Always You || Patrick Cripps

51.

Georgia's POV

Is there anything worse than watching someone in physical pain? And I don't mean a tiny scratch or bruise due to their own accidental clumsiness. I mean the type of physical pain which coursed through your body.

Sucking in the air, grimacing at the slightest of movements.

You want to do everything, but you feel like you can do nothing. You know they're hurting and it cuts you into a million pieces. Nothing you say or do will ever erase that pain.

All I could do was sit next to him and watch as every jostle sent ripples of pain through him.

Pat rarely showed any pain on his face. He always looked tough enough to handle any sort of discomfort. Of course, knowing him, I never believed it. He demanded no sympathy but I never gave in.

I had been there for every knee issue, broken leg, jaw, concussion that he had ever endured out on the football field. None of which came close to the pain I could see on his face in this very moment.

Some people cry out in pain, others show no response at all, and this is why empathy is so vital, to allow ourselves to feel what others are feeling rather than opting for shallow sympathies.

Typically my personal response would be to steer clear of an outpouring of emotions. I felt like it dramatised situations that didn't need to be broadcasted for all of the neighbours to hear.

Today was the only exception. My screams of stricken fear moments ago could have been heard blocks away.

Now I was sat beside him, attempting to comfort him in any way imaginable. A stroke of the hair, small joke whispered in his ear. It was the least I could do for him. There was nothing that could take away the responsibility I felt.

Darcy always resented Pat's role in my life. I never fully understood it. I just assumed it was Darcy's ego taking a hit seeing Pat take care of me when he couldn't. Looking out for me the way he was supposed to.

Maybe he sensed the undeniable love I have always had for Pat and jealousy consumed him. Or maybe he knew him and I were never going to work out.

Because I was always in love with someone else.

Yet nothing gave him a valid reason to act on it. He chose violence in the most unflattering way. It was an ambush in untimely circumstances.

As much displeasure as I felt being around Pat on this day of all days, I wasn't planning on leaving his side. We were still on shaky terms. Our very last conversation had me swearing to stay away from him.

My ability to be resilient was coming to the end of it's life. There was nothing left to say to myself to push me through it.

We both knew that we weren't the same anymore. As people and in our friendship. We had changed and I still didn't know if it was for the better or worse.

Could you salvage a friendship which had taken so many hits? Is it possible to return to how we were before. That was still to be decided.

In the current situation we were both stuck in, our dying friendship was the last thing on both our minds.

I was thinking about him, feeling for him, and begging for him to walk away with the majority of him unharmed.

My positive affirmations weren't heading toward success as Pat continued to lay on the floor.

His head hurt too much. His body hurt too much. It seemed that everything hurt too much. Slowly, his sense started to send reports back to his brain. The pain was setting in.