"You know, you don't have to act brave-"

         "I'm not acting brave."

         Ashton sighs, almost inaudibly, and looks down at his feet as I continue stubbornly walking down the hospital hallway on my own. I've had five days to learn how to walk again – and I practiced whenever Ashton went to see Brittany or had band practice – but it still wasn't quite enough to enable me going somewhere on my own, like to the market, or even down a flight of stairs. Good thing Ashton always goes grocery shopping, not only because I can't walk, but I'd also be at a risk of seeing Brittany at some supermarket.

         I actually can't believe how bitter I turned out to be about Ashton seeing someone. I've completely shut him out of my life because I only want him to myself. I am my own paradox.

         "If you're doing this for your parents and trying to show them how well you're healing, you can hold my arm for now and then-"

         "I am fine, Ashton, Jesus Christ," I hiss under my breath, partly because he's not exactly being pleasant, and partly because I am already out of breath after walking on my own for five minutes. I might have to get my own assistant for a couple weeks. Preferably male. And living with us. And with me 24/7.

         I need to chill. Boy, do I need to chill.

         "Okay, whatever you say," Ashton says curtly, finally giving up. "There's your dad, anyway."

         I look up from my feet, to indeed see my dad waiting for us, leaning against a door, looking at me, proud and amused. "It's like I'm watching you have your first steps all over again," He says with a wide grin, walking over to us, giving me a hug.

         "Yeah, well, I couldn't have done it without..." Instead of bringing my chicken self to say his name, I raise my hand and bump Ashton's upper arm. What the hell am I doing? "Yeah."

         "Ash, hi, how's it going?" My dad smiles at him too, having him smile back. "Come on, she's having a good day today. She actually asked when you'd come."

         Oh, that explains why my dad seems to be in a great mood – my mum is having a good day. Hopefully it doesn't mean she'd ask a lot of questions.

         We follow my dad into an all too familiar room, with two beds and two familiar people in both of them. In one bed Mabel, my mum's best friends whenever her medication allowed her – other times she'd experience confusion as a side effect and temporarily forget she even knows Mabel.

         And in the other bed, of course, my mother herself. "Hi, you two," She grins at us, and I give her a tight smile as she gives me a tight hug. Ashton also gives her a hug- I'm kind of starting to feel like he stayed with me for the exact same reason I stayed with him. Because my parents liked us together and, more importantly, loved him.

         "Look at you two, together and loved-up, makes my heart smile," She grins at Ashton and I as we sit on the couple of chairs next to her bed, my dad standing at the doorway. Probably looking at us with pride. "¿Como estas?"

         I blink at first, knowing she's speaking to me since she's looking at me but taking a second to remember that her and I, along with my sister Emma, used Spanish as a secret language. My dad only knows basic Spanish, Ashton knows even less, it was literally our own mother-daughters thing.

         "Estoy bien, gracias," I smile back at her, her face lighting up even more – if that's even possible – at my answer. "¿Cómo se siente?"

         "Soy bueno también," She nods at me, looking over at Ashton afterwards, "And you, sweetie?"

         "Um... you asked how I am, right?" 

         "Lucia," Mum turns to me again, surprising me with her scolding tone but continuing to smile nonetheless. "Have you taught him nothing of our language? Papá Carlos is probably rolling in his grave right now."

         I'm pretty sure I inherited the need to make my parents happy from her – I actually feel bad about not teaching Ashton a word of Spanish because of my grandpa, her dad. Then again, I can barely make him talk to me in English, the language both of us know, so there wouldn't really be a point to it.

         "Yeah, well... we're going through the phase of teaching me how to do basic things again, so..."

         Nothing will hurt as much as lying to my mum hurts, not even lying to Ashton about the same thing. It's why I wasn't really looking forward to seeing her, even now, I know I'll be crying myself to sleep tonight because of it.

         "Oh, that's right, amnesia," She grimaces, "I keep forgetting. I can't make myself believe that you've forgotten everything, I mean, do you also not remember how I taught you how to bake? We baked together? Your first muffins when you were seven?"

         Tonight might not be the only time I'll be crying. "U-uh, dad did tell me about it, but... visually... no."

         My dress was half white with flour and other ingredients by the time we finished baking, but I do remember it was red with white polka-dots. There was a framed picture on the TV in our old house of my seven year old self, holding my self-made muffins fresh from the oven, wearing Hello Kitty oven gloves, with a proud smile on my face. I'm still scared to ask if it had burned along with the house.

         "Oh well," Mum shrugs and I shrug too, relieved, "Stuff happens. You didn't forget Spanish, though, did you?"

         "No, I think I still know everything, just like English," I smile nervously- I couldn't even imagine her reaction if my answer to that was 'no', but this way, I earn an approving smile from her. She's been smiling too much, she's probably having a mood episode that my dad mistakenly interpreted as a good day. I'm guessing hypomania. Which is at least better than actual mania.

         "Well, I can't say I did a much better job with your dad," She shrugs again, looking over at my dad and grinning as he shakes his head at her. I haven't seen them like this in a long time, I missed it. "But you will teach your niños the language, right? Like I did with you and Emilia?"

         "Well yeah, of course-"

         "You're fine with that, Ashton, aren't you?"

         I have jinxed it. I have just thought about how this was all going as well as possible- and then she asks Ashton that. I have jinxed it.

         "Of course," Ash smiles, not surprising me at all; I've stopped forgetting how good of an actor he is. "I've always wanted to know a couple of foreign languages, but I never got around to learning any."

         "Well you have Lucy, she's as capable as any language teacher out there," Mum nods at him, almost in a persuading manner, "Plus she can teach you how to roll the R's, instead of using your normal English R's. It kinda ruins the beauty of your speech."

         Ashton laughs, while I'm sitting and dying of second hand embarrassment, "Well if nothing, I'll at least have her teach me your R's."

         "Good, good. I mean it's not a big deal, but why do you think Americans use the word 'buckaroo'? Because they could never learn how to properly pronounce vaquero."

         "Mum," I call through gritted teeth, my eyes a little widened. "Stop it."

         "Why? We're not Americans."

         "I hate to tell you, love," My dad speaks up, "But Costa Rica is in America."

         "The continent of North America, not the United States," She shakes her head, "God. Did you hear Donald Trump will be running for president next year? I'm glad I got out of there in time."

         "He wouldn't have been your president, Claudia, stop before someone hears you."

         "Since when are you so politically correct?"

         "Since when are you so interested in politics?"

         I keep looking back and forth between my parents, a little confused; mainly because I haven't heard my mum speak so coherently about anything since the beginning of the year. And it's August.

         "I like to know what's going on in the world," She tells him, frowning a little, "Keep myself updated. What else am I gonna do here?"

         "Alright, just don't talk to anyone about your opinions. At least until you're sure they're not American."

         "Why would Americans be in a mental institution in Australia?" She frowns harder, then suddenly widens her eyes- "Maybe they're running away from Trump too!"

         "Alright, listen," My dad shakes his head, walking over to mum's bed and crouching down next to her. "Your daughter's here, it took her three hours to get to Canberra, please spend that time well. Okay? And then you can tell me all about Trump."

         She lifts her hand to cup his cheek, both of them giving each other loving smiles- God, how I wish I had that with Ashton. Well, correction – I wish I hadn't fucked up what I had with Ashton, it wasn't exactly what my parents have, but it was close. Close enough for me to never complain about it, let alone do what I did.

         "Um, I'm going to get a soda," Ashton clears his throat as he stands up, doubtlessly to get away from me for a while. There's a certain amount of time he can spend being near me before he needs a break from it, that I've realized. "It's... been a long trip."

         "Yeah, yeah, you can go with him."

         Both of us look at my mum, frozen in our spots, him already at the doorway and me in my chair. "Uh... what?" I breathe out with a smile, and she shakes her head.

         "Come on, you did this all the time when you were with us. He'd excuse himself to get out of the room, then you'd excuse yourself to follow him," Mum chuckles, her face turning more and more straight by the second, "Of course, just now I'm realizing how stupid it was of us to allow you to do that."

         The corner of my mouth twitches upwards, finding my mum's reaction to her revelation a little comic, despite the unbearable awkwardness what she's just said has caused. "Oh well, you've been living together for two years, nothing you do when you leave this room could be worse than what you've probably been doing at home."

         "Claudia!" My dad chokes out, smacking his knee continuously while he laughs, eventually lowering his head in his hands, still laughing; while I, of course, am dying of embarrassment. I'm twenty years old and my mum still manages to embarrass me.

         "Go on," She grins at me, joining my dad in laughter as she pats his head. "I'm serious."

         "O... okay," I stutter, clumsily getting up from my chair and limping over to Ashton, who's waiting for me, apparently trying to contain his laughter too. Why do I seem to be the only embarrassed one?

         "You know," Ashton starts, once we're a few feet from mum's room, "You didn't have to come with me. I obviously didn't excuse myself so we'd sneak around."

         I shrug, a foot behind him due to my leg. "I thought it'd make her happy. You know, seeing us act the way we did in the... old days."

         Ash nods, already at a vending machine while I'm still struggling to reach him. "Did we really do that?" I ask, biting my lip- it was a matter of time before I asked something that would possibly make him recall our the good moments of our relationship. "I mean... sneak around?"

         "Yeah," He breathes out with a smile, looking among various brands of soda but not even glancing at me. "We were wild."

         "Are you wild with Brittany too?" The words come out of my mouth before my mind could tell me to let it go already. It would've been pointless, anyway, I could never let it go.

         First he sighs, then stands up straight since he'd been a little bent to see what the vending machine offers better, and finally sighs. "Lucia," He begins, licking his lips, his eyes still glued to the items behind the glass. "I'm not seeing Brittany."

         Okay. Okay, in and out. In and out, that's how breathing is done, Lucy. "You're not?"

         "No," Ashton shakes his head, "Calum noticed how she was looking at me while she was serving us at the supermarket, so he invited her to his party too. And, well, I got drunk at it, she was drunk too, and we ended up snogging on his sofa. He saw us, and... that must be why he thought I was seeing her."

         I don't mind hearing about him making out with other girls as long as it ends that way. "Well, um... okay."

         "And we exchanged a few texts, but that's all."

         "Why are you telling me this?"

         He finally looks at me, continuing to look at me for a few seconds. Trying to think of an answer, from what I can see. "I just... thought you'd wanna know."

         I might be pushing it, but I can tell there's something else he's not telling me – I can recognize that look on his face, that calm expression he makes when he's holding something back. I've grown familiar with it since I started fucking everything up and he was smart enough to notice.

         I wince as a clanking noise surprises me, and the first thing I see when I pull myself together is Ashton holding two cans of soda, offering me one. "I hope Coke Zero is still your favorite, or this is gonna make me look bad."

         With a smile – identical to his, I may add – I take the can from his hand, and watch him head back to my mum's room; I might be just paranoid. Maybe there's nothing else to the way he was looking at me. Maybe we'll be okay.

*

i have returned from the dead and i'm happy to say that the updates for this book will be more frequent (for real this time) since i've finally finished another one of my stories :D and please vote and comment!! i love you x