5SOS Preferences

He Gets In A Fight - Michael Clifford

Whack. Blackness seethed into the edges of my vision. A loud ringing noise sang in my ears as I watched the guys fist come towards my face.
Whack. The coppery taste of blood filled my mouth. I used what little energy I had left to spit it at him, which just angered him more.
Whack. One more blow and I would go down, my consciousness and all.
"Michael," her scream pierced through the roar of the people around me, bringing me to my senses. I opened my eyes with difficulty and searched for her in the crowd.
Whack.

---

A soft sobbing woke me. My eyes felt like they were glued shut, but I forced them open.
She was blurry, but it was definitely her.
"[Y/N]," I croaked. It felt like I had been eating soot. My mouth tasted awful and no amount of saliva seemed to give it any moisture.
[Y/N] rushed to the bed and wiped her tears. She might have been upset while I wasn't watching, but now she had rage set in her glistening eyes.
"What the hell Michael?"
"How did you find me?" The words surprised me as they came out. I hadn't been planning on asking her that.
She clenched her jaw. "Calum texted me. He said you were freaking out and that I'm the only person who can calm you down. He said you'd already gone out, so I headed straight for your favourite bar."
A shard of pain sliced through my body when I nodded. I winced, regretting it immediately.
"So why did you do this? I expected to find you face down on the floor because of alcohol, not because of a fight."
I wanted to laugh despite the obvious seriousness in the conversation. If only she knew.
When I didn't answer she raised her eyebrows and snapped: "well?"
My ribs sang out in pain as I sighed.
"I wasn't feeling good."
"I guessed that Michael, but why?"
"I dunno." I lied. I knew exactly what was wrong with me - it had been an underlying problem for a while now.
"Michael I'm your best friend. Tell me."
I winced at her words. Friend. That's all I was to her, a friend. A best friend, if that made it any better, but still just a friend.
Her nose crinkled as she frowned, and I hated myself for noticing it.
"What?" She asked, noticing my discomfort.
"Nothing."
"Michael, tell me what the fuck is wrong with you."
I cringed away from her words, the curse sounding unnatural on her lips. She really was pissed if she was using expletives.
"You can go now." I said quietly, avoiding the command.
The hurt that flashed through her eyes made me want to grab the words and shove them back down my throat. But I couldn't, and the hurt was gone almost as quickly as it had come. Her expression hardened.
"I'm not going anywhere. Whether you like it or not, you're stuck with me." She stated.
I shrugged even though it made the edges of my vision blurry. I had to pretend not to care.
"So, either tell me, or I'm going to withhold the morphine. And I'm going to get a cup of coffee and tease you with the fact that you can't drink it."
I scowled at her, but her steely expression didn't falter. I couldn't tell her, I couldn't tell her, I couldn't- "it's because of a girl."
The words fell from my lips before I had a chance to stop them.
[Y/N]'s eyes narrowed, "a girl?"
"Yeah."
She held my gaze for a while, barely blinking. When her lashes finally fell, her hard exterior seemed to crumble away. I wasn't sure what I saw the next time her eyes met mine.
She dragged the chair from the corner next to my bed and asked me to elaborate. I had already given too much away, but what did I have to lose? Well - a considerable amount of blood if her boyfriend ever found out about this. He didn't like me as it was.
And her.
I couldn't lose her.
"I really like this girl. She's great, I mean, she lights up my world. She makes me forget about the bad. But she's got a boyfriend. I don't like her boyfriend, don't get me wrong, but it would be wrong of me to tell her. She doesn't even like me back, so it wouldn't achieve anything. It would just push her away from me, and that's the last thing I want to do."
My body was aching. I paused for breath, gulping in the oxygen as if it was running out.
"I was controlling myself. Yeah I've been drinking more and yeah I've been getting less sleep, but I've been controlling myself."
It was true. Every time I caught myself thinking about her in a way that I shouldn't I took a shot to banish the thoughts from my mind. I ended up drunk most days.
[Y/N] nodded and waited for me to continue. My palms began to sweat. I couldn't meet her gaze as I told her the next bit of the story. The bit that would give away who exactly this girl was.
"But then yesterday I went over to Calum's, and Mali-Koa was there," I said, referring to Calum's sister and one of [Y/N]'s closest friends, "and I heard something that I probably shouldn't have. Mali-Koa said that this girls boyfriend had proposed to her. I didn't stay to hear the rest, I just ran."
A gasp left her slightly parted lips. She was realising who I was talking about.
"And I guess Calum heard me, because he text you. Calum knows how I feel about her, so he must have figured that I'd be freaking out."
Her dark eyes studied me intently, as if weighing up whether I was lying or not.
After a few minutes of agonising silence, she cracked a smile. Then, she laughed.
I didn't know what to do. I wasn't sure what I had been expecting, but that definitely wasn't it. I remained quiet until her laugher died down.
"Is something funny?" I asked meekly.
"I said no." She replied, a sparkle in her eyes. It took me half a second to realise she was referring to the proposal.
As much as it hurt, I couldn't stop a smile breaking out on my face.
"Do you want to know why I said no?"
I wasn't sure that I did, but I nodded anyway.
"Because he was down on one knee, and all I could think about was how I wanted it to be you down there, not him."
My eyes widened. Was I in a drug induced coma? Was I still unconscious? This couldn't be real.
"That said it all really. All I wanted to do after that is tell you what I had realised. That I had realised that I'm in love with you, Michael."
I stared at her, the words stuck in my throat.
"Are- are you sure?" I asked shakily.
She grinned and released a low laugh.
"Are you trying to convince me out of it?"
"No!" I burst, and my cheeks immediately felt hot. "I mean, no. I just- I just can't believe it's true."
A soft smile pulled at her lips as she gently laid her palm on my cheek.
"Well," she mused, "you had better start believing it."