Chapter 31

                                    

                                          

As the world around me came into focus, the fuzzy beings formed into people and right next to me, my brother. HIs fingers laced tightly in mine. Dark circles of exhaustion under his bloodshot eyes. "Jake." I whispered
                          
"Lauren." He whispered back as he stroked my cheek as if I was a delicate as a flower. A few tears escaped his eyes, he wiped them away with the back of his hand. "This is all my fault, I'm so sorry, you're my baby sister, I love you and then I snapped and you left and this happened. I am so so sorry. Lauren I thought I lost you." He choked out.
                          
"I'm alive, I'm okay. Let's just think about that. Okay?" I croaked and sent a small smile his way along with a squeeze of his hand. I looked around scanning each face for the one I desperately wanted, no needed to see. Liam. Where was he? He was the only thing on my mind. "Please tell me he's okay, Jake he needs to be alive." I choke on a lump growing in my throat. 
                          
"Shh, shh he's okay. We have each been taking turns to sit by his bedside if he wakes up." 
                          
"Wakes up?"
                          
"Yeah he is okay just in a coma right now." He explained calmly. 
                          
"I have to see him." I demand. I can't bare the thought of him in a coma. What happens if he never wakes up? What happens if he does but if only a shell of the person he used to be? What if he doesn't remember me? I can't lose both my best friends. I barely survived the first and I am barely holding myself together. Liam is the glue holding me together, without him... I don't even know.
                          
"Lauren let's just get you check out by a nurse just now and we can go see him later." Tom said, forever the voice of reason but I wasn't in the mood for thinking reasonably. 
                          
"No I have to see him now." He's my best friend. If they weren't going to let me that wasn't going to stop me. I started pulling at the wires attached to my skin, they were constricting and tying me down to the bed. As I pulled at the wires, the machines around started blaring alarms and beeping hecticly. 
                          
"Somebody get a nurse!" someone called out as Barclay and Casey tried to pin my arms to the bed. But I kicked and thrashed my legs desperate to escape to my best friend. Two more of the boys grabbed my legs to try and hold me still, as two nurses ran in. 
                          
"Hold her still." They ordered while one produced a large needle. Which got injected into the base of my neck. As it was injected into my veins, my whole body went limp. My eyes began to drop and I was almost asleep.
                          
"What was that?" A voice inquired.
                          
"A sedative, to keep her calm. It will work for a few..." And then the world went out like a light and I was left with only my dreams.
                          
I don't know how long the darkness consumed me but eventually I opened my eyes to blinding white light. As my eyes adjusted to harsh light, I noticed I was no longer tied down to the bed bt wires and tubes, neither was I weighed down by the heavy constricting cast on my leg. I sat up and looked around the empty room. It was the hospital room I had been in but a lot cleaner and empty of people and machines. Cautiously I sit up but much to my surprise there is no pain, so I slowly swing my legs around to the side of the bed and stand.
                          
I wander to the door and out into the corridor and am greeted by the sight of two small children. A brown haired boy with cherub like cheeks and a chubby little girl. As I walked closer they take no notice but the room around me morphs into a room filled with plump couches and thick rugs. Its cosy and messy. Its home. The two children I now recognise as Matthew and myself are playing on the floor surrounded by many discarded toys. The quietness of our play is interrupted by yelling and screaming. "I never wanted two children. You knew that and now we have two and I'm sick and fed up. She's the reason we fight, she's the reason this family is falling apart." A clatter comes from the distance and the two children are still stunned in silence. "She's a child."
                          
"Not one that was ever wanted." The harsh voice of my father rung through my ears. I remember now. What I was watching unfold in front of me was September 19th 2000. It was my first and only memory of my dad, it was the day he left.
                          
Unable to watch anymore I ran from the room and down the hall which started to change and morph once again. This place was unfamiliar and cold. I found myself face to face with Jake. He was silent almost dead looking It wasn't long before my younger self broke into a run. It empty echoes rung around the room, until the unearthly silence was broken by jake. He spat out words like venom. "You were never loved. Not by mum, not by dad and not by me." Those word stung, a searing pain shot through my arm as Jake words were craved in my skin. "You are so ugly. Reece pitied you. Your own best friends would rather die than be around you." His words etched themselves in blood across my whole body as I sunk to the floor and blood pooled around me. "You ruined my life. Dad left because he couldn't stand to look at you. I hate you!" My every insecurity thrown at me like daggers carving them permanently into my skin. I was loosing more and more blood, I kept repeating this is just a dream, no a nightmare.
                          
I scrunched up my eyes waiting for the dark to take me back and eventually Jake's words fell silent hoping to that it was over I opened my eyes to find myself still in the room face to face with no other than Reece Bibby and that fake blond bitch. NO words were exchanged as the pair were caught up in a heated kiss, which only escalated more and more. I tried to turn away but it was like my eyes were glue to the spot unable to remove my eyes from the intimate moment in front of me. This is by far the worst type of torture. When I finally admitted I loved him I was left open, exposed and he took advantage even now in a dream state, this was killing me. Watching their tender embrace and their kisses exchanged. It was destroying me. As much as I could pretend and say I don't love him, I do and it's crushing me. 
                          
I closed my eyes and was pulled back into reality with a jolt. My eyes sprung open and I looked around the room, light by the sliver glow of the moonlight. The small hospital room, empty of everyone but one person, hunched and asleep on the chair. I looked over at his blonde hair no longer styled neatly, eyelashes covered in the sticky residue left behind by tears. 
                          
"Reece," I call out into the darkness. His eyelashes flicker slightly. "Reece." I say again a little louder which cause him to stir and awaken. When he looked up his face lit up. 
                          
"Lauren, your okay. Thank god. Look I need you to understand, I hurt you I know but I love you. That girl, she slipped me something. I couldn't and wouldn't ever do that to you. I can't stand the fact I hurt you. It kills me inside. I love you so fucking much when I heard you had been in that crash my heart it stopped, I haven't stopped crying. I don't know what I would do without you god I love you. Words just can't communicate how much I lo-" He was rambling.
                          
I cut him off before he could continue. "I love you too."
                          
"Really, oh I've never been so happy." He said as he stood and cupped my face as if about to kiss me. I put my hand on his chest to stop him. 
                          
"I love you, which is why you have been forgiven but it will take along time for me to forget. You will have to work your ass off before I ever trust you enough to let you in again." I say quickly before I melt under his gaze.
                          
"Oh.." He said, his big eyes blink away tears "I'm just happy you are okay."
                          
"Thank you for being here." I say with a squeeze of his hand.
                          
He smiles at me and I can almost fell myself falling more. I curse him and his face lightly in my head. Before he could reply Charlie burst into the room. I quickly remove my and form his but not before Charlie notices and wiggles his eyebrows. Charlie opened his mouth to speak and the words that followed were ones that filled me with pure joy and happiness. 
                          
"Liam's woke up."