Eleven Eleven

White Room

Ryan took the first thing that came to his mind in the quiet room and broke the tense silence.

"Funny, Ash, really." he stalked across the room and slapped a hand against the younger boy's back. Ashton propelled forward, dropping his beloved pudding so it splattered against the glistening white tile. A childlike frown made its way to his face.

"Ryan, come on!" Ashton started forward in an effort to retrieve his lost pudding. Collapsing to his knees, he bowed his head as if he were mourning the loss of a relative.

From where I stood, I could see the exhaustion that had worn one of the most energetic boys I'd ever met to the bone. His eyes, though twinkling with a faint amusement, wore dark bags beneath them. His lips had been bitten raw, cuts and blood spots on every inch of his full bottom lip. The time he'd taken to fall to his knees appeared to take the little amount of energy he had left and leave him a depressed mess.

Ryan leaned forward on the balls of his feet and peered down over his friend's dark head of hair. "I'll grab you another one, man. Just stop it with the jokes. You remember how Willow feels about them."

There was a warning tone in Ryan's voice that Ashton picked up without as much as a small indication as to what he was actually getting at.

"Stevie." the weakness in Xander's voice unfurled a tight knot in my stomach.

Turning my attention away from the two boys in the midst of a make up session, I dropped my crossed arms to my sides.

The vulnerability in my best friend's face set a depressed mood throughout the entire room. Someone didn't have to know Xander personally to understand why. If there was something that millions of fans knew as well as I did, it was Alexander Cruise's ability to barricade his emotions somewhere deep down, fearing the consequences of them ever escaping.

"Alex." I whispered.

I forced one foot before the other and crossed the small space between the chair and his bedside. He outstretched his cast-free hand and brushed his index finger along my forearm.

Before I had a chance to comprehend his actions, he pressed my palm against his ashen cheek and closed his eyes. I began to curl my fingers, pausing only for a moment to watch as tears escaped, the warmth puddling against my hand.

"What happened?" he managed to choke out.

I dropped my gaze to my black converse. "You were in an accident."

"My parents." he breathed. "They were in the accident too, right?"

I opened my mouth then forced it shut when I thought back to the order Ryan had given me outside the hospital room.

"Not exactly."

He shook his head slowly. "You look so much older. Why do you look so much older?"

It was in that moment that the realization and antagonizing feeling of the point of no return for Xander had been reached. I couldn't hold my grudges against a boy that no longer knew what he had done. I couldn't hate him for choosing a life he couldn't remember. In the end, the only good that would do was hurt the both of us more.

"I'm seventeen, Alex." I brushed my thumb against his cheek.

He opened his eyes and stared, "That's not possible. Willow. . ." he trailed off, gritting his teeth. "Why can't someone just tell me what the hell is going on?"

My eyes shot to the heart monitor over his shoulder as the beeping became more than a melodic background noise. I winced internally seeing the anger and irritation evident in his eyes.