Never Fall For The Sad Boy (bxb)

10. Hospitals

TWs: mentions of injury and underage drinking and drug ingestions

He has a fractured rib and a broken nose, alcohol poisoning, and he has multiple drugs in his system, such as xanax, cocaine and heroin.

I sleep in the hospital waiting room, and my parents come in at some point. I cry into mom's shoulder.

Grace's dad is there, saying something about her mom needing to stay home with the kids.

It's not until nine in the morning on Thanksgiving that mom goes home to help my grandma with all the food. My dad and Grace's dad are talking, and have been talking a lot all night. They've decided that Grace's family is coming to mine tonight.

I am not going home until Kian wakes up.

Suddenly, a nurse comes into the room, with a tablet in her hands.

"Elis Wilson?" she calls out, looking up from the device, and I stand up.

"Is he awake?" I ask, looking over her shoulder like I did the first time I was at Kian's house.

"He is, yes, but he's very weak."

"That's understandable." I nod, a little frantic, "can I see him?"

"Yes. Come with me."

Grace gets up to follow me in, but the nurse stops her, saying only one person can come in at a time. Grace nods grimly and gestures for me to go in, and I don't argue.

The nurse leads me into an entirely white room that smells strongly of disinfection. In the middle of the room, there's a bed surrounded by machines, including a beeping screen with Kian's heartbeat. Seeing it calms my nerves more than I ever imagined it could.

Kian is looking awful. Not ugly, he's never ugly, but he looks very pale and his skin is more ashy than usual. His nose is wrapped after being broken by something and he has tubes connected to his arm that lead to some of the machines. The circles under his eyes are even more protruding than normal.

Somebody has taken the earrings out of his ears and his nail polish is chapped. He has a black eye and that fading bruise on his left cheek that his dad left there almost a week ago, and there's another bruise on his collarbone, which is poking out from his hospital gown.

"Hi," Kian's voice is raspy and weak, but he sounds bemused in a way that calms some of the tension in my shoulders. I catch myself staring at his collarbone, and quickly drift my gaze to his face, locking eyes with him.

"Hey. How– how are you feeling?" I ask, my voice hoarse. My chest burns, seeing him like this.

"I'm fine. Sure, my head hurts like a motherfucker but that's just a hangover, and the doctors can't give me painkillers 'cause it's 'too risky considering my recent ingestions.' Ridiculous."

Normally, I would laugh, but right now I'm way too relieved that he's alive and—as well as he can be. I take a seat at the chair by his bedside and we sit in silence for a while, me listening to him breathe and telling myself I will never let that stop as long as I'm alive.

"How did I get here?" Kian eventually questions, quietly. This catches me off guard; Kian almost never starts a conversation with anyone.

"Me and Grace found you at the cemetery and we called the ambulance. We both stayed with you there."

Kian laughs a little.

"What about your car?"

Oh shit.

"Oh shit."

Now Kian laughs more, opening his eyes and glancing at me. I haven't even noticed he closed his eyes.

"Wait, I'm gonna make a quick call."

I call mom and ask her to take the extra key to go get my car, but find out that it's already sorted out, that she and grandma went to the cemetery and left a flower by Abigail and Liam's graves and mom drove my car home.

"Okay, it's all good," I breathe out when I've hung up the phone. Kian looks at me for a second before bursting out laughing, and I chuckle with him a bit.

"Hey, uhm," Kian stops laughing abruptly and looks at me. I shut up as well, "I'm sorry." This horrifies me, because I don't know what he is apologising for. "For what I said. You were right, it was my dad. And, uhm...well, he kicked me out, when I came back home that day."

He's looking at his hands. I can tell he's not saying the entire truth, but I think I understand that he won't—or can't, say any more right now, in some way. I'm not sure I want to know everything.

There's an unconditional anger boiling in my blood at what he's saying. I think I could take Kian's axe and crack his dad's skull open with it, but I won't because that wouldn't end well.

"Don't be sorry about pushing me. That was nothing," I wave him off, and Kian is quiet for a bit.

"Are you mad at me? For...for disappearing?"

I snap my gaze up to meet his eyes, broken and sad. That drowning feeling still comes every time we make eye contact, but it's probably something to do with how piercingly blue his eyes are. Mine are just plain old brown, from my dad's Mediterranean genes. Anyway, the look is still as intense, however I've gotten used to it now.

"No," I say firmly, not blinking or rejecting his gaze. "I'm not mad at you. I'm mad at your father for being a piece of shit, but I'm not mad at you."

Kian blinks at me, then looks away and tilts his head back on his pillow, closing his eyes harshly as a tear falls down his cheek. I want to wipe it away, but I'm afraid of feeling his pale, defined cheek on my thumb. I don't know why, but I am.

And I'm a coward.

—

I sit with him even longer, until I get a message from dad saying that him and Grace's dad are leaving.

"We should tell the nurses to get Grace in here," I say, starting to get up, but Kian grabs my arm.

"Wait. I need to tell you something before we do."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, uhm. You were at mom's grave, right?"

"I was.." I mumble, prompting him to continue.

"Liam." It's as if Kian can read my mind. I have been speculating about who Liam Browne is ever since I heard that Kian is stable.

"He's my brother," he continues, "Well, he was. He died when he was two, in cancer. I was seven. It was then that...it started, I guess," he tells me hastily, as if he has been fighting with himself to get these words out for the past twenty minutes and doesn't want  to change his mind. I blink at him, waiting for him to elaborate, and when he doesn't, I ask,

"When what started?"

That was a stupid question. I realize that when Kian's eyes widen slightly and he pushes back tears with multiple hard blinks. Then, he lifts a shaky hand to the fading bruise on his left cheek, and I feel my own eyes widen.

"Oh," I stupidly utter. Then, I really do bring my hand forward to caress his cheek, and his tears fall at the touch. "It wasn't just one time, then?" I hate how unstable my voice sounds. I should not be this much affected by his pain, it's his pain and I have no right to feel it.

Kian only shakes his head, trying to pull himself together. I don't know what goes through my mind when I lean forward and press my lips to his forehead.

Once I pull away, Kian laughs a little, bitterly.

"Goddamnit, this shit is making me all emotional. Go get Grace so she can talk some sense into me," he ushers, jokingly shooing me away with his hands.

I put my hands up in mock surrender and go to find a nurse.