We Come Alive 4

"I Saw It."

Saturday morning, since football practice started at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, Clover got Kiara to drop her off at the hospital so she could spend her time before practice with her boyfriend. Dante had to use Keon's old phone to text Clover since his phone was destroyed in the explosion. He'd told her that his parents were both at work and Keon was spending the day with his family since he'd taken the entire week off of work to be with him, but he couldn't be away from his children any longer.

Clover carried her string bag of workout clothes on her back as she walked the familiar halls of the hospital. Her visitor's pass was clipped onto her shirt making a clanking sound when she walked into the room. At first, Clover thought she was in the wrong room when she saw the bed was empty and there was a middle-aged white woman with long brown hair sitting on the couch. But when she walked further in, she saw Dante sitting in a chair next to his bed with his IV's still attached to his arm and the pole with all his IV bags and heart rate monitor next to him.

"Hi." Clover smiled shyly and waved when the woman looked at her.

"Who's this?" The woman asked, looking over at Dante.

Dante smiled when he looked at Clover, little did she know that was the first time he'd smiled all day. "My girlfriend, Clover."

"Oh!" The woman beamed, smiling as she looked at Clover. "I've heard a lot about you." She stood up and put her hand on Clover's arm. "I'll give you two some alone time. We'll pick up where we left off tomorrow, Dante."

Dante just gave her an annoyed smile as she left. Clover gave her boyfriend a weird look as she looked between him and the woman. "Who's that?" She wondered, flopping down on the couch beside him.

"My new therapist my mom got me." He sighed, leaning his head back. "I've never been so happy to see you in my life. Mad you're late though."

Clover checked her phone for the time. "Five minutes late. Not that much. What were you two talking about?"

Dante sighed as he looked out the window that was behind the couch. "The accident. What I remember. All the stuff I don't want to tell some random ass person I met yesterday. I'd rather talk it out with you than her."

Clover reached forward and went to touch his thigh, but quickly changed it to touch his hand. "Hey." She smiled, making him look at her. "If you wanna talk, I'm here. What you wanna talk about?"

Dante glanced down at her as she leaned against the armrest so she was closer to him and was holding his hand. "Your game." He said, looking back out the window. "How was your game?"

Clover let out a deep breath through her nose, knowing what he was doing by changing the subject. "I got benched for missing so much practice. Mateo said it was a lesson I had to learn, but he's happy you're okay. I could only play 2 plays per quarter and could do the coin toss. Rest of the time I was bench warming. The final score of 12-17, barely kept the streak alive so, next time you see me I'll be dying cause he's gonna kill us at practice today."

Dante chuckled softly as he watched cars pass outside. He felt her tighten her grip trying to get his attention, but he didn't look at her. "What do you wanna know, Clover? Just ask straight out."

Clover felt her heart sunk a little bit hearing him call her by her real name, not the nicknames he always calls her. "Tell me what you told her. We can just talk a bit."

"One of my superiors came in here yesterday," Dante revealed, still looking out the window. "Told me what happened to everyone else. It doesn't seem real anymore like I'm in a dream. I...the five of us always volunteered to go get supplies. It was kinda our job at this point. So our friend Sheldon drove. We were all just laughing and talking. Next thing I know, my body is flying all over the place. Sheldon never saw the landmine. It's impossible to see those things. My superior told me it was probably really old and we just missed it the other two times we took that trail. Told me Sheldon died instantly, never knew what hit him. He was oldest out of all of us, day after his 21st birthday. We were gonna get a bottle of liquor for him to have his first drink with."