I stood in the driveway while bouncing my weight back and forth on my feet as I waited for Alex to come pick me up. I was anxious. Regardless of showering, brushing my hair, and actually putting on decent clothes, I knew I still had to have looked like shit. My eyes had deep circles under them from lack of sleep, and even with trying to cover it up, I still reaked of alcohol.

I was also worried about how Alex would react once he saw Emily. He knew her before me and Isabelle and had a closer bond to her as a friend. In fact, if it weren't for her getting his address mixed up with his neighbor's, none of us would have met Isabelle.

I hated the thought of seeing the look on his face that I knew I had when I saw her for the first time. I didn't like thinking of seeing my best friend with a shocked, pained, agonized expression in his emerald eyes.

I didn't have too long to dwell on it though, because his silver porshe pulled up a few minutes later.

"A-Are y-y-you r-r-read-dy?"

I looked at him through the rolled down window and realized just how nervous he must be as well. I hadn't heard him stutter that badly since middle to high school. Even last night didn't compare. However I didn't mention it and just nodded, not trusting my own voice right now either.

After getting in the car as he pulled out of my driveway carefully, neither of us said a word.

We both knew the weight of this after all and were processing differently, in a way words weren't needed in.

It felt like a short trip before we pulled up in a parking space and went inside to check in. All the while the knots in my stomach were getting worse.

"The nurses are tending to her right now, so I'm not sure what state she's in, but you can go ahead. Visiting hours end in an hour and a half."

I thanked the woman as Alexander stayed silent before the two of us began walking in that long stretch again through the hallway towards the room.

And the closer we got, the more my stomach dropped at hearing that this time, the screaming wasn't just coming from a different room.

Most of it was unintelligible, but the few words that I managed to work out made me feel anguish I didn't even know existed until this moment.

"DONT MAKE.... GO!!!! PLEASE!!!!"

I heard the nurses mention a sedative and a few seconds after Emily went quiet again. We stayed outside the room for a few minutes. Neither of us willing to go in there to see how bad she was. Or worse, how bad she should've been, but wasn't.

After taking a few minutes to recollect my own nerves, I turned to look to my right to see Alex shaking next to me with his head down and dirtyblond hair covering his eyes. There was a silent anger about him and a deadly calm that sent my nerves back into motion at seeing.

"H-How dare they... How dare t-t-they hurt her-r like th-this... H-How could an-nyone f-fucking hurt h-her like this..?"

My eyes widened as I stared blank faced at Alex. Never, I mean never, had I heard Alex curse more then maybe twice, and never an F bomb. Those were usually the words I was dropping left and right that made him uncomfortable.

The oddest part though, was I couldn't tell if he was talking about the nurses for giving her the sedative, or the sick people who caused this in the first place.

Once I recovered from that shocker, I took a deep breathe and stepped inside the room, not wanting to leave Emily alone any longer since we didn't have too much time.

I ignored my heart's painful clench as I took a seat beside my girl to gently move a piece of her hair out of her face.

She looks cleaner today. That's good.

It was a few minutes after I had taken a seat that I heard Alex's footsteps behind me and his breath caught as he entered the room fully to get a glimps of her. I refused to look at his expression though, knowing I would break down if I did.

Emily was back to the blank, lifeless, stare that seemed to break pieces of me I didn't even know existed, and the only sign showing her previous episode were the feathers torn from the pillow scattered everywhere, some still flying around in the air, and the straps holding Emily's arms down to keep her from hurting anyone.

We sat there for what seemed like no time at all and all the time in the world before Alex excused himself from the room in a broken whisper to call Isabelle and tell her what was going on. She got here twenty minutes later, which was shocking for such a famous chef who constantly had something in her restaurants to do.

Although, she was Isabelle Eclaire. With how sweet she could be, she was still the same person from middle school, when she wanted something, she got it.

Unlike Alex, who kept his distance and seemed to try to analyze the situation and process through his own means, Isabelle took a seat on the other side of the bed and held Emily's hand with a squeeze.

For someone who used to see emotion as a weakness, she sure was showing a lot of it now as her hazel eyes watered and were filled with an unspeakable about of pain and worry.

Although, we all had changed from this, I don't believe things will go back to normal for as long as Emily wasn't apart of our normal lives as she was before. How could we when she was the one that brought everyone together? She took care of and gave that book back to Alex when everyone else ignored it, she agreed to let Isabelle come with her to Alex's house when most would have declined, she saw passed my actions and convinced the others to give me a chance when anyone else would have sent me walking; and above all, she held the group together when we almost gave up time after time again.

So how could any of us continue that friendship and the lives we built when she wasn't a part of it?

Without thinking too much about it, I gently pulled Em's head to my chest while stroking her hair lovingly. The want to comfort her was too strong for me to ignore like yesterday, and I wasn't sure if I was heartbroken or relieved that my love didn't react to it.

The two friends didn't comment on my actions even though it wasn't very like me to be all lovey dovey as my brain just started thinking back once again to the last words she said to me before walking out that door.

'Don't wait up for me..'

How could she have known how long I had to wait for her? How I'm still waiting for her?

I said this more to myself than anything, but somewhere, I hoped that she would hear it.

"I promise Emily. I will wait for you. Just like you waited for me to show you who I really was passed the cocky facade I always put on.. No matter how long it takes, I will wait."

Hope you liked the chapter guys! (3