Disclaimer/warning! Logan's part is supposed to be hard to read and oddly poetic considering his brain injury. I also wish to express my dearest apologies for taking forever to update, but I have a pretty busy schedule. So, yeah. I also own nothing in relation to BTR or in this chapter's case, The Catcher in the Rye.
LPOV
Alone. I am alone. She is gone and I am alone. Alone forever. I am alone in an infinite death. An infinite death that prevails in life, leaving me alone. She's alone too. She must linger in her final moments of life. Moments spent in shock and anguish and agony. She is alone and preserved in the kind of alone only held by death. She is alone, and with out her I am too.
This is the alone that Kendall felt when he etched the word in tears and ink. A dreaded alone where letting someone in is a thought you can't risk to think. You don't even want to let anyone in. Why would you spoil such pain on someone whom it would brake? But Kendall did brake. He broke in to thousands of pieces before he decided to end. To end. I don't want to end though. I want to be alive and alone because that's what I did my whole life before I met her and I now must go back to before then. Because we can no longer be alone together. Camille and I.
"Logan," She called softly. The doctor who entered my room. She wants me to speak; I assume that's why she came. She stands in the door, pausing at first, awaiting a reply she expects to be in verse.
"Yes." I call stopping my voice from sounding meek and turning my attention to the IV that leak. Leaking chemicals in to my body, trying to limit my ability to create.
"Logan I would like you to look at me." What an unpleasant request for attention. I oblige in spite. "We are getting desperate when it comes to the swelling in your brain." Her voice was to calm to admit desperation. "We are going to operate to drain the fluid collecting in your brain. To do this we must drill a whole in to the side of your head, and requires you to be conscious. I've made it sound more dangerous than it is, but its risky enough that we need consent from your biological mother." What mother? I've lived with out her for 3 years. "Your mom will be here with in a few hours and as of now the surgery is scheduled for tomorrow morning."
"Okay." The only word I speak. She wants me to say more, but why should I let her in to make her see me as a freak. She wants to judge the world with in my mind; the infinite thoughts of a universe that no one else can seem to find. The abyss of mortality and grieving morality. She wants me to talk to hear me create and I want to be heard, but not by one whom she herself described me as disturbing. Why is she so eager to listen if she is so frightened?
"Logan, do you have any questions about your surgery?" She tries to capture me again, but for her sake I can stand in both universes at once.
"No, should I?"
"No, I was just wondering if you had any questions about the procedure or if you were nervous at all."
"Nervous about what?"
"The brain surgery you are about to receive." She said this as if it were obvious, which, it might have been to her.
"Would it be rational for me to be nervous about this?"
"Yes, that would be the normal response…"
"Than no, I am not nervous."
From behind her a voice sounded. Calling for response and sounding just to sound. Hoping that there would be something left of her son to answer.
"Logan?" my mother asked at the door. "I know I'm early, but I was just hoping to speak with him for a few hours."
I didn't hear the rest of what she said because by that time I had both feet in my universe.
CPOV
"Mama you can't bring me home, you can't do that to the band."
"This isn't about the band Carlos, this is about your safety. Why don't you understand? Being out here and living this life has made you reckless. You were nearly killed!"
"You think I don't know that? Of course I do! But staying here isn't for me; it's for the band! And, being out here hasn't made me reckless. I was fine. I am FINE!
"That's all you say! "It's for the band." Why has fame come to mean more than to you than you're life? I raised you better than that Carlos Roberto Garcia!"
"Fame? Is that what you think the band means to me? When I say the band I mean the guys. My best friends, I mean. I need to be out here for them, for Kendall. I couldn't care less about the fame right now!"
"You need to be out here for Kendall? Carlos I know you love him, and that he is your best friend, but there is only so much you can do for him right now. He is family, I understand, but after this do you think you can save him? Or that he can be saved at all?"
"Yes. I do." I was crying, which was embarrassing. Not that I had never cried in front of my mom, but still.
"I'm not saying you being here wont help, what I mean is that all of you would be far more stable if you came home. As soon as you can breath on your own I want you coming home for at least two months before you think about coming back out here again and 6 months until the idea of the rejoining the band even crosses your mind. I realize this is not what you want to hear, but did you ever think about the fact that this-" She gestured to everywhere. "is what caused the kind of pressure that made Kendall think he has no other escape route?"
"But it didn't do that to me! It made and continues to make me happy."
"At the cost of your best friend's life?
"That's not what I meant. You know that's not what I meant."
"But, Carlos, I really don't. I know nothing about you anymore. We haven't talked in months, not really. Even Jen said she has no idea what was going on with Kendall. Living this life divorced you from what matters. It taught you how to be independent, but it did that in the worst of ways. Now, you're going to spend a month in Minnesota before we talk about this again."
"But what about Ken—"
"Kendall will be in rehab for a month before he is released. He will also be in the Midwest and won't be able to have visitors for two weeks anyway. I've heard the end of this for now, Carlos. Please get some sleep."
She left the room and I did as I was told. It was amazing how exhausted I was from just speaking. It took me a few minutes to try and get comfortable with out lying on my stitches or strangling myself with my oxygen tubes. The cannulas tickled my nose and the sound of the air rushing out was relaxing, in a white noise sort of way. You'd think it would be nice to have something take over the task of breathing for you, but it make me a little uncomfortable. Even though I was out of the hospital I wasn't in control of my own actions. After I relaxed I took a moment to look around and absorb the room that I would only call my own for a few short days. The blinds were closed and the room was dark and I could have slept for days if the world wasn't ending around me. The world we had come to know for 3 years was falling a part and all I could do was watch it burn and take lives in its destructive path.
It's funny because my brothers used to tell me that I could sleep through bombs going off, but in the moment I could have only shut my eyes if I were dead.
JPOV
It was hard listening to Carlos and his mom fight, mainly because the fighting was in Spanish, but also because I didn't need a translator to figure out what they were saying. Carlos and Kendall were headed back to Minnesota, and by the looks of it Logan was too. How are we going to just fall back in to normal life? It's not like any one will treat us as they did before. When we left Minnesota we left as the 4 hockey heads that everyone thought would return in just a few short weeks. I don't even remember the guy I was then. I don't recall my love for hockey, I don't remember what my locker combination was, I don't remember the name of the girl I first kissed.
At least when Logan forgot everything, he lost it all. There was no sense of radical change in his view of the world he just couldn't remember. But for me, I remember the major details but I can't think of how I felt or how acted or what I wanted in those days. Now it was all about my life here with no ties to my childhood.
Quite frankly, I didn't have a lot of ties to Minnesota when I left. My mom was to busy and my dad didn't care. There's not exactly a lot to go back to, but there is no choice to be made. With Momma Knight leaving whom would I turn to? What would happen to me if everyone left? I can't stay here by myself, but neither of my parents would be all too happy to have me back.
I couldn't stand to think that way again so I rolled my self toward the window to try and distract my self in the lives of the unaffected Palmwood's residents, but I sort of got distracted elsewhere. I thought about a book I read sophomore year. It was the only book Logan convinced me to actually do the reading for. It was about this guy who was kicked out of school and went to New York and got beat up a lot. I don't really remember it, but the kid felt a lot like Kendall did I guess, because he kept romanticizing getting shot or dying.
But apart from Kendall feeling like him, I kind of did too, when I was sitting by that window. In the book he kept asking what was going to happen to him by asking people about some ducks in a pond in Central Park. What's going to happen to me when winter comes? Will someone take care of me, or will I have to find my own way out of this hell situation?
"You're not thinking of throwing yourself out of the window are you." Called a small voice from behind me.
"Where the hell did you get that idea, Katie?" I wheeled around to face her.
"I don't know. You looked sad and I… I guess I'm paranoid. I don't want it to happen again, I guess." She looked embarrassed.
"I wouldn't guess that, Katie. I know I don't want it to happen again." She nodded and started to walk away, probably wanting to be alone, but I didn't want to be alone and I am to selfish to not have called her back in the conversation.
"Wait, Katie. Have you ever read The Catcher in the Rye? Like, just on your own?" She wasn't old enough to have read it in school.
"No, I think Kendall likes it though. I used to find him reading it really late at night."
"Yeah, that makes sense. He always was kind of a Beatnik."
"A beat what?"
"Beatnik. It's like a generation of writers after WWII who criticized American conformity and the use of atomic weaponry." She looked just as shocked by what I said as I was having said it. "I don't know why I remember that. Maybe Logan said that to me once." I followed with to make seem less important to me than it was, but she decided to just surprise me back.
"Do you love Kendall?" She didn't look phased or hopeful, so I told her the truth.
"I don't know. I think…. I do."
KPOV
"Kendall, could you tell me everything that happened that day?"
"Everything? Sunrise to sunset?"
"Maybe in not that much detail, but anything you thought or think might have been important."
"What qualifies as important?"
"What ever you think qualifies as is."
It's an interesting concept. What ever I think is important is important. Almost every psychiatrist who has spoken to me has kind of abided by that rule. This one in particular was especially fond of it. He has a kind face that looked like he'd seen to many cases exactly like mine and had a system of how to deal with it. He wore a bow tie and thick coke bottle glasses and carried a cane. If I ever had a chance to live again, I hope I'd age as he did. Though I still knew none of my therapist's names, I might like to know his, when this is all over.
"Uh, ok. I kind of know what you're asking, but there was no main event that made me do it. It wasn't like one moment that pushed me to far or anything."
"I guess you don't really know what I'm asking then. Could you tell me about the little things then?" He smiled before writing something down on his chart.
"Oh, I… I woke up pretty hung over that morning. I'd been drinking a lot, but I don't think anyone noticed and if they did I don't think they realized how much I had actually been drinking. But, um, anyway, we got to the studio and we started rehearsing and everything was going great. And that sounds weird, you know, to be having a great day before you off yourself but that's how it was. I felt sick because of the booze, but no one had to know. The longer I kept it a secret, the longer we could all live in ignorance. As the day progressed, we still sounded good, but I felt like I couldn't really hear the music, I couldn't really see a reason for doing any of this anymore. Like, what's the point? Then Gustavo said something, something about how we would make someone proud if we worked that way all the time. I know he meant it as a complement, but I couldn't help but think that I had no one to make proud. It was like my friends and my family didn't exist, and instead of not seeing a reason to be in a band anymore, I didn't have a reason to live anymore." I looked up to see the therapist's reaction, but just looked at me and said:
"Continue."
"Right, so I told Kelly that I was going to be sick, which at the time I thought I was, and went home. The crib was empty so it didn't, like, occur to me that I had anyone in the world at all. I still had a bottle of vodka in my room so I drank it to make my self not feel alone, but it made it worse. I started hearing my own voice ringing in my ears to end it, to save everyone the trouble for having known me. That's kind of all I remember."
"Kendall, I think it would be useless to try and tell you that you're not alone. You may not recognize it now, but no one is ever really alone. I'm not trying to convince you of that now, but I merely wish to share what I believe. If you wouldn't mind, may I ask how you're feeling now?"
"I don't think better would be the right word, less suicidal might cover it."
"You might like to know that hearing that may as well have been the highlight of my day, Mr. Knight." And with that, he left to speak with my mother in the hallway.
Salinger, J.D. The Catcher in the Rye. Boston: Little Brown, 1951. Print.
Damn right I cited it in MLA7