I paced back and fourth in the waiting room and my heart pounded uncontrollably. " are you Sofia?" I heard a soft female voice behind me say. The voice belonged to a small nurse who seemed a little too old to work in a hospital. "Yes.. that's me" I said "is he okay?" I asked looking at the nurse with puppy dog eyes. "Yes he's fine. He's been asking for you a lot so the doctor sent for me to collect you." She said calmly with a small smile. "He's in that room over there" the nurse said pointing. "Thank you" I said quickly. As I walked towards the room I couldn't help but wonder why he was asking for me. Why not his parents? I peeked my head in and saw Patrick laying on the bed with a bandage wrapped around his head to cover his eye. He had an I.V. In his arm and he looked horrible. I walked in and sat on the edge of his bed and saw that he was asleep so I decided that I wouldn't wake him. It was so quiet in the room and I had been through so much shit the past few days that I didn't realize how exhausted I was. My head started to feel heavy and my eyelids started to fall and before I knew it, my head fell on his leg and I started to fall asleep when I heard a familiar voice say "cupcake?" My head shot up and couldn't stop my face from getting hot. I was so embarrassed he was probably so weirded out by me. I shook it off and let out a nervous laugh. "You look terrible" I said and looked down at my hands. "Well excuse me, I didn't have time to get ready for ya." He scoffed. "You know that's not what I meant Patrick" I said rolling my eyes. "I fuckin hate leeches." He said looking out the window. "Yeah I know you do." I said awkwardly patting his leg. "Well I should get home my parents don't know where I am." I started to stand up and he grabbed my wrist "stay here tonight." He begged. "I don't know if I can Patrick I don't think I'm allowed to." I said trying to pull my hand away. "Don't leave me alone" he begged again. He looked so scared. "Alright let me call my parents so they don't worry." I said and gave him a small smile. I don't know why I agreed to it but for some reason I was drawn to him. No matter what he did to me.
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I ended up spending his entire stay at the hospital with him. We played board games and had lots of vending machine snacks and we actually kind of bonded. I enjoyed his company and it seemed like he felt the same. When Patrick was finally able to come back to school he had to wear an eye patch which made him look even more psychotic than usual. It was actually kind of amusing to watch him with that thing on. I told him he looked like a pirate and he thought that was the best thing ever. It was nice being able to see him smile and have a good time again. But whenever nighttime rolled around he refused to be by himself. One day I left his house and said I wasn't sleeping over and I woke up the next morning to find him sleeping in bed with me. After a while I didn't mind it so much, he was afraid and I understood. It was even scary for me and I'm not afraid of leeches, I couldn't imagine how he felt.
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I woke up one day to Patrick frantically shaking me. I rubbed my eyes and yawned, "Patrick? What time is it?" He ignored me and started freaking out saying things like "get them off of me!" And "they're everywhere." I sat up and put my hand on his shoulder. "Calm down calm down Patrick there's nothing in here it's okay." I kept repeating. I stood up and turned the light on so he could see that there was nothing there. His chest heaved as he tried to catch his breath. I grabbed the remote and turned on the tv. I decided I should put on a relaxing comedy so I put on Ferris Bueller's Day Off and said "alright Patrick. I'm going to try to get some sleep but maybe if you sit and watch this for a little while it'll help." I laid down and turned away from him, I heard the tv pause and felt his arms wrap around me. "I'm sorry for waking you up.." he whispered and I felt goosebumps cover my neck from how close he was. "Mhm" I mumbled and then slowly fell back asleep.
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The next day Patrick told me to tag along with him and his friends to mess with the losers. I came with him but stayed on my bike when they chased Ben. They got to the kissing bridge and held Ben against the railing. Then I saw Henry start to cut Ben's stomach with his switchblade. My eyes widened and I ran over there. "Henry stop it you're hurting him!" I yelled. Patrick quickly grabbed me and held me back. Then he told Vic to hold onto me while he threatened Ben with the flamethrower. Vic being the scrawny boy that he was, wasn't strong enough to hold me back and I started to run forward to help Ben but Patrick grabbed me again. "Keep that bitch contained" Henry laughed. In that moment Ben kicked off of Henry and rolled into the woods. Everyone jumped over the railing after him and Henry told us to go look. Me and Patrick ran ahead and I stopped him. "Patrick let's just go I have a bad feeling.." I said nervously. "It's okay cupcake let's just find the kid, give him to Henry and then we can go. Alright?" He said with a frustrated look. "Okay but I'm not participating in any of this."
We got down to these creepy sewer tunnels and we heard a noise. Patrick grabbed his lighter and aerosol can and started to walk into the tunnel. "Patrick wait!" I yelled. He stopped and turned to look at me. "I have a really bad feeling please let's just go." I whined. "he's in here I know it. I'll be back in a minute just wait right there." He groaned getting impatient. "No." I said. And he turned around again. "If you're going in there I'm leaving. I don't want to stay around here because it's creeping me out." He walked out of the tunnel and grabbed my hand. Before I knew it I was walking through sewer water. I pulled my hand away and he stopped. "I'm going home Patrick." I said and walked back out of the tunnel. I heard splashing behind me and felt an arm wrap around my waist. He grinned down at me, "alright let's go home."
