“It doesn’t matter what they think.” I tell myself, my eyes resting on Asya’s peaceful face. His blue hair seems faded by the hours of laying out across his white pillow beneath the fluorescent lights. Pale blonde hair invaded from the roots after the months that passed us by. His hand is cool and motionless in mine, so I tighten my grip on it. I gaze down at his blank face, wishing I could forget the way it looked back then as he nearly died in that bathtub.

The only music in the hospital was the song of machines humming and beeping, our constant breathing, and the occasional voice from the hallway chiming in. Daytime sitcoms and game shows slipped through the walls, so quiet and yet too loud to disregard. The laughter playing on those TVs was so inappropriate and alien to my ears. My hands gripped each other, sweaty and restless.

There was no color here, either. Only Asya’s fading hair, losing the blue with each day. My vision blurred for a moment, but I didn’t notice any tears that might have fallen. I only imagined them glittering faintly in the corners of my eyes, too afraid to fall.

“It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks.” I repeated in my mind. Half the world hated him, as it always hated me. I wonder how he’d feel about it, if he knew how the whispers and screens of the world were full of lies and poison. Too many people despise him for the drug overdose, claiming he deserved to die. Others took pity on him and wished for his health. A select few showed concern, remembering that he had just finished his court case, how he must have been in pain.

None of it mattered, though, compared to the overwhelming shadows covering him, now. I wonder if they would have called it a tragedy if he’d died instead.

I shook my head, repeating. “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.”

I looked at his face again, wishing it would change at all. He was blank, like a white canvas, haunting me with his emptiness. A tear fell onto our joined hands and I jolted slightly before I realized it was mine. I never thought he was a bad person. He was the only one that ever understood me. I wished he would wake up, even though I was afraid of what he’d be like. His doctors said he’d suffered brain damage from the overdose. Even if he woke, I was told, he’d probably never be the same. With each passing day, the doctors had less hope that he’d ever open those eyes again. After the first month of sleep, they said, most people won’t.

I couldn’t look at him, now. I straightened the flower arrangement on his bed table, my hand untangling from his. I wished that I could sit here forever, but even if I was physically capable of it, I knew that I’d never handle it emotionally. Even without the sadness of losing him, I would keep feeling the growing guilt. Not only had I assisted his relapse, but his overdose was the only thing that I could blame for my change. I was sober since the day I found him, and the public loved me so much more since. There was no way to enjoy the adoration that I’d always yearned for. I felt like I’d stolen it from him.

I recounted the days when he started his long sleep. I’d always assumed that people lay still when it happened, silent like corpses in the hospital with only their breathing to set them apart from the grave. When I went to the hospital with Asya, though, I learned that I was wrong. When I’d told him about the empty bottle of opiates I’d found beside the bathtub among the glass, they pumped him full of Narcan. His body had settled down. They knew within a day that he’d be in a coma, after shining lights in his eyes among other odd little tests. Asya groaned and made slight movements, but they still considered him too unresponsive.

There were days when he’d scare me. After that first night, he didn’t do so much. He almost seemed like a corpse sometimes, in that white bed with the mask on his face. Other days, I’d hold his hand and talk to him as if he could hear me. Suddenly, he’d groan or his leg would shift under his blanket or his eyes would snap open, seeing nothing. It always made my breath catch in my lungs, as though I saw him possessed. After a few weeks, it wasn’t so scary anymore.

I remembered those first weeks that he slept, how the media relentlessly attacked him while he couldn’t fight it. I remember the day that Gael and Absinthe held a press conference for him, how they stuck up for him against the media until they were both in tears. Gael’s cold eyes seemed to melt, and he was even too down to glare at the reporters in his aloof way when they persisted against Asya. Absinthe had to step in for him and talk while he collected himself. It was the first time that I’d seen Gael so openly emotional. Absinthe cried, too, but it wasn’t as powerful as seeing Gael’s tears. The room was quiet aside from the handful of voices that were too obnoxious and tactless to go silent. They still fired their disgusting questions as though they didn’t understand that we were human, too.

I remember seeing Asya on that first night when they’d gotten him all hooked up in that bed. I remember the way his hair was dry again when they’d laid his head on the white pillow. The pale light of the moon left the room almost black and white. That night, I cried. Gently, I cradled his hand, as though I feared I’d wake up from a dream to learn that he’d died instead. I was still wiping my tears away when I left the hospital, and someone shoved a camera into my face.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

How they learned so fast about his condition, who could say. I can barely recall the words the reporter said. I recalled just that camera in my face. The man behind it jumped in front of me no matter where I tried to go as I desperately tried to flee. His questions all bothered me, asking me things like what had happened in the hospital, why I was there, and if Asya was alive. He asked me if Asya drank himself to death, jumping in front of me with his camera once again. His face was so heartless, his eyes so bare of compassion. A fire rose in me before I had time to stop it. My tears were hot with rage and I punched the camera out of his hands. I recall his screams as it exploded into pieces on the pavement, the curses that followed as I ran away.

After the event, the media despised me even more. It was more of the same for me, so I swallowed the bitterness inside of me and visited Asya instead. Where the media despised me, though, the love of Asya’s most faithful fans had extended to me. Over the weeks, they called me his defender. They adored me for my loyalty, and for each day I went to his side. People cheered again when they spotted me on the street. Before Asya lay in his hospital bed, I would have eaten it up. I would have basked and adored it all. Now, though, it seemed so meaningless. It was too late to accept their love. I had failed them all. I had failed Asya.

Yet, in the eye of this storm, I found my sobriety. When my cravings set in, I fled to the hospital instead. When I sweated and itched, I held his hand and spoke to his resting face. When my will became weak, I checked into rehab and stripped my apartment clean. In therapy, I wrote Asya mountains of letters, hoping he’d open his eyes to read them some day. I walked the same beach he had walked so long ago and experienced the fresh cleansing air of the sea on my skin. New life was blown into me and after a hard month had passed, I didn’t dream of parties or bottles anymore. I’d become light and clean: reborn. If he ever woke up, maybe he’d be proud of me.

It was after this reforming month Gael called me to the studio. I met with him, Absinthe, and Michael. To see that I was meeting with them instead of Gael alone made me curious, as I hadn’t been a part of the band in a long while. I took a seat in the chair I used to sit in, haunted by the vacant seat where Asya used to sit during these meetings. I missed the sardonic smile he’d crack when we joked together, but recalled the more frequent occasions he’d rest his head in his arms to hide.

Gael was at the head of the table and we all looked to him as he stood there. He was fragile in his motionlessness, as if he would shatter with the silence if he spoke.

“Digitalis.” He started. His cold eyes reached into me, but not in the same sharp way they used to. It was their softness that gripped me, now. “We were wondering if… Since Asya is…” He seemed unable to speak, and he shuffled nervously at the head of the table. I’d never seen him so ill-composed before. “PHAGE HEAD probably won’t ever play again. We… We can’t… We won’t replace Asya. And… And because he’s…”

“Because he’s asleep.” I finished for him, not ruthless enough to leave him floundering like that. He looked at me with wide eyes for a moment before he exhaled and let them drift towards nothing.

“We thought we’d ask you to sing with us for a tribute song for him. Like the whole band got together again, except that he’s… Asleep.” Gael’s eyes were filled with a kind of defeat that I hadn’t imagined I’d ever see in them. I looked at Absinthe and the manager, who sat quietly by and looked to me for my answer.

“How are we all supposed to be together again if he doesn’t play?” My voice cut through the silence softly, somehow both abrupt and gentle.

“We think that it would make the tribute song only more significant because he won’t be playing. We want to give the fans something to say goodbye with, and we… We can’t do that without you.” Absinthe’s hand moved onto mine and she looked at me with such a pleading gaze that I couldn’t look at it. I nodded, looking down at the table.

“We won’t have another bassist play, will we?” I asked.

I wouldn’t play with someone else under the guise of reforming the band one last time. I wouldn’t sing for a group that hid an imposter.

“No. We can’t.” Gael responded almost too quickly. He slowed back down when he noticed that he’d reacted strongly. “We don’t want to feel like we’re replacing him. He’s just… Asya’s irreplaceable.” He said Asya’s name breathlessly, as if it defeated him just to speak it aloud.

“I’ll do it.” I agreed, looking back up into Gael’s eyes.

As he looked back into mine, I thought of the way Asya drank for this man. I recalled the nights he’d spent crying into his bottle because Gael wouldn’t reciprocate his love for him. I thought of the tortured expression in Asya’s eyes when anyone mentioned Gael’s relationship with that mousy little nothing of a girl he’d met. For just a moment, I looked at Gael and forgot the history that I had with him.

I looked at Gael and I saw him as if I’d only ever known who he was to Asya. For the first time, I saw why Asya loved him. Gael’s eyes were so affected with emotion from Asya’s loss. I could only imagine the relationship they’d had before I met them; the conversations and the fun they’d had when I was out on my own to enjoy my fame. I saw the affection that Gael had for Asya, and I saw Asya’s anguish. Asya haunted Gael’s eyes, as though they belonged to someone that might have almost fallen for him. It’s no wonder Asya never stopped hoping for him.

I dropped my eyes to the wood of the table. I couldn’t look at Gael anymore. All I saw was the love that helped Asya end up in his hospital bed. Just then, I knew that it wasn’t just me as an enabler that helped him into that coma. It was also Gael’s blindness, his cruel coldness, that put Asya in the bathtub that night. If only he would have helped Asya move past him, rather than leave him yearning. Asya wasted a life chasing the euphoria of his nostalgia for Gael’s affection, only to be crushed with the agony of coming down to wistfulness.