- Michael -
I PLOPPED DOWN INTO THE CHAIR NEXT TO HER BED, DROPPING my bag to the floor and opening it up.
"We didn't learn much today," I began, pulling out the homework that I had been given, "Granted, I slept through most of it, but still"
I placed the work onto a space on her bed next to her hand before I reached back into my bag to pull out the homework I had been given from her teachers. I set it neatly onto the side table on the left of her bed, taking a moment to stare at how big the pile had gotten.
Just a reminder of how much she's missed.
Clearing my throat and turning my eyes away from the growing pile of work, I took her hand in mine and rubbed my thumb against the back of it, thinking.
My eyes came into contact with the bruise on my knuckles, and I bit my lip and held her hand a little tighter.
"It was an accident," I huffed out reluctantly, rolling my head on my shoulders. I could only imagine what she would say to me if she saw it.
What in the world did you do now, idiot?
I could imagine her rolling her eyes, "It really was. I didn't mean to punch him but... this kid, he was giving Luke a hard time. About how he dated the 'psycho'. About how... you know...-and Luke. He looked like he couldn't handle it anymore, so I stepped in, you know?"
I paused, thinking about what she would've said to that, "Okay, I guess it wasn't actually an accident then. But still"
That's not an excuse, Michael, she would say, But I'm glad that you were there for Luke.
"Yeah, me too. He really needs someone right now. Calum's doing okay too, by the way. He said he was going to come by and visit again after his soccer practice tomorrow"
So how are your parents?
"They're alright. They keep saying that they're sorry for the whole dinner thing. Technically it wasn't there fault, I mean they were being black mailed into it" I shook my head to myself. Lydia had really gone through every route possible to make me end up with her, and it was still a little hard to believe, "I keep telling them that it's okay, but they keep insisting that it's their fault. That they're going to pay us back somehow for what happened"
How's my mom?
"Okay, actually. Really, really okay. She's upset about what happened to you. She was.." I scratched the back of my neck with my free hand, and with my hand that was holding hers, I rubbed my thumb over her knuckles again, "She doesn't look at me the same anymore. Like you did. She was really mad that I didn't do anything more to protect you. I'm mad at me too"
Don't be, it wasn't your faul-
"Anyways," I cleared my throat, wanting to talk about something else, "I brought you your ring" I took a moment to stuff my free hand into my pocket, pulling the engagement ring that she had given me back out of my pocket. I looked at it, admiring it's shimmering glints of silver before I began to talk again.
"It's yours to keep. It belongs to you. And even if things are different between us if--when, you wake up, I want you to know that this will always be yours" I took the hand that I was holding and held it up, sliding the ring onto her ring finger before taking a few minutes to admire it on her.
"You know, when I was sleeping in class today," I could imagine her rolling her eyes with a smile, "I was thinking about our first kiss. Back at Calum's house. I never got to thank you, for being my first kiss. So... so, thank you. And I, I never got to thank you for dating me. I know I wasn't the best boyfriend. I did a lot of stupid shit. I still do stupid shit" I chuckled a bit, holding her hand a little tighter. My eyes caught the stack of paper--the homework she's missed--and I bit my lip, trying to look away.
When I finally did, I looked up at her face, seeing how peaceful she was sleeping, and I smiled a bit, "You haven't looked this peaceful in years. I..-sorry that I've brought you anything but peace," I thought a bit as I looked over her pale face, an oxygen mask covering the lips that I loved so much, her smiles, her kisses, all of it, "I'm also sorry for sleeping with other people. I know that I've said it before, but I really mean it. And I'm sorry for saying that I didn't love, that I hated it when you blushed, that you're a b*tch, and a whore, and a slut," I began to list off.
"And I'm sorry I could never give you what you wanted. That I couldn't be someone worthy of having you. And also, thank you for giving me a taste of what forever could feel like," I dropped my gaze to our intertwined hand, and I looked at the ring on her ring finger, "That taste of forever... thank you so much for showing me what that could feel like" I whispered.
I wiped under my eyes and shook my head, letting go of her hand after giving it a tight squeeze. I picked up my fallen pencil and turned to the homework that I had previously laid on her bed and I began to work.
*
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"Sir?"
I jerked my head up, willing my tired eyes open at the sound, and rubbing them to rid them of the sleep.
"Hm?"
"Sir?" the voice said again, and I turned my head to see a nurse at the foot of Miley's bed, staring at me.
"Yeah?"
"The hospital is closed, you are not supposed to be here" she said softly, and I looked down at the bed that I had had my head on. My homework had been crumpled under the weight of my head, and Miley's hand dropped from where it had been resting on the side of my face.
"Can I just-"
"You've stayed here overnight for the past two months, Sir. I think you should go home and rest tonight" she advised, but I shook my head.
"I can't do that"
"Sir-"
"Miss, I have insomnia. I can only sleep when I'm with her" I told the nurse, grabbing Miley's hand. I saw her eyes make contact with the engagement ring on her finger, and she looked back to me, nodding her head.
"Alright Sir. But if anyone else comes in here-"
"I'll be gone before the doctor notices me," I assured her, "Thank you"
She nodded her head, giving me a sad smiled before she left the room, closing the door softly behind her. The light in the room had been turned off already, and I turned my eyes to Miley's figure, grabbing her hand in mine again.
"Thank you for putting up with me, firecracker" I whispered out softly into the night.
I lay my head against her bed again, closing my eyes and bringing her hand up to cup my jawline. Her touch was cold--a side affect from being in a coma for so long--but her touch somehow warmed my insides, and just like that, I fell asleep again.
*
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*
I opened the door to Miley's hospital room, closing it after I took a step inside. I walked over to the chair that was always placed right beside her bed, dropping my backpack next to it.
"Today was awful," I began as I plopped down into the chair tiredly, "I got three projects all due at the end of this week. And it's f*cking Monday! Can you believe it!" I threw my hands up in frustration and anger for my teachers, "Who do those f*cking teachers think they are? The f*cking president?" I took out my homework from my bag and set it on the bed, then proceeded to take out hers that I had collected from her teachers again, all the while imagining what she would've said to me.
I'll help you with your work, it's fine.
"No, no. You always help me with it. And then you end up doing all the work yourself"
I'll make sure-
"No, because I always make up some excuse to leave you to work on it by yourself. And I told you that I would stop doing that"
Technically, you promised that you wouldn't do it anymore
I rolled my eyes to myself, "Ha, ha. Funny"
I pulled her work from my bag as I continued to talk to her, knowing that she couldn't hear anything of what I was saying, "Anyways, I fell asleep in class again, and the teacher got so pissed at me, it was so funny. She told me that I needed to stop sleeping in class or else she would-...."
It was gone.
It was all gone.
I looked around the room before I abruptly stood from the chair, knocking it backwards and to the ground. Yet I ignored it as I continued to survey the room before my eyes stopped on what I was looking for.
There it was.
The entire pile of homework that I continued to bring for Miley, had been moved from the side table on her left, to the side table on her right.
Could someone have moved it? I mean, I was away for the weekend supporting Cal at a soccer game with Luke. But they've never moved anything in this room before...
Wearily, I bent and righted the fallen chair before moving around it, walking to the other side of the bed, standing in front of the side table.
Hesitantly, I picked up the first booklet in the pile, flipping through the pages before my breath caught in my throat.
Her hand writing.
Feeling my heart beat quicken, I briefly scanned through each of the other pages in the pile.
They were all filled in.
In Miley's handwriting.
"I'm a total nerd, I know, I know"
I dropped the pages without thinking and turned at the sound of the voice.
Miley's voice.
And there she was.
Sitting up in the hospital bed, but still leaning against it. Her smile was small, and her eyes looked tired, despite the amount of rest she had been getting. 2 months in a coma. My heart was sounding off in my ears, and I'm pretty sure that I was starting to cry, because her eyes were tearing up too as she extended her shaking arms and silently told me to come closer.
Without a second thought, I was in her arms, crying into the crook of her neck and breathing in her scent. Her skin was warm against mine, a sign of life. A sign that she was f*cking alive.
I was shaking so badly as I soaked in the way that she was touching me, how she had her arms wrapped around my neck, one of her hands stroking the hair at the back of my head, and I could feel her tears also starting to be absorbed into my shirt.
She was here.
*
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*
"What happened after she shot me?" she asked me.
It had been two hours.
One hour had been just me crying and holding her close to me, never wanting to let her go. After that was finished, I sat beside her in the bed, and she rested her head against my chest, and we just sat there in silence.
Which was fine by me. All I wanted to do was be near her, and man did it feel so f*cking good.
But those were her first words in the past two hours, and, even though I didn't want to ruin the silence, I knew that I needed to catch her up.
"Well," I began, "You were shot in your stomach, as you've probably guessed. And after you fell, Luke tried to run to her, to Lydia, to get the gun out of her hands. But she... she shot herself" I choked on my words and Miley lifted her head from my chest and tried to look at me, but I stared straight ahead.
"He wanted to make it work," I took a breath, "Luke really wanted to move past all this crazy shit cuz her really did love her. But she shot herself"
"Where?" Miley whispered out, and I bit my lip, not wanting to say it.
She placed her hand on my jaw, turning my head slowly so that I was forced to look at her.
"Where, Michael?"
I looked into her blue eyes, and they shimmered with curiosity. But I knew that she was terrified to know.
"In her head"
She took a sharp breath.
"She held the gun to the side of her head and pulled the trigger," It was as if her head exploded, there was so much blood, everywhere, "The police came in and they had to drag Luke out. He.. he didn't want to leave her. Uh, Calum, he couldn't move. He was just sort of staring at her body. I.. I left when they took you out, and I stayed in the hospital with you. You were in a coma, for 2 months. And I didn't want to leave you, so I've been here almost every day and every night since, although Cal, Luke, and I each had to go to a therapist for the first little while. After what we saw..."
My mind flashed to the first couple therapy sessions that I had been forced to go though, and I took a breath.
The therapist crossed her legs and brushed acouple strands out of her face, sighing in slight frustration.
'Tell me about it, Michael. It can really help if you talk to someone about what you went through'
Still, I sat there across from her, not wanting to say a thing. What would make her think that I would want to relive what I saw? What made her think my actions in this moment were unjustified? She didn't have a f*cking clue.
She licker her lips, recrossing her legs, 'Tell me, Michael. I want to know. Just talk to me about i-'
I couldn't take it. I stood abruptly, my eyes on fire.
'She blew her f*cking brains out! Okay? She held the damn gun up to her head laughing, and she pulled the damn trigger. There was blood every where! A hole in the side of her head! So don't just sit there and tell me to f*cking talk about it, because you can't make me!'
Those were the words that I had screamed at the therapist during my third session before I just stopped going altogether. The only therapy that I needed was being with Miley. And I guess the doctor's agreed with me, because they saw how I would talk to her sleeping state. And they thought that that was therapy enough.
Miley nodded her head, silent, and I caught the tears that were starting to roll down her cheeks.
"What happened after that?" she asked, her voice shaky. I took a breath and continued.
"Cal, he was taking her death really hard, and I didn't know why" A memory flashed through the first 2 weeks after it all happened. How sad and mute he was.
I used my thumbs to wipe under Miley's eyes, and she looked up at me, "I remember. I remember that Lydia.. she apologized to him for something"
I nodded my head, "I asked Calum. Apparently, he was in love with her too"
She was shocked to say the least, and I smiled at her expression, finding it adorable.
"What? When? How? Why?" she asked, wanting to understand.
I explained to her how Calum and her were somewhat friends with benefits a couple weeks after she had made her appearance at our school and became Miley's new friend. How she told Calum she was in love with him, and how, after a while, he said he was in love with her too. They kept that up for a year. Since we now knew that she was only using him to get to me, Cal told me that when she ended things, she said it was because she didn't want to keep their relationship a secret anymore. When he told her that he would gladly go public with her, she then said that she didn't love him anymore, and that she loved someone else (which was me). And then Luke came along. And when she assumed that Miley liked Luke, she asked him out to make her jealous. But Miley never liked Luke to begin with.
When that became clear, she stayed with Luke to learn things about him. Things that she could use to frame him for the notes, which was where the noses on the smiley faces and the text messages in his area came from.
When Cal saw her and Luke together, he was upset. He corned her and asked her if she loved Luke, and she told him she did. Whether she meant it or not, we'll never know. But Cal had been crushed, thinking that she made up loving someone else so that she could break it off with him. But he still loved her all the same.
Luke on the other hand, became quiet and kept to himself. No one knew that Cal and Lydia had something going on, but since people knew that Luke dated her, he was ridiculed and made fun of for it. That's when I had went on a punching spree. He didn't even want to fight for himself.
Eventually it all stopped, and the three of us just kept to ourselves, not sure what to do.
"Calum has come to visit you three or four times. But Luke only leaves his house to go to school" I told her.
I knew that Miley wanted to do something about this. The close friends that she had left were falling apart, and I knew that she wanted to fix it somehow. But right now, she needed to rest and recover.
"Don't worry about them right now, Miley," I said softly, nudging her shoulder with mine, "You're always focusing on other people. Right now, you need to rest"
"I have to-"
"No, you don't"
She turned her head to look up at me again, and she bit her lip.
"I have to help them"
"What are you supposed to do? You have to take care of yourself first, okay?"
She nodded her head reluctantly, and turned her head away from me. Leaning down a bit, I nudged my nose against the side of her cheek before kissing it.
"I love you. Please don't ever forget that" I told her quietly, my hand finding hers and lacing our fingers together.
"I won't," she told me quietly, turning her head and pressing our foreheads together, "I love you"