Breaking Away

Thirteen

Niall sits in silence the following morning, propped up against his pillows, a steady thrum of warm pain radiating from his temple and all the way down into his jaw. His fingers pick at the blankets pulled over his legs, frowning down at them, his entire body tense.

He wants to take back his actions from the previous day. He wishes he'd never tried getting out of bed by himself, because now he knows the truth, knows it for a fact. He can't even stand for a single second without falling. His legs are just as useless as they were the day he'd been rushed into this prison. He's useless. It doesn't matter how much anyone tries to tell him otherwise, or how much he tries to convince himself that maybe someday things will be okay again. He knows the truth.

And the truth is, he's lost sight of all the things that made him him. He used to be adventurous. Funny. Loud and confident, he used to make people smile a lot. Now he does the opposite.

He jumps a little when the bed dips beside him. He looks up and finds that his vision is blurry, eyelashes stuck together by the same tears that are slowly trailing down his cheeks. Lifting his hand to rub at his eyes, Jason gently catches his wrist and shakes his head, sitting next to him with his crutches propped up against the side of the mattress.

The older boy reaches across to the bedside table where there's a box of tissues, tugging a few of them out and handing them to him with a small smile, his eyes uncharacteristically soft. Jason is always chilled about everything, never worried.

Niall sniffles and murmurs a quiet 'thanks' to his friend, taking the tissues and using them to dry his eyes and cheeks, then rubbing at his nose.

"Scared the crap outta me yesterday, you know? I came back here with Mum and the cleaners were wiping your blood up off the floor. Like something out of a crime scene."

He huffs a small laugh at the light undertone to the other boys voice, shaking his head and looking down at his lap.

"Sorry. I was being an idiot. A stupid idiot."

Jason scoffs at that, then nudges him gently with his elbow. "You're an idiot, sure, but you're not stupid. I mean, you spend enough time actually choosing to do schoolwork when you could easily get away with doing other things instead."

Niall smiles tiredly at that, shrugging. "Like what? There's not really a tonne of options when we're stuck in this place," he mumbles.

Settling an arm over Niall's shoulders, Jay pulls him into a side hug. "You could come out somewhere with me. Not today, in case your brain decides to fall outta that hole in the side of your head, but when you're healed up. It's nice, getting out of here for a few hours."

Anxiety filling his stomach at the mere thought of going out into the real world, he gives a small shake of his head. "I dunno. I'm not ready yet."

"You'll never be ready if you care about what people think so much. I'd hate to see you spend the rest of your life stuck inside...that's not living, Nialler."

Niall shakes his head again. "Not the rest of my life. Just 'til I can walk again," he says, then slumps a little. "And that might be the rest of my life anyway, after yesterday."

Jay frowns. "I thought the doc said you didn't do any more damage to your back?"

"I didn't," Niall mutters. "But I couldn't even stand up, Jay. Not even for a second. It's like...like everything I've been doing with Tom is just pointless. It hasn't made a difference."

"Shows what you know. Remember when you couldn't even move yourself across to your chair because your arms were too weak? You do that so easily now. Your legs are just gonna take a while longer, that's all."