(Twenty Two)

Two years earlier - the day I earned my one-way ticket to Hell.

I wake to a pounding in my head. It gets louder and louder, then splits into two, before realising there's a frantic banging on the door. I wince at the intrusion and stare in the direction of the offending noise. The door isn't in focus.

I groan and smash a cushion over my head, but not before the telltale jangle of a key in the lock.

The pounding turns to real pain as fists rain down on my head. My drained body flicks to fight mode and I manage to jump out of the way, the quick motion heaving the contents of my stomach to burn my throat.

"What the fuck?" I groan as Alice continues her onslaught. I try to grab her arms but she's a violent whirlwind of slaps and kicks.

"Where were you?" she sobs. Her words short her electricity, and she slumps to the ground, a broken doll.

My brain is too slow, sluggish with the treacle of liquor and clogged with powder. It seems to take an eternity to sit down beside her and take her arms, pulling her to me. "What happened? Is it Jasper?"

She pushes me away and I fall easily against the coffee table, cracking my elbow against the glass. It doesn't hurt. Not yet.

"Where were you?" She scrapes her arm across her face, drying her tears. "Where were you?" she repeats, a whisper this time.

"When?"

She doesn't answer my question, gathering herself and standing up. The effort shakes her whole body, and then I see something is wrong. Very wrong.

"What's happened?" I ask, the fog beginning to clear, memories of last night like nails in my chest. Things I should have remembered. Responsibilities I had. "Shit, I'm sorry about last night, Al. I just …." The words aren't enough so I don't continue.

She sucks in a breath, and her face hardens, a shocking echo of my mother's. "You're a selfish asshole, Edward. You don't care about anything but yourself. And now you've …" Tears spill down her cheeks; she swipes them away with the back of her hand. "I don't think I can forgive you this time."

Her words are a shower of ice-cold truth, my last ally sliding out of my grasp. I fumble for the words, the reasons, the memories of what I've done now. Which is the biggest joke of all. I do these things to myself, and yet I can hardly remember what those around me can never forget. They don't have the liquid luxury of black holes in their memories. I know this, but it doesn't stop me.

"Tell me what I've done." I plead with her, reach out, but she dodges my hand and heads toward the door, where she pauses, her lips a grim line. She focuses on something over my shoulder, perhaps the old photo of us at an award ceremony where I was flying high instead of dredging the gutters.

"First Hill Hospital, level 3." She lets those words sink in. "I'm giving you the chance to say goodbye. Something you don't deserve." And then she is gone.

I fucking hate hospitals.

I hate the smell, the noise, the people, and the blue. Fucking ruining every shade of blue with its connotation to death.

Monitors whir and beep, and people rush past, making me feel sick even though there's nothing left in my stomach. I lost it seconds after seeing him lying there. His face slack and grey. Oxygen pumping into him, the fake rise and fall of his chest. He looks a hundred years older than the last time I saw him. Alice tells me that was last night.

I can't remember.

My mother won't look at me. Alice cries everytime she does.

They've left me alone with him now, though the doctors tell us he's no longer there. My father slipped away last night in an icy car park with no one but the darkness to hear his pain.

Words like aneurysm, hemorrhagic stroke, irreversible damage, filter through the doctor's soft words. I nod as each one hits like a pickaxe to my skull.

He offers me his apologies. I wonder if he would if he knew the truth.

Guilt weighs its heaviest. I struggle to breathe against its pull as I take his cold hand in mine. It feels odd, like something you see people do in the movies but in real life is unnatural. I place it back down and rest my forehead against the edge of the bed, feeling the tears burn as his artificial breathing brushes against my head, a slow rise and fall. A memory of his hand ruffling up my hair as he wished me luck before every little league game surges up, leaves me gasping.

In the end, I don't say goodbye or I love you.

I'm sorry doesn't come either.

I don't say anything.

I'm choked with grief and guilt that have gone hand in hand ever since.

They turn his life support off at 7.32pm.

About the same time I order my next drink at The Blue Jay.

AN: I can't thank you enough for all your reviews last week. It's knowing there's still some of you reading out there which keeps me coming back to my stories after all this time determined to finish them. You guys are amazing. See you soon. xx