I walked next to Brian, the three girls next to each other behind us. I was really scared. Such an accident can be very dangerous, a lot can have happened to it. He may also have been very lucky. But as long as we didn't know, I was scared. I suspected we were all scared or something like that. I just couldn't get this image out of my head. My unsuspecting best friend who... No! I couldn't think about it anymore. Brian put his arm around me.

"Relax, Brian, relax. You are trembling. Breathe in, breathe out. He's fine, you'll see for yourself in a moment. He will meet us in a moment and tell us that we fell for his joke"

"Macabre humor," I interjected, but although I didn't believe what Brian was telling me, I was able to calm down a bit.

The way dragged on. We were silent, actually we didn't say anything. There was a gap in our group that hopefully would soon be filled again.

Half an hour later, it was about 4:30 p.m., the five of us were sitting in an oppressively empty corridor with nothing but a few chairs, a small table, a water dispenser, and a snack machine. The others had sat down, I was too restless, so I stood next to them, stepping from one leg to the other.

"Come on, Brian, have a seat too. That could take hours," Jaime said. I sighed, sat down next to her and put my head on her shoulder. She put hers on top of mine.

"Thanks," I muttered.

6:00 p.m.

For an hour and a half, we had been sitting, standing and walking in the corridor and absolutely had no idea what to do. It was pretty cold in here too. Meredith had snuggled up to Brian, who was sitting next to her, and almost fell asleep. But only almost. She couldn't completely fall asleep, I knew that. I looked at the two of them to get other thoughts. They're really cute together, Jaime was right earlier. Best friends. Or not? I made a note in my head to ask Brian when I got the opportunity. Let's see when this opportunity should come. I went into my head wondering which Starkids I might think could be together, just to distract me. But I didn't really like any combination. Except for two. Brian and Meredith, I didn't let go of that anymore, there had to be something to it. And Lauren and Joey. But that couldn't be, Joey would have told me about it. Damn it, Joey on my mind again. I looked over at Lauren. All alone she sat on the floor in a corner, legs drawn to her chest and her head on her knees. I got up, walked over to her, sat down next to her and put my arm around her. Almost immediately, she put her head on my shoulder, like I did with Jaime earlier.

"What if something really bad happened to him?" She asked.

I didn't know what to answer. Of course, I could have said that wouldn't have happened, but I couldn't say it convincingly. We were all worried.

"I don't know, Lo, I don't know. But let's not assume the worst. Joey is strong, you know that, I know that, we all know that. And we believe in him"

For a long time, we just sat there and said nothing. I kept stroking Lauren's arm to calm her down, but also to calm myself down.

8:00 p.m.

Three and a half hours. And still no news from Joey. I didn't really know why we were waiting in this corridor. It just happened, suddenly we were here. We probably could have waited elsewhere, but we wanted to stay as close to him as possible. Where was he now?

Then finally! A door opened and a woman came in.

"Are you the friends of Joseph Richter?" She asked and since we were the only ones in the corridor, only we could be meant.

"Yes," replied Brian. Meredith, who until a moment ago still had her head on his lap, was now sitting completely upright and wide awake. Lauren and I were on our feet.

"Would you follow me, please?"

We all followed the woman in a row in silence until we finally came to a room with number 78.

"You are allowed in to see him. But please be quiet and don't stay too long. It's for his own good. He is still unconscious and we also don't know when he will wake up"

We nodded gratefully. Then I opened the door. There he was. Innocent like Joey is. There were some cables and things hanging from him and the otherwise quiet room was disturbed by a beeping sound. We went in quietly and calmly and stood around the bed. The nurse left us alone. We didn't dare to get very close to him. For about a minute we just stood there in silence and looked at our friend.

"Why Joey?", Meredith asked quietly at some point, barely audible.

"It always hits someone," Jaime replied sadly.

"There are so many people, why did it have to hit Joey?" Meredith asked again, just as quietly as before.

"I don't know. Nobody knows, nobody will ever know, nobody will be able to do anything about it", Brian answered and stroked Meredith's hair.

"Isn't it strange?" I suddenly asked. "We don't really know anything more than we did a few minutes ago when we were sitting in the hallway, and yet I feel reassured. Not quite yet, but decisive enough"

It was really strange. Seeing Joey was enough to calm me down a bit.The others agreed. Yes, they felt the same.

"Is it just me or are you feeling the same?" Brian asked.

"What?"

"That I realized in the past hours how much I love all of you. I mean I knew that before, but somehow this situation made the feeling stronger. I care so much about all of you. I always develop a protective instinct when it comes to you. I don't want something horrible like this to happen again, of course. Do you understand what I mean?"

And Brian did it. Without me noticing a single tear ran down my cheek while he was saying this, which rarely happens to me. He said exactly what was on my mind but I didn't know it. I didn't know what I actually was trying to say all along and if I had known, I probably wouldn't have found the right words.

"Yes, Brian, I understand you, I feel the same," Lauren replied and looked him warmly in the eyes. She was almost right next to Joey, she didn't quite dare to approach him either.

"I think we should leave. The nurse said we shouldn't stay too long," Jaime said. We agreed.

"You're coming, Lo?" I asked when I realized she didn't move a bit.

"Yes, soon. Just a moment, please, you can go ahead. I'll be right there"

"You know what happened the last time one of us said that?"

She nodded and looked like she was about to cry.

"Sorry, Lo, we'll be waiting. Take as much time as you need."