Lucy
I push open the door to my brother's apartment. I walk through the garbage on the floor and knock on his bedroom door.
"Max, are you in there?" I call, trying to open the door. It's locked. "Max, let me in, it's Lucy."
There is no answer. I bang louder on the door. "Max!"
I decide to look around the rest of his apartment for him just in case he was already awake. I'm carrying a bag under my arm, something that he wanted me to bring from home. I dropped it by the kitchen door frame and peered around the bead curtain, hoping to see him sitting at the table. But he wasn't there.
"Max, seriously, where are you?"
I walked over to Jude's old room and looked at the bed, which was neatly made. I sighed and walked over to the bed, looking out on the roof where Prudence once sat and sulked.
I opened the window a bit, letting in a cool breeze. I smiled a bit, and then tried to see Sadie's old room from the one I was standing in.
Wasn't that Max's room now? I hadn't been here in so long, it was hard to tell. The curtains were drawn anyways, so I couldn't see inside.
I walked over to Max's door again. "Max!"
Jude finally walks in. "Sorry I'm late, Lucy." He says, gasping for breath. "The stairs." He points back to the open door where I see the stairs.
"Yeah, I know. It's alright." I say, smiling.
"Where's Max?" He says after a second of silence. "Is he home?"
"I think so. I called him last night before bed to make sure he was going to be here. He said that the bag was important, or something."
"It doesn't look like anyone has been here in a long time." He said, looking in his old room. "Look at that. Me old bed. Me old room." He smiles and I smile back.
I kiss him lightly. Then I walk back to Max's room. I knock on the door.
"Max, come on, open up. It's us."
There was silence.
Jude walked over. "How long have you been here?" He asked, obviously worried for his best friend.
"About 10 minutes."
Jude knocked on the door. "Max, come on. Open up. You don't want us to break down the door, do you?" He laughs a bit, and then stops when he hears no answer.
"Try and open the door, Jude." I asked, my face getting hotter. I was getting worried.
He pushed on the door. He turned the handle left and right, but it wouldn't budge. Finally, he pushed on the door with his shoulder and the door burst open.
"Max?" I call out to his room, which is dark considering the sun is shining.
We walk through his room and see him lying on the bathroom floor.
"Max??" I yell, looking at him on the ground. My eyes move from the blood on his fingers, to the broken mirror, the broken light bulb…
I run over quickly, falling to my knees. "Max!"
Jude is over with me too. "Max?" He's saying. "Max, can you hear us?"
"Max!" I'm shaking his shoulder. Tears are springing in my eyes. There's glass on the floor and I can feel it digging in my legs. But I'm so scared I don't notice. "Call an ambulance!" I yell suddenly, picking up his head and holding it in my arms.
Jude runs out of the room and picks up the phone.
I kiss his forehead. "Max…" I see pieces of glass surrounding the label of a liquor company, and I close my eyes very tight.
I grip his blonde hair in my fingers. "Max, wake up, wake up…" I look over at Jude, who is staring at the phone. "Call someone! Why aren't you calling someone??"
"The phone is dead." He says, holding the phone up to his face.
Tears spring to my eyes and I shut them tight again.
Nothing is real…
Jude
I watch Lucy as she walks back and forth across the room. It isn't a very large room, so it doesn't take long for her to walk past me both ways. Her flowered dress rubs against my knee every time she rushes past, sometimes letting out a little sob, or chewing on her fingers.
I watch her feet, moving quickly across the room.
"I can't believe that…" She cuts herself off and continues pacing. "I hope that…" She wipes her eyes and sobs a bit.
I try to meet her eye, but I can't look up.
I wonder what was going on through Max's head. I kind of wanted to know what he was thinking, what he was feeling. I wanted to feel that. If that wasn't too weird.
I remembered when I first met Max, him dropping his schoolbooks everywhere. And how much Lucy loved him, running up to his car and wrapping her arms around his neck.
He was such a great guy.
Is a great guy, I correct myself. Is.
"I can't believe it…" Lucy is mumbling, chewing on her fingers in worry, walking faster.
I take out a box of cigarettes from my pocket and shake one out the top when a nurse walks in.
I slide it in the side of my mouth when she says, "This is a non-smoking room."
And then I get a sudden wave of relief.
If Max wasn't okay, she would have let me have the smoke.
I pull the cigarette out of my mouth.
"There is a smoking area outside if you wish to…"
"Just tell us if he is going to be okay." Lucy demands in a shaky, but strong voice.
She glares at me, and then looks softly at Lucy.
"We think we know what the problem is, but we need you to answer some questions."
Lucy nods. "Is he okay?" We both ask.
"We think he is going to be fine."
We both let out a sigh of relief. I close my eyes and my heart slows down a bit. Max was fine.
"But I still need you to answer these questions, okay?" She says. I notice her hair is tied back in a knot made of her own hair, tied together with a pencil. She pulls a clipboard from the desk, and reached for the pencil in her hair.
Once she takes the pencil out, her red hair sweeps over her shoulders. It kind of reminded me of Lucy's hair, when she used to wear it down. Now that she was getting more and more into her job, her hair was tied back most of the time.
"Has Max ever done drugs, such as cocaine, marijuana…" Lucy closes her eyes, in almost sheer disappointment.
"Yeah." She says, deadpan. "He has."
"Does he have a drinking problem?"
Lucy opens her eyes, and we both snap our attention to her.
"A problem?" Lucy repeats.
"Yes." The nurse continues, switching her gaze from me and then back to Lucy. "Do you find he can't stop drinking, or is always looking for a drink? Alcohol?"
Lucy scrunched up her face. "No."
I closed my eyes and spoke. "Max drinks."
They both turn and look at me. I continue, feeling a little awkward.
"What?" Lucy asks, bewildered and disappointed… again.
"He drinks when we go out, when we golf, when we're just hanging with the other lads."
She scribbles something down, and I almost wish I could take the words I spoke away.
"Is Max depressed?" She asks, looking up.
"No." Lucy says right away, like she couldn't believe what she was being told.
She looks over at me. "Do you think he is depressed?"
Lucy scoffs. "Jude and I live together. We love each other, and we both love Max. We're going to have the same answers."
I realize that Lucy is getting in a fight with the nurse. I don't know why, maybe from the stress over Max? Probably the stubbornness she was born with.
She looks over at me. "I thought that maybe his voice is being silenced. I would just like to hear both sides of the story."
Lucy looks at the nurse, and then back at me.
"Is Max depressed, Jude?" The nurse asks. I wonder how she knows my name, and then I remember I had to sign in to get into the hospital.
I look at Lucy.
"Well…" Lucy's face gets a concerned look on her face, like she was heart-broken to not have known her big brother was depressed. "He has been different since the war in Vietnam."
"Vietnam?" The nurse repeats, astonished. "He's a veteran?"
We both look at her. "Yeah." Lucy says. "It says that in his records. Didn't you look at his records?"
The nurse is shifting around. "Well, it's not really my job to be looking at the records; Doctor Starkey takes care of that. I'm just here to ask some questions and then bring them back to him."
"Well go look at the records." Lucy snaps, quite bitterly. "Find the answers there."
The nurse stutters a bit. "I kind of thought that it would be better to talk to you first, just in case there was an error, or something that had changed recently and not yet been recorded."
"When can I see him?" Lucy asks, staring at her with a hard, worried, scared glare.
The nurse flips her paper. "Dr. Starkey is seeing him now. I think we know what's wrong with him, now. It won't be long."
"What's wrong with him?" Lucy asks.
"How long?" I ask quickly after her.
"Nightmares and hallucinations from the war." She says like it's obvious. And we think about it, and we realize it is kind of obvious. "I'll ask Dr. Starkey when he will be finished. Excuse me."
She walks out, and Lucy collapses on the chair next to mine.
We sit there, listening to each other breathe.
"That's good." I say finally. "They know what's wrong with him. They're going to make him better."
She doesn't say anything back.
"It's good that they have everyone making an effort, don't you think?"
Nothing.
I lean back in my chair. I feel like a smoke, but I keep it in my pocket.
"I saw you took a liking to that nurse." She said finally, shortly and sharply.
"What?" I say, laughing a bit.
"Her long red hair. I saw you watching her."
So that's what the snappiness was about. It wasn't stress... or stubbornness… it was jealousy.
I smile. "It reminded me of your long hair, when you used to wear it down, in front of your eyes." I pull a strand of hair from the front of her face and tuck it behind her ear.
"Oh, pull the other one." She says, and by the tone of her voice, I know we aren't going to fight. And I'm glad.
Lucy
We walk quietly into his room. I almost run over to sit on his bed and hold his hand, but I contain myself.
My heart swells when I see cuts on his fingers. I walk fast over to the corner of his bed.
His eyes open, and I can tell that he is trying really hard to keep them that way.
"Hey Luce." He says, his voice barely a whisper.
Tears come to my eyes.
"Hey Max." I say, so happy that he's alive.
He breathes in the hospital air. "I must have looked pretty goddamned ridiculous on the bathroom floor, like that." He says a little louder, clearing his throat.
I breathe in sharply. "Please don't talk about it Max."
He nods. "I knew you would say that." He says, his voice almost returning to normal, and then sits up a bit. "It's funny, kind of… You're my baby sister and you always end up taking care of me."
My heart swells and jumps up in my throat. "I love you Max." My breathing is uneven. "I was so scared that I was going to lose you. I walked in… and you were on the floor for God knows how long and…" I cut myself off, trying not to remember. "You make me so scared, Max. I never want to lose you."
He smiles faintly, and then looks around. "Where's Jude at?"
"The nurse only wanted one of us coming in at a time." I say back, looking at the ground. "Do you want to see him?"
He nodded. "Come back after him." He said as I stood up.
"I didn't need you to ask me that." I smile, even though nothing is funny, and then walk out.
