Erica Clifford - Completed

Fifty two

~Brooke's POV~

I slammed the car door closed behind me. Give it up for day 4. At least Michael had had me put on the list of people who could be given information. He couldn't be here all day everyday like I could be. It's not like I had any work to be doing. She was my work. Helping her was my job now. 

I'd been keeping up with her emails and everything as normal, working by her bedside and talking to her about how her album was sky rocketing. The doctors said hearing her loved ones speak could help sometimes. They'd also spoken about starting her on antidepressants as soon as she was awake. She wouldn't like that but I was insisting. And I'd carry on doing so too. 

She wasn't scaring me again. Not after this week. I sighed as I saw him still sitting where I'd left him last night. 

"Levi." I tilted my head. "Tell me you went home last night." He just looked at me. "You haven't slept or been home in days Lee." 

"It's not been that long." 

"Levi, It's Wednesday."

"Oh." It had been that long. I knew he napped whilst I was here, he'd sit in the chair beside her and he'd doze off for a few hours. It's a good job I was feeding him because otherwise he wouldn't be eating. 

"She's going to go mad when she wakes up if you're not looking after yourself Levi. You know that right?" 

"Not before I go mad at her for trying to jump off a cliff. Or for the DNR. Or for keeping any of this from everyone." 

"You're not saying a word." I crossed my arms. "You're not making her feel bad. She's already going to feel horrific when they wake her up." I put my bag on the chair beside him, walking over to the nurses station to get an update. 

"There's no update. Nothing happened last night. They just took her down for another MRI." I nodded and turned to look at him. He was still sat leaning forward but was looking up at me. "Was she really that bad whilst I was gone Brooke?" I sighed and walked, sitting in the chair beside my bag, lifting my legs up and crossing them. 

"She'd been worse. At least she always sat down and just cried it out. If that was her from last year she would have jumped without the second thought." I sighed again. I was doing that a lot since she came in here on Sunday morning. "It's not your fault Levi. It's all on Jason's head. No one elses." 

"I shouldn't have walked away." 

"And I shouldn't have ever let her talk to him in the first place 7 years ago. It's more on me than you." He looked up at me. "I should have kept my mouth shut and let him do all this to me, then she'd be okay." I turned and laid my head against the wall. "We can't go back and change what we've done. And nothing we did made her do the things she did, or the things he did." 

I let the silence wash over us. We were both feeling crappy enough as it was. We didn't need to be making this any worse. She'd be back soon and when she was it was strictly only positivity in that room. She needed to remember a reason to come back to us and if we did that by not talking about the shit then we would. 

"Did you see it went to number one?" I spoke, snapping the silence in half. 

"What did?" 

"The album." I turned my head and we looked at each other. "She did it and she's not even awake to see it happen."

"She'll do it again." He shrugged and sat back. I could see him settle slightly. "I knew she would before I even heard her sing. I knew sat in the kitchen when she told me she writes. That anything she touches turns to gold. That's why I got her to look at mine." He snickered and I smiled. "I didn't know who she was but I just felt it about her. She was leaning against the wall like she was completely done with life." 

"She was so mad at me that night." I chuckled. "Threw a proper tantrum at me taking her phone away." 

"She was so mad. She looked like she could have murdered you there and then."

"I'm pretty sure if you hadn't showed up and dragged her into the garage she would have started planning it." We both chuckled, knowing that would have 100% have happened if Levi hadn't got her talking about music. "She was so hungover that Monday. She kept complaining that her sides still hurt from laughing with you. That was the first time I'd seen the old Erica since before Jason poked his head in." I sighed. 

"What was she like? Before him?" I looked at his face and tilted my head slightly. 

"You know how she was on stage? Bubbly, energetic, smiling constantly, loud, cheeky, loud. So loud." I smiled. "Everything she is when she's with you. That's the old Erica. She really does love you Levi. And if you can't deal with all the shit, the depression, the suicidal tendencies, Jason. Then you need to leave before she wakes up because I can't deal with you staying and then me having to console her in a few months. I'd rather hold her through it all at once than piece by piece." I looked at him and he turned. "If you stay you can't leave her. You can't break her."

"I'm not leaving her Brooke. She's it for me. I don't want anyone else. I haven't since she poured herself the first rum and coke back in April. The way she rolled her eyes at me when I said something obvious, or when she talked about you, how she straightened up when I told her I write music. She came into the garage with me and drunk that rum like she was confident and comfortable but I could tell from the offset she wasn't. I'd been trying to pluck up the courage to speak to her at work but she always had her headphones on and I didn't want to disturb her."  The smile on his face as he talked about her made me smile. His eyes were sparkling at the thought of her. 

"I would normally have invited her up to my room. It would have made more sense than me carting everything outside. But I didn't want her to think I wanted anything. I mean I did. You know how hot she is." We both chuckled and I nodded. 

"The one girl I'd turn gay for." I smiled and shook my head. 

"I didn't want her to think that's what I wanted from her. I know how those things usually go at parties, they just end up one night stands. I never wanted her to be a one night thing. I knew that well before I even knew her name." He closed his eyes and laid his head back shaking it softly. "I can't loose her. Not now."