We were at the hospital all morning. After everyone noticed that we were gone, they came right over because they pretty much knew where at the hospital. I had a feeling that they knew I was going to be spending a lot of time here along with Caitlin. I'm sure that everyone was going to be there a lot, but Caitlin and I were the ones that had the hardest time leaving Nick's side. I can only speak for myself when I say it was almost like a feeling of guilt overcame us when we had to leave.
For some reason, everytime we left Nick alone, I felt that something might happen. I know that sounds totally insane. He would be alright and I knew that but I wouldn't help but worry. This guy was my best friend and he had gone missing for two weeks, I think I had every right to be conserned. The last thing that I wanted was for something else to happen to him. He had already been through so much and I wasn't sure how much more he was going to be able to handle.
I didn't know if any of us was ready to handle anything else that might have come up with Nick. We had gone through so much emotionally, at least I know Caitlin and myself did anyway. The end of visiting hours came all too quickly. Caitlin and I had the hardest time leaving Nick. You could see that in our eyes, we were afraid to leave him. To be honest, I was. For some reason I had become really suspisious of a lot of people since this occured. I think that it was because of everything that happened with the police and how the person who was supposed to be helping us was the one that was causing the pain in the first place.
Once the nurses were finally able to get me and Caitlin to leave, we ended up waiting outside for a little while. Neither of us wanted to leave. We had been forced to. Which I have to admit that I hated completely. It was like, well, I guess I could say that it was like seeing someone that you love being in pain and wanting so bad to help them, but not being able to. As well as only being allowed to give that person emotional support for a designated about of time. That had to be the worst part of all of this. Nick needed us and they denied him that.
Caitlin leaned up against my car with a tear rolling down her cheek. She brushed it away and looked over at me. I saw in her eyes that she was confussed. Though I'm not sure what she would have to be confussed about. Everything about this seemed clear to me, but then again, that was me and this is her.
"You alright?" I asked her after a few minutes.
"I want to be up there with him. How could they make us leave like that? We have every right to be up there. Do you think we should complain to someone?" she asked hurtfully.
"It's the rules. Visiting hours are for only so long," I told her, "trust me I want to be up there too. Being at the hotel doesn't help Nick, being here does. Don't be mad at the nurses 'cause they were just doing their jobs."
"They could have let us stay Brian. They didn't have to force us out."
"We were pulling an AJ on them honey. Ya know?" I joked only getting a small smile from her, "we didn't want to listen to them and thats why they had to be mean about it."
"Maybe we should talk to Nicks' doctor tomrrow and ask him if we can stay for emotional support you know? I don't think Nick is handling being alone very well and I don't want him to go through any more pain than he already is."
"Maybe in the moring alright?" I said to her. She nodded and looked down at the ground. I felt really bad. I knew how she felt and she had a good idea but I wasn't sure if they would let us back into the hospital anyway. We got into my car and I drove back to the hotel. Neither of us said anything to each other. We were both too worried about Nick. Can you blame us?
When we got back to the hotel we went into our rooms and didn't say anything to each other. As I pulled the door shut behind me I let out a long breath and I saw that Leigh was asleep already. A small smile spread across my face, this was a sign that everything was going to be alright. I walked onto the balcony and sat down on one of the chairs. My attention went out into space as I continued to think about Nick.
I wish I was back at the hospital right now just so that I could check to see that he was doing alright. What Caitlin had said was right. Nick couldn't handle this emotionally. When he had talked to us alone he probably told the both of us the samething. I will never forget that conversation.
Nick was in tears. He was at the lowest point a person could possibly be. It took awhile before he was able to say anything. I just remained silent and waited for when he was ready to talk. I wasn't going to force him. He watched as he sat up and then looked me in my eyes. He stared at me and I returned the stare. Nothing was said for another few minutes. Until Nick was finally able to talk.
He told me about what it was like staying that the hospital alone. He explained, in detail, how scared he had become at even the slightest sound. Whenever a doctor or a nurse would come in to see how he was doing, he would tense up because he thought that they were going to do something bad to him. I stayed silent as he continued with his heartbreaking story.
He went on to tell me about how scare he was of everything. That wasn't the worst of it. He had said at one point in the night he had considered suicide. My eyes filled with tears when he told me this. I asked him why he would even consider such a thing and he simply said, 'To end the pain.' It was really hard for me to believe that he was in so much pain even after we found him.
Then again he never completely told us what happened in those two weeks. I concluded that it must have been extremely horrible for him to even consider taking his life. I was sure of that since day one. As I thought about this, I began to wonder why someone would want to take their life. Especially someone like Nick. He had so much to live for. He had a great fiance and they were about to have a child. At 22 he achieved all of his dreams and before all of this, he was happy.
I continued to stare into nothing. It started to rain lightly but I didn't care. I had too much on my mind to worry about a little bit of water. Suddenly I knew what I had to do. I stood up from the chair that I had occupied and walked into my room. I grabbed the keys to my car and left the hotel.
Chapter 21
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