how to save a life

4: kissing in the sunset

For Reki the world was still spinning, he felt weak. So he slowly laid himself back down, Langa helped strap the oxygen mask back to his face. Reki had a bloody bandage wrapped around his head.

The nurse started talking to him but she was hard to understand through the ringing in his ears. Before he could comprehend any of the jumbled vowels and consonants that were whirling around in his injured head, his bed started moving. He panicked and squeezed Langa's hand, keeping his eyes shut closed. Langa squeezed his hand back and Reki relaxed a little bit.

He could see the light change through his eyelids when suddenly everything went darker and faded to more of a purply brown color. He opened his eyes to a dark room and breathed a sigh of relief.

He felt tugging on the tubes in his arms. He was so tired.

He squeezed Langa's hand lightly, as a thank you. He let his head sink to the side a bit as he fell asleep.

As Reki fell asleep and his grip loosened, Langa panicked and looked at his heart monitor. Everything was fine.

Reki's mom walked over to Langa, who was still holding Reki's hand lightly. "Hi honey, what is your name" she asked.

"Langa Hasegawa." He said quietly, "me and Reki sit next to eachother at school." Reki's mom nodded slowly.

One of the twins came running over and whisper-yelled, "ᴀʀᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ɢᴏɴɴᴀ ᴋɪss ᴋɪss ʀᴇᴋɪ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ʙʀᴏᴡɴ ʜᴀɪʀᴇᴅ ʙᴏʏ ᴅɪᴅ!?!?!?"

Reki's mom looked surprised while Langa was turning red. "I- no.. I don't plan on it." He didn't notice that he was squeezing Reki's hand.

Reki began to wake up as the load of medicine being pumped into his veins began to work. He opened his eyes a bit and looked over to Langa.

Reki took a deep breath in and exhaled. He felt less dizzy and less sick. The world had stopped spinning. He noticed how Langa was holding his hand and looked at him. Langa made eye contact and in a flustered moment, tried to pull his hand away, but Reki heald on tight and smiled sweetly. Langa smiled back.

"Langa?" He asked, "why are you at the hospital with me?"

Reki had pieced together that he had gotten seriously injured and worked his way into the hospital but everything in between that was gone.

Langa's smile dropped, "I found you nearly passed out and bleeding outside your house, don't you remember?" Reki shook his head, "everything from today is kinda fuzzy. I remember coming home from school early and going to Oka's and sleeping and then going to pick up sis from school and....." Reki sighed, "I came home after that.. and then everything kinda stops there." He smiled sheepishly, "it's probably for the better to be honest."

Before he could comprehend the rest his mother wrapped him in a hug, "Im so sorry, Reki. I promise we'll be better."

Reki's smiled dropped, "you aren't gonna divorce him?" His mother shook her head, "well no.. we are married. I know we fight and things get out of hand but we love eachother"

"Mom! After all- everything- he doesn't" he was at a loss for words. He was hurt. He felt tears well up in his eyes.

"Yeah." He said, wiping his nose, covering up the tears threatening to fall, "okay."

Reki was sent home that night with a doctor's appointment scheduled, an order not to move around to much and to refrain from sports, and prescription pain and anti-nausea medication.