20th May 2019

RENEE

When I woke up the next day, I found myself in a different ward. I was no longer in the ICU.

Mom was next to me, laughing at something on her phone. She appeared to be engrossed in it, so much that she didn't even realise that I was awake.

"M-Mom?" I croaked, my throat parched.

"Renee!" Mom looked up from her phone, surprised. "How are you feeling sweetie?" She ran her hand over my forehead, taking care not to touch the bandages.

Very soon, the nurses entered, and busied themselves with examining my vitals, and also my leg. Mom watched everything, her face lined with anxiety at my sorry state.

I was alive. But I was still injured, and now that the painkillers were wearing off, the pain was rapidly making an appearance, hitting me like a sledgehammer into trauma.

Once the nurses were finally done with their job of dressing my wound, mom tried to feed me breakfast. It's been years since she had done that, bringing in a strange sense of comfort after all that had just happened.

"The police arrested that guy, Renee. The one who crashed his car into you." Mom looked as though she wanted to distract me from my wounds. "He was heavily drunk when he was driving."

I thought about the accident, how it should've been Truffles instead of me. I was kind of glad now because Truffles was still alive and I was too.

"Mom, how's Truffles?" I asked slowly, after swallowing the mouthful of bland porridge.

"She's okay. She went to your room and whined a lot yesterday, but today she's fine. Happy even." Mom replied, a small smile on her face.

Truffles somehow knew that I was alive again. I grinned happily, even though the bandages on my cheek hurt.

"Where's Clover?" I asked.

"She has school now, but she didn't want to leave you. She was the one who found you after the accident and alerted us." Mom explained. "You should call her up later, Renee, she was so worried."

That's when Mike arrived, effectively brightening up the atmosphere.
"Renee!" He cheered, "You're awake!"

Mom and I laughed, before I winced, feeling the shooting pains in my neck.

"Yeah, take all the rest you need," He advised, as he rearranged the pillows for my back. "No worries, we're taking care of everything."

"OK." I tried to smile, showing him that I was happy with his return.

Suddenly Mike sat next to me, looking worried.
"Renee, I swear I didn't want to leave you without an explanation, but I thought dad might give you a hard time if you knew why I was leaving."

I blinked at him.

"I don't think he's happy with my return, obviously he doesn't trust me anymore..."

"Why would he Mike?" Mom said, her voice filled with suppressed anger. "You just ran away from all of us, without any worry."

Mike looked furious, but he just shut his eyes and breathed heavily. When he finally opened his eyes, he spoke in a grave voice. "Do you know why I really left?"

"No," I replied.

Mike nodded, and I noticed how he has lost a lot of his dorkiness over the past year. Whatever he went through, he had changed a lot.
Grown-up, if I may add.

"You guys already know the whole part about me writing a rejection letter to the college and dad catching me red-handed."

"Yeah," I nodded.

"Dad lost it, yelling stuff about how hard it had been for him to go to college. And here I was, throwing my privilege away." Mike sighed.

"Then he told me to get lost. To never come back. I was so angry, I pushed him to the ground."

Mom looked at him, wide-eyed. "That's why he hurt his head? Because you pushed him?"

"Mom, I'm sorry, I really shouldn't have done that..."

"What's the point of apologising, Mike?" Mom said sadly. "He gets hallucinations now, he's never going to be the same again."

"Mom," I said gently, seeing the tears pool in her eyes. "Let Mike finish his story."

Mom nodded, now wiping her tears.

"So, I ran away that night. I had no idea of how to be a YouTuber either. I was so clueless about life in general, that I wanted to suicide." Mike looked away from Mom's piercing gaze, wiping a tear away.
"But they found me."

"Who?" I ask.

"Violet, Simon and Daisy. The weirdest part was that they didn't know each other either. At that moment, all they focused on was watching over me. That I wasn't suicidal."

I stared at my brother, having no idea that he wanted to end his life. I felt like I'd hardly known him, and the guilt hit me hard.

"That's when Simon started filming everything, talking about how they'd just prevented me from suiciding. Violet tried to make him stop, but I was actually enjoying the attention. It made me feel better, somehow. At the end of the video, I was rolling in laughter, cracking jokes of my own too." Mike grinned at us.

"The video went on to be viral, 10 million freaking views... Have you guys seen it?" He asked.

"No, we didn't," I replied. "Although Clover might've seen it."

"Oh right," Mike scratched his neck awkwardly. "But that's when I realised that I've always wanted to do something fun and exciting with my life. So, we decided to create this new YouTube channel together." He said.

"Why did you change your name to Jeff Catcher, Mike?" Mom asked him.

"I wanted a new start, mom. So, I changed my name, got a few surgeries..."

"Surgeries?" Mom had a look of disapproval written all over her face.

"Mom, I have to look good. That's what my manager said." Mike complained.

"Still, it's not that necessary..." Mom frowned.

"You have a manager?" I asked him wide-eyed.

Mike shrugged awkwardly. "As we became more popular, we needed a manager. He's the one who maintains our social media, tries to get us collaborations with other Youtubers."

Mom's face softened. "Honey, I'm really proud of you okay? And I think your channel is amazing."

"Have you watched my videos?" Mike looked surprised.

"I just did. You're a natural. And your friends, they're hilarious." Mom grinned at him, before giving him a hug.

I thought about how self-absorbed I was that I'd hardly noticed what had been going on with my brother.

Only when he left did his absence really hit me.

As Mike tried to cheer us up by playing some of his videos, I smiled to myself, glad that Mike was back again.

*****

23rd May 2019

"Renee?"

I turned around, throwing a sweeping glance through the lonely street. It was the same street as last time, the one that had taken me to Noah's house.

Was he nearby?

"Noah?" I asked.

"No, Sweetie, you're talking in your sleep," Said mom gently. I feel a hand on my cheek, and I jerked my eyes open.

Mom was watching me with a small smile on her face.

"Mom?" I asked her groggily, as I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes.

I had been wandering around in the Spirit Realm again, and if not for mom, I might have been caught by the ISA.

Or I would've run into Noah.

I realised that it's been three days since I saw him. Three days of trying to reach him, but so far it was all futile.

"Were you having a nightmare, Renee?" Mom asked me lightly, but I knew that she didn't think it was a nightmare.

"No, mom," I told her tersely.

"Who's Noah?" Mom asked me casually, though I knew that she wanted an answer.

"No one." I lied blatantly. "He's not important."

He was very important.

I picked up my phone and went through the notifications, hoping mom would drop the topic. The last thing I wanted to do was tell her about my one and only crush.

"Is he a nice guy, Renee?" Mom questioned curiously.

"Yeah, he is." I sighed, not knowing a way out of this conversation.

Mom simply beamed at me.

"Mom, I... It's not what you think!" I sighed embarrassed, knowing well that my face was burning red.

"Okay, okay... I'm not thinking anything," Mom lied, but she was still smiling as though she were amused.

I knew what was going on in her head.

It was the same thought I had about myself too.

How did I, a girl so oblivious to the world, drowning myself in my blueprints and brainstorming with my textbooks, suddenly have time to notice a guy?

I was someone who thought romance wasn't for me. That I'd probably be the old lady with her mechanical cats.

Not once did I even think about dating anyone from my class. I always thought of myself above useless stuff like that.

Now, suddenly, it didn't look so useless.

"Renee, are you hungry?" Mom asked me and placed a bowl of fruit in front of me. "The doctor's going to be here soon, and he's going to have a look at your leg."

I nodded silently as I swallowed the fruit. I'd healed a lot in the past three days, most of the bandages on my face were off. Of course, they left scars, but it wasn't a big deal.

The doctor soon arrived and began to check my leg. The wounds had a tight pink layer of skin over them, and the doctor told me that it was a good sign.

"Only a few more days, Renee," He told me with a smile. "You can go home after that, though you need to use crutches to walk."

I nodded to him, happy that I was soon going to leave this depressing ward.