Drowning

Forty;

"Coffee, then. Please." Luke says, following behind me.

"So, you gonna tell me why you're here?" I ask, beginning to brew the coffee.

"Wanted to come see you. Is that such a crime?"

"You saw me last night." I comment.

"Yeah, with Zahara. Every time I've seen you lately it's been with Zahara- and I have no issue with that, I love her to pieces, you know I do, but I'd just like some quality boys time, you know?" he says. I turn to look at him.

"At 8am on a Monday morning?" I smirk.

"Yes, exactly that."

"She asked you to come over, didn't she?" I chuckle, shaking my head.

"Only because we're worried about you, man." Luke admits. My eyes widen.

"Why? Even the doctors said I've healed beautifully-"

"It's not that, man. You know it's not that," he says.

I continued to make the coffee, ignoring what he had previously said. Because I was right, they were wrong; I was fine, in every way.

"We think you should see someone, talk about things, you know?" Luke says softly, carefully. I felt an anger build up, but tried my best to contain it as I poured out two mugs of coffee.

"Nothing to talk about." I say, handing Luke one of the mugs. "Got beat up. Don't even remember it. What am I meant to talk about? Being bored in a hospital bed for four weeks? I think not," I scoff, shaking my head at the deluded boy.

"You nearly died, Harry. You were in a coma. You thought you were gonna die. That's traumatising-"

"No, to you it might be. To Zahara it might be. Luckily for me, I was out of it on drugs for a majority of the time." I say, my voice slightly strained as memories of feeling restrained in a hospital bed consumed me; nothing but blackness, nothing but the sounds of my heart monitor. Nothing but the fear of never waking up again.

"Okay, fine." Luke nods, dropping it. I could tell that perhaps he didn't believe me, but it was 8am. Nobody wanted to argue at 8am.

"Subject change?" I ask.

"Sure," Luke smiles.

"So," I smirk.

"What?" Luke groans.

"Nothing, nothing."

"What?"

"Nothing!"

"Harry," Luke pouts. "Tell me."

"Come, come. Let's go sit in the lounge," I say, guiding Luke to the living area.

We both sat on the sofa, mugs in hand. I turned to look at Luke, a smirk still on my face.

"Oh my god, dude. What is it?" Luke laughs.

"So, as you said, Zahara has been with us every time we've seen one another lately," I begin.

"Yeah...?"

"I heard." I wink, taking a sip from the mug.

"H-huh? Heard- um, heard what?" Luke stutters, scratching his neck, a nervous habit he sometimes had.

"I think the best part about being in that hospital, was when everyone just assumed I was asleep. Sometimes, you guys would wake me up just by opening the door, but I'd either be too tired to open my eyes from the drugs, or I didn't want you to feel bad that you'd woken me up." I explain.