, his eyes clouded over.

"Do you?"

"...No."

"You don't remember what happened between you and Kev yesterday?"

AJ shook his head.

"Or how you ran off?"

Again, he shook his head.

"...Or how you injured your hand?"

"No," AJ whimpered as a massive wave of nasuea washed over him. Just great, now he felt like he was going to be sick. Why couldn't he remember any of the answers to what Howie had just asked?

Howie sighed as he rested his elbows on his knees, studying the pained look on his best friend's face. AJ really didn't remember, and he knew that wasn't good. "You went out with that girl yesterday after making me promise to cover for you since you would be missing the meeting," he started, figuring he might as well tell AJ all that he knew of what had happened.

"What girl?" AJ asked, squinting his eyes.

"You introduced her to me as Jaymee," Howie answered, pausing to see if there was any hint of recognition towards the name in AJ's eyes. Howie found none and decided to continue. "The two of you went out for the day and when you returned, Kev was in your room, waiting for you to get back I guess. I don't know what happened before Brian and I came into your room, but when we walked in, you had Kev pinned on the floor and you were punching him, pretty badly too, Aje."

"GET THE HELL OUT OF MY ROOM!!!" AJ screamed, tackling Kevin to the floor. The next few moments whizzed by in what seemed like a matter of milliseconds. If AJ tried to think about it, he didn't even realize what he was doing.

"Get off me AJ!" Kevin yelled, paralized under AJ with shock.

"You stupid bastard!" AJ continued to scream and his fist came flying down into the side of Kevin's head.

AJ closed his eyes as that image flashed in front of him.

"I'm really glad Brian and I came when we did...because I don't know what you would have done if we wouldn't have," Howie told him.

"Holy shit!"

AJ didn't look up from using Kevin as a punching bag as the panicked voice sounded from the doorway to his room. The tears were now running down his face as he tried to throw punch after punch, and it wasn't until a strong pair of hands yanked him off of Kevin and tackled him to the floor did he finally cry out.

"You gave Kev a bloody nose and a good sized bruise on the left side of his temple. Brian had to take him to the ER to make sure it wasn't broken."

Besides the 'death stare' Kevin was giving him, there was a small stream of blood running down the side of Kevin's face, from beneath the tissues that Brian was being careful to hold against his cousin's nose. A dark bruise had already begun to form on the side of Kevin's left temple from the punch that AJ had first thrown at Kevin's head.

"...Was it?"

"I don't know...I haven't seen either of them since I brought you back here early this morning. I didn't think I would, it was pretty early in the moring. I think around two or three."

"Brought me back from where?" AJ was almost afraid to ask, but maybe it would give him some clue as to why he was suffering from so much misery. He still didn't understand why he had done what Howie had just told him he had done to Kevin.

"The hospital," Howie answered.

"Why?"

"You ran from the room after I tore you away from Kev. We didn't know where you were. Nick and I went out looking for you, but we couldn't find you. The two of us were worried sick. Aje, where did you go last night?"

AJ thought long and hard and that's when it all came back to him, causing him to gasp.

"I'm taking Kev to the ER to get his nose checked out. Thanks to somebody, it might now be broken!" Brian announced in a tone that niether AJ, Howie, nor Kevin had ever heard before.

AJ opened his mouth to apologize, but nothing but a gasp of air came rushing out. He felt several of his tears drip into his mouth and he cringed from the taste. He knew he had really screwed up now. Kevin had to of hated him now after what he had just done, and by the look Brian was giving him, it seemed worse then the one Kevin's face held, and if AJ wasn't mistaken, he knew Brian had lost all respect he'd ever had for him.

But AJ didn't blame any of them for hating him now.

He'd really screwed up big time.

With a sudden burst of energy, he came out of his paralasis and pushed Howie away from him and jumped up from the floor. Before Howie could react, AJ bolted from the room, not looking back at his three bandmates.

He remembered running from his hotel room. He remembered how the tears were falling and he couldn't stop them, how they stung his cheeks. He remembered how he had ran out of the hotel, through the backdoor they had always used and just stood in the cold alleyway, trying to decide where to go. Then he remembered walking into the club and how the pounding music made his head want to split open.

The only thing he couldn't remember was the period of time between arriving at the club and coming back to the hotel. It was like it had been erased from his memory, no matter how hard he searched for it.

"I know you're remembering now. Just tell me where you went. Nick and I looked for you, but we didn't find you anywhere. Where did you go?" Howie pressed for an answer, determined to not give up until he got a satisfying answer.

"The...a...that...that club down the street..." AJ finally answered.

'Shit!' Howie's mind exclaimed as he heard the words leave AJ's mouth. That was the only place him and Nick hadn't looked. They didn't expect to find AJ there because he hadn't been big on going out and drinking alot by himself since he had gone into rehab. He didn't drink much anymore anyway. "Exactly how much did you have to drink?"

"I don't know!" AJ cried out as his hand began to burn. He cradled it gingerly against his chest as tears of pain welled in his eyes. His stomach was now twisting and turning, churning it's way up his throat. He was about ready to lose whatever contents he had in his stomach.

"Aje..." Howie hesitated, seeing the distressed look on his friend's face. He didn't like the fact that AJ's face was paling more and more with each second.

"Oh God, move!" AJ choked as he suddenly jumped up from the bed and went running into the bathroom. He slammed the door shut before Howie could even get to it.

"AJ!" Howie yelled, pounding on the door with his fist. He listened closely and all he could hear was AJ retching inside. His own stomach turned as he tried the door knob again. It was locked.

AJ continued to heave into the porcelain bowl, spitting out the foul liquid that burned his throat as it continued to come up with each cough. He really did feel like he was dying at the moment. He didn't think he could take it any longer, until finally, nothing else came up and he collapsed against the wall. He gasped for air several minutes afterwards.

"Alex?"

He could hear Howie calling to him through the door and he just sat there staring at it. His head hurt worse then ever now as he sat there, thinking about everything he had done. Hurting Kevin and messing up more then one friendship. Running away from the problem and drinking himself to point where he couldn't remember anything up until returning to the hotel.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a faint red stain on the tiled bathroom floor and he cringed at the thought of what that was. He knew what it was from as he looked down at his bandaged hand and the reason why it was injured. It had happened because of the pain-wrenching memories of the one person he thought he loved more then anything in the world.

He was sobbing freely now, staring back at his horrible reflection in the mirror. The lyrics from the radio continued to burn a whole in his heart until he let out a loud cry and suddenly smashed the glass into the hard wall. Instead of letting go of the glass as it hit the wall, he used his hand to push it harder against the wall.

He didn't care about the fact that the shattered glass that was pinned between his hand and the wall was cutting into his skin. He felt too much pain in his heart to feel the pain in his hand.

The blood began to flow from his hand and dripped down his arm. When he saw the crimson liquid, he collapsed to the ground, shards of glass sticking in his hand as the rest fell to the ground.

The shards from the broken glass had long been cleaned up, but the faint stain was a defenite reminder of how he had hurt himself. He had screwed up way more then once that day, and in the middle of everything he damaged two friendships that meant everything to him.

He didn't know how he was going to be able to fix this problem now.