My idea of figuring out what to do once I dropped Damon off shattered at the sight of how many missed calls I'd received from my father.

Standing in the middle of the waiting room, the sound of heart monitors had become background noise, a dull hum that was there but barely present in my own mind. I couldn't even begin to imagine how bad I looked to everyone graced with the wonderful ability to see me.

My arm had started throbbing, but I refused to let a doctor see me when I knew it was no more than a little gash that I'd be able to disinfect and clean up when I got home. It didn't help my nausea that my sky blue tee was spotted with Damon's blood. Every time I glanced down, I was met with the sight of it.

I knew better than to try and call Rachel for a ride; her parents had confiscated her phone by now and they'd be the ones responding and would eventually contact my dad. Damon had handed his phone off to me before the nurses took him back, demanding I called someone for a ride home. When it came down to it, I was either going to spend the night here with Damon or go home to my lying father who'd ground me for a decade.

"Miss Thomas?" a loud, muffled voice stirred me out of my daze. I turned Damon's phone off and slipped it into my pocket, spinning on my heel so I was facing the doctor with a quizzical expression.

"Right here." I waved, starting toward the elderly man. His attention was on the clipboard in his hands, listing what I could only presume were Damon's results.

He lifted his head and met my eyes once I approached. "You are listed as Mr. Fox's emergency contact. I'm hoping you can clear a few things up for me."

I blinked in surprise.

Damon had listed me, the girl who was the reason he ended up here more times than not, as his emergency contact?

"Mr. Fox doesn't appear to have any sort of insurance and we have contacted his mother and father on countless occasions and have received no answer. Are Mr. Fox and his family speaking?"

"I'm sorry, Doc, I don't know." I whispered, a heavy feeling setting in my chest. I felt as if the wind had been knocked out of me.

"Thank you, Miss Thomas. Mr. Fox is resting if you'd like to head back and see him." he sighed, tucking the clipboard in a secure spot under his arm.

I nodded, waiting for him to lead the way. "Sure."

*

Damon was high on pain meds when I finally reached his room. He sat upright, his head against the wall as he stared up at the ceiling, eyes half open. The right side of his mouth was curved into a smirk that I guessed had to do with my appearance in the room.

"You haven't left yet, Princess?" he didn't move an inch as he spoke softly.

I touched my fingers to the cold door frame. "I thought I'd wait around until your family showed."

He started laughing, his head finally falling into a normal position. He stared at me through half open eyes, eyelids seeming to droop more and more by the second.

"You're gonna be here a while then, Thomas. Because they aren't going to come. They could care less if anything happened to me." he yawned mid-sentence, stretching his arms behind his head.

"Damon." I breathed.

His lip curled at the sympathy that had seeped into my voice. "Don't."

"What happened? Who'd you get in a fight with?"

He groaned. "Why don't you listen?"

I stepped into the room and gently pushed the door shut behind me, the clicking signaling my adventure across the room.

Once in the chair beside his hospital bed, he shifted so his head fell against the pillow, rolling over so his blue eyes were on me.

"I'm not a monster, McKenzie." was his indirect answer.

I cocked my head a fraction, "I never said you were."

"But you look at me like I am, everyone does. I'm not." he clarified. "I'm not a mistake. I'm not a fuck-up. I'm none of that, not anymore."

I had no doubt a lot of what he was saying was induced by the medication they had him on, but it didn't leave me questioning whether he meant what he said or not. He had said something similar in my kitchen, asking for a chance for me to see who he really was.

The last ten years had consisted of me judging Damon for everything I saw that he was. But I knew deep down that there was no way someone could be so heartless, cruel, and ruthless. There had to be a real person trapped under the persona he had kept up for so long. There had to be a story behind the boy who had spent so long putting up a facade that he'd become it.

"It wasn't your fault, you know. What happened to Brady. You aren't a monster either, McKenzie." he was so quiet I had to strain to hear him.

I wished I hadn't.

His words unfurled a knot in my stomach and my exhaustion finally caught up with me. My eyes began to sting with tears, my body was sore and throbbing in various spots. I felt as if I'd been the one who'd been in a fight.

"You don't know anything about me, Damon." I forced out. "You don't know what happened."

His eyes drifted toward the door. "Maybe I don't. But I know what it's like to feel like a monster. To feel guilt gnawing at every part of my body. I know, McKenzie, I understand."

"That's the thing, Damon. You live this life of running and living outside the lines. But people like me can't run, especially not from ourselves." I leaned forward, my elbows digging into my thighs. "That's the difference between you and me. I understand and accept who and what I am, you run from it."

"That's all I've ever been good at." he confessed, voice wavering.

"Running?"

He looked back toward me. "And pretending."

I bowed my head, listening to the beeping of Damon's heart monitor as it echoed through the silent room.

"Micky?" my head whipped up at his use of my nickname.

"Yeah?"

He smiled, eyes fluttering shut as he whispered dreamily. "It was Alec."

It took me a few minutes to wrap my head around exactly what Damon's mention of Alec's name meant. My best guess was that it was who put him into the hospital. Alec had been the one he'd fought with; I didn't have to see the other boy to know that Damon probably came out nearly unscathed in comparison.

*

"You talk in your sleep." were the first words I had the pleasure of waking up to the next morning.

Damon was laying with his head propped on his hand, elbow indenting the white sheets beneath him. His dark hair was a mess on his head, a few loose strands even falling into his amused eyes.

I jerked forward, clutching a thin white fleece blanket tightly against me. How the soft white fabric had ended up on top of me, I had absolutely no idea.

"You were watching me sleep?" I asked groggily.

A grin stretched across his face. "I was. I think you drool a little too."

I fought the urge to call a nurse in to knock him back out and stood, gently folding the blanket and setting it on the chair.

"Overstay your welcome, Princess?" Damon joked.

I ran a hand through my hair and stared down at him.

"Why'd you fight Alec?" I questioned. "Who started it?"

Damon's expression crumbled. "It doesn't matter, McKenzie."

"Damon."

"I said it didn't matter!" he snapped, sitting upright. "Leave it alone."

"Damon, just tell me." I responded, my voice rising.

He shook his head, a cold laugh breaking through his chapped lips.

"I started it because he couldn't shut his big ass mouth, alright? He was threatening to finish you off. I don't know what he meant by that and I didn't listen long enough to find out." I felt a couple nurses rush passed me and to Damon, watching his heart monitor skyrocketing.

Before I could say another word, I was gently pushed out of the room by a nurse, a pitiful look in her eyes as she shut the door in my face. 

****AN****

*Unedited*

What do you guys think of Damon finally giving a little insight into himself? Do you think he's telling the truth? What do you think will happen with Alec? And, of course, how do you think Micky's going to process the entire situation?

Let me know what you think/thought! 

~ChasingMadness24