It's like watching a movie. Or hearing a story about it happening to someone else. Not only in my head, but also in my entire body – not one percent of me is currently comprehending the fact that I am lying half-naked in bed, a single blanket covering my bare ass while I hold the side of my body, just inches from my left breast, in order to not bleed out.

         Every part of this feels unreal. Every inch of me is refusing to believe it's real. Although – the blood finding its way through my fingers, despite my pathetic attempts to try and block it from pouring out, causes tears in my eyes; the want, the need to believe that I'm not about to bleed to death is slowly losing to reality.

         And as for reality, even though I can't see him from how I'm lying on my side, I know he's there, I know he still has that god forsaken gun in his hand, and I know he's going to shoot me again. I know he'd rather watch me and my boyfriend die than let us be happy.

         Or maybe he wants me to suffer. Maybe he's going to stand there, and watch me shake and cry as more and more of the mattress I'm lying on becomes red in color. Maybe misery, fear and regret are the last things he wants to see in my eyes before they become motionless once and for all.

         "Ashton... Ashton..."

         My blurred vision clears up for a second as rage and anger take over me for just as long; one thing I am going to make sure happens, is that Ashton's name is the last thing he hears from me. Even though Ashton probably already can't hear me, nor will he ever again, his name will be what I use my last breath on. "Ashton. Ashton!"

         A loud thump, and then a series of sounds of struggling interrupt me; the first few moments I'm surprised, and then a bit scared, using much of my energy on those couple of emotions. It's dark, and I can't see well from being near passing out, so I can't really tell what's going on. It's probably Riley's drunken ass bumping into furniture and-

         My eyes widen and another adrenaline rush strikes me when I hear another voice, groaning in anger, and then even more of what sounds like wrestling; about a minute into it another loud thud echoes through the apartment, a yelp, a shout, and- a slam.

         And then, another slam. And another one. My eyes are wide and my heart is beating faster than it can afford to – but I can't contain myself. The facts that Riley probably isn't drunk enough to fall over and beat himself up, and that I'm almost completely sure the other voice I heard was Ashton's, I just, I can't calm down. If I saw his face now, alive, the wound would probably heal itself on the spot.

         Just please, please, don't let it be a neighbor who heard the noise and came to intervene. Of course we need the help, of course, but if my dumbass brain wanted that other voice to be Ashton's so much that is completely made it up-

         "Lucy?"

         Once again, the same rush of adrenaline bursts through my entire being – as well as relief. "Ashton!"

         "Lucy!"

         "Ashton!"

         "Lucy!"

         "Ashton, oh my- God, Ashton-"

         "Lucy!" If we get through this, I might even look back on the two of us yelling each other's names through sobs as something funny. "Lucy, don't worry, someone's gonna-"

         "Oh my God, what the hell happened here?" A third voice is heard, undoubtedly the woman next to us who looked after Kai while we weren't home – just now I'm hearing his whines from somewhere in the apartment. He'll have to forgive me for not crossing my mind while I thought Ashton was dead.

         "He came in and tried to kill us, please, go help Lucy. I'm fine."

         "What?! Ashton, you're bleeding-"

         "Go help her, I'll be fine!"

         "Ashton-" My eyes become even wider as I hear rushed footsteps getting louder and closer, "no! Mrs. Maxwell, please don't come in, I'm not- I need to get dressed!"

         "Dear God, you're literally- I can't believe this is actually happening- you're bleeding!" she repeats the same thing she told Ashton, in the same distressed tone as she scurries around the bed to my side, "If there's one thing you shouldn't be worried about, it's being indecent in front of me."

         "Mrs. Maxwell-"

         "For the love of God, please call me Lorraine. Where are your towels? You need something to stop the blood."

         "...The second drawer over there."

         The short, blond-haired woman rushes over to the chest of drawers opposite of the bed; to my relief, she gives me a pink towel – I would honestly rather die than have more sheets of the color white be ruined by my blood.

         Ironic that I would think of something like that in a situation like this one.

She hands me the towel, which I quickly place over my wound, ignoring looking at my soaked wet hand, "Uh, I'd- really appreciate it if you went and helped Ashton, he's probably-"

"My husband is with Ashton, he called the ambulance- Ashton doesn't look that bad anyway, he's fine, you're gonna be fine. Don't worry about that."

With a sigh, I breathe out a low "thank you," thinking how lucky we were to have them over in the perfect time. "What I need you to do for now, is just get dressed. Half of the building is at your door, you don't want anyone but me seeing you."

         I close my eyes for a second, gulping at the faint voices that can be heard outside the door, and one deep, loud voice telling everyone else not to come in – without a doubt Mr. Maxwell. Thank God for him.

         "Okay, uh... my shorts are somewhere on the floor-"

         "Found them! Here you- oh," I squeeze my eyes shut in embarrassment as she continues, "I- I got your underwear too, guess you'll be needing that too."

         "Yeah... thank you."

         Slowly, my mouth parting as my brain starts spinning all over again, I begin sitting up; Lorraine is still holding my goddamn underwear while I clutch my side and try to examine the pool of blood in the sheets- well hey, it's not that bad. It's not even a pool, it's barely a puddle. An almost perfect circe with a diameter of maybe one foot. Probably less than that. That's not even that much blood! I was probably too caught up in thinking about Ashton and what if he's dead, to pay any actual attention to myself.

         "What..." I pause to clear my throat, then let the question roll out of my mouth, "what happened with the other one? The other guy that was here?"

"He's... unconscious, but I think he'll be fine too. I- I think Ashton hit him with the door on the head in self defense."

So that's what all of that slamming was. Riley's head against our front door.

I nod slowly to myself, struggling a bit to dress myself with the blanket on me, plus holding my wound, but I manage somehow- I mean, it's just two small pieces of clothing. It's not like I can hurt myself or-

"Ow!" I yelp, squeezing the towel against the tear in my skin and ribs tighter, as a pang of pain shoots through me when I stand up for half a second to pull my shorts all the way up- sex on such short notice was definitely not a good idea. Then again, it's not like we knew this asshole would just come in and try to murder us. The loudest question in my head right now is how in the world did Ashton manage to tackle him and smash the door onto his head until he was unconscious?

"I told you you should've let me help," Lorraine mumbles, helping me up in a sitting position, "now let me see what- okay, this doesn't look too bad."

"It doesn't?"

"No, we just need the ambulance to get here as soon as possible. Now let me help you up."

         She places her hands on my back, lightly pushing me up in a sitting position; however, the pain gets too much and it leaves me rolling my eyes back, near to falling unconscious. When she removes her hands from my shoulder blades, I do fall back flat on the mattress, which makes her already panicked self start yelling for help.

         Another person runs into the room – presumably another woman – and both of them start trying to lift me, but I'm already out. I don't even feel anything. The last peep that leaves my mouth is once again Ashton's name, praying that he's okay, even though it seems a lot like I'm in a worse state than him.

*

         "Thank you, thank you very much," I hear Ashton's voice, somewhere in the distance – about ten feet from me – before he walks over to the bench I'm sitting on.

         I know he's trying to talk to me – but I can't really hear him. There are people, patients, nurses, other doctors walking past me up and down the hallway – but I can't hear them either. I'm looking through them and I also don't think I see them. The only one inside my head is me.

         My side and Ashton's shoulder might have gotten out of that... situation with just some stitches and bandages, but my brain will never be the same. I was too relieved that we were alive at all to notice how much it fucked me up. And hey, who would be normal after being shot? But this feels like something else, not just PTSD or anything.

         I feel emotionally hurt. I feel emotional pain in every corner of my body. I'm on an impressive amount of morphine for the wound, but none of that is affecting the pain coming from my brain – the same pain, regret and sorrow I felt while I thought Ashton was dead in the hallway of out apartment, has been coming back to me the past few hours we've been at the hospital.

         And I think it won't leave me until I do something about it.

         "Hey." I raise my brows as I feel his hands on me, shaking my body from side to side- he might've called my name a few times, but being so lost in my thoughts not only did I not respond, but I also didn't hear a thing he said. "Are you okay?"

         I might never be okay again. "Yeah. Yeah."

         "Okay. I mean I know you're not, but okay. Listen, I know... all of this just happened, but we gotta plan fast. We leave Sydney in 7 days, which is alright because-"

         "What? What- wait," I shake my head, actually paying attention to what he's saying now. "You mean tour? You mean you're still going?"

         "Well... yeah," he gives me a worried look, "are you having another amnesia? 'Cause I swear to-"

         "Ashton. I mean because of your shoulder. How are you gonna play?"

         "Oh! That," he tries taking a look at his shoulder, a smile twitching at my lips at his actions, "uh, well, it's not that bad. I thought it was worse because it hurt like a bitch and- bled like one too, but, guess not. It's pretty much just a graze."

         "...Mine too. He's really bad at aiming, isn't he?"

         "Tell me about it."

         And we're so incredibly lucky that he is.

         "Anyway, since we're okay now-"

         "Where are you getting all this energy from?" I interrupt him again, whining at the vibrancy and enthusiasm in his voice, "we haven't slept all night, we fucking got shot-"

         "Exactly! Lucy, do you even realize what just happened? We fucking survived bullets going through our bodies, I might as well go and get baptized and start going to church every fucking Sunday- I'm so happy we made it out alive."

         "Well when you put it like that..." I nod my head, "we sound pretty badass."

         "That's what I'm trying to tell you. Now listen, since we leave Sydney in a week- I'm thinking, it's probably best that-"

         "Ashton... wait." I gulp, slowly turning my body to his, "I... I shouldn't."

         "Shouldn't... what?"

         "You know."

         "What... what? What do I know?"

         With a heavy sigh and tears already welling up in my eyes at his slight impatience, I look up at the ceiling; I've been thinking about this ever since I woke up in the ambulance. And just because it's hard to say out loud, doesn't mean it's not the right thing to do. "I don't think I should be going with you."

         For a minute, silence. Of course, I now hear everything happening on the busy hallway of the hospital I'm in, but it's as if Ashton isn't even here anymore. "What... what?"

         I dare to look at him again; he's got a more or less blank face, a hint of a disbelieving smile playing at his lips. I honestly don't know what's worse – if he'd gotten angry right away and started yelling, or this, where my words sound so surreal to him that he doesn't even believe them.

         "Don't make me repeat it."

         "On tour, Lucy?" he raises his eyebrows at me, "you don't think you should be going on tour with me?"

         "Well-"

         "Why?"

         I knew that when I said what's on my mind, I'd be hearing a lot of bull for it from him; but that is one question I certainly wasn't expecting, "Wha- what do you mean, why?"

         "I fucking mean what I said, Lucia, why?"

         "Why I won't go on tour with you?"

         "Yes."

         "You're really asking me that?"

         "Yes!"

         With a heavy sigh I run both hands through my hair, already frustrated, but- not even my anger could prevent the tears from filling up my eyes slowly but surely. "Because- because, Ashton! You almost died because of me! You keep getting hurt in one way or another because of me- I can't watch that happen anymore!"

         "So you're just giving up?"

         My eyes are wide, set on his stone cold face while my hands hold my head, "Giving up? You fucking call this giv- I was there, fighting for us when you wouldn't speak to me, when you wouldn't even look at me!"

         "Maybe you should've given up back then."

         My lips are parted in disbelief, as I watch him get up from the bench and start gathering his jacket and backpack- "Ashton, wait- you can't be serious."

         "Wanna bet?"

         "You can't seriously hate me for-"

         "No," he shakes his head, "I chose you after everything, I risked everything, I went through  hell and back trying to become this person, and then you do this- fucking watch me hate you."

         With that, he turns away and starts walking down the hallway, leaving me speechless for a minute – literally nothing could've prepared me for such an escalation. I swear a minute ago he was happy to be alive, and now... he's mad at me for wanting him to be alive.

         "You know what?" I shout after him as I stand up from the bench myself, not in the slightest concerned that I'm making a scene. "I just wanted what's good for you and your safety, but you go ahead and be a self-absorbed fucking asshole, that's fine!"

         "Fuck you, Lucia."

         "Fuck you too, Ashton!"

         I'm left with seconds to recollect myself, stop the tears, and run out of the building through another door; my head is spinning, and it's not from the morphine. I myself can't believe what just happened- but it's looking like maybe more than a week will pass before we speak to each other again.

*

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