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Can You Feel Me? : Chapter 26
Katya kept stroking the side of his face and held him to her, letting him
cry. She knew where she was now. She was inside of the place Nick had
retreated to. She looked around at the darkness and shook her head. She
knew this place well.
Morning came quickly and Sterling walked in the room to see three of them
sleeping, Nick standing at the window and Kevin sitting on the bed watching
him. Sterling sat on the bed beside Kevin, "How much sleep did he get?"
Kevin shrugged, never taking his eyes off of Nick, "I don't know. I woke up
four hours later and he was already up and standing at the window exactly
like that. He hasn't moved."
Sterling nodded and made a few more notations on Nick's file. He shook
Kevin's shoulder to get his attention, "I want you to bring Nick to
Montana."
Kevin looked at him in shock, "Why me? Shouldn't you bring him?"
Sterling shook his head, "No, Nick trusts you and I doubt if he would leave
without you at this point. I'll be going with you, but I want you with him.
It will keep him calm and we need that."
Kevin nodded, "Give me an hour to get these guys back to the hotel and a bag
packed, ok?"
Sterling nodded and watched as Kevin quietly woke everyone up and they all
hugged Nick, even though he have no response, and walked out of the room.
Sterling watched Nick and for the entire hour that they were gone Nick
didn't move. It fascinated him, watching Nick stare into nothingness. He
wished he could go to where Nick had gone and try to understand it, to
somehow bring the young man back that had been there before that phone call.
Katya pulled back and made Nick look at her, "Nick, go back and let them
help you. They want so badly to help you, but you are shutting them out.
You are shutting out the good right along with the bad."
Nick sniffled, "I...I don't want to hurt anymore."
Katya wrapped her arms around his torso, letting him lean his head on her
shoulder again, "Well being hurt is part of life, Nick. But so is being
loved and you have a lot of that surrounding you. I can see it around you,
Nick. It's very strong and it comes from those five guys in your room with
you. It comes from your brother and sisters. It comes from all those
people that you touch with your music. The love is so strong around you,
Nick, it's almost blinding."
Nick started to rock back and forth, "It's so much easier this way."
Katya grabbed his shoulders and looked into his eyes, "No, it's not easy.
This is forever, Nick. This is nothing but blackness for the rest of your
life. This is no touch, none. This is forgetting who you are and why you
are here. This is losing everything that makes you human. This is gaining
everything that makes you the living dead. This is taking a wonderful human
being away from the world that needs him. This is being nothing but a
coward, Nick."
Katya got up and looked down at him, disappointed. "I can't watch you go
through this, Nick. It's too hard watching you waste everything that you
have been given. I can't watch a strong man become a coward."
She started to walk away, not knowing if she could even leave, but she was
going to try.
Nick scrambled to his feet, his blue eyes blazing. "I am not a coward!"
Katya looked over her shoulder at him, "Yes, you are. You let her win. You
proved her right. You are a coward, Nickolas Carter."
With two angry steps he had his hands on her shoulders and spun her around.
"I AM NOT A COWARD!"
She scoffed at him, "Please, if she was in front of you right now, you would
be able to do nothing. You would just turn your tail between your legs and
skitter away. " She shook her head at him, sing songing her next word.
"Coward!"
He pushed her away and she stumbled backwards as his face twisted in anger,
"What the hell would you know about any of this. You and your perfect angel
life that never had any pain in it at all. You don't have a fucking clue!"
Katya grabbed him, her hands closing around the top of his head and all
these images took over his mind. He saw Katya as a human. He saw painfully
familiar scenes, he saw the razor blade, he saw the alcohol, he also saw
pills. He saw the blood. He saw her fall to the floor, only no one was
there to help her to safety, no one was there to stop her. Then he saw her
again, this time on a bed, hooked up to machines that were monitoring
everything that happened in her body. He saw the healed over scars on her
wrists.
My god, how long had she been like this? he thought.
Katya let him go and he reeled backwards, "Don't have a clue huh? How do you
think I know everything you are going through, Nick? It's because I've been
there. It's because I'm still there. This..." She threw her arms out to
take in their surroundings, "is where I was pulled from when I was sent to
you. This is where I have been for so long I didn't remember touch, how to
feel, how to love anything. This is where I forgot what life was like
because I could never have it back again."
She stared him down, "My god, Nick. You have a choice to leave this place.
Some of us are given no choice. Some of us do such a good job of trying to
leave life that when we do realize that we want to live, in those last
moments when the panic of what you've done sets in, it's too late. It's too
late because you've done such a good job with your body that it no longer
wants to let you back in."
"Then you are sent here. There is nothing but blackness. Nothing but
emptiness and nothing to do but sit here and think about what you gave up.
What you would give anything to have back. This is forever for me, Nick.
This is all there is for me for the rest of eternity." She grabbed Nick's
face in her hands and looked in his eyes, "You don't get it, do you? This
isn't a safe place. This isn't an easy place. This is just an eternity of
nothingness, sucking the humanity out of you until you are nothing." She
shook him a little, "This is hell."
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