By some small miracle, I managed to hold it together until after I made it back to the hotel.

“Zac, it’s me,” I said into my phone. I’d tried calling Isaac first, but he hadn’t picked up and his voicemail inbox had been full. Zac hadn’t picked up either, but I was at least able to leave a message. “It’s Ruby. I, um…” I closed my eyes, trying to figure out what to say next. “Something’s happened with Taylor,” I finally managed to get out. “He’s okay, but…he’s not okay, if that makes sense?”

I let out a quiet sigh and rubbed my eyes a little with my free hand. The absolute last thing I wanted to do right now was talk about this, and I wanted to talk about it over the phone even less than that. It was a subject that needed to be talked about face to face.

“I’m going to duck into Coles or something, then I’m heading back to the hotel,” I continued once I’d figured out what I wanted to say next. “It won’t take me long. You know what my room number is.” After another short pause, I finished with, “See you soon, yeah?”

Once I’d hung up and locked my phone again, I tucked it into the centre console of my car and fished the lanyard that held my keys from my handbag. It was one of my tour lanyards, from the previous year’s regional tour of Western Australia and the Northern Territory, and like all of my tour lanyards it was purple – something that had been Taylor’s doing ever since my first time joining Hanson on tour. Just the sight of it had me biting down hard on my bottom lip to try and stave off the tears that were threatening at my eyes.

It didn’t take me long to get back to the hotel that had been home for the last few weeks. A quick trip around the Coles supermarket the next block over from the hospital was followed by the bottle shop that was across the road and a block down from the hotel – I had no idea how either of Taylor’s brothers would react to what I had to tell them, but I’d figured a bit of alcohol would go some way toward softening the potential blow. If nothing else, there would definitely be some tears.

Before I headed inside, I picked my phone up and fired off a text to Taylor. Am back at hotel – about to talk to your brothers. How much do you want me to tell them?

He didn’t reply straight away. I had just finished unpacking my shopping and putting it away in the apartment’s tiny kitchen when my phone chimed at me, a little speech bubble displayed in its status bar. A quick swipe down my phone’s screen revealed a text message from Taylor.

As much as you want to tell them, he’d typed out. The basics at least, anything beyond that is up to you. Going to call you once i’ve woken up a bit more.

I didn’t wake you up did i?

Nah, you’re good. He’d followed this with a smiley face emoji. I’m kind of glad i’m not there right now to see the looks on their faces when you tell them. They’re gonna be pissed.

It’s not your fault if they do get pissed off. You didn’t ask for any of this. Just as I typed this out, there was a knock at the door. I think they’re here. Talk to you in a bit.

Sure enough, I was right. A quick glance through the peephole set into the door of the apartment revealed Isaac and Zac standing in the corridor, both of them looking unusually serious. I had seen that particular look on the faces of everyone in both of our families enough times in the last couple of months to last me a lifetime.

“I need you both to promise me something,” I said after I’d let them both inside, once we were set up in the apartment’s lounge area with a drink each. The two of them had set themselves up on the lounge, and rather than drag a chair over from the dining table I’d cleared off the coffee table so I could sit down on it. I didn’t look up from my glass of moscato as I spoke. Normally I didn’t drink alcohol, but for this particular conversation I’d decided that I needed something with a bit of a kick to it. “Don’t give him any shit about what I’m about to tell you.”

“We’re not going to give him shit about whatever it is, Ruby,” Zac said, and I glanced up at him. He had his head bowed and an open can of Bundy and Coke in his left hand, holding it so loosely that I was sure it would end up spilled all over the floor. “That’d be a pretty shitty thing to do right now.”

“He’s worried that you’re going to be angry at him, that’s all,” I said with a small half-shrug. Part of me was tempted to mention that the three of them hung shit on one another all the time, but Zac was right – they would never give Taylor any grief over his myriad health issues or be angry at him about them. There were just some lines that weren’t meant to be crossed.

“He’s always worried about that,” Isaac pointed out.

I didn’t respond to this. Instead, I let out a quiet sigh, wishing that I wasn’t the one to break the news. “He was supposed to start physio today. And, well…” I swiped at my eyes. “When the physiotherapist he was going to be working with was getting him to work on sitting up-” I broke off and squeezed my eyes shut for a moment against the tears that were threatening to fall. I didn’t want to finish that sentence – it would make what was happening all the more real. If nobody said those words, I could pretend it was just a terrible nightmare.

Isaac ended up finishing the sentence for me. “He couldn’t move,” he said, sounding like he couldn’t believe the words he was saying, and I nodded. “Shit.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” I agreed.

“How bad are we talking, exactly?” Zac asked. He’d straightened up by now, and I didn’t miss the bleak, disbelieving look in his eyes.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Nobody does, not yet. There was talk about calling in one of the hospital’s neurologists just before I left.” I fished my phone out of one of my pockets and tapped twice on its screen to wake it up. “He’s supposed to call me in a little bit, so hopefully he’ll be able to tell us more about what’s going on.”

Almost as soon as I finished speaking my phone rang, the chorus of Follow Your Lead sounding from its speaker and its caller ID reading Taylor. I didn’t hesitate in answering it and putting it straight on speaker. “Hey Tay.”

“Hey,” he replied, and I involuntarily bit down hard on the inside of my cheek at the sound of his voice. He sounded equal parts exhausted, uncertain and utterly miserable, and it took every bit of self-control I could muster to stop myself from heading back up to the hospital so I could give him the hug he sorely needed. Anything like that would have to wait until the next time I saw him.

“How’re you holding up?” Isaac asked, and I mouthed ‘thank you’ at him. There was no world in which I could have asked that question, no matter how much I would have wanted to.

He didn’t reply straight away. When he finally did speak, he sounded like he was about to start crying.

“I don’t know why the universe decided that it’s going to use me as its personal dartboard, but I’d really like it to go fuck itself right now,” he said at last.

“That bad, hey?”

“You have no idea, and right now I’m really glad you don’t. This is…” He let out a frustrated-sounding sigh. “All I want to do right now is get up out of this stupid fucking bed and walk out of this fucking hospital, and I can’t even do that.”

There was more quiet on Taylor’s end of the line, and I thought I could see him scrubbing a hand down his face. “They don’t know what’s going on,” he said. “All they know so far is that I can’t move much of anything below my waist, but I can still feel most things. On and off anyway, my nerves are acting up and my feet and my hands keep going numb. Have to have an MRI sometime in the next few days to see how bad things are.” Here I thought I could see him shudder a little. “I fucking hate MRIs.”

“I’ll come with you,” I volunteered.

“You sure you don’t mind? It’s boring and really fucking noisy.”

“Seriously, I don’t mind. I figure you’d appreciate the company.” Even though I was well aware he couldn’t see it, I shrugged a little. “Besides, isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? Support each other?”

He chuckled a little. “Yes, okay, you’re right. Soon as I find out exactly when it’s happening, I’ll let you know.”

“Apart from all of that, though, you’re okay?” Isaac asked. He’d finished his glass of Jack Daniels by now, but hadn’t moved to pour himself a refill.

Once again, there was silence from Taylor – I figured he was just gathering his thoughts and figuring out how to answer. “Do you want me to be honest, or do you want a load of bullshit?”

“Honesty would be nice.”

“Of course it would.” I could almost see him shaking his head at this. “I’m not okay Isaac, all right? I probably won’t be okay ever again – I don’t know if I’m ever going to be able to walk again, let alone record or perform. How the fuck am I supposed to get up onstage or into the studio if I’m in a fucking wheelchair?”

“Hey,” Isaac said, his tone sharp, and Taylor immediately shut up. “You don’t need to worry about any of that right now, okay? And if it does turn out that you can’t walk and you need to use a wheelchair to get around, then we will figure things out. We can do a reno on the studio, as a start. But right now all Zac and I want and need you to focus on is getting yourself well enough to come home. All right?”

“Isaac-”

“All right, Jordan?” Isaac repeated, using Taylor’s first name for emphasis. The number of times I had heard him or Zac do that in the time I’d known them could be counted on one hand.

“Fucksakes Isaac, all right! You don’t have to yell at me,” Taylor snapped, sounding almost wounded. “And don’t call me Jordan, you’re not Mum or Dad and you’re definitely not Ruby either.”

“Can we not do this right now?” Zac cut in, ever the voice of reason. “We…” He trailed off, and he let out a quiet sigh. “The last thing we should be doing right now is fighting. That’s not helping anyone. So can we just…I don’t know, stop being arseholes to each other for once?”

Nobody said a word or made a sound for about half a minute after that. It was Taylor who ended up breaking the silence. “Yeah, sorry,” he apologised, before letting out a very shaky breath. “I just…”

“What?” I prompted gently.

“I don’t want this to change who we are. I…I don’t want it to change who I am.”

“It won’t change us,” Zac said – he sounded incredibly sure of himself, but I didn’t miss the very unsure look on his face. “It’ll change how we do things, yeah, but it’s not going to change who we are. We’ll still be brothers, and we’ll still be a band.”

“I hope you’re right, Zac.” I could almost see Taylor rubbing his eyes a little after this. “I think I’m gonna go. Soon as I know what’s happening with the MRI bullshit I’ll let you all know.”

None of us said a word for what felt like forever after Taylor hung up. It was almost as if we didn’t know what to say. I’d known what was going on, so my silence was more me trying to process everything than it was anything else, but the news that Taylor was paralysed – potentially for the rest of his life – had completely blindsided Isaac and Zac. They both looked as if their entire worlds had ended, and in a way that was exactly what had happened. However things played out from here on out for the three of them, it would be as a very different band.

“Fucking hell,” Isaac said at last. “I just…what are we supposed to do now?” He put his glass down on the coffee table and sat back against the lounge cushions, hands clasped at the back of his neck. “How are we going to tell Joel and Nessa? Or the fans?”

“More to the point, how the fuck are we going to tell Mum and Dad?” Zac added. “This is…” He shook his head in what I took to be disbelief. “What the hell did he do to deserve this?”

“If you ever figure that out, you let me know,” I said, and eased myself to my feet. “‘Scuse me.”

I’d somehow managed to hold back the tears that badly wanted to fall the whole time I’d been telling Isaac and Zac what was going on, and even during the phone call with Taylor. But almost as soon as I’d slid the balcony door closed behind me, the dam seemed to break at long last.

He had already been through so much – almost too much for one person to bear, and certainly more than anyone should ever have to deal with. It honestly amazed me that he’d managed to not end up utterly broken by it all. I had to wonder, though, if this would end up shattering him completely.

I’d just about finished crying myself out when my phone’s text message tone sounded off. Once I’d fished it out of one of my pockets, I unlocked my phone to find a message from Taylor.

Monday arvo, half past 4. Just as I finished reading it, another message popped up. Are you totally sure you want to come?

Of course i’m sure, I replied. Do you want me to meet you there?

Yes please. He didn’t say anything for almost a minute after this. I’m really scared, rue.

I didn’t ask him to elaborate on this – mostly because I already knew why he was so scared. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why. Instead I replied, Yeah me too tay. Me too.

“Hey.”

I looked up from my phone at the sound of Lisbeth’s voice. She’d settled down on the bench next to me, and  as I’d raised my head I’d seen the two takeaway coffee cups she was holding – one marked with a large black CL, and the other with an FW. She handed me the first cup. “I know you like chai,” she explained. “It’s from the café over on Belmore Road.”

“You’re a lifesaver,” I said, doing my best not to sound too grateful. “They can’t do a chai here to save themselves.” I cracked the lid on the cup and took a careful sip. “That’s perfect.”

“So what’s happening?” Lisbeth asked between sips of her own drink. “Seeing as you’re still up here, I figured it wasn’t good news.”

“It…” I let out a quiet sigh that was quickly lost in the sounds of the traffic that wound through the streets and neighbourhoods that surrounded the hospital. “It’s not great, yeah. They, um…they think he might be paralysed.”

Lisbeth let out a soft gasp. “Are you kidding me?”

I shook my head. “I wish I was. I don’t know exactly how bad it is yet, neither does he, but he’s having an MRI this arvo to find out for sure.” I quickly glanced at my watch. “In about an hour, actually – I’m supposed to be meeting him in twenty minutes. We’re both dreading finding out the results.”

“I don’t blame you.” I felt Lisbeth slip an arm around my shoulders and pull me a little closer. “I would be too. Do you want me to come with you?”

“You don’t mind?”

“‘Course I don’t mind. They probably won’t let me in there while they’re doing the MRI, but at least this way you’ve got a bit of support. Both of you.”

I gave Lisbeth a small smile. “Thanks, Lis. Appreciate it.”

Once we’d finished our drinks and had binned the cups, we headed inside the hospital. No sooner had we found seats in the waiting room of the Medical Imaging Department that I heard it – the familiar sound of rubber tyres rolling over linoleum, followed by the squeak of brakes being set. Both were sounds I’d hoped never to hear from something other than my own wheelchair.

“Someone from the ward will come for you after your MRI is finished,” an unfamiliar male voice said, and I glanced over to see a young man – I figured that he was one of the hospital orderlies – dressed in dark green scrubs crouched beside Taylor’s wheelchair. Taylor’s response was a nod and a quick thumbs-up, and the orderly clapped Taylor on the shoulder as he straightened up out of his crouch.

“How are you travelling?” Lisbeth asked once the orderly had disappeared into the corridor. Any comment she might have made about how long Taylor had been stuck in Sydney, or in hospital in general, went unspoken – it was just something that didn’t need to be said. “Ruby’s told me a few bits and pieces, but other than that I haven’t heard much.”

He didn’t answer right away, at least not out loud. Instead, he raised his right hand up to about the level of his shoulder, splayed out his fingers, and rocked his hand from side to side a couple of times.

“That bad, hey?”

He finally let out a quiet laugh, the first I’d heard from him in over a month. “You could say that. All I want to do right now is get up and just go for a damn walk, and I can’t even do that.” He picked at the left knee of his pyjama pants. “I don’t even know if I’ll be able to do that ever again.”

“Well, I have my fingers crossed,” Lisbeth said, and she held up a hand to show that she did indeed have her fingers crossed – something that elicited the most fleeting of smiles from Taylor, one that I would never have noticed if I didn’t know him as well as I did.

“Thanks, Lis,” he said quietly.

Almost as soon as he had finished speaking, an unfamiliar female voice joined us. “Jordan Hanson?” its owner asked, and I could almost hear Taylor let out a groan of frustration at hearing his first name. “I’m Grace, we’re ready for you if you’d like to come with me.”

“Could I have someone with me?” Taylor asked. “MRIs kind of make me nervous.”

“Of course,” Grace replied, and I raised my hand. “If you’ll both follow me, there’s a bit of paperwork to take care of before we can get you set up.”

“See you in a bit,” Lisbeth said, and she gave my hand a quick squeeze as I headed off after Grace and Taylor.

The first place that Grace led us to was a room that resembled a doctor’s office – it had a desk against one wall, an examination table against another, and a couple of lockers next to the door leading to the waiting room. I could very faintly hear a rhythmic, repetitive buzzing sound coming from behind the room’s other door.

“Now, normally I would ask that you get changed into a hospital gown for the scan,” Grace said as she handed Taylor a clipboard and a pen. “But as I’ve been informed by” she frowned a little “your neurologist, was it?” she asked, and Taylor nodded. “Your neurologist told me that the injury you’ve sustained would make that somewhat difficult, so I’ll make an exception in your case. I’ll still need you to pop your personal belongings and anything you’re wearing that might have metal in it into one of the lockers over by the wall. Soon as you’ve filled out that form, I’ll give you a quick once-over. Then we can get started on the MRI.”

“You have one of these every year, right?” I asked as Taylor started filling the form out. I watched as he ticked the boxes indicating that he had an artificial heart valve, a metal plate and screws in his right forearm and a tattoo, that he had issues with anxiety, even his allergies and the various surgeries he’d had over the years.

“Mmm-hmm,” he replied without looking up. “Full spinal MRI, because back when I was sick it ended up getting into my spine both times. It’s the fucking worst.”

“I’ll come with you next time.”

He finally looked up from the form right as he finished signing it and gave me a small, nearly imperceptible smile that I didn’t hesitate in returning. “Thank you.”

“All set?” Grace asked, and Taylor handed the clipboard back to her. “How long ago was your last surgery?” she asked almost conversationally as she looked the form over.

“About six weeks, I think?” Taylor replied, sounding more than a bit uncertain. “I was unconscious up until a couple of weeks ago so I’m not entirely sure.”

“That should be fine…and the plate and screws in your right arm, that happened in early 1997, correct?”

“About the beginning of January that year, yeah.” He frowned a little, and I knew he was digging through his memories. “I have eight screws in there, if I remember right.”

“I do as well,” I offered, and I raised my own left arm. “Nearly two years ago.”

“That’s helpful, thank you,” Grace said, giving me a smile. “Everything looks to be in order here.”

Once Grace had given Taylor what had to have been the fastest physical examination I’d ever seen, the two of us stowed our things in one of the office’s lockers – my sneakers, handbag, hoodie, all of my jewellery and my phone, and Taylor’s hoodie. Just as I swung the door of our shared locker closed, the door that I could only assume led through to the MRI screening area opened and two unfamiliar people dressed in blue-green scrubs walked in – one, a tall man with his long dark hair pulled back into a ponytail, was pushing an empty wheelchair in front of him, while the woman accompanying him was carrying a clipboard of her own. These, I figured, were two of the hospital’s MRI technicians.

“Are you able to transfer from your wheelchair?” the male technician – Wade, if his name badge was any indicator – asked, and Taylor shook his head. “Do you have any objection to someone transferring you? It would be between your wheelchair and this one” here Wade indicated the wheelchair he’d been pushing “onto the MRI table and off it again, and back into your wheelchair after the scan is finished.”

“I won’t say I like the idea,” Taylor replied, his tone betraying how he really felt about it, “but no, I don’t have any objection to it.” He frowned a little, and I could see him eyeing the other wheelchair with a great deal of confusion. “What’s the difference between this wheelchair and that one?”

“This one is safe to go into the screening room,” Wade replied. “If yours went in there while the MRI scanner is switched on at full power, it could be ripped apart by the magnet. And we don’t want that happening, especially not while you’re sitting in it.” Wade now turned his attention to me. “On that note, could I have a quick look at your walking stick? I need to make sure it’s safe to come in with you.”

“Oh yeah, sure,” I replied, and passed my walking stick to Wade. I had it back in almost no time at all, minus its wrist strap – this went into the locker with my things in it, wound neatly around my phone.

“Do you have any music you’d like to listen to during the scan?” the other technician asked – her name badge gave her name as Ella – and I immediately fished Taylor’s phone from the right front pocket of my jeans.

“I’ve got a Spotify playlist called ‘MRI Tunes’,” Taylor replied as I handed his phone to Ella. “Phone PIN is two nine eight three, just chuck it on shuffle.”

“Gotcha. I’ll make sure you both have headphones to wear during the scan.”

It wasn’t long afterward that Taylor and I were set up in the screening room – Taylor was lying on a long, uncomfortable-looking table with a thin pillow beneath his head and another pillow under his knees, bare feet pointing toward the white cylinder that made up the MRI scanner itself and a buzzer in his left hand, while I was sitting on a wooden stool next to the MRI table. The spot that the technicians had put me would have me within Taylor’s easy reach during the scan. I did my best to block out the low, ever-present buzzing I could hear even through my headphones as the technicians busied themselves in the control room far to my left.

“Just remember that we need you to keep still during the scan,” Ella said, her voice coming in loud and clear through my headphones and briefly blocking out the sound of the scanner. “We only need to scan your lower back so just keep breathing normally. Shouldn’t take much longer than half an hour or so.” I saw Taylor give a thumbs-up in response to this. “Starting the scan now.”

For the briefest of moments, all I could hear was the same buzzing I’d been hearing since coming into the scanning room, albeit at a much faster pace than before. It was soon replaced with the first song on Taylor’s playlist – Beautiful Machine by Shihad. I just barely managed to stifle a snort of laughter at the irony of that particular song playing right now.

The next thirty minutes were spent running my fingers through Taylor’s hair and smoothing over the creases in his forehead with my thumb, the music through my headphones ranging from Shihad, INXS, Tonic and Crash Test Dummies through to Coldplay, The Verve, Angels & Airwaves and Nirvana. Lithium was just reaching the start of its second verse when the music shut off and Ella’s voice came over my headphones again.

“That should about do it,” she said, and I was sure I could hear Taylor letting out a sigh of relief. “We’ll let your neurologist know when the scans are ready to be examined, and they’ll have a chat with you about the results a couple of days after that.”

It ended up being another week before we found out the outcome of Taylor’s MRI. The second I saw the look on Dr. Reed’s face, I knew it wasn’t good news.

“I believe that at some point over the last couple of months, you’ve suffered what we call an ischaemic stroke in your spinal cord,” Dr. Reed said. A few days earlier Taylor had been transferred from the hospital’s cardiac rehab ward to the inpatient rehab ward in the Spinal Injuries Unit, which had been the first sign that everything was about to change. “It’s similar to a stroke in the brain – in your case, your spinal cord below a certain point was deprived of blood for too long due to a blood clot in one of its arteries. It’s caused a condition called ischaemic myelopathy.”

“So what does all of that mean, exactly?” I asked.

“It means I’m stuck like this,” Taylor said quietly before Dr. Reed could answer. In the whole time that we’d known each other, Taylor had always tapped out a rhythm on something – a table with his hands or a couple of pens or drumsticks, or the floor with his feet. For the first time in the two and a half years since we had met, his feet were still and silent. “Right?”

“Not necessarily,” Dr. Reed replied. “The tests that were done a couple of weeks ago indicated that your injury is what we call AIS B, or sensory incomplete. You can still feel temperature and touch, but you have no motor function below L1, which is roughly equivalent to your hips. The good news, though, is that if you’re willing to put in the work, there is a very good chance that you’ll regain some motor function – potentially even all of the function you previously had. I can’t make any promises, but it is possible.”

I could tell that Taylor was trying his hardest not to break down crying – he was blinking rapidly, and I could see that he was biting down hard on his bottom lip. “Am I still going to be able to play music?” he asked finally. “I don’t care if I’m stuck in a damn wheelchair for the rest of my life, I just want to know if I’m still going to be able to work.”

“That depends. What instruments do you play?” Dr. Reed asked.

“Piano, guitar, harmonica, drums and percussion,” Taylor replied. “Mostly the first two, though.”

“I see.” Dr. Reed seemed to be considering this for a few minutes. “You should have no problem playing either of your two main instruments or your harmonica.”

I nearly started laughing at Taylor’s response. “Oh thank fuck for that,” he said, the relief I knew he had to be feeling very clear in his voice. I was almost certain that he was going to start crying.

Dr. Reed let out a quiet laugh before holding up a hand. “However, you will need to modify how you play the piano. Using the pedals will be out of the question for the time being at least, for example. You shouldn’t have any issues with percussion either, provided you’re just using your hands.” At this Taylor nodded – it seemed that his tambourine wasn’t going into retirement just yet. “But no more drumming, I’m afraid.”

“Zac’s better at that than I am, anyway,” Taylor said. He sounded as if he didn’t care that his drumming days were behind him, but I knew better than that. I reached out and gave his left hand a squeeze that he returned. “What happens now?”

“A whole lot of hard work,” Dr. Reed replied. “But I’ll leave the particulars of that up to your physical and occupational therapists. Do you have any other questions for me?”

“Not at the moment,” Taylor replied. “Thanks Dr. Reed.”

For the longest time after Dr. Reed left, the door to Taylor’s hospital room closing quietly behind him, neither of us said a word. He finally broke the tense silence we’d fallen into with a slightly hysterical laugh.

“This is so fucked up,” he said. He tipped his head back against his pillow and closed his eyes. “So unbelievably fucked up.”

“At least you’re still here,” I offered. It could have ended up so much worse, I added silently.

“Yeah, I know. I just…” He let out a quiet sigh and scrubbed his free hand across his face. “Promise me something?”

“Sure.”

He looked back up and at me. “Don’t go anywhere. Please.”

I got up from my seat next to Taylor’s hospital bed and hopped up next to him. “You don’t have to worry, Jordan,” I said as I pulled him into a tight embrace, not missing for a second how he buried his face into my shoulder and let out a very shuddery sigh, “I’m not going anywhere.” I smoothed his hair down and pressed a kiss to the crown of his head. “I promise.”