I was a grown-ass man and this was a fake relationship. I wasn’t going to ask her to do more than she’d agreed to when she wouldn’t feel like she could say no. But damn did I want to.
16
Alex
“You’re all overreacting. I’m perfectly fine and you can go get some sleep.”
Leave it to my mom to downplay the fact she’d fallen off a ladder and seriously hurt herself, narrowly avoiding a catastrophic injury.
I’d been in a fog on the flight home and the drive to the hospital. I tried looking at my script or some of the books Elena had recommended, but couldn’t focus on anything for long.
Losing my dad to a sudden heart attack when I was in college had been devastating and I was having trouble convincing myself my mom was fine. My youngest brother, Ryan, assured me before I got on the plane that she was stable and everything was going to be okay, but I hadn’t been able to shake the gut punch of seeing that picture of her in the ambulance.
Standing there finally holding her hand, I was barely keeping it together.
Ryan went home to get some sleep since he’d been there all night. My middle brother, Zane, arrived just after me and got to see my mom before they encouraged her to get some sleep too.
She’d dislocated her shoulder, so they’d put the joint back in, but she may have done some damage that would need surgery down the line. They were initially concerned about a concussion or other injuries, but after running a battery of tests, it appeared we were lucky and she was unscathed besides the shoulder. They were going to run a few more tests later in the day and then probably send her home.
She could hardly keep her eyes open, but was still feebly trying to mother us. “The immediate crisis is over. Go back to the house. You won’t get any rest in those chairs.”
I said, “Not happening, Mom. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
I glanced at Zane.
“Same.”
It’d been a helpless feeling to be so far away and not know whether she was okay at first. We were both a little shaken.
Zane and I sat in comfortable silence by her bedside until we’d watched her steady breathing for long enough that we needed to stretch our legs.
He nudged me and whispered, “Wanna take a walk, grab some coffee or something? She’ll sleep for hours and we can have a nurse call us if she wakes.”
I nodded, but once we were in the hallway, I asked, “So what’s your plan here? The two of us stroll into the cafeteria all normal like and just hope for the best?”
Nothing to see here. Just the lead singer of the top selling rock band in the world and his big brother the famous actor grabbing some coffee.
Neither of us were in the right headspace to run the selfie gauntlet if people recognized us. We also didn’t have any illusions about people being more respectful of our privacy because we were in a hospital. The fact that a picture of my mom in an ambulance was circulating was a testament to that. In the past, I’d been asked for selfies everywhere from standing at a urinal to the middle of a funeral. All sense of boundaries broke down in the face of fame.
A busy-looking nurse at the nurse’s station seemed to understand our predicament just from the awkward way we were standing. “You guys need somewhere to wait?”
I said, “We don’t want to trouble anyone. If you could even just point us to a quiet hallway…”
She spoke to a coworker, then started walking, nodding at us to follow. “It’s no trouble. There’s a small conference room you can wait in. I’ll come get you if someone needs the room or your mom wakes.”
She led us down a hallway and into a tiny room with a table and chairs.
Zane said, “I’m sorry, ma’am. I didn’t catch your name.”
“Sarah.”
He reached out a hand. “Thank you so much, Sarah. Your kindness means the world.”
She shook his hand, hesitating before she let go. “Your music means the world. It’s gotten me through some really hard times.”
She looked ready to cry, so Zane pulled her in for a hug. They held each other for a long moment, sharing a bond he seemed to form intensely with his fans.
It suddenly occurred to me that as successful as I was, I didn’t think I’d ever created anything that moved people in such a profound way. Art could still be valid if it didn’t, but it was definitely a testament to the power of Zane’s music.
