Unable to convince himself that that was the case, Warrick went out looking for Nick. He drove around aimlessly until he finally spotted Nick's car in the parking lot of one of the new bars on the strip. Warrick pulled in and parked his car before hopping out and heading into the bar to find Nick. Once inside, he scanned all the people three or four times before he was satisfied that Nick wasn't inside. He sighed and walked up to the bartender to see if he knew where he was.
"Excuse me...have you seen a guy around here with black hair, he's a little shorter and skinnier than me with pretty tan skin?"
The bartender nodded. "Yeah...I think his name is Nick, right?"
"Yeah, that's him. Is he here?"
The bartender jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "I'm pretty sure he's out in the back parking lot. A couple guys started a kind of 'fight club' a couple weeks ago. They buy a bunch of beer then go out there. I'm almost positive you can find Nick there."
"Thanks man." Warrick said before heading out of the bar in the direction the bartender had told him Nick would be.
Warrick walked through the back door into the parking lot in the back of the bar. There were only a few cars parked in the front row. Other than that, it was completely deserted. Warrick sighed again and turned to go back inside but stopped when he heard the ragged sound of someone coughing harshly off to his right. He walked around the last car in the row and saw Nick sitting with his back against the brick wall of the bar. He had a beer bottle in his hand and several others scattered around him. His face and arms were bruised and cut up. There was a pool of blood near his left foot. Warrick could see blood in between his teeth and could only guess that the sound he had heard before was Nick coughing up blood and spitting it from his mouth.
"What the fuck are you doing?" Warrick asked as he kneeled down in front of Nick.
"Having a drink. Want one?" He offered, extending his hand out to his friend.
Warrick shook his head, but grabbed the bottle from Nick. "No, and you're not having any more either. What happened to you man?"
Nick shrugged. "Nothing. Me and a couple other guys here just found a good way to blow off steam. It's not a big deal, relax."
"This isn't a movie Nick. You can seriously get yourself hurt. And since when do you drink so God damn much?" Nick just stared at Warrick blankly. "This isn't good for you, you gotta knock it off before you end up in a hospital."
Nick responded by pulling a pack of cigarettes out of the back pocket of his jeans along with a lighter. He lit the cigarette and took a drag of it before blowing the smoke out of his mouth and into Warrick's face.
"Hopefully I'll be dead before I even make it to the hospital."
Warrick was growing impatient. "Stop fucking around Nick!" He yelled. "What's gotten into you? You've always been able to handle anything."
"That was before I almost killed myself and had to see my best friend blame himself for it every single day after I got out. That was before I had to think about what I would have done if it had been you instead of me. That was before I had to live with the fact that three people ended up dying because of me. I could handle anything when I was alive. But I should be dead."
"If you were supposed to have died down there, you would have. But you didn't because that's not how it was supposed to be." Warrick said.
Nick shook his head. "That doesn't change how I think or feel about what happened. That doesn't change the fact that I was seconds away from killing myself."
Warrick gripped Nick's arms with his strong hands. "You're never gonna get over this if you keep thinking like that. You can't move on if you don't think that you were rescued for a reason. We got you out safely and you're still here. That counts for something."
Nick lit another cigarette. "Not much." He said softly. "Things like that change a person forever. I can't be who I was before because I've given up on ever being happy. I gave up on caring. I'm sick of you asking me if I'm okay and trying to make me be okay. I'm never gonna be okay."
"Why?" Warrick asked.
"Because you gave up too." Nick almost yelled. "I saw it in your eyes when you brushed away all the dirt and saw me with the gun. You told me to put it down, but your eyes didn't. I could see it in your eyes that you had given up on the fact that I could pull through it alive. You gave up on me."
Warrick stood up. "If I gave up on you, then what do you think I'm still doing here?" He asked angrily.
"Trying to fix me so you won't feel so guilty all the time."
Warrick scoffed at that. "What makes you think I feel guilty about what happened to you? It wasn't my fault, I didn't tell him to bury you and leave you for dead. Why should I feel guilty?"
Nick stood up slowly and took a second to stand firmly. "If you don't, then what's the reason for the way you've been acting around me since then? You act like I'll break if you get too close to me or say the wrong thing. You've been acting like you were the one who put me down there, not the reason I got out."
Warrick wanted to walk away, but he was glued to the spot by Nick's glare. "Would it make you feel better about yourself if I did feel guilty about it? Would that make you stop acting like such a wreckless jackass?"
"Maybe. But it probably wouldn't make you feel better about it, so to be safe why don't you make sure to stop by a couple casinos on your way back to the wife you don't love and place some bets to blow off the steam I keep making you build up."
That did it. Warrick was so frustrated and pissed off at Nick that he couldn't stop himself from reaching back and throwing his fist forward into Nick's already bruised face as hard as he could. Nick stumbled back a couple steps until his back hit the wall, and then he was slowly sliding down it at an angle until he reached the cold, wet ground. He somehow managed to hold himself up and looked up at Warrick.
Neither one of them said anything. They just coldly stared at each other, trying to figure out what to do. Warrick tried to ignore the throbbing in his hand and wished he didn't know the reason for it being there. After a few minutes, he shook his head slowly and sighed heavily. He turned and walked away from Nick, past the parked cars and over to the door he had come through not too long ago. He didn't look back until he reached the door. When he glanced over his shoulder at Nick, he saw the faint glow of another cigarette and watched as the Texan slowly laid down on the ground so he was flat on his back with his knees slightly back. He watched as Nick blew smoke from his mouth once more before opening the door and walking through it, leaving the deafening silence behind him.
After a sleepless night, Warrick found himself standing on Nick's doorstep. He knocked twice and waited patiently to be answered. It didn't take long for Nick to slowly open the door. When he did, Warrick could honestly say he hadn't expected Nick to look as bad as he did. His face was still bruised and cut up, as was his arms and bare chest. His eyes were bloodshot. His knees were shaking and Warrick noticed that he was wearing the same jeans he had been the night before.
"I just uh...wanted to make sure you got home okay." Warrick said, trying to lighten the mood of the situation.
"They have phone for that kind of thing." Nick said. He turned around and walked back into his house. He left the door open, so Warrick entered and closed it behind him.
"Well you didn't answer it last night when I was trying to find out where you were, so I figured I'd just be better off coming right over here." He followed Nick over to the couch and sat down next to him.
Nick sniffed a couple times before slowly closing his eyes and leaning back into the leather couch. "That's a good point." He said. His voice was scratchy and didn't sound like Nick's. "I'm fine though, so if that's all you wanted you can go."
Warrick sighed. He ran his hand over his face as he looked around him. His eyes scanned over Nick's normally clean living room. DVDs, CDs and magazines were scattered in various places. Beer bottles were covering almost every flat surface that wasn't already occupied. Warrick's eyes finally landed on the coffee table in front of him. He didn't want to believe what he saw, but it suddenly explained Nick's current state.
"Nick...please tell me that's not what I think it is." Warrick said, still staring at the white powdery substance on the coffee table. "Honeslty..."
Nick opened his eyes. He followed Warrick's gaze and nodded when he saw what he was talking about. Nick sat up and looked at Warrick. "Well, do you want me to be honest or do you want me to tell you that it's not cocaine?"
"You're kidding me, right?"
"No, unfortunately not. I'm trying to mellow out...be more like my old self. This seems to be working I think."
Warrick tore his eyes away from the drugs and looked at Nick. "Cocaine? That's your solution for everything? You can't keep taking that stuff man, it'll kill ya."
"That's sorta the point." Nick mumbled.
Warrick shook his head slowly. "Why are you doing this to yourself?"
Nick didn't have a good answer for that question. He honestly didn't know why he was acting the way he was. He guessed he was just trying to make all the pain that had built up over the last two years just go away. That was part of it, but not why entriely. No, there was something else digging at him that he doubted would ever fully go away.
Instead of trying to explain all that to Warrick, Nick just shrugged. "I don't know. But it seems to be working."
Warrick ignored Nick's half ass explanantion. "You need to stop. I'm serious, you can't keep doing this. Do you have any idea what this what do to everyone if one day you just don't come into work and later we find you dead in your house from an overdose? I know that you've changed, but you're never gonna be that selfish. You would never do that to the people that love you."
Nick hung his head. "I don't want to stop."
"I don't care, you're gonna."
Nick picked his head back up and looked at Warrick. "Normally I'd listen to you. But now it's just like we're going through the motions, ya know? You don't really care about me anymore. You have a different, better life and want as little to do with me as possible. It's okay, I understand. Just stop pretending to care."
Warrick's eyes were locked with Nick's. He couldn't have looked away if he had tried his hardest. He thought about what Nick had just said and tried to convince himself that he was wrong. But the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. Ever since he had gotten married, him and Nick spent less time together. He had stopped worrying so much about whether or not Nick was okay and focused all his energy on keeping his marriage from falling apart. But now their friendship was falling apart, and it seemed like nothing was going to keep it from ending in complete disaster.
"You want me to just give up on you?" Warrick asked.
"You already have. Just admit to it and make this a helluva lot easier for both of us."
Warrick stood up quickly. "Fuck you Nick!" He yelled. "I never gave up on you. If I had, I would have let you blow your brains out. But I still wanted you around. The old you, not this." He said, motioning to the cocaine lying off to his right.
Nick stood up as well. "You know damn well you've changed as much as I have and this is as much your fault as it is mine. We both fucked up."
"So that makes it okay for you to be an alcoholic and start doing drugs? That's a completely different change than me and you know it."
"No it's not." Nick said, shaking his head. "I use alcohol and drugs, and you use gambling. Different things, but for the same reason."
Warrick threw his hands up in the air. "Fine. You win. I give up on trying to keep you alive. I can't stop you from self-destructing, so I give up. Are you happy?"
Nick shrugged slightly. "No, but it's a start."