Melody burst into tears.
**
Dylan drifted in and out of consciousness. He never awakened long enough to speak, but he was always aware of the goings-on around him. He knew when he was alone and when he wasn't. The smells and sounds that reached him told him that he was in a hospital, but he couldn't remember what had happened, or why he was unconscious. His ragtag family seemed to be taking turns with him in shifts, relieving each other every hour or so. But though people came and went, he always felt Melody there-a constant presence to guard against his demons in the darkness.
Grace was there a lot, too. She cried. She begged him not to leave her. She made crazy promises about coming on tour with the band and reconnecting with him and making up for lost time, if he would just open his eyes.
When Jesper visited, he talked about the past, recounting stories Dylan hadn't heard in years, tales of times both good and bad. He promised Dylan that he was going to make sure things were different from now on, and that, while change might be hard, it would be good for all of them.
Tank told jokes when he was there, all the filthiest, funniest wisecracks he could think of. He informed Dylan that he refused to stop, and that Melody might get offended enough to walk out if he kept going, so if Dylan didn't want that to happen, he should wake the fuck up already.
Rip came only after everyone else was gone. He read Tweets and letters from fans, telling Dylan that a whole world of people needed him to get better-as if the people close to him weren't enough incentive to do so. Dylan could hear anger and resentment in Rip's voice, and he tried to open his eyes, to ask what was going on...but it was too late.
He drifted away again.
**
"Haven't you slept long enough?" Snake asked.
Dylan knew he was dreaming, though he couldn't say how he knew; this felt real, like it was just another night at home. He and Snake were in Tank's loft, sharing a bottle of bourbon.
"For some reason, I don't want to wake up yet," Dylan admitted.
"You wanna see that chick of yours, don't you?" Snake waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
"I do, it's just...I know that when I wake up, nothing's ever going to be the same again."
"Is anything ever really the same?" Snake wondered. "Shit's different every morning you open your sorry eyes. That's the trick of life, man. Making us think we've ever had a lick of control."
"But there's more to it this time," Dylan insisted. "It's different. I'm different."
Snake nodded sadly. "Yeah. Maybe you are."
"How will I keep us together?" Dylan wondered. "All of us, the guys, me and Mel? What do I do now?"
"Find a good bridge," Snake suggested. "You've already got a chorus of voices and your own personal Melody. Might be hard, but you'll get it-you'll see. I just wish I could be there to help you."
"What?" Dylan asked.
"Time to wake up, brother," Snake whispered, with a sad gleam in his eyes.
And Dylan finally woke up.
The first thing he saw was Melody's anxious face. She was smiling down at him through her tears. "It's about time," she said.
The next person he saw was Jesper, who had a slow, relieved smile spreading across his face. "You had us real worried for a moment, there," he said.
"How are you feeling?" Melody asked.
"Terrible," he rasped. His voice sounded dry from disuse.
"What do you remember?" Melody asked. Dylan felt her hand in his. Though his limbs felt numb and heavy, he managed to squeeze her fingers to reassure them both.
"I remember … running away," Dylan said. Shame nearly consumed him. "Shit, I'm so sorry, Mel."
"None of that," she chided, lifting his hand and pressing a kiss to his knuckles. "Don't worry about anything. You just concentrate on getting better."
"Do you remember coming back to Los Angeles and … ?" Jesper trailed off.
A weight settled upon Dylan's chest, a strange surety left over from the dream he'd just had. "Snake's dead, isn't he?" he asked, as the memories of his last moments began trickling back to him. The drinking, the drugs, the car ride...
A tear rolled down Jesper's cheek and he nodded jerkily. "I was supposed to keep us together," he murmured. "What a miserable failure I am."
Dylan slowly reached out towards Jesper with a shaking hand, and placed it on his best friend's arm. He summoned his strength, struggling to verbalize the words in his head-he was certain that he'd been given some form of pain medication which had made him groggy and incoherent. "I'm...I'm the one who failed him. ‘Sides, you're only the de facto band leader, remember? I'm too much of a fuck-up to get it right." They both laughed a little, watery chuckles that did nothing to lift their spirits. An ache was growing in Dylan's chest, threatening to consume him. "How long have I been out?" he asked.
"Three days," Melody said quietly.
"Jesus," Dylan muttered. How bad had the crash been? He started trying to take stock of his numerous injuries.
After a long and heavy pause, Jesper cleared his throat. "I should go get your sister," he said. "She'll kill me if she finds out I didn't tell her the second you woke up."
As soon as he left, Dylan looked back at Melody. "Level with me, Mel. How bad is it?"
She scrutinized him, and he could tell she was choosing her words deliberately. "Do you remember the accident? Why you two went out driving?"
Dylan searched his memory, forcing himself to recall things he would rather forget.
"We were out of booze," he said slowly, the ache in his chest turning into a heavy weight in his gut. "Christ, we finished everything he'd stashed away, then we went out because we wanted to get more. Snake was driving, I remember that. How come...?" He couldn't finish the sentence: How come I lived, but he had to die?
Melody seemed to sense what he had been thinking. "The car went over an embankment," she explained. "You were thrown free on the first impact. You had a serious concussion and some internal bleeding; that was what took the longest in surgery. Every time they thought you were out of the woods, something else sprang a leak."
"The first impact," Dylan repeated woodenly. Out of everything she'd said, that was all he could focus on.
"The car flipped several times on the way down," Melody continued. "They think Snake was already dead before … "
"Before...?" Dylan prompted.
"The explosion," she finished.
"I hate myself even more now."
"It was a bad decision on both of your parts. But hating yourself won't help you," Melody said.
"Well, what the fuck am I supposed to do?" Dylan cried. He felt tears beginning to leak down his cheeks. "I practically poured gasoline all over the place before handing a lit match to an addict. I killed my brother."
"Snake had his own matches," Melody argued. "You were both stupid and reckless, but it was a lapse of judgment on both your parts, you didn't kill him." Her hand stroked the side of his head gently, as if she was afraid to break him if she pressed too hard.
"It's not fair," he muttered. "He wouldn't have even been drinking if I hadn't-"
"Wouldn't he?" Melody wondered. "You admitted there was a fair amount of alcohol at the house. Do you really believe that your presence alone shoved Snake off the wagon?"
Dylan thought about it. No, he hadn't been the only reason Snake had been drunk off his ass, doing lines of cocaine and popping pills as if they were candy...but the fact that he'd been a reason was something that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
"I still shouldn't have been a willing participant," he insisted. "I even knew it was a bad idea; I didn't want us to drive, I told him it was a bad idea, but I got in the car anyway. I don't know why. I don't know why I did that." Then he sat up, realizing something rather significant.
"What's the matter?" Melody asked, noticing his change in demeanor. She was still stroking the side of his face, trying to soothe him.
"I remember why I went with him," he said. "I was hoping … " He shook his head. "For some reason, I thought that if I was there, I could keep something bad from happening. And for a while it almost worked. I was talking to him, keeping him alert, you know? Then one of our songs came on the radio. He was honking the horn and swerving because one of our fucking songs was on the radio and he just … misjudged the curve, I think. Can you believe how stupid that is?" Dylan barked out an angry laugh.
"Accidents happen for stupid reasons every day," Melody conceded. "I'm so sorry, baby," she whispered. She'd been crying off and on since he had opened his eyes, but now she was really starting to sob.