Author's note: Thank you, canyonlouis, for your review! I'll update this story regularly and try not to keep you waiting too long. :)

Chapter 3

For my 21st birthday, Chris gave me a typewriter.

He was standing on my doorstep, grinning like a fool, holding a second hand IBM Selectric - and I was speechless. I don't know how he managed to scrape together the money. It made me feel bad, knowing he barely got by on student loans and two jobs. But he was brimming with pure joy. It radiated off him in waves as I had rarely seen before.

The thing itself showed signs of use but was still in excellent condition. He wanted me to try it right away, and after ripping a page from a notebook in lack of a plain sheet of paper, I typed:

Christopher Chambers, you are brilliant.

"Thank you!" I said, getting up and pulling him into a hug.

"You'll have no excuse now not to write down your stories and submit them", he said, folding his arms tightly around me. For a moment, I closed my eyes and relished the warmth before breaking the contact and taking a step away. I had missed this closeness we had given up ever since the kiss, carefully keeping a reasonable bit of distance between us. None of us ever said anything about it. It was too obvious an act of self-preservation.

"Actually, I have written down quite a few stories by hand, you know?" I said teasingly, reluctant to let go of this rare moment of ease between us. Of course he knew, he had read most of my stories over the years.

"Yeah, and no wonder you never dared submit them in your scribbly handwriting", he shot right back.

"Well then, beware, all lit and poetry magazines, here I come!" I waved my fist in the air.

The grin was still tugging at the corners of his mouth but his voice was serious. "You're gonna be a famous writer one day, Gordie. And I'll tell everyone you wrote your first bestseller on the typewriter I gave you for your birthday."

We smiled at each other for a long moment, before worries invaded my mind again and I had to busy myself making coffee to blink away the burning in my eyes.

We went out that night with my flatmate Robert and some campus friends of mine. And I'm not proud to say I got pretty drunk. But that is what I blame for what happened. I was just lining up a shot at the pool table when I heard someone yelling and looked up. A broad, sturdy-looking bloke in a leather jacket was up in Chris' face.

I only caught bits of what he was saying "… problem … bloody college …"

I tensed. Chris' response was too quiet to overhear. He was raising his hands in a calming gesture.

The guy got louder. "… ya tellin me? Huh?" He thumped Chris' shoulder. "Huh? … didn't push … ya fag …" He thumped Chris' shoulder more forcefully, making him stumble back a step. The bloke's voice now easily carried over the surrounding noise. "Ya faggot piece of college shit!"

White-hot anger shot through my veins. I dropped the queue and was halfway around the pool table when the guy pulled back his hand, rolling it into a first. I saw it rush forward the same moment I crashed into him, sending us both tumbling to the floor.

Of the rest, I don't remember much except pressure, pain, a heavy weight on top of me, and something hard connecting with the side of my face. And then an explosion of pain and bright lights as something even harder connected with my head. And Chris, screaming, before everything fell quiet and dark around me.

When I blinked against a fuzzy, yellow spot of light, it took me a moment to make sense of it. The bar's shoddy ceiling lamp came into focus reluctantly. Then I managed to make out a face that was hovering over me. It was Robert.

"Gordon? Can you hear me?"

I nodded and regretted it instantly. My head was a ball of pain, twice the size it usually was. Or at least that's what it felt like.

"Stay down okay? Chris is calling an ambulance."

I wouldn't have tried sitting up anyway. There was some commotion and loud voices close by. The faces of others from our group came into view. Nancy, one of the girls who hang out with our group, brushing hair back from my face in a soothing manner that reminded me of my mom, before proclaiming she was going to get something to wipe up the mess.

I closed my eyes against the buzz and the throbbing pain that was reverberating through my skull. With my hands, I felt wetness on the floor and wondered for a second if it was blood. But blood smells metallic and all I could smell was the stench of beer. So I decided against it being blood.

"Gordie, don't go to sleep, open your eyes! Now!" Chris' voice was urgent, so I forced my eyelids to open, looking up into his and Rob's faces wearing equally unhappy expressions.

"There you are. Now stay with us! The ambulance should be here any minute."

It still felt like an eternity before they came to pick me up. When my friends got up to get out of the medics' way, I briefly got hold of Chris's sleeve, pleading with a look that he should stay with me. But it was Rob who joined me in the ambulance.

Much later in my hospital bed, listening to the snoring of the other guy in my room after lights out, I wondered what had happened. And not just the details of me ending up in this hospital room...

Rob had tried to fill the blanks for me while nurses and doctors tested my reflexes, stitched my wounds, bandaged my hands that I had managed to cut on shards of glass, and checked my skull for fractures. Apparently, I had miscalculated when attacking the guy. His companion had made short work of me, crashing a half-full bottle of beer over my head before my friends could grab him and pry him off me.

I wondered where Chris was and felt fear rising like bile in my throat while the medical staff worked on me. He had always been such a constant presence during hard times that now, imagining in my post-drunken sorrow that I might have ruined everything and driven him off for good, I felt utterly alone. I hardly slept that night.

The other guy was discharged in the morning and a nurse came and went to change the linens. A doctor paid me a brief visit to tell me my head showed no signs of serious injury, but I had a concussion and should not exert myself for a couple of days. The nurse told me to collect my things and sign the discharge papers at the front desk.

I had just changed into my street clothes when there was a knock on the door.

Chris came in, wearing an expression of worry and unhappiness. My ribcage seemed to clamp down on my heart and lungs, making me feel like there was not enough air in the room to breathe. The frustration, anger and fear, it all caught up with me.

"How are you feeling?" He asked quietly, closing the door behind him.

My head, throbbing as it was, started shaking as if of its own accord. I took big steps towards him and shoved him. Shoved him so hard he almost lost his balance. I advanced on him, tried to punch him but he batted away my fist. My second and third punch ended up the same way. Stars started dancing in front of my eyes.

"Gordie, stop!"

I swung at him again, but his hand closed around my arm and held me off. His fingers were digging into my skin. Darkness crept in from the edges of my vision.

I tried to shake him off, tried to jerk my arm free. That was when I lost my balance and my legs folded in on themselves. I would have gone down if he had not made a quick step forward and caught me against him. A flickering blackness filled my field of vision and there was a hammering in my head and in my ears. I was aware of his arms around me, guiding me slowly to the floor, cradling me in a half-sitting position while I leaned against him.

"Deep breaths. Come on, man, don't scare me like that", he whispered close to my ear.

I tried, but my chest still felt uncomfortably tight. But all the anger slowly started seeping out of my body and left me feeling empty and sick and feeling the pain of last night's fight in every bone and muscle of my body.

"Gordie? Should I call the nurse?"

I managed to shake my head against his shoulder.

He slid a hand slowly up and down my arm. My vision and breathing gradually went back to normal. The pounding in my head faded to a background swell and ebb of discomfort.

Sitting on the linoleum floor in a hospital room that reeked of 409 cleaner, cradled by my best friend, I wondered how the hell I had ended up in this mess. When had this become so unbearable?

"You wanna tell me what's wrong?" he asked softly.

"Nothing's wrong." My throat constricted around the lie and angrily, I felt my eyes burning.

He huffed. "Bullshit."

He reached carefully for the bandage around my head as if to make sure it had not come loose. He checked the bandages on my hands as well before his fingertips ghosted briefly over my cheek.

"Should I get you home?"

I nodded slowly.

He shifted, grabbed me under my arms, and pulled me up. Having gotten me onto my feet, he kept his hold on me, obviously not trusting I would stay upright. His eyes searched my face. I could practically see the questions moving through his head like storm clouds. But he didn't voice them right then.

I signed the papers at the nurses' desk and – as I must have looked as miserable as I felt – received a reminder I should get some rest. Chris had brought my Buick to pick me up. Without a word, I slid into the passenger seat.

Back at the flat, Rob greeted me with concern, asking how I was doing. I assured him I'd be fine but needed to catch up on sleep. After drinking some water, I left the two talking in the kitchen to lay down on my bed.

Staring at the ceiling, a great emptiness filled me like a balloon pressing at the back of my eyes. I wished for rest without dreams.

Reviews are highly appreciated. They'd give me an idea if anyone is enjoying this sort of story and if I should be writing more. ;-)