Given Time

♡51♡

When my parents arrive in the morning, I come clean about my encounter with Chloe last night and what she said.

"Oh, Leah," my dad breathes when I finish speaking. He strokes my now-unbandaged head, avoiding my scar as he does this.

"I'm glad that Chloe told you the truth. We didn't want to believe that it could be true, especially after Tanner swore nothing happened."

"And the story he told us matches hers, so it must be true," my mom adds.

"That's some good news, at least," I sniffle. "Has he come by the hospital again this morning?"

My mom nods her head and tells me that all three of them are back in the waiting room again.

"Can you ask Ben if he'll come to see me? I really need a friend to talk to right now."

"Of course," my dad says.

They go retrieve Ben for me and stay in the waiting room as Ben comes to see me alone.

When he walks in the room, a feeling of relief washes over me, and happy tears flow down my cheek as I finally have one of my friends with me.

He delicately kisses my cheek when he greets me and sits on the edge of my bed and holds my hand. I waste no time and tell him everything that has happened since I woke up, including the part about Chloe and how my parents confirmed her new version of events. He lightly squeezes my hand and sighs. "I can't even imagine what you must be feeling right now. I was pissed as hell myself after I found out that Tanner and Zara kept this from you."

"You were?"

"Yeah. And not only me. Toby told them they made a dumb-ass mistake, and you should have heard the yelling Jake gave Zara after they wheeled you in the hospital."

He shivers. "I've never seen Jake that mad before, and from the look of Zara's face, I don't think she had either."

My chest hurts when I hear this. Even though I'm still mad at them, hearing that they haven't been having an easy time doesn't sit right with me.

I gulp and ask the question I shouldn't even be wanting to ask. "How has he been?"

"Honestly, he's been a mess. It's been killing him that he hasn't been able to see you.

"He's been asking your parents for updates every time he sees them, hoping that you're doing better than the last time he spoke to them."

When he finishes speaking, Ben puts his hand behind him and pulls out something white from his back pocket. My eyes lower to the item he is holding onto tightly in his hands, and realize that it's an envelope. "What's with the envelope?"

"It's er, a letter from Tanner." He lifts the envelope higher and twirls it around in his hands. "It's for you. He asked me to make sure you got it."

My eyes widen when I hear this. I can tell he's getting desperate at reaching out to me after I declined to see him when I woke up yesterday. I wasn't ready to face the music at the time, so when my dad asked if I wanted to see my friends, I said no. Plus, waking up after recovering from being hit by a car sure takes it out of you, which gave me another good excuse to refuse seeing anyone.

"Did he say what's in it?" I ask hesitantly.

"No. He didn't say much. But I have a pretty good idea what's in it."

He chews on his bottom lip. "I think you should read it. You've only heard Shawn's side of the story.

"And well, Tanner may have been a complete idiot with the way he handled it, and that's putting it nicely, but he's told me his version of events, and it's not as bad as you may think."