Array
(
[text] =>

Around one in the afternoon the day following Ayden’s mid-night seizure, two doctors finally approached the blonde girl’s parents. They were escorted away from the distressed spectators and taken into the room Ayden had previously been in.

It was there that they learned that Ayden was diagnosed with having a subdural hematoma. In easier terms, she had bleeding in between the layers of tissue outside of her brain. The seizure was a symptom common to having subdural hematomas, and often times they don’t occur right after the initial head injury, and that was what had happened to Ayden.

The accumulation of blood inside her head was increasing the pressure which ultimately caused the seizure. What was the hardest for Keri and Walt to bear when listening to the horrifying words coming from the doctors was that Ayden had been experiencing another two seizures since the first. And after extensive testing on her brain to find out what was wrong with the blonde, she had already fallen into a coma, which wasn’t uncommon as a result from a subdural hematoma.

Keri had been in fits and hysterics upon hearing the heartbreaking news, and even Walt’s resolve and hope was thinning enough for him to tear up as they doctors spoke with them about treatments and tactics.

When Walt ended up repeating everything to the six people watching with wide eyes and pursed lips, he also told them how Ayden was going to undergo a surgery where they drill a small hole in her head in order to suction out the blood clot underneath her skull. After that, there was no exact telling of whether or not Ayden would come out of her coma or when it would happen.

The doctors apparently scored her on something called the Glasgow Coma Scale. This told how severe a person’s coma was and what to expect as the person remained unconscious. Ayden’s parents were told that she had scored a nine which landed her in the moderate category of her coma’s severity.

Upon first hearing the news, both Josiah and Carson cracked. Their silence and stoic expressions dissolved immediately. They were barely even able to keep their cries--mostly those of Carson--under control enough so that they could still hear what Walt and Keri had to tell them.

The two boys who were so different in ways that brought them to be closer than any other pair of young men, were both reduced to tears as the thought of never hearing Ayden’s laugh or seeing one her famous eye-rolls ever again hit them. They were both so scared of what was going to happen that all they could do was forget to be embarrassed and melt into messy puddles of snot, tears, and incoherent mumbles and desperate pleas.

It took the doctors another twenty-four hours to observe Ayden and make sure they had everything right before they performed the burr hole surgery on her. It took another four hours for her loved ones to find out that everything had gone well and according to plan.

It was another six hours before Ayden’s parents were allowed to visit her in the Intensive Care Unit, and another day and a half before anybody else was allowed to see her. She was doing well. The doctors were satisfied with how her brain surgery had gone, saying all signs pointed to her remaining as healthy as possible, with no further injuries resulted from the procedure. They gave her pain relievers, medication to prevent further seizures, and fed her every kind of nutrient and supplement she needed for sustenance through a tube inserted into a vein in her arm.

The initial shock of seeing Ayden so lifeless and stock-still hit Carson and Josiah harder than hearing about it had. It wasn’t quite as bad as when she had the seizure in front of them, as they seemed to think that her lying peacefully--even if it was unintentional--was better than seeing her convulsing body that they kept revisiting in their dreams.

Carson cried again the first time they saw her through a window in the ICU. Josiah was tempted to throw up--as had become his body’s typical go-to defense when he saw or experienced something he probably shouldn’t have. But the sage-eyed boy did nothing but shed quiet tears as he pushed Carson’s face into his chest and shut his own eyes to the daunting sight on the other side of that see-through plexiglass.

Friday and Saturday stretched on somberly as Josiah and Carson grew more and more accustomed to seeing the way Ayden laid in bed without hardly moving or responding to the people or things around her. It took those two days for them to recover some of what they used to be, but what was still a hundred leagues short of who their old lively and bright personalities used to say they were.

Things weren’t the same, and everybody knew it. But the black-haired boy and the brunet were starting to accept that they never would be again. They had only to adjust to what the present had in store for them, because the future was terrifyingly unknown and the past was darker than they wanted to admit.

“I don’t even remember the last thing I said to her when she was awake,” Josiah mumbled, a little dazed, as the two of them exited the ICU of Miriam.

It was Sunday morning and it had officially been over one week since this entire nightmare began for them. Carson bit his cheek and glanced over at Josiah who was walking so close to him that their arms were pressed against each other’s even though Josiah had his hands stuffed in his pockets.

A frown attacked Carson’s face as he looped his arm through Josiah’s, seeking some sort of touch to comfort his own troubled mind. “I think she called me a loser and I sarcastically replied with ‘thanks, Ayd’ before we fell asleep.”

Josiah bit his lip and kept walking slowly down the corridor with his best friend at his side. “I...maybe I said something like goodnight or whatever. God, that’s so fucking lame, Car. I might never get to speak properly to her again and the last thing I said was fucking goodnight.”

Carson slowed his steps and pulled his friend to a stop beside him in the middle of the hallway. “Hey, just...don’t do that, okay?” Josiah closed his eyes, feeling upset, and tilted his head up towards the ceiling. “She knows we care. What we said last doesn’t matter. ‘Kay?”

Josiah sighed and looked down at those indigo eyes that seemed much darker than they had been just two weeks before. “Then why does it feel like it matters?”

Carson pursed his lips and shrugged. “‘Cause you’re sad, Joe.”

“How do you know?” the older boy asked miserably, scuffing his shoe on the linoleum.

The brunet took a deep breath and looked away from his friend. He pulled his arm from being looped with the other boy’s and grabbed onto Josiah’s wrist loosely. He stared at the healing crescent moons, remembering that they were only there because of him.

“Because I’m sad, too,” Carson muttered as he studied the fading wounds he had inflicted on his friend’s previously flawless and gorgeous skin.

Josiah wiped at his brow with his free hand and looked at Carson again. He tapped the bottom of the other boy’s chin twice before dropping his hand. Carson tilted his head back up with half a grimace on his face. Josiah answered his question before he even asked it. “Stop staring at those.”

Ignoring the purpose of his friend’s words, Carson’s eyes softened and he said, “I’m sorry I did that. I didn’t even know it until I saw the dried blood later.”

“It’s whatever,” the older boy said, waving off the words. “I don’t care. You didn’t mean it and I couldn’t have cared less if you were clawing my face off.”

Carson quirked his lips. He’d been wanting desperately to find an opening to make the atmosphere lighter for the last day, and he finally just did. He stared up into sage-green eyes and plastered a half-enthusiastic smirk on his mouth.

“As if I’d ever ruin that pretty thing,” he teased. Not completely lying, he continued with, “Then what would I have to fill my dreams with?”

Even though Carson hadn’t expected his stupid attempt at humour to work, a laugh and a smile were elicited from the darker boy. Just seeing the white smile he loved so much, Carson was forced against his will to smile back. Neither grin from either boy lasted much longer than ten or so seconds while they stared into each other’s pained eyes because before they could do or say anything else, someone was approaching them.

“I knew I’d find you down here,” Lanai said, glancing from one boy to the other. “Someone said they saw Carson, and where there’s a Carson, there’s a Josiah.”

Josiah frowned and turned away from his mother slightly so he could sigh and roll his eyes. The action didn’t go unnoticed by either Carson--who had his eyes trained on him--or his mother, who, let’s face it, all moms knew everything somehow. But nobody called him out on it, and Josiah didn’t know what to think of that. There was once a time when such a display of a sour attitude would have earned him a sassy telling-off from his strong-willed mother. Now, that didn’t happen, and that made the black-haired boy immediately reach for the comfort of twisting and tugging on his frizzy curls.

Lanai put a hand on her hip and studied the boys with tired, hazel eyes. Josiah glanced at his mother, but after seeing her passive-aggressive expression, he moved his eyes to land on Carson. The brunet met his friend’s eyes and they just stared for a moment before Lanai interrupted them again.

“You need to start taking care of yourself,” she commented sternly.

“I do!” Josiah said, raising his voice slightly as he protested. He was growing pretty irritated by constantly being berated for supposedly neglecting his own health.

Lanai narrowed her eyes at her son. “No you don’t. You take care of Carson,” she insisted. The brunet averted his eyes down to the ground and awkwardly scratched at the back of his neck. Josiah rolled his eyes before glaring at his mother. Unperturbed, Lanai pressed on, “Who, by the way, tries to take care of you in return but you won’t let him.”

“Whatever,” Josiah said half heartedly. “I’m fine. People need to lay off. Besides, I didn’t have a concussion or shit like that.” He gestured to Carson and said, “He needs someone to look out for him. I don’t see how that’s so wrong.”

Lanai sighed. “It’s not. But you need sleep. That goes for both of you.” She turned her gaze on both of the boys and Carson sheepishly smiled back at her. Josiah pursed his lips unhappily. “And you need home cooked meals. You can’t keep eating this hospital cafeteria food.”

“Why?” Josiah asked. “It’s not too much worse than what we eat on campus.”

Lanai shook her head. “You’re not staying here anymore.”

Josiah’s eyes went wide in annoyance as the words filled his ears. Carson’s eyes widened from a little mix of shock and horror.

“What?” Josiah almost yelled.

“You heard me.”

“Yeah, and we’re also not children anymore,” the black-haired boy quipped. “You can’t kick us out of the hospital.”

Lanai crossed her arms over her chest and stared her son down. “No, but they’re done letting you stay all day every day. This has far exceeded visiting hours; this is like you’re moving into a hotel or something. And the hospital has put up with it long enough.”

Realizing that this was serious, that they couldn’t stay any longer, Carson grabbed onto Josiah’s arm. “We can’t leave her, though.”

Josiah looked pained as he turned his softening eyes onto his best friend. He knew they were officially being kicked out of the hospital, and he didn’t know how to deal with that. He didn’t know how to make Carson not want to cry because they would have to leave Ayden behind even if it was just to stay at their parents’ houses twenty minutes away.

“It’s been four days that you’ve been sitting here,” Lanai continued. “Enough is enough, you two. It’s completely unhealthy for you to be enraptured in an environment like this.” She turned to Carson and stared firmly. “And you have got to meet with your lawyer for your case.”

Carson grimaced because he knew it was true. His lawyer had been calling his parents a lot the last couple days to get a hold of him since his new phone his parents ordered for him hadn’t arrived yet. It was something he wasn’t really looking forward to, but he knew it was necessary.

Lanai subtly waved her arms in the air in front of her at the silence coming from both the boys. “Look. You guys need to get back on a normal routine. You don’t have to go back to school, and not a single person will blame you if you don’t. But you can’t stay here any longer. Neither one of you is allowed to sleep in this damn hospital for one more night. It’s ruining you both. Do you understand me?”

Josiah bit his lip and watched as Carson nodded. The owner of sage-green eyes blew breath out of his mouth in an exasperated sigh. Sensing that he was just going to keep arguing, the brunet gently squeezed the other boy’s arm in a warning gesture. Getting the hint, Josiah caved for Carson’s benefit and reluctantly nodded at his mother as well.

“Yeah, sure.”

Lanai actually smiled at that. You could see it in her eyes how glad she was that she was finally getting through to her son--even if he wasn’t listening fully or complying willingly. She was just happy that he was finally going to step outside again after almost a week of being cooped up in that sanitized tomb of a hospital. He and Carson would finally breathe in the fresh spring air and taste the scent of blooming flowers on their tongues as they spoke, and smell the leaves as they greened on the trees.

Lanai was so happy about her inevitable victory that she could hug them both--and she did so, moving forward to grab the pale and tan boys in her arms and give them a giant bear hug. It was quite a comical sight to the odd passerby who witnessed the five-foot-six woman crushing two six-foot young men together in a stiffly returned embrace.

Once again, though, Lanai didn’t care. She was only concerned with the joy she was feeling because she knew they were going to start taking positive steps forward in their lives. Anything was better than them sitting around, waiting for something that might not happen, and if it did, it wouldn’t be for a while, and moping all over the place and each other.

It was like the boys had been feeding off of each other’s depression and fueling it, not bringing it to a halt. Lanai had high hopes that by getting them out of the hospital and into a warm and comforting environment again, they would do just that--lose most of the sadness and start looking on the brighter side of their futures.

Lanai pulled away with a smile on her face. She looked down at her watch on her right wrist. “It’s almost nine. I have to get to work, but I’ll be back afterwards to pick you up. I’m making dinner.” Lanai looked from her son and over to his best friend. “You’re more than welcome to come over as well. You and your parents.”

Carson pursed his lips and nodded silently. Josiah caught his friend’s new disposition but his mother was speaking again and pulling him in for a quick hug and kiss on the cheek before he got too invested in it.

“I’ll call you at lunch to check on you two,” she said. Lanai began to skirt around them and walk a few steps down the hall, pulling her purse over her shoulder as she went. “Love you boys!”

“Love you, too,” they both muttered, and then she was hastily walking away from them.

Josiah smoothly found Carson’s hand, which wasn’t hard to do, considering they were still standing so close together after the close-knit hug they had received from Lanai. The brunet plastered a neutral expression on his face as he met those sage-green eyes he loved so much.

“You okay, man?” Josiah asked quietly. Two nurses were chatting to each other as they walked past the pair of young men. Carson nodded, but Josiah didn’t believe it. “You didn’t look it. What’s up?”

Carson shrugged.  “It’s nothing.”

“You only say that when it’s something,” Josiah pressed. At the brunet’s look, he backtracked and said, “Alright, I don’t wanna push you. But you can tell me...”

Carson took one look at Josiah and wanted nothing more than to slap him in the face and then pull him into hug tighter than ever before. The honest expression in those round, green eyes tugged at the younger boy’s heart strings. It made him sick to see how much Josiah genuinely cared. Carson’s mind was running rampant with fed up thoughts about how it wouldn’t even be that difficult for the darker-complexioned boy to just return his feelings.

They were closer to each other than Carson had ever been to another guy before, and yet they weren’t dating. And the brunet wanted that so badly. Their unconventional relationship was barely a hair’s length short of being exactly how Carson would have preferred it. Being so close yet a trillion lightyears away from exchanging romantic feelings at the same time was the sole cause of the shorter boy’s on-going spontaneous bouts of annoyance.

Shoving all of that down, Carson opted to simply say what was on his mind instead. After all, Josiah was right there willing to listen to him. With his free hand, the boy with indigo eyes reached his free hand up to scratch at his neck just like he had done when Lanai was talking to him.

“I just don’t want to go home tonight,” he said evenly, eyes cast to the floor.

Josiah grimaced at the thought of leaving the hospital. “Neither do I.”

“Well, I mean, I understand we can’t stay here anymore. It’s been a week and we’re probably breaking some sort of policy or two. So I get it, I do.”

Josiah furrowed his brow and squeezed his hand around Carson’s. “Then what is it?”

Carson looked up at Josiah and said, “I don’t want to stay at my parents’ house tonight. I don’t...wanna be alone yet,” he muttered.

Josiah’s face fell immediately because he knew exactly what his friend meant. He looked him straight in the eye and said, “You don’t have to be. Just because we can’t stay here, it doesn’t mean I’m gonna leave you. I promised I wouldn’t and I meant it.”

Carson nodded absently, hating the way he felt so vulnerable scared even though it had already been a week. Then again, maybe time didn’t really have anything to do with it. Maybe he would be afraid like this forever. He really hoped that wasn’t the case but he honestly didn’t know. All he knew until now was that he was safe from anymore harm coming to him because he was locked away in a hospital with everyone he was close to. Leaving the hospital made him feel the opposite of guarded. It felt risky to him and he didn’t like it.

What he didn’t like even more was that he was feeling that way in the first place. Carson had always been so sure about himself. He wasn’t easily insecure and he was outgoing enough. He had a nice personality and mostly everyone he met took fondly to him. He wasn’t negative, he was kind-hearted. He was typically quick to let people in and he grew attached pretty easily.

Now everything was different. He let someone in and they betrayed him and defiled him in the worst way he thought possible. Carson didn’t know what to do with himself now. He was having a serious decline in his confidence scale, and the amount of trust he could instil in new people was nearly nonexistent. He almost wanted to never bother with strangers again. He was perfectly content with living a less than satisfying life pining over a boy who didn’t like him because at least he knew deep down that this boy would never do anything so awful to him.

The fear Carson felt and remembered when he let his mind wander or his brain settle down for sleep made him upset. He didn’t want to be afraid. He wanted to be strong the way he always had been before. The brunet was worried that he would never fully feel the same again.

“I’m sorry if I sound stupid,” Carson muttered.

“You don’t,” Josiah insisted firmly, accentuating the statement with a squeeze of the hand. He waited a moment, ducking his head to get Carson to meet his eyes again, and then said, “But I’ll tell you a secret.”

The brunet watched his friend curiously. “What...?”

“I don’t wanna be alone either,” the curly-haired boy said honestly. Carson snorted and Josiah smirked a small smile, glad that the tension was drastically reduced now. “So. Your parents’ house or mine?”

Carson licked his lips, thinking. Then he said. “Yours is fine. We’ll be there for dinner anyway. I’d rather not have to travel around so much.” He slowly dragged his eyes away from his friends face. He turned thoughtful as he said, “It’s gonna be late by the time we’re done eating.”

Deciding not to delve right back into harsh territories, Josiah smiled warmly. “It’s alright. We’ll stay there, then. And maybe my mom can drop us back off here again tomorrow, if you want. So we can visit Ayd again."

Carson nibbled on the inside of his lips. “Okay. Thanks, Joe.”

Josiah’s smile widened, hoping it would be bright enough to be contagious, and he pulled the shorter boy into a tight hug before they went off in search of some breakfast from the cafeteria.

[text_hash] => 6d3ad544
)