THE FIRST THING I hear when I wake up is the sound of machines beeping.

They've grown to be the norm throughout the last few years of my life... but I'm now beyond thankful to say that today will be the last day I'll be hearing them. Hopefully forever.

Three weeks ago I underwent the last of four surgeries I'd had to fix various niggles from the accident. I now had metal in pretty much every socket, thanks to Dad, and I couldn't help but laugh when I thought Matt would have called me bionic.

It's been a painful road, and it's taken a long time, but now, nearly a year after the accident, I'm finally able to starting getting back on the road and start healing. The doctors, after previously promising I'd always walk with a limp and have shoulders hanging unevenly, have now promised I'll be able to be a normal guy. After a few months of rehab on my knee and my shoulders, I'll be able to walk and run like a normal human being, without a cane or a crutch. And I'll finally be able to pull out of this dark shadow that Dad had cast over me. I would finally be able to be free.

It wasn't just my body healing, it was my mind too. I don't know whether it was the surgeries or not, but the dreams have slowly been dissipating. After having them every night, I now only experience them once a month maybe... and I cannot tell you how incredible it is to have a full night's sleep. After months of having only an hour, sometimes turning to sleeping pills to help dull the ache, it's been emotional ride. And it's a ride I'm hoping I can put behind me... New York has finally started doing what I hoped for my fresh start. For nine months now, I've been able to lead a semblance of a life where no one knows who I am. Sure, I may still be the Archie Wall that was heir to the Wall Enterprises fortune, but no one at college knew that about me. To them I was just plain old Archie.

I smile as a knock rings on my door.

"Yup!" I call and my doctor walks in with a smile on his face, flicking through the papers attached to a clipboard.

"How's my favourite patient?" he asks. He says it to every patient, but it does the trick of putting smiles on all those patients faces. It took him a while, but after my second surgery, he finally got one from me.

"Excited to get out of here," I tell him as I push back the cover and swing my bandaged leg over the side of the bed for him to examine. "Please tell me I'm good to go," I beg with over-exaggerated desperation.

He chuckles and puts the clipboard down next to me. "All signs point to yes, Arch. But let's take a look."

Crouching to take a look, I take encouragement from the fact he doesn't grimace, and that the bandage doesn't smell like last time. It means it's finally healing the way it should and that my stitches have held.

"Looks good."

He moves my knee around gently, moving it from side to side and then up and down before refastening the bandage.

"There's still a bit more healing to do, plus the rehabbing once it's fully healed, but that's nothing you can't do at home on a comfy couch and plenty of films," he chuckles. "Finally the right direction."

"Well, that's good news," I reply sarcastically. "I'd hate to be going in the wrong direction."

He smirks as he stands and steps back, crossing his arms. "Can you put any weight on it?"

I nod, standing gingerly. "I can, but not loads." I'd been able to hobble to the bathroom on it, but I'm still favouring my other leg. It's to be expected when it hasn't fully healed, so Doc doesn't seem fazed by my answer.

Using the hand I still have on the bed, I stand so I'm putting equal amounts of weight on both of my legs. It hurts a lot, but it's a lot better than a few months ago when I couldn't put any weight on this leg at all. I'd torn ligaments and tendons as well as snapping my shinbone in two, so this leg would take the longest.

Taking a deep breath with each step, I hobble across to the table, attempting to keep my grimacing to a minimum. I'm worried he's about to change his mind, but when I turn, he's smiling.

"It's definitely promising." He nods as I turn slowly and begin to hobble back to the bed. I sit with a sigh as he signs something and tucks the clipboard under his arm. "You'll need to attend those rehab sessions most days, but within a month or so I'd say you'll be walking like nothing had ever happened."

I immediately smart visibly at his comment and scowl at him.

He frowns at my reaction, but when he realises what he's implied, he offers an immediate apology. "I'm sorry, Arch. I didn't mean it that way, you know that."

I don't respond, I just stare flatly at him.

My accident is all in my medical history and on the notes on that clipboard in the doctor's hand. As far as I was concerned, I didn't want to talk about that accident ever again and what had happened to me that day. After a comment from an unsuspecting nurse threw me into a rage, the doctors and nurses know to keep talk of it to a zero. But even though it wasn't being talked about, because of why I was here, I couldn't really get away from it. The only way I would was by getting out of here, and thanksfully I was now almost out of the door.

"So," the doctor says, pulling the chair in the corner in front of me, "that's it then, eh?" He looks at me strangely, and I know he wants to bring up counselling again.

I shake my head, telling him to leave it be. I had been adamant I didn't want or need it, and I really wasn't in the mood to hash it out now.

"Okay," he says, putting his arms up as he stands, retreating towards the door before he stops. "I'll speak to the nurses and we will set you up with a crutch and a taxi home... but otherwise, I think you're good to go."

I nod. "Thanks, Doctor Wright."

"Hey, it's Jimbo remember," he chuckles as I stand, hobbling over to him to offer him my hand to shake.

"Thank you for all your help," I tell him. "Thank you for everything."

He covers his hand with mine. "It's what we do," he responds matter of factly, even though I know they have gone above and beyond to make me comfortable for the last month I've been here.

He smiles as he looks at the chart again. "I'll get you some pain meds, too. But they're only for when the pain gets too much, okay. Not for every day." He looks me in the eye, wanting me to confirm I'd heard him.

I nod in agreement, remembering the fallout from last time. The last surgery had left me in excruciating pain - hence the need for a fourth - and I'd gone overboard on the painkillers. I didn't get dependent on them, but they were just as strong as he'd warned, and they knocked me out cold for hours... sometimes days.

"You have any other questions for me?" he asks.

I shake my head. "Nope, don't think so."

He nods again. "Cool, well I don't think there's anything stopping me from saying you can leave whenever you're ready then." He smiles as he taps my shoulder. "Crutches dependent," he adds.

"You that anxious to get rid of me?" I joke.

He snorts. "Of course!" He doesn't even try to sugarcoat it so I shake my head and laugh as he leaves the room.

Seeing as he's given me a clean bill of health to leave, I start hobbling around the room to collect all my stuff. I hadn't brought much, because I'd known I'd mostly be in pyjamas or tracksuit bottoms, but I slowly fill my duffle bag.

"So... word is you're leaving?" I hear a quiet voice from the doorway.

I look up to find Lara, my neighbour, standing with her crutches. She's dressed in long, satin pyjamas and has her long, brown hair tied up into a messy bun, reminding me of Tessa for a moment.

I swallow as I give her a nod of acknowledgement. I don't really know much about her, despite being neighbours for nearly a month. All I know about her is that she'd been in a boating accident and that she has nightmares similar to mine.

"You going to miss me?" I ask, sitting back on my bed with a sigh.

She raises her eyebrows but then shakes her head. "You, maybe. The screaming, not so much."

I whip my head around. I know I'd had a couple of nightmares of my own since being here. Between the two of us, we'd been testing the soundproof rooms on this private corridor. Neither of us had acknowledged the other's screaming, so I thought I'd maybe managed to keep them off her radar. Apparently not.

"You heard that, huh?" I ask with a shaky voice, hoping she wouldn't notice.

She snorts a laugh. "Just a bit." I scowl at her flippant comment but she ignores me. "You want to talk about it?" she asks, the humour gone from her voice for the moment.

I look up and give her an unsubtle glare. "Only if you want to talk about yours," I bite back.

She narrows her eyes but doesn't back down. Instead she just continues on, ignoring my rude remark.

"S'okay." She shuffles on her crutches, leaning on my doorframe. "But you know where I'll be if you want to," she adds with a kind smile, her voice sincere. "Sometimes it's therapeutic telling people you don't really know."

I'm wondering where this sudden kindness was coming from. We hadn't really said a word to each other, apart from nominal introductions when I first moved in. But as she continues to smile at me, I can't help but return it. I'm smiling because I know she's probably right. However, as much as I wanted to tell her - which, to be honest, I really, really don't - the stuff I have warping around my head is waiting to be talked about with one person and one person only. And I can never talk to her ever again.

The thought makes my smile disappear.

And after a few minutes, when I haven't responded, she adds, "Or not." She chuckles before limping over the threshold to sit awkwardly on the end of my bed. "Anyways, are you excited to be getting to go home?"

"Yeah," I roll my eyes. "Going home will be great," I say, sarcasm riddled through my voice.

Home is exactly where I don't want to be right now. I'm calling it home because I don't have anywhere else, but it's the furthest anything can possibly be from home.

Despite my severe reluctance when I first got to New York, after six months of sleeping in various hotel rooms across the city, I finally decided to live in Dad's apartment, thanks to one of the only conversations I've had with Millie. Well, conversation was putting it nicely. She shouted at me, saying I was looking after myself, and after shouting for me to, quote, unquote, 'get my head out of my fucking butt' I begrudgingly moved all my stuff in a couple of months ago.

One of the only reasons I'd been able to stomach it so far was because I'd never really been there, and the place didn't hold any memories for me like I'd feared it would. I'd been there once when we were small, but other than that, Dad mainly used it for business and kept us away. Which we were more than happy to do.

It didn't stop it from feeling like a prison though. It's a prison where I'm caged with my worse thoughts and experiences, along with the uncontrollable guilt over what had happened and the consequences of leaving the way I did.

But there was another reason I was dreading getting home. The day before I came here, I'd decided to redecorate. After drinking two of the many decanters of whiskey Dad had left behind, I proceeded to smash the rest of them into the wall. I had a glass massacre waiting for me, and I wasn't really looking forward to cleaning it all up when I got back. The only reason I did it was because I thought it would make me feel better, thinking doing it would make Dad angry. But it hasn't helped me feel better at all... in fact I think it made me feel worse.

"Well, will you come back and visit me?" Lara jokes, pulling me out of my trance.

I chuckle, trying to push my darker thoughts away at the prospect of having a friend. "Sure. Yeah. Why not?" I have no idea whether she's being serious or not, but I'll play along.

She laughs before getting up to limp back to her room, gingerly putting weight on the prosthetic I can see poking out the bottom of her pyjama leg.

"Wait!" I call, grimacing as I put my weight on the wrong leg as I try to follow her.

She appears in the doorway again. "Yeah?"

I lean on the end of the bed and try to ignore the pain singing up into my thigh.

"I just wanted to say..." I shrug, "that you can talk to me... as well... if you want?" I stammer.

She frowns and I smile, gearing up to repeat her own words back to her. "Sometimes it's therapeutic telling people you don't know."

She smiles but rolls her eyes as she heads back to her room and I watch as she goes, knowing I probably will never have any idea what she's been through. From the screams I've heard, and the names she yells in her sleep, simlar to mine, I can understand at least that she's had to endure a huge amount of sadness. And despite that perky smile on the outside, from the nightmares and the lack of an explanation, I can tell she's one of the suffering in silence types.

It takes one to know one, and Lara was one, just like me.

"See you around Prince Harry," she calls from around the corner and I laugh. She's called me that on several occasions, and it annoyed me to start with, but now I'm actually find it rather refreshing.

***

AFTER PICKING UP MY bag, and after I've changed, I wave goodbye to Lara before heading out the hospital doors and into the taxi waiting to take me back home.

As the rain washes all around me, I think about how weird this last month has really been. But with the worst now behind me, and with a road to recovery on the horizon, I know I need to start thinking about what's in front of me... rather than what I wanted to put behind me.