"FINALLY." Liam smiled when he saw Darren walk into the hospital room. "Dude, you're here." He spoke much slower than Darren was used to, and it felt unnatural.

Darren nodded. "Yeah, I am." He slung his backpack off his shoulder and put it down on the floor, after which he grabbed a seat and dragged it next to Liam's bed.

"Did you get lost or something?" Liam said, following Darren's movements by turning his head. "Pop said you'd be here right after school."

"I got held up," Darren said. "I went to Mr. K to pick up a recommendation for my Princeton application, and Mr. K wanted to know all about my application and gave me some advice too."

Liam rolled his eyes. "Was it helpful advice, at least?"

"Nothing I didn't already know."

Liam sighed. "That man talks way too much for his own good."

Darren snickered. "Did they move you to a different room?" he asked then. "I walked into the room you were in the last time I visited you, but there were other people now."

Liam gestured toward the room he was in. "Clearly, I did." He smiled weakly. "The other room was in the ER, and I didn't need to be there any longer."

That made sense. "So, you'll stay here?"

Liam confirmed that.

"How long?" Darren asked.

Liam shrugged. "I don't know yet," he said. "They haven't mentioned a date, but they said that they wanted to keep an eye on me for at least a week."

"Isn't that a long time?" Darren's eyes widened.

He shrugged. "They'll need it, probably," he said. "And I'm not even close to gettin' out of this bed, so I ain't seeing myself leaving any time soon either."

Darren bit his lip. "Does it hurt?" he asked his host brother quietly.

"My wrist is okay," he said, lifting up his arm that had a white cast on it. "And they said those broken ribs will heal over time too if I take it easy – which I will." He chuckled. "There's not much else I can do."

Daren noticed how long it took Liam to explain all of this. His voice was so slow that it made him wonder if he didn't have a concussion.

"But my knee..." He groaned. "That f-ing hurts. With every small move I make, or when I hold it in the wrong position, I feel this burst of pain." He looked at the sheets that covered his knee. "I don't know what they did to it, but man, it better be worth it."

It was then that Darren realized Liam was speaking so slowly because he was trying to control his voice and the emotions that could break free any moment as a result of the pain. Darren cast his head down. It pained him to see his friendly, previously fit host brother so broken.

"It will make you walk again," was Darren's attempt to cheer him up.

Liam gave him a weak smile, and Darren didn't know if it was meant to be that way or if he wasn't capable of being any happier than that.

"What happened?" Darren asked then. "That day at the game. They said you fell, but this is pretty bad for a fall on the field."

"Who said that?"

"Your parents."

He threw his head back when it hit the pillow. "Well, you're right, it wasn't a simple fall. Falling is a part of the sport, but this was unlike anything I ever encountered." His eyes wandered to the leg underneath the bed sheets. "A teammate of mine – Logan, actually, you might know him – threw the ball to me while I was running, and I caught it. I was at full speed, trying to cross the field, and I was mostly free to do whatever except for one defender. He ran towards me faster than I could run away from him."

Liam paused. "He came in harder than I expected him to, and his shoulder pads hit me in the stomach. It's where I got the bruise from." He went in to lift his shirt, but halfway in the movement, he tensed up and suppressed a cry. He hissed. "Anyway," he continued once he'd put his arm down again, "after that hit, I fell forward and tried to catch myself by stretching out my arms. It's how I messed up my wrist." He raised it slightly.

"But your knee?" Darren asked.

"That happened when I fell too," Liam said. "I didn't land well, and most of my weight came down on my knee and my wrist. While my wrist just doubled over, my knee couldn't take the hit. It was contorted in some weird position underneath my body that only made the smack worse. The doctor said that that was what got me."

Darren wasn't sure he fully understood, but he had enough details to envision the moment, which, looking back, he'd rather not have. "What about your ribs?" he asked.

Liam raised his brows, indicating that that was another story. "Well, apparently, the defender didn't expect me to fall," he began, and the sarcasm was clear even though his voice was weak, "and when I did, it caused him to fall. All of his two hundred pounds crashed down on me, and the pressure cracked two ribs."

"Ouch." Darren made a face.

"Yes, ouch." Liam laughed as loudly as his broken ribs allowed him to. "They called the ambulance after that and canceled the game." He tilted his head slightly. "By the way, now that I think of it, did the team win yesterday?"

The canceled game had been postponed to yesterday night. The McCosta family hadn't gone to watch, and neither had Darren, but it had been mentioned at school. "Yes, they did," he said. "The score was twenty-three to seventeen."

That didn't seem to satisfy Liam. "They were missing their best player, probably," he said, chuckling.

Darren went along, before he stopped to ask Liam something he'd been wondering. "Will you ever be able to play football again?" he asked quietly.

Liam fell silent for a moment. "The doctor said it ain't looking good," he said. "Right now, he's only focused on getting me walking again. After that, we can focus on running, but he did say that playing football again was a big risk, because it's such a 'violent' sport." He snickered at the doctor's quote. "When you compare it to speedwalking, it is."

Darren chuckled.

"Anyway, let's talk about more exciting things," Liam decided. "This hospital is a bit depressing, don't you think?"

While depressing wouldn't be the word Darren would use, he did agree that it wasn't a place he'd go to because he enjoyed being there. He looked around the room. There was a small closet next to Liam's bed that came up all the way to the ceiling but wasn't wider than one foot, and it was the only pop of color in an otherwise white, clean room.

"Can you decorate around here?" Darren asked.

Liam looked from his knee to his wrist to Darren, and no more words were needed for Darren to understand. "But you, on the other hand..." Liam started smirking. "Your knee isn't messed up."

"You want me to decorate?" Darren asked, a slight hesitation audible in his voice.

Liam nodded.

"I have no sense of style," Darren protested.

"You don't need one – it's my room," his host brother said. "I'll tell you what needs to go where."

That made sense. "I guess I could help," Darren said. "Next time I'm here?"

Liam smiled. "That would be great." He looked around the room, as if he was already envisioning what it would look like. Slowly, he turned back to Darren. "Wait, you mentioned your application a minute ago," he said, thinking. "When's the deadline again?"

"For early admission, in four weeks," Darren answered.

"Four weeks?" Liam raised his eyebrows. "And you're already stressing out about recommendations?"

"I wasn't stressed out about it." Although he had to admit there were some moments where he got nervous he wouldn't be able to finish his applications in time.

"Just teasing you." Liam smiled. "It's a good thing you have your bases covered." He raised his arm to lay it down on top of the sheets. "So, how is the entire application process going? Your essay and everything?"

Darren nodded.

"Did you finish that already?"

Darren shook his head. He was still working on it; it was what he worried about most. Nova had put pressure on him by saying how important the essay was to the application and how high the standard for essays at universities was. "It's not high school anymore," she'd said. "You have to put your best foot forward and then jump even further."

"What is it about?"

"Human cloning," Darren mumbled. That was the topic he'd settled on three days ago. Before that, it had been global warming – "Everyone is going to write about global warming," Nova had said, "but you need to stand out, Darren" – and the possibility of homosexuality in other species, but he'd discarded that idea when he realized he knew nothing about homosexuality. His biology teacher had advised him to write about something he already knew about for his application essay, and homosexuality wasn't that. So, he settled for human cloning.

"That's really cool!" Liam said. He sat up straighter in bed. "What aspect of human cloning? Are you going to learn how to clone?"

Darren chuckled. "I won't learn how to clone."

"Too bad," Liam said. "You could've cloned a version of me with a good knee. He'd have my football talent."

Darren ignored most of that comment and went on to tell his host brother more about it. "I mostly want to write about the health implications of cloning in case we do ever have the technology to clone people." He rubbed his hands together.

"That sounds really interesting," Liam said. "Have you come far already?"

Considering he'd started just three days ago? "Yes." He'd decided to rush the process a bit since he didn't have that much time left to wrap up his application.

"Dude, you're sweating." Liam laughed. "You okay?"

Darren nodded and started blushing. He hadn't realized how nervous he'd gotten, but indeed: his palms were sweaty, his forehead was glimmering, and his feet were rhythmically tapping on the ground.

"Take a tissue," Liam said, making a head motion to the small table next to his bed. "You'll need it for yo' forehead; I can see my own reflection on it, and it doesn't make me look good."

Darren chuckled but did as Liam said. He dabbed some sweat off his forehead.

"So, you okay?" Liam asked again, still in his slow voice. "Is it the application?" The fact that Darren's nervosity had only arisen when they started talking about the application hadn't gone unnoticed by Liam.

"It's just..." Darren sighed. "Stressful."

Liam smiled. "You still have four weeks before the deadline." When Darren didn't answer him, he leaned in and continued. "I swear, Darren, you have nothin' to worry about. If they don't see how badly you want this, they must be blind. You even moved to an entirely different country to make sure you got in."

Darren wanted to protest that he was only on exchange for a year, and that getting into Princeton depended on more than his exchange, but Liam didn't even give him the chance.

"Yes, you also need good grades and everything," Liam said. "But you have those. I have complete faith in you. So did Mr. K, otherwise he wouldn't have written you a glowing recommendation."

Darren opened his mouth again to protest, but Liam was – surprisingly – quick to interrupt him.

"I see how hard you work on it," Liam said. "And you never hand anything in unless you're sure it's perfect. That's exactly what those universities want to see."

Darren cast his head down. When Liam put it like this, it seemed like he'd been overreacting, but the daily talks with Nova were always about the application and made him worry about every aspect that he hadn't had the time for to make perfect yet.

"So, don't worry," Liam concluded. "You'll do fine. And if – for some bizarre reason – four weeks isn't enough to finish your application, you'll always have the regular admission deadline."

He'd almost forgotten about the regular admission deadline. He had been so preoccupied with getting the application done that he hadn't stopped to think about the possibility of waiting another few months.

Darren breathed out. "Yes, thank you."

"Just relax, 'kay?" Liam winked. "You'll be fine. And if you need me, I'll be here." He smiled weakly. "I have nowhere else to go."

"Thank you," Darren said, although he couldn't help but feel sad at Liam's last words. While Darren would leave after a while, Liam was stuck here, by himself, until someone would come during the next visiting hours.

"I would give you a hug right now, but my ribs hurt too much." Liam laughed, then stopped abruptly. "I hope this is okay too." He raised his arm whose wrist wasn't broken with an outstretched hand.

Darren chuckled when he realized what Liam wanted him to do, and he leaned forward to give his host brother a convincing high five. For a minute there, he believed he could do it. Not even the application he'd been nervous about ever since he'd decided what he wanted to do with his life would get him down.

I wrote this chapter back in January, but hospital scenes are surprisingly difficult to write when you have a family member in the hospital... It's not even a very emotional scene, but I choked up a couple of times then. Now, reading it back, I'm not sure what to think or if it's any good, but I'm leaving it in anyway. I feel like it gives some insight into Liam's battle and what is keeping Darren busy, but there's some hope to it as well.