I was signing my release forms when Adam had come back to the room. He left a while ago, saying he'd be back with a surprise. Knowing him, that could mean anything. Something sweet, something practical... or just something to be a jerk and see the look on your face.
"Ooh ooh, whad'ya get me! Whad'ya get me!" I exclaimed, clapping my hands and bouncing up and down on the bed, much like a child getting a present on their birthday. He pulled my away bag I took on the road with me from behind the door. "Ooh, yay! Clean clothes! How'd you get it?" I asked.
"Went to the arena. No biggie. It was nice getting to see some of the old crew, anyway. I've been meaning to for awhile, just got busy." He said.
I got up from my bed, and grabbed the bag of my dirty clothes, "Well, thanks alot, man. Now we can burn these."
I opened it, pulling out my wallet and my Hardy Boyz chain, but threw the rest in the trash. The wallet was fine, unsoiled in my back pocket, but my chain was a mess. I walked over to the sink and began cleaning it as best I could.
Adam started laughing. "What's so funny?" I asked.
"Your ass is hanging out the back."
"Really? Come on, bro. You used to rub that self tanner shit on my butt all the time and I did the same for you. It ain't nothing you haven't seen before."
"You're right, but I don't ever remember seeing it hanging out of the back of a hospital gown." He said, "I don't know. Just funnier this way somehow."
I changed and we got on the road. It was about an hour to his place. We had made it about half way when I started feeling overheated, clammy, nauseous. It was similar to how I felt before I would throw up, but worse. My breathing sped up, as did my heart rate. Oh no....
"Adam! Pull over!"
"What's the matter?" He asked, pulling to the side of the road, as my vision went black.
The next thing I knew, I woke up to a wet cloth on my face, which I threw off. The car's seat was reclined and I was on my side. Adam was holding my hand and pushing the sweat-dampened hair out of my eyes. I struggled to get up, but he put his hand on my shoulder and told me to stay lying back.
"Oh shit. I had another one?" I asked, but I had already known the answer.
"Yeah. We're almost home though. Trust me, you'll feel much better after a nap and a hot bath."
"They told me not to sleep." I protested.
"Yeah, they tell that to everyone, but everyone's are different. All you want to do is sleep afterwards, right?" He asked, and I agreed. "Then why fight your body's natural instincts? I've seen them do that shit to Ren at the hospital, keep her up, won't even let her leave the bed to go to the bathroom. She had to use a bedpan."
"That's insane! Just because she had a seizure, they think she can't remember how to walk or something? What the hell?"
"I know! I'm pretty sure it's just for insurance reasons. But yeah... that's why she doesn't usually go to the hospital unless she gets injured during one or something. You should see how much better she can get back into the swing of things after an hour long nap, rather than how she is when she goes there and they make her stay awake. It takes days longer for her to get back into the groove than when it does after a nap."
"Then you won't mind if I sleep the rest of the way?"
He smiled, tucking my hair behind my ear, and said, "Go ahead."
When I woke up this time, I was on Adam's couch, tucked under a purple fuzzy blanket I always used when I was at his house. I loved it. It was so soft and smelled so good. I rolled onto my back and stretched, not expecting the cracking of bones and strain on sore muscles that occured. I then cracked my neck with satisfied moans, hearing loud sounds that reminded me of popcorn popping.
"Ooh, that sounded like a good one." A voice said. I looked over to the recliner to see a young woman sitting there. This must be Ren. She was slighty overweight, hazel green eyes. One thing that was hard not to notice was the giant scar on her forehead that curved up into her hairline, like a half circle. She had a purple mohawk. The shaved sides made the scar more visible, which made me wonder why she chose it. The redemption factor for me was a red and blue checkerboard dyed into it. It was a normal mohawk, not one like the girls normally had with the weird strips of hair on the side that looked like sideburns. I hated those and loved hair dye, so she already was on my good side.
She had a big bag full of markers, gel pens, random art supplies on the table and had one of those adult coloring books she was working on in her lap. She liked art too? That was awesome. I had a feeling we were going to get along. I looked closer at the book... Fantomorphia. Sounded like a fetish or a disorder or something. The picture she was working on was interesting though. It was a cat's face wearing a steampunk looking tophat.
"What?" I asked.
"Your neck cracking. Sounded like a good one." She said, simply.
"You're Ren, I presume?" I asked, which she answered with a nod. "Yeah, it felt pretty damn good. Hey, I'm..."
"Jeff freakin' Hardy! Yeah, I know. Big fan." She said.
"Where's Adam? Did he carry me inside?" I asked, confused, looking around for him. I got the horrible mental picture of him carrying me like a bride over the threshold. Like that would ever happen. Everyone knows I top.
"Well, you looked like you really needed that sleep, man. I didn't wanna wake you." He replied, walking down the stairs. He had a shirt draped over his shoulder and was just in a pair of shorts. He was rubbing a towel through his damp hair, so I assumed he just got out of the shower. I couldn't help but notice the way the droplets of water would trail down his chest at a snail's pace. They were hitting his hipbone and sliding down the side of his cut groin, which was peeking out of the top of the fabric.
I'm not going to lie. At one point, I would have been wishing I could lick that water off of those rock hard muscles. Okay, a little bit of me still did. But it felt awkward now with the gap in our friendship and how much I realized I didn't know about him anymore.
"You didn't use up all the hot water, did you?" I asked him.
"No. You should hurry up to the bath though. I just ran it for you." He said, "Up these stairs, second door on the right."
Really? He ran my bath? I never even took baths. I was more a shower person. Whatever. Anything was good at this point. I stunk of puke and sweat and I just needed to get clean! I grabbed my bag off of the floor, and headed up the stairs.
"Really, Adam? A bubble bath?" I yelled down to him as soon as I saw it.
"It's therapeutic! Eucalyptus oils and other stuff that helps sore muscles. Now, get in! Before it gets cold!" He yelled back.
I went in and locked the door. Oh wait! That's right! I can't do that anymore. I sighed, sadly, unlocking the handle and went back to the task at hand. That was going to be a hard habit to break, for sure.
I stripped quickly, and lowered myself into the bath, instantly feeling the relief from the heat of the water. Man, this really was helping more than I thought it would. I had almost started drifting asleep again, when I heard a knock at the door, and Adam ask if I was okay. Another thing I would have to get used to. I was never going to be fully alone in the bathroom anymore without someone hovering outside the door, listening to make sure they didn't hear any 'thud' sounds. I wonder if someone's going to check on me now when I'm taking a dump too. Sucks for them, is all I gotta say.
Adam peeked his head in, hand up to block anything he didn't want to see. "Again, Ad, nothing you haven't seen before. Besides, there's still bubbles." I said, before asking, "Did you need something?"
He brushed his hand over the back of his head, and replied nervously, "I was about to ask you the same thing."
"I'm ok, man. Thanks." I said, "Thanks for all of this, really. But I gotta ask... why are you doing this? I know what you said earlier, like you thought Ren could help me. But you could have just gave me her email, her number... Why are you helping me? What's in this for you?"
"Well, first off, I know what it's like to think you have years of your career ahead of you and have it all snatched away in an instant. When I found out... man, I wanted to end it all. I was so depressed. I didn't know how to spend my days. I felt like I didn't have a purpose anymore..."
It was hard to picture Adam like that. He was always so happy. I think the longest I had seen him sad was maybe an hour. He was always so happy it radiated to everyone around him, bringing them out of the gloomiest of moods. At least, I know it worked that way with me.
"Which comes to my second point, I did really care about you at one time and I know that's how you got to feel now too. Depressed, confused on what to do, where to go now in life. We were best friends; back then, I knew you better than most of my family members." He said, sadly. He was leaning against the counter, before he walked over to me, crouching at the side of the tub. "I never thought it would get this way between us, Jeff. Things between me and Matt really screwed things up with me and you... and I hate that it did. But that was years ago and Matt and I are cool again. So, I was just hoping this could make things better between us."
"That's pretty much the reason I came too. I've really missed you, Adam." I said, as I looked up into his eyes. There was something there in his eyes that I couldn't quite figure out, a hint of something I had never seen before. Our gazes locked and a feeling came over me. A warmth in the pit of my stomach and my hand was almost shaking as I put it on top of his. I had never felt anything like this before... but I was having a lot of new experiences today, that's for sure.
I don't know what came over me just then, but I hopped up out of the tub. I grabbed his arm and pulled him up into an embrace...
