My Fucking Nightmare

Sadie was probably right. Someone was gonna die tonight and I was going to watch it happen. My two best friends in the world were swinging fists at one another in Brian’s goddamn living room over he said she said bullshit. And it was perfect. This needed to happen and I had front row seats. In fact, I even narrated like a football game. Matt walks through the door, unsure what’s about to happen, an obvious look of panic on his face. Brian rounds the corner, fists clenched, waiting for the moment—his moment where there’s no turning back.
He starts with, “Did you sleep with Melissa?” and Matt stands in the living room, frozen in his tracks. Absolutely priceless. He throws his arms up, surrendering, backing up towards the back wall near the kitchen entrance. All the while this adorable little baby is looking up at me, spitting and blowing bubbles. “Huh, man? Did you sleep with Melissa?”
“Brian, calm down. There’s a lot you obviously don’t know about, or maybe you do. We should sit down and talk and I can explain everything you want to know.” Matt, your little bitch is showing. Maybe it was time to bring the little one into her room. Didn’t want to see her two daddies fighting, no, no. I scooped her up and dashed for the hall, laying her gently down in her bassinette, closing the door behind me. Brian had Matt backed into a corner, fists balled up tightly. White knuckled.
I guess it was probably too late to move furniture out of the way. So, I sat back on a stool in the kitchen and watched the magic happen. Matt started tripping over his words, essentially shoving his foot so far into his mouth that he’d probably end up shitting it back out. “Brian, calm down. Tell me where to start and I’ll tell you everything. Just back off, man. Back off.”
Brian backed off, but didn’t unclench. I mean, even his butt was all puckered up. I’m sorry, but this was just too great. “Start. Fucking. Talking. The hospital, where you almost died. What happened?”
“Okay, okay. Your gal was there. She was the only fucking one there. The rest of you didn’t even want to see me. I know, okay? I pissed you all off enough that I know you didn’t want to see me. I was the embarrassment. I was the fucked up douche bag that almost ruined a good thing we had going. And then I passed out on the bathroom floor, choked on my own vomit, and woke up in the hospital. None of you…none of you guys were there. Except her.” He paused to breathe. “I lost consciousness, Brian. My heart stopped. You guys had to do CPR. My fucking heart stopped. I died for almost six minutes, man. And in those six minutes, something happened.”
“Yeah, you found some ghost bullshit.”
Matt pushed Brian out of his way so he could make his way to the couch. “It was more than that, okay? Sit the fuck down and let me talk. Maybe she should be here too, because it isn’t just one-sided.”
“No, man to man. She and I will deal with this later.”
Matt was sweating. Like, fucking profusely. I dunno whether he was terrified of Brian or if he knew he’d been caught red-handed and was about to completely lose his shit. Something was about to go down. “Bri. Man, here’s how it is. I woke up in that hospital and I had this…awakening. I could see things in a different colour. A much clearer way than before. There was something out there keeping me alive, keeping me afloat. I felt an energy. And then I started seeing things. And it all happened after she visited me. She freaked out at me, man. Like, completely lost her shit. And I deserved every bit of it.” He panted, his hands shaking. His body trembling on the cushion. “That’s when I started seeing just how lucky she was. How lucky you were. I saw it in her eyes. The way she looked at you, the way she acted around you. I felt every second of it through her. And all she saw and felt was my pain. My anger, my jealousy. My hatred towards you. That hatred became my obsession and I wanted you dead, man. I wanted you gone.”
“So you fell in love with her.”
Matt was silenced.
Brian flew at Matt, landing a blow to his jaw so hard and so loud that I heard his jaw crack. The skin broke along his cheekbone, dripping down into the fabric of his shirt and the couch cushion. “You fucking fell in love with her! In love with my wife! And you followed her to Vegas. Told her not to tell me, because I didn’t know. She didn’t speak to me that whole weekend. She was too busy seeing mediums and eating bad food with you. And then you…you…” Brian fell backwards, landing on the beer-stained coffee table. He held his head in his hands, his right knuckles oozing blood. “How could you do this to me, man? Why would you do this?”
“Brian, I…” Matt was silenced again. By another blow to the other side of his face. They had to have hurt. But he didn’t even wince. He just took it. I’d seen Matt take blows like this, but never without a reaction. He was broken. He spat out a mouthful of blood and spit onto the floor by his feet. “One more. Just do it.”
Only, maybe I just didn’t anticipate a reaction. Brian swung at him another time, but was countered by Matt’s fist to his nose, sending him backwards across the coffee table, breaking a leg off in the process. He and the heavy wooden piece of furniture tumbled to the floor in a ridiculously loud heap. I was sure it roused the little one, but not a peep came from the monitor I held. Brian groaned and sat up, clutching his nose as blood poured from it. He wiped away what he could and spat at Matt. “Fucking cocksucker. I could kill you right now.”
“Then why fucking don’t you?” Matt bellowed, jumping up from the cushion. He towered over Brian, and until now I never truly realized just how big Matt really was. He bent down to Brian’s height, eye to eye, waiting for Brian to make the next move. A moment of silence followed by the opening of the front door. Both their attentions shot to whoever had walked in, followed by a shrill scream. Bags thudded on the floor.
Melissa and Brian’s mom appeared, pulling them away from each other. Throwing Matt back into the couch and Brian across the floor by the television stand. “What in the utter fuck is happening here?”
“Brian…” Matt coughed and sputtered. “Knows.”
Her attention shot to an obviously hurt Brian. Her face changed. I don’t think all the sorry in the world would have fixed him at that moment. I kept quiet, not wanting to break the silence. Oh, god. That silence. The only thing that stirred was Matt wiping the blood from his face and hands, and the ragged breathing of Brian through his broken, disfigured nose. “Evidently,” she started, probably trying to be careful of what to say, “We all need to talk.”
“I’ll grab Audrey.” Carol, Brian’s mom, whispered. She slunk off toward the bedroom to round up Audrey’s diaper bag. I was now the mediator of what would probably become the biggest shit storm I’d seen since high school. If only Zack and Johnny were here. But they’d just get in the way.
The door opened and closed again, drowning out the whimpering of the baby. We all heard a vehicle start and leave. In that silence, Brian spoke first. “That baby isn’t mine, is it?”
“No.” Melissa sighed. “After she was born I got her tested.”
“Were they both Matt’s?”
“No.” Brian scoffed and lowered his head. “I’m sorry.”
Matt shuffled and tried to sit up from the couch, but Melissa pushed him back down. “Brian, I didn’t want this to happen.” He muttered. Trying to hide the emotional breaks in his voice. “I didn’t want you to get hurt like this.” He said nothing. Melissa said nothing. Fuck, the tension was awkward. Like…too awkward. “There’s nothing any of us could say to resolve the problem.”
“No, there’s no problem here,” Brian spat. “Matt, you were fucked up. You were angry. Dissociative. I get it. We weren’t there for you. Melissa has a kind heart. She picked up the ball we dropped.” He sniffled. “She was there for you. She was there.”
Oh, wow. I teared up a little bit. Approaching the room, I brought a bar stool with me and sat between all three of them. We all looked down at our feet. I wanted to speak. I wanted to apologize thousands of times to each of these three people whose roles in this matter were as big as the others, whose complicated lives all played into the problem on a different level. There was no innocence here. I looked at each of them individually. Here we all were, facing our demons.
In all the chaos and bullshit, there was no bigger victim. Matt died for five minutes at the hospital. Brian, myself, and the other two never stepped in to support him. And the one who did was roped in by some spiritual…proxy. For lack of a better word. Sadie explained it a lot better our last meeting, trust me.
As complicated as this whole thing was, and as bad as it hurt, to be directly involved and an outsider looking in, there was nothing that could be done. This was it. This was the worst that was left to come, the fallout. But we were the legacy of Avenged Sevenfold. We knew this wasn’t the end.
We had to overcome. Learn from the past. Adapt and change for the better. That, or we’d sink. I wasn’t ready to let us sink.

Notes