Page 77 of Closer

“Yeah, he’s a fighter. Ash will outlive all of us. He’d probably even survive the fucking apocalypse alongside the cockroaches.”

“Yeah, doesn’t mean I’m not gonna kick his arse for scaring the shit outta us like this. I can’t believe he didn’t tell us.”

“Maybe he was afraid we’d shun him.”

“Maybe. It kills me that he was going through this shit alone while we’re off getting our fucking rocks off. Even Zed and my sister are fucking.” He shudders. “Ash has been all alone.”

“Stupid, stubborn fuck. What Deb said makes sense though. He must have known longer than a few months. I wondered why he was turning down pussy left right and centre. I guess I just didn’t care enough to ask. I was too wrapped up in your wifey.”

Speak of the devil ... Ali comes out of the hospital as if she’s looking for us ... or maybe just Coop. She’s sobbing so hard she can barely breathe. Coop and I are on our feet in seconds. “Baby, what’s wrong.”

“Ash ...” she chokes on the words. “Ash is dead.”

“No.” I shake my head. “Not fucking funny, Red.”

My blood turns to ice in my veins. I stagger back against the wall.

“He had AIDS-related lymphoma. The doctors said he was due to start treatment last week, but he never showed. He’s dead,” she whispers.

I stalk back through the hospital doors.I don’t believe it. This is bullshit. He had AIDS not fucking cancer. They don’t know what the fuck they’re doing. We need another hospital, a second opinion. The doc is talking to Deb and Zed. Deb is leaning into my bandmate, her face buried in his broad chest. I march through the doors and right up to the idiot doctor, grabbing him by the coat, and shaking him so hard his teeth rattle. “You save him, you fucking bring him back. You hear me you piece of shit, you bring him back.”

The doc’s eyes are wide with fear. “He’s gone. I can’t bring him back. We tried ... we did everything we—”

I swing my arm back and punch him in the face. Blood flies out of his busted nose and I step back. Coop pins my arms behind me, but I shake him off and head for the door. Once out on the street, I walk without any direction. I slam my fist into the hood of a parked car. It stings like a bitch, but I shake it off as the alarm rings out into the night. I walk for an hour before I find a liquor store, and then I buy the biggest bottle of Johnny Walker they have and become real acquainted with it while I lay down on a park bench somewhere. The swings creak as they move with the wind. It’s eerie, and as I conjure up ghosts, reality wraps around me like a shroud, pushing out the cold, and allowing only numbness in.

Ash is dead.

There’s a fire in my belly, fuelled by rage, and alcohol, and it’s enough to keep me from freezing on this crappy park bench. I take sip after sip after sip. I drink myself into oblivion, because it hurts far less than the icy wind blasting my face, or the fact that my best friend was alive and talking to me, less than four hours ago, and now he’s dead.

Gone.

Forever.

I didn’t even know he was sick—not this sick. He had a cold. A common cold, he didn’t have cancer.They’re wrong. He wouldn’t just not show up for treatment like that. I should have been here. Instead, I’ve been buried inside Brie, and now I understand why she said she hated me, why she can never forgive me. Because I can never forgive me either.

Ash had spent months hiding this shit from us. We’d all been too busy, too caught up in pussy to see that our brother needed us. We’d all dropped the ball, but me especially. He was my fucking best friend, and I abandoned him when he needed me the most. I failed him, and I will never ever forgive myself for it.

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