A/N: I stole the title to this chapter from a Pink Floyd song.

I hate to give up the element of surprise here, but just so you know, Ohio State University does, in fact, have a wrestling program. The regular season ends during February and the finals go on through the middle of March. At this time, Andy would have been finished the season at least a couple of weeks previous.

And, just because I know she loves him so much, I'm dedicating this chapter to Hannah (Basket Case89). Hope you like it.

Chapter Three: Comfortably Numb

"How did you go bankrupt?"
"Two ways. Gradually, and then suddenly."
-Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

March 26, 1988
Columbus, Ohio

"Can you put those eggs in a separate bag? I'm afraid they'll get squashed in there with the milk."

Andy nodded and pulled a small plastic bag from below the counter. He put the eggs into the sack, then placed the sack into the cart beside him. "Do you need help out to your car, ma'am?"

"That would be wonderful. Thank you."

Andy pulled the cart away from the register and followed the woman out to her car, an old white Buick LaSabre with gleaming hubcaps and chipped paint on the doors. When he'd finished loading all of her groceries into the truck, she smiled and handed him a couple of quarters. "Thank you."

Andy nodded. "Thank you, ma'am. Have a nice day."

The woman nodded politely and unlocked the driver's side door. Andy grabbed the cart and started pushing it back into the store. There were a couple of stranded carts blocking the parking spaces, and he took those, too, knowing that he would get yelled at later if his manager saw them. He rolled the small line of carts back into the store and tucked them into a small alcove right next to the front entrance.

David, one of the cashiers, spotted Andy as he came back inside. "You getting off, man?"

Andy looked down at his watch. 6:03 P.M. He looked back up and nodded. "Yeah."

David, who was wearing a blue polo shirt identical to Andy's, started playing with his collar. "I'd hurry if I were you. Mr. Grump's shorthanded tonight and he'll probably force you to stay if he sees you."

Andy cringed. "Mr. Grump" was the employee nickname for Mr. Grunewald, their general manager, and he was called that for a reason… several of them, in fact. "Where is he?"

"In the back, yellin' at Jason for something he probably didn't do." David rolled his eyes. "Get out while you can, dude."

Andy nodded. "Thanks, man. I'll see you later."

David nodded. "Later."

Andy took David's advice and clocked out as quickly as he could. He left through the main entrance, just under red and yellow Giant Eagle sign. It was a cold day and the parking lot was slippery with ice. Andy fought off a shiver and climbed into the driver's seat of his light blue Chevy Silverado and turned on the ignition, then the heat. Nothing happened. He hit it a few times and flicked the switch again, but it still didn't come on.

"Shit." Andy sighed angrily and put the truck into Drive.

Ten minutes later, Andy pulled into carport area behind his apartment and cut the engine. He grabbed the sack of paper towels and laundry detergent he'd purchased just before his shift and started climbing the stairs. When he walked in, the first thing he noticed was the smell. He closed the door behind him and walked into the kitchen, where his roommate Paul was cooking something on the stove. "Hey."

Paul looked up. "Hey, you hungry?"

Andy shrugged. "Kinda."

Paul grabbed the bag with the paper towels from Andy's hand and ripped open the roll, immediately tearing off a sheet and wiping up a spill from the counter. "I was gonna make ribs, but we don't have any barbeque sauce." He grinned. "Or ribs."

Andy rolled his eyes. Paul was from Texas, and Andy figured he missed the barbeque more than he missed his own mother. The two had met during Andy's sophomore year when Paul joined the wrestling team as a freshman. They'd become fast friends and decided to room together that next year. This worked out well for Andy since Paul liked to cook and Andy couldn't make a pot of rice if his life depended on it.

"Anyway, all I could find were some frozen chicken breasts and a can of corn." He looked into the sack Andy had brought into the kitchen. "You didn't get any food?"

"I didn't have enough money."

Paul shrugged. "I figure if we need to, we can live off cereal and Ramen noodles. Or cannibalism."

Andy glared at him. Paul weighed in at approximately 280 pounds, making him eligible for the team's highest weight bracket. Unfortunately, it also meant that food was a bit scarce in the boys' apartment. "Maybe you should go shopping this time."

"I can go tomorrow." Paul cut off the stove and reached for a fork. "Get me some plates."

A few minutes later, the two of them sat down at the kitchen table and started eating. Andy wasn't all that hungry, but he forced himself to finish off at least half of the plate. The rest he scraped off onto Paul's. "I'm gonna try to get some schoolwork done."

Paul nodded and started mixing his pile of corn with the pile from Andy's plate. Andy dumped his plate in the sink and headed down the hall to his room. He pushed open his bedroom door and threw his letter jacket onto the seat of his desk chair, then undressed slowly, peeling off his blue polo and khaki pants and white sneakers, letting them fall into a pile at his feet. He threw on a light grey t-shirt over his boxers and plopped down on his bed, shifting around until he was flat on his back staring up at the ceiling. He lay there for a long time, not really thinking about anything, just breathing and staring and blinking.

He'd done a lot of breathing and staring and blinking over the past year, most of it when he was in bed just before he fell asleep… because he'd done a lot of that in the past year, too. Sleeping had become a new hobby, mostly because he was just so damn tired all of the time, even if he hadn't done a single thing all day. He'd sleep for a good nine or ten hours every night and wake up feeling even worse than when he'd gone to bed the night before. Sometimes he'd take naps that really weren't naps since they lasted for five or six hours apiece, longer if he had the time.

He didn't really know when it all started, but it must have been sometime during the fall semester. Everything had been going really well up until that point. He was on scholarship, so he didn't have to pay for anything except food and entertainment. The school even gave him an annual stipend to pay for his apartment, even though it was off campus. Wrestling was going well also. He wasn't the best guy on the team, but he was a good, solid wrestler and his coach was proud of him. School was kicking his butt a little bit, but that was to be expected since he was starting to take some upper level courses. He'd always been a fairly good student, making almost solid B's throughout high school, and he'd maintained that average in college, sometimes doing better, sometimes doing worse. Overall, things were looking up.

But then he started getting tired. Tired of wrestling, tired of school, tired of parties and friends and jobs and money. Just tired. He began skipping classes. Just one or two at first, then more and more as the weeks went by. He turned in some of his papers late, forgot to do his homework, didn't study for tests that he really needed to study for. Sometimes he'd pull out his textbooks and stare at the pages for hours without seeing anything at all. He wanted and needed to do well, but he just couldn't muster up the energy or concentration to try.

By the spring semester, his athletic performance had dropped. His coach called him into his office on several occasions, wondering if Andy needed to speak with the trainer or see a doctor. Andy said that he was fine, that he just needed to get a bit more sleep. It wasn't as though the school could do anything to him at that point. It was his last semester at Ohio State and they weren't about to pull the plug on his scholarship, no matter how badly he'd screwed up. Finally, the coach just stopped asking him about it, even when Andy started skipping practices.

His grades dropped even more as the weeks rolled on. This time, he didn't really care. In fact, he was finding it hard to care about anything anymore, even friends. He had lots of friends from the wrestling team and they had friends who had friends who threw parties that Andy somehow got invited to. During the first three years of college, Andy went to more parties than he could count. Everyday, he'd get a call from someone asking if he wanted to grab lunch or go out for a beer. At first, he started making excuses, telling them that he wasn't feeling well or that he needed to study or that he already had other plans. Then he just stopped picking up the phone.

The funny thing about people is that they don't like being rejected. You can turn them down once, twice, even half a dozen times, but after a while, they just give up and stop calling. Andy wasn't sure if he was glad that they'd stopped or not. In a way he was relieved because it meant that he wouldn't have to keep coming up with excuses. On the other hand, it made him feel incredibly alone. But wasn't that what he wanted, for people to just leave him alone, to stop asking him questions and to stop making him do things that he didn't care about in the first place?

He hated feeling alone, but most of all, he hated feeling nothing. He floated along, going through the motions, pushing his obligations to the side so that he could sleep longer and harder than the night before. He was graduating in two months, but he had no jobs lined up, no plans for the future. He didn't know what he was going to do for money or where he was going to live or work. He figured if it came down to it that he could ask for more hours at the Giant Eagle and live with Paul for the next year while Paul finished his senior year. His parents wouldn't be very pleased to hear those plans… but he didn't really care about that either.

Sometimes Andy wondered what he would do if someone told him something really horrible, like that one of his friends or members of his family had died. He knew that his initial reaction would be one of apathy and that worried him because he knew that wasn't normal. So sometimes he would lay in bed practicing what he would do if he were so ever get a call like that, just so he would know what he was supposed to feel and say.

But, as it is with most things in life, you can't plan for stuff like that.

----------

At about 9:30, Paul knocked on his door, jerking Andy out of his sleep. "Yeah?"

Paul opened the door and peeked in. His eyes narrowed when he saw Andy sprawled out, eyes half-closed. "Were you asleep?"

Andy sighed. "Yeah."

Paul nodded slowly. "Well, there's someone on the phone for you."

"Can you take a message?"

Paul hesitated. "Don't you even want to know who it is?"

Andy yawned. "Who?"

"He said he was a friend of yours. Brian Johnson."

Andy frowned. "Really?"

"Yeah."

Andy swung his legs over the side of the bed and followed Paul into the kitchen, where the phone was lying off the hook. "Hello?"

"Andy?"

"Yeah."

"Hey, it's Brian… Brian Johnson."

"Yeah, um… hey, man."

Brian paused for a moment. "Sorry, I know it's kind of weird that I'm calling after all this time, but I just talked to Claire and she asked me to call you."

Andy frowned. "Claire asked you to call?"

"Yeah. Her mother died."

Andy didn't really know what he was supposed to say to that. "Oh. That's… I'm sorry." He realized after he said it that he should be telling Claire that he was sorry and not Brian, but Brian didn't seem to notice.

"Yeah, she's pretty upset about it. It happened this morning so she hasn't had much time to process everything, you know?"

"Yeah."

"It was a heart attack, so it all happened really quickly. She didn't even get to say goodbye."

Andy, who was growing more and more uncomfortable as the conversation wore on, closed his eyes and nodded. "Yeah, that's sad."

"Anyway, the funeral's on Wednesday and she asked us to come."

Andy's eyes flew open. "What?"

Brian started speaking very quickly in an effort to explain himself. "Well, she wants all of us to be there, you know, to, like… be with her, or whatever. I think she doesn't really have anyone else, so she thought maybe we could…"

"Oh," was all Andy could say.

Brian hesitated. "So, um, it's on Wednesday."

"Okay." Was this the part where he was supposed to tell Brian that he'd be on the first flight out, ready and willing to comfort someone he hadn't seen in nearly four years? Andy felt a wave of anger roll through his body and he was too tired to keep it from seeping out into his voice. "So, what does she expect me to do?"

Brian paused uncertainly. "Well, um, I don't know. I think she was just hoping that we could, you know, come out and visit her if we could. But I'm sure you have school and wrestling and other stuff…"

Andy could tell that he'd hurt Brian's feelings and he felt a little bit guilty, but not really. "No, the season's over and it's spring break."

"Oh. Yeah, me, too. For spring break, I mean."

Andy rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I figured."

"Oh."

Andy sighed and leaned forward so that his elbows were on the counter and his head was resting in his hand. "So, I guess you're going."

"Well, yeah, I was planning on it."

"When are you leaving?"

"Tomorrow night, I think. I'm going to take a train, so it's going to be a long trip. I'll probably get into Illinois on Monday morning."

Damn, that was early. That meant that he'd be there for at least two days… which meant that he'd have to see his parents at some point. "Monday," he echoed.

"Yeah."

Andy let out a frustrated sigh. "Yeah, okay. I'll go."

If Brian sensed the anger in Andy's voice, he didn't show it. "Oh, great, I'm sure that Claire will really appreciate it."

Andy didn't really care if Claire appreciated it or not; he just wanted to get the conversation over with. "Yeah, probably, but I need to make a couple of phone calls if I'm going to be gone for so long, so I should get off the phone."

"Oh, yeah, of course. Sure. I'll let you go."

"Thanks. I'll see you later."

"Yeah, definitely. I'll see you in Shermer."

"Yeah, see you then." Andy hung up the phone before Brian could respond, anxious to get off of the phone before he could start asking him about what he'd been doing these last few years. Andy knew that there would be plenty of that when he got to Shermer and he didn't want to have to talk about it anymore than he had to.

Suddenly, it hit him that he was maybe going to see Allison again. Shit. She wouldn't come, would she? She was probably still holed up in New York somewhere, painting or drawing or doing something artistic like that. Maybe Brian didn't even have her number anymore. Maybe she'd moved and no one knew where she was. Maybe she would just say no, like he should have. Andy rubbed his eyes in frustration, wondering what the hell he'd gotten himself into.

"You okay, man?"

Andy look up at Paul, who was doing some schoolwork at the kitchen table. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"Old friend?"

Andy sighed. "Yeah." He started to tell him about the trip back to Shermer, but stopped himself, too tired to get into the details. "I'm going back to bed."

Paul didn't say anything, just watched him very closely for a moment and nodded. Andy gave him a curt nod and trudged back to his room, closing his door and collapsing onto his bed. He didn't stop to stare at the ceiling this time, just closed his eyes as tightly as he could and turned over onto his side, trying to get comfortable. As he lay there, he thought about Claire and her mother, about how horrible she must be feeling if she was calling the four of them out of all the people she knew. Then again, it was Claire, who was used to asking for whatever she wanted and getting it. Maybe she'd called up all of her Prep Club friends, too. Hell, maybe she'd called the whole damn school.

Andy huffed loudly and adjusted the pillow under his head. He hated Claire for asking this of him and he hated Brian for going along with her demands. He hated them for asking him to have an emotional reaction to something he couldn't care less about if he tried. Most of all, he hated himself for hating them. He didn't used to be like this, he knew. There was something wrong with him, something he couldn't fix because he didn't know where it was broken.

Thankfully, he fell asleep before he had to think about it much longer.