[California makes me sad. It's nice and I have good memories here but :// I'm tired of this place]

I ended up waking up in a hospital.

Naturally.

From what I remembered, Carmen Green had rammed her car into the passenger side of Pete's old beat up Jeep. I could also recall I hadn't decided to wear a seatbelt, which was in hindsight, very very stupid. I made a silent promise to always buckle up wherever I went.

Immediately, Dallon — I knew it was him — was touching my hand. It hurt, but my head hurt too much to process that I should holler at him to quit it before he did it again. I also didn't want to upset him either.

"Oh my god," he huffed in relief, I hoped, because he had every right to be pissed off as well, "you're not dead. I thought you died. I don't know what I would've done if you really had died; isn't that so weird to think about? Wow, you almost died. You're not dead, obviously, but you came really close, y'know. That was terrifying. I almost threw up, like, twelve times. I passed out twice."

He was in manic mode. Not like, sleep-deprived-rambling-about-nothing-while-also-bouncing-off-the-walls manic mode, but more of a scared and nervous mindset where talking about anything and everything was used to distract. Understandable. I'd just gotten hit by a car, and apparently had a quick brush with death.

All I could really do was listen to him talk. Not that I didn't want to interrupt him, but the whole right side of my face was killing me slowly. It felt like I'd gotten hit at full speed with an aluminum baseball bat. If Carmen Green really was driving the car that slammed into us, I wouldn't count out that possibility. I wouldn't have put it past her to hop out of the wreckage just to bash my skull in.

"—You're probably wondering about your friend. Pete, right? I think that's his name. I met him once, at the park, but I'm not too sure. He seemed nice, but that might have been the painkillers. Did you know he has two middle names? It was on a fancy little chart on his phone. They had to check it because he has allergies and stuff."

I tried to nod, but that hurt, so a series of blinks had to work.

"I'm going to interpret those three exaggerated blinks as a yes. He's fine, by the way. Pete was actually wearing a seatbelt," Dallon shot a glare my way, "and he didn't go flying through the fucking windshield like you did. He broke his leg, and I think he got a nasty black eye from the airbag deploying, but he's fine. I think he was getting discharged later today."

I could almost see the long winded rant about safety in vehicles in the near future. He'd probably bring his laptop and present it at the hospital so I couldn't make a break for it. I'd never be able to sit in a car without a seatbelt check ever again.

"Also," he brushed against my hand again before pulling back quickly with a pained smile, "you're fucked. You're a legitimate bruiser, now. And, uh, the glass from the windshield tore you some new ones, but when they heal they might scar and it'll look awesome. Maybe not. I don't know if you want them to scar over because it'd be really ugly. You also broke your hand, and your kneecap is literally shattered because you slammed it on the hood of the car."

Once, my friend broke his kneecap in elementary school. It was the third grade, and he jumped off the swing set and fell right on his knee. I couldn't remember exactly what happened to him, but I never saw him in any physical education class after that. It must've been bad. Maybe it would get me out of military school.

I gave him three blinks again, which I hoped he took as a sign to continue.

"Also, I signed your cast on your hand. The right one, I mean. The left one is just awfully fuzzy because you landed funny, and it's also the one I just realized that I shouldn't touch. They said it'll be fine within the next day or two though, so don't worry. And you hit your head on the street, and you had to have a couple stitches on the side of your face because it got sliced open on a rock. It's not too bad, but your face bleeds a lot because of all the capillaries and whatnot. You looked like you died."

I'd probably never leave the hospital. Like, ever. Maybe I wouldn't have to even try to convince my mom to take me out of military school. Maybe I could stay home for the rest of my life and become a professional blogger. Or, I could start a YouTube channel and start gaming. That sounded lame, but it'd be the one thing I could do. And it was inexpensive, which was enough motivation for me to start.

For a nice silent minute, I thanked the hospital staff for a private room.

"I'm supposed to hate you. I should hate you, probably," Dallon had his head in his hands when I paid a glance, "I don't know why I don't. Forgive, forget, but never let it go, I guess."

I nodded the best I could. I knew what he meant.

"I'm sorry." I said. My voice broke on every syllable, but he heard it, and that was the only thing that mattered.

He stood up and leaned over the railing to press his lips to the top of my nose for a split second, then he moved to my temple, then an odd spot near my hairline, then my lips. "It's okay."

🖍🖍🖍

Dallon went home after another hour or two. I'd honestly lost track of time, and I didn't plan on keeping it. He'd brought me a stuffed dog holding a lopsided heart from the gift shop downstairs, and gave me an air hug, and left. There were bags under his eyes. I had also told at him to go home, and I threatened to pull my own life support plug if he didn't leave in thirty seconds. I also wasn't on life support, and he knew that, but I had a cord in my hand and I was going to yank if he didn't skedaddle.

Later, I found out it connected to the remote for the hospital bed. It would've killed any mobilization to prop me up for jello or any other food I was always very excited to move for.

And earlier, Pete had rolled in. Not literally, because he'd only broken his tibia, and it wasn't even a full break, so he just had some crutches and a bright pink cast. There was a bruise forming around his eye too, which was apparently from punching his eye with his own knuckles when he'd lurched forward. Other than that, he was fine, and I told him I hated him because it was the truth. He'd gotten away so easily.

Pete tried to apologize. He kept saying it was his fault for not checking that the intersection was clear, that he should've stopped, that he should've waited a minute because his gut was telling him to not move an inch away from the park. I didn't accept it, and I had to tell Pete six times that it was okay, and that it wasn't his fault. My throat still hurt, which was why it took six tries to tell him.

After that, he signed my arm, and he drew a line down the middle on his so I could draw all over it later, when I regained complete mobility of my left hand again. I was right handed too, which was really shitty. I'd probably have to learn how to be ambidextrous. He said he'd teach me over the next few days. It turned out he wasn't getting discharged later because his neck started hurting. For a bit, we'd been messing around with the voice memo app on my phone, just to see how long it would record until it quit. The record so far had been two hours, and I hadn't been able to stop it because of lack of control in both my hands.

But I debated on fully breaking my left hand on Tyler's face when he walked in the room.

His face was emotionless, hands shoved in the pocket of his sweatshirt. The dark stains on his torn jeans looked too ominous for my liking. I wouldn't have been surprised if he tried to kill me.

"Y'know, Carmen was only supposed to rear-end you. Your friend wasn't supposed to get hurt either, if that makes you feel any better."

It didn't. "She'd go to any measure to kill me." I couldn't talk anymore by the end of the sentence; it was just a sad little wheeze by that point. A part of sympathy passed over Tyler's face, but only for a split second.

He shrugged and sat down in the chair Dallon had occupied earlier. "I'd heard rumors of how deep the vendetta ran in her book, but I didn't believe it. I thought she had better things to do than to enact revenge on someone like you."

She probably grilled roadkill in her spare time. There was literally nothing she wanted to do more than make sure my head was detached from my body. Granted, that was all my fault, but I still didn't want her anywhere near me because of it.

"Pneumonia?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Don't ask how I did it, because it would take a few years to explain, but that was me."

"Drug dog?"

"Yep. I have a family friend that works with them, and they told me about the new dog in training that loved beef jerky. It was harmless, I knew you wouldn't get in very much trouble once they found out, but it was fun."

My broken hand twitched just thinking about it. Maybe the whole point was to tear a rift in my relationship with Dallon. It sounded like something he'd do.

I wondered if Dallon would believe me if I told him who was behind everything. "Military?"

Tyler paused for a second, face frozen in a frown. For a second, I was glad he wasn't the one that had replanted military school in my mom's head.

Then he broke out into a grin. "Oh, yeah. I thought it'd be a great way to get rid of you, especially if you stay away throughout senior year too. And if you'd come back, you probably wouldn't even attend Cardine, either. Then the program would be over, because you'd be less... you. The point of your enrollment would be moot."

I knew it, I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. I'd have to text Pete to come back down to my room and listen to all my bullshit.

"Why?"

Again, Tyler shrugged. He slowly stood and rocked back and forth from his heels to his toes. "I'm not sure. It's the only way I get my fun anymore; I can't lose Josh at this point, so that rules out everything I used to do, doesn't it? It's easy to lie if you never planned on telling the truth in the first place."

He nodded proudly and walked out without so much as a goodbye. I didn't expect any less, but I was definitely curious as to whether or not the suffocating snideness in his tone was captured in the voice recording on my phone.

[peep the last sentence]