A/N_ Bold and italisized means song lyrics. Just italisized means flashback.
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♫-Chapter-Twenty One-part 2
Teegan POV
“You don’t have that much longer,” the doctor’s grim tone says through the phone.
I rub my face with my free hand, sinking down to the seat near the door in the secluded room.
“Six months? Three days? Five years?” I ask, feeling choked up.
“Based off of how frequent the spans of your deaf periods, I would say you have six months…a year and a half at most….” The doctor’s voice dwindles apologetically..
his sympathy was tangible through the phone.
It was scary to think about the day I would lose my hearing forever.
I had so many plans with the guys.
We were going to achieve a record deal…
We were going to become the band that would be talked about for ages…
“Teegan?” the doctor asks through the phone.
“I’m here,” I respond gruffly, a lump forming in my throat.
“As soon as you get back, visit the clinic again so I can run some more tests. I’m sorry about this Teegan….i really am…” the Doc continues.
“I get it, Doc,” I respond back wearily, not even able to tell if it was his sympathy that I loathed, or just life in general.
I hang up the call, my phone still clutched tightly in my palm as I stare at the wall.
Nobody wanted to stay with a disabled right?
I knew that the moment I lost my hearing, I would also lose my best friends….my life….music…
Aria….
The saying ‘ you won’t miss what you don’t have’ is what I am coining in on. It would easier for both Aria and I to not get involved…
I stand up, grunting, my throat feeling dry and sore.
Looking around for a bit, I set out to search for Aria. She feared the ocean and boats; she must be a mess I think to myself.
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Guilt flashes through Aria’s face as the words “I don’t like him” ring in my ears.
The book slips out of her fingers and I briefly wonder if she even read the book.
I step forward, intent on stopping the fight, but just as I cross the distance, Maria tumbles back, the journal flying out of her grasp.
In the second that it takes for all of us to watch the journal hit the railing deck, Aria lunges for the book, reaching as far as she could to grab the journal, her feet dangling on railings.
It only took one second. One slip, one stomach clenching moment and one scream as Aria tips into the ocean.
It was only one second.
She was here and then there.
“I think I am more scared of drowning… and of being stranded, alone in the vast ocean”
Those were the words she had said to me.
It was a natural instinct of mine to follow Aria wherever she went. She was scared and the only thing that came to my mind was to be with her.
Love of mine some day you will die
But I'll be close behind
I'll follow you into the dark
I jump onto the outer deck hearing shouts of warning behind me but I ignore them, plunging into the biting sea that swallowed her.
“Have you ever experienced that feeling of knowing that you are going to die and just wanting to know that you meant something to someone?” her big brown eyes ask, filled with tears.
You mean something to me, I chant in my mind as I aggressively swim forward, the salt water blinding me. Panic strings my heart and I frantically swim around, looking for her.
Dark shadows misted the ocean and I briefly wonder if there were lurking dangers, laughing at me as I searched for Aria. I was never a strong swimer
My lungs constrict painfully.
It was at that moment, that suffocating moment of truth and terror that I came to this conclusion.
I would follow her into the dark.
My last breaths bubble within me, and I can’t help but wonder if dying this way was better than dying later…alone.
A brief flash of red catches my attention and as back dots fill my vision, I use my last ounce of strength to propel myself forward and grab onto the red, hoping that it was her.
No blinding light or tunnels to gates of white
Just our hands clasped so tight
I press her close to me, her eyes closed.
Entwining our fingers together, I look up to see a glittering fragment of the sun on the water.
I feel salt water shoot up my mouth as I inhale deeply, involuntarily.
There was no way I could make her go up.
As I cling to the last moments of consciousness, the light above us becomes smaller as we sink deeper into the dark.
I’m sorry, I think as I hug Aria to me and the black dots that swam in my vision, coalesced into a heavy sense of nothing.
I’ll follow you into the dark.
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Aria:
“You now have someone who would go to the ends of the earth for you. You now have someone who would do anything-be anything just for your happiness. You now have someone who would be broken without you,”
That’s what he had said to me.
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Tro:
Neither of them came up to break the surface of the water.
“Let go of me!” Blythe screams as Zach pulls her away from the boat’s edge, his arm wound around her waist as she kicks in the air. Her sobs racking her body. “My best friend needs me.”
Maria sits at the edge of the boat, her knees pulled up to her chest, a terrified look on her face as she stares at the boat’s wall.
Trey exchanges a worried look with me and silently, we both jump into the water.
Trey motions downward with a hand motion, my eyes trying to adjust to the salt water as I try to see past the cloudy darkness.
Come on you idiot, I think to myself as I search for Teegan.
I swear, I continue to think as I swim deeper, if you die, I’ll kill you again.
I open my eyes wide, ignoring the stinging pain, searching for the two of them.
It isn’t until I see Trey waving frantically at me that I spot a wisp of hair flickering in the water.
We both shoot forward, searching with our hands until my fingers come into contact with someone’s jacket-sleeved arms.
Pulling upward, I frantically kick my feet as Trey does the same, the two of us towing Aria and Teegan.
I briefly notice their entwined hands, and I know Trey does too.
Their deathly pale face spurred me on and I couldn’t even think about death at the moment as I break through the surface of the water, the windy air filling my lungs in a breath-full of stinging life.
Zach and Blythe lean cautiously over the boat, reaching out to help us as Trey and I lift half of Aria and Teegan’s body onto the deck.
I heave a heavy sigh; wearily fist pumping Trey as we wearily hold onto the edge of the boat, the water lapping my neck.
My arms hurt like heck.
Blythe and Zach pull on Teegan’s and Aria’s bodies, lifting them fully out of the water and onto the deck.
Heaving myself up, I follow Trey, dropping to my knees as Blythe frantically tries to preform CPR on Aria.
“Come on,” Blythe chokes out; her eyes wild with tears flowing down her face. “Aria!” she grounds out, placing a hand on Aria’s chest and trying to pump back the blood flow to her heart. Trey tilts both Teegan’s and Aria’s face to the side so they wouldn’t choke on water and I switch my gaze to Zach, who is trying to do the same to Teegan.
Neither were responding.
I stare blankly at Teegan’s and Aria’s entwined fingers and my heart bubbles with the hard feeling of disbelief.
Flashes of Teegan and I fill my mind and remember the day we met in elementary, when Teegan punched a guy for making fun of me.
Teegan was always like that, putting others first before him.
He never left me as my best friend. Not even when he first went to my rundown house that didn’t even have electricity. Not even when I got arrested for a couple weeks.
Snapping, I shove Zach away and place my hands on his chest, trying to remember how to do CPR from that stupid first aid class we took ages ago. His lips were blue and his skin a pale color.
Flashback:
“CPR isn’t any use,” I sourly said, watching as the teachers tried to show us how to do CPR on dummies.
Teegan tosses me a glare. “What if I was dying you idiot?”
I throw him a sly look. “ I’d watch you die.”
End of Flashback.
“Call 9-1-1” I hear someone yell as I angrily try to pump life back into Teegan.
One two one two one two one two-
I hear a strange spluttering cough mixed with a choke. Briefly looking look, I see Aria wrench upright, coughing up buckets of water, her frame shaking violently, her shaking arm moving Teegan’s lifeless one.
Blythe heaves a heavy sigh, flopping down into a sitting position with her hands covering her face with relief.
They weren’t out of the dark yet.
He was too young to die.
“Wake up you f*cking Dipwad. Don’t you dare think about leaving,” I grunt out.
One two one two one two-
I am briefly aware of the sound of an emergency motor boat ringing in my ears and the shuffling of medics surround me. As they try to move me, I viciously shove back, my eyes zeroed in on A lifeless Teegan.
“W-why is he like this?” I hear Aria croak out.
I feel someone grab my arms, dragging me back and restraining me as medics surround teegan, blocking me from his view.
We were all waiting for a sign. For anything- For Teegan to come back.
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A/N- 7/6/13- Want to do a finding aria one shot? go to the chapter labeled "IMPORTANT AUTHOR'S NOTE"- it will be the chapter after chapter thirty. prizes are involved