The Middle

*Jimmy's P.O.V.*
It was in the middle of the night as my phone started to ring. I had just fallen asleep and then someone had to come along to destroy it. The last days were a torment, I barely couldn’t sleep, and neither could I concentrate on something. My battery died and I desperately needed a vacation, and a lot of sleep to recharge it.

"If it is not important, rather pray to God that I won’t find you, bastard" I muttered into the phone when I had finally found it in my chaos.

"Please come to the hospital as soon as possible" came from the other side of the phone.

The voice came to me fairly familiar, but I couldn’t really think of anyone.

"Who is this?” I rubbed my eyes.

"Jimmy, it is me, Zack."

His voice sounded a little indignant as he would be mad at me that I hadn’t recognized him immediately. I'm so sorry, but I wasn’t really a Speedy Gonzales in the night. Sure I would have recognized the voice in the morning. After all, I went with Zacky to school, had beat him up several times or simply teased that guy with one of my jokes.

"It's all right. It’s just that you got me when I finally felt asleep" I sounded a bit grumpy and I had good reason to. "So what’s wrong again? And please do it slowly as I’m not the fastest in the middle of the night.”

"Can you please come to the Huntington Beach Hospital? I had a fight with Brian, kicked him out and found him unconscious in the park. It would all be less dramatic if he had not taken a cocktail of sleeping pills and cocaine to him."

I couldn’t understand one word he was saying. He was talking quite clear to me, but it all didn’t make much sense to me. Run away, unconscious, drugs. It was all in my head and I put my hand on the forehead, as if I could stop feeling dizzy.

"I’ll tell you more when you're here, just please come.”

Zacky sounded pretty desperate and it could only mean that something really bad happened. In order to lose no time I put on some clothes and ran as fast as it could to the hospital. Although it was a few miles away from my house, but I was faster when I knew that people desperately needed me.
It takes forever to Zacky to call someone and ask for help, even if he did not say it word by word. He said it mostly between his lines. He had his pride, but sometimes it wasn’t a bad idea to ask other people for an advice.

Arrived, covered in sweat, I ran to the desk where Zacky was already sitting. His gaze was directed down to the floor, the skin even paler than usual and his face was covered with blood and bruises.

"What's going on? What happened?” I came closer and sat down on the still vacant chair next to him.

"Brian” he whispered and shook the head.

"Brian? What happened to Brian?" my voice cracked and my heart literally skipped a beat.

"His room is the last one on the left side of this corridor" he showed along the hallway. "We had a fight."

"Just a dispute or beaten up the other one?"

I actually knew the answer but wanted to hear it anyway coming out of his mouth. It shocked me that best friends beat up themselves.

"I try to make the long story a little shorter. Sarah has tried to tempt Brian with Roxy to catch them later in her house kissing or sleeping with each other. I don’t know. Nobody plays a game with us, so we joined that dirty game of her and kidnapped Roxy."

I just shook my head.

"Then Sarah wanted to ask him to forgive her for her stupid actions and at the end one bullet had hit Roxy. Brian has fallen into a deep hole since then and today I caught him as he has taken several pills. That’s how the whole fight started and before I kicked him out, we beat each black and blue. I felt really stupid of what I did and wanted to apologize. So because I couldn’t find him anywhere I was looking at our secret spot. He was unconscious and I found this …"

He gave me a small bag of white substance. I guess I knew exactly what it was. Cocaine.

"And what does the doctor say about his condition?"

"They say that his condition is currently quite critical. They don’t even know if he will survive the night yet. I shouldn’t really have kicked him out. I should have done what best friends usually do, stay on his side and support him.”

"I "can think of a possibility why you really freaked out when you saw him taking drugs.”

Zacky looked at me briefly, nodded and lowered his gaze again. He knew exactly what I was talking about.

"You know what happened a few years ago when we went down our party mile. At that time, you were the one with a drug problem, but fortunately everything went well. And that's why you're mad at Brian, because you know how it is and exactly know the dangers. I guess he doesn’t know about the time when I have brought you in the emergency room, right?"

"No. It's not that I want to lie to him, but now I wish I would have told him. Maybe I should have warned him at all the risks that come along when you take this kind of stuff."

"You two are very much alike. More than you even can imagine" I tried to bring up a little smile on my face.

"That may be, but right now I blame myself for that situation here. It was a cry for help and I have completely ignored them."

"Doesn’t everyone?" I tried not to laugh and that’s why I was just pointing at myself "We all make mistakes, but Brian will feel much better soon I promise. You know he's always been a fighter who has got what he always wanted. "

"I remember that time we were all sitting in the studio, just wanted to order food and while all wanted to order Chinese, he was the only one that wanted Mexican food."

"And what’s the end of the story?"

"We have ordered Mexican food."

"You see clearly the point I’m making here?"

I hoped I was able to cheer him up at least. I couldn’t stand to see any of my friends down. Of course I was worried about Brian, but I could sometimes just better hide it as the others. In addition, I was sure that he will make it. No one would stop him from that.

"What makes you think that he felt in love with Roxy?"

"I have seen his eyes when he looked at her. I mean she was gorgeous, but I think that a part in him came back to life again. With Sarah he fell downright into a kind of hibernation. Roxy was the one that brought back the smile I missed so much and I guess that's why he was so shattered when he heard about her death. Or the fact that he still loves Sarah. After all, he didn’t want to give his report to the police at the beginning. Later he changed his mind though."

"That may be, but he has told me otherwise."

"Dr. Pollack, please come quickly“ a man's voice came from behind and when we turned around we saw the two went into the room of Brian .

What the hell was going on? We got up and followed the two men quickly and just stood there motionless.

Notes