It had been just over two weeks since I snapped at Luke. I felt bad I did it, I can admit that now. It was nice having the quiet back. I still saw them a lot, I just didn't talk to them. I didn't go out of my way to avoid them and they didn't make a point to talk to me. I appreciated it at first but now I sort of missed it. I pushed thoughts like that out of my head. We aren't supposed to be friends. This was all just one big understanding.

Liz and I on the other hand were having fun. She dragged me to a party but we left early. Like before Mason Heckle was drunk early. We'd been hanging out almost every night. It was nice to have someone to hang around with, a friend. Someone who was in very similar shoes. Amy didn't become null and void she just became more distant. It was harder to talk about stuff. I never really worked other than my part time jobs here and there and Amy had never been to college and wasn't a school person all together. Liz understood what I was going through. Homework, deadlines, wanting to be apart of something, and cute guys!

Class was going as normal. It was last class of the day and probably my hardest. Sure I understood it, math just wasn't my strong suit.
"Did you hear Luke Sands was in a car accident?" One of the girls to my right whispered to the other. I snapped my head towards them.
"What?" I said quickly.
"Uh, Luke Sands was in a car accident?" She said uneasily.
"When?"
"This morning?" Her and I had never talked before this and now I was demanding answers from her.
"Is he okay?"
"No. He's in the hospital." She said softly. My heart pounded in my chest.
"What one?"
"I, I don't know." She stammered. I turned towards the front of the room again. My heart still proud at my rib cage. Frantically I grabbed all my things and shoved them into my backpack. I had to find him.
"Miley, where are you going?" I looked up my finance teacher. Her face was filled with concern but still stern. Surprising actually.
"I have an emergency." She slowly opened her mouth but didn't protest; just quickly shut her mouth and nodded.

Once out the door I pulled my phone out of my back pocket. I searched through my contacts until I found Masons number, I never had the heart to delete them. I texted him.

Me: CALL ASAP ITS AN EMERGENCY.

I hope he was taking me serious, sometimes he thought I was just being funny, and that was definitely not the case. I ran towards my dorm thinking he might have off now. My phone frantically buzzed in my hands. Mason.
"Hey," I was breathy from running. "Luke was in a car accident and he's in the hospital."
"I just heard. Where are you?"
"Heading back to my dorm."
"I'll wait for you, I know what hospital he's at."
"Okay." I hung up and started running again. My lungs burned but my desire to see Luke again was stronger.

Mason met me outside of our building.
"Let's go." We walked swiftly to his car.
"Do you know what happened?" I panted and climbed into his car.
"No, I just know it was last night." I nodded still trying to catch my breath. There was a slight contradiction on when I happened, but it still stands that he wasn't okay. I don't know what was racing faster, my heart or mind.
"I thought it happened this morning." I panted.
"I heard it was late last night, it could be either or." I just nodded not knowing what to say now. "I thought you weren't friends with us?"
"Don't." I snapped a little. Mason just nodded. I hated that I said that. We were heading to the hospital. I felt so horrible about what I had said. Liz was right, Luke and I were friends. I was just scared. I shouldn't be, Luke is a good person and I just like to push people away. I kept thinking about all the things I'd say to him when I saw him. I didn't care if Mason heard, I was wrong and Luke needed to hear that.

Mason and I crept into the hospital room. The room was painfully silent. Once we were all the way in the room we could see Luke. He laid still and with his head to the side, he was asleep. Minor cuts and dark marks I assumed were turning into bruises scattered around his face. My body went quiet but my heart thumped anxiously in my chest. Even his hands looked kissed with wounds. His knuckles were starting to swell and bruise. I felt so bad for the things that I said and realized that yes, Luke and I do not run in the same social circles but we were friends. I do really care about him and I just wanted to apologize.
"He's a sleep." Mason said. He didn't whisper but he didn't speak loudly. "Do we wait for him or do you want to grab some food and come back tonight or tomorrow?" I looked at him.
"Don't be so selfish!" I hissed in a whisper. "We aren't even supposed to be let back here and because he's a sleep you want to grab food? He's not in a coma, he was in an accident and his body is recouping." My body felt like it was on fire. "Leave if you'd like but I'm staying." I sat down in the only chair in the room. I heard Mason swallow in the silence.
"You're right." He sat down on the ground next to me. I didn't want to look at him. I don't understand how people can be so selfish. They say that you can't fathom someone doing something to you that you'd never do to someone else. I can't fathom leaving a friends side at a time like this but I guess some people are just that shallow. Mason tapped his fingers on the ground in a weird pattern, I'm guessing a song. It was annoying me greatly but I said nothing. I grabbed my bag and started to read today's chapter in my finance book since I will be missing that. I read each page throughly. I understood this class and was actually doing quite well. Most of this I followed, a few things I goodgled.
"Miley? Mason?" Luke's voice crumbled when he spoke. I looked up at him. His eyes were open but he still looked so fragile. Mason scrambled to his feet. I slid from the chair to his side.
"Hi, how are you feeling?" I said softly as I grabbed the side of the bed.
"Like I got hit by a truck." He tired to smiled. A small smile flicked on my smile.
"Really Luke, how do you feel?"
"I really hurt, but I'll live." I nodded.
"So no parties for awhile." Mason stood behind me.
"No, I guess not." The room fell silent again. I stared at Luke as he looked between the two of us. He shifted a little. His face filled with pain as he moved. My whole body tensed at his pain. This is only day one, I can't even imagine how he's going to feel tomorrow.
"I'm going to grab a snack, want anything?" Mason said breaking the silence.
"No." I said. I heard his footsteps leave the room. I grabbed the chair and pulled it to Luke's bedside. "Luke, I know I said were not friends and I'm sorry. I was wrong. We are. I'm so sorry." He smiled a little.
"It's okay Miley."
"It's not." He shook his head as much as he could without pain.
"Can you get me my phone from the table?" I nodded and grabbed his phone from the side table. Surprisingly there wasn't a lot of messages. Just a friend or two. "Do you mind if I call my mom?"
"Oh no." I stood up.
"Where are you going?" I looked at him.
"Well didn't you want me to leave. Isn't that why you asked?"
"No, I just didn't want you to feel uncomfortable." I nodded and sat back down. The phone rang. A sweet lady picked up on the other end.
"Hello?"
"Hi mom." Luke forced his voice to sound normal and like he wasn't in pain.
"Hi sweetheart. What's up?" I'm guessing he didn't call often. Probably just texted.
"I just wanted to let you know," this is where he started to stumble over his words. "I was in a car accident."
"Are you okay? Do you need me to come see you?" Her words rushed out of her mouth like he had just opened a flood gate.
"No, no. Mom, I'm okay. Really. I have friends that can help, please don't worry about coming."
"Lucas, I have some time off."
"Mom, it's okay. I'm fine, really." I looked at Luke. He wasn't fine. He was laying in a hospital bed covered in cuts and bruises.
"Please keep me update Lucas."
"I will mom, I will."
"I'm sorry honey but I have to go, I'm going into work now."
"Okay mom, I love you." He said softly.
"I love you too. Please stay safe." The call ended. The room fell silent again.
"Why did you lie?" I asked softly. It kept chewing at my mind. I would never lie to my parents, not about something like this at least.
"My parents got divorced about a year ago, my mom got to keep my sister and brother and the house but she has to work two jobs to make ends meet." My heart fell.
"I'm really sorry." He shook his head a little.
"It's okay. She's a good mom, I try to be a better son than I used to be." I lightly touched his arm. Luke looked over at me.
"You're a good person Lucas Sands." He smiled.
"You're not too bad yourself Miley Tandom." I smiled at him. A knock came at the door. The door opened briefly and closed again. A small nurse appeared.
"Hello Mr. Sands, how are we feeling?"
"Could be better." She looked at me.
"Are you the girlfriend?" I shook my head.
"Oh no."
"My apologies."
"I don't have a girlfriend." Luke told her.
"Oh but the girl you talked about earlier, you seem to really like her." Luke's face flushed with pink. I guess you do get lonely in a hospital and tell your nurse all your secrets.
"That's neither here nor there." She shrugged her shoulders and dropped the topic.
"So how's the pain, scale of 1 to 10."
"Negative 3." She looked at him. "I just want to go home Bridget."
"I know you do, but you can't. I'm sorry." He nodded. "So scale of 1 - 10." She repeated.
"I don't know, a 9 maybe?" She nodded.
"More meds?" He shook his head. "You're very brave Mr. Sands."
"Just tying to keep the medical bill small."
"Insurance will pay for it, dear." He nodded again. My mind started to race. What if he didn't have insurance? What if he had to pay for all of this?
"Do you have insurance?" I whispered. "If not we could like do a fundraiser or like-" he cut me off.
"Yes Miley, I do." I closed my mouth and nodded. "But thank you." He smiled at me, I smiled back. Mason barged in the door. He didn't knock nor was he quiet.
"Yo, there's a lot of hot nurses here." Mason said loudly. He looked at the nurse who was in the room. She wasn't ugly but she wasn't 'hot'. She was just average, I guess. Also like our parents age. "Sup." He nodded towards her. I rolled my eyes.
"Please excuse him, his brain is massively underdeveloped." Luke smiled and Mason smacked my arm. The nurse smiled at me quickly. "Do you have anything to treat that?"
"Oh no honey, but I can give him a hug me jacket." I laughed knowing she was referring to a straight jacket.
"Could help, but wouldn't fix him."
"Can't fix a broke brain, dear." She gently patted Luke's foot. "I'll be back in a few hours to check on you again, call if you need anything before that."
"Thank you Bridget." She quietly left the room.
"What's a hug me jacket?" Mason asked when the door clicked shut.
"A straight jacket." Luke and I answered back to him.
"What is wrong with you?" He looked at me shocked.
"What? I don't know what that meant." He held an opened chocolate pudding and an unopened bag of chips.
"I meant the hot nurses thing you half brain." He shrugged his shoulders.
"It's true." I rolled my eyes and grabbed the chips from his hand. "Hey, you said you didn't want anything." I opened them.
"Yeah well, call it an idiotic comment fee." I put a few chips in my mouth and kicked my feet up on the end of Luke's bed. "I don't understand Ellie's liking for you." I muttered more to myself than anyone, really.
"What?" Masons voice raised a little in tone. I looked up at Luke as I realized what I had just said. Luke raised his eyebrows at me as he tried not to smile.
"I said it's called a being an idiot fee."
"The part after that." He slid in front of me. I shook my head.
"That was it. That was the whole thing."
"You're a liar." I scrunched my face.
"You're no Honest Abe either." He smiled.
"If you'll excuse me, I have a girl to hit on." He stood up and strutted to the door.
"Mason, stop." He turned to look at me.
"Why, do you want me?" I shook my head.
"Ew, god no." I sighed. "She's a horrible roommate and absolutely drives me insane but I can't let you treat her like that. She genuinely likes you. Why? I don't know. Well, at least she thinks she likes you. She likes the guy she sees across the hall every day. So if you're not going to actually ask her out and try then don't go." Mason stared at me.
"Wow." His voice was small. "You really care about her."
"I don't know, we're not really friend but to know you could hurt her and knowing that I'd be responsible for that is something I can't live with on my conscience." He huffed. The room was silent and almost heavy.
"Well, what's she like?" I tucked a hair behind my ear.
"Well she likes current music. She likes parties and hanging out with people. She wants to live her best life but she doesn't want to be someone's doll. She likes tie dye and has kind of a hippy vibe I guess. She annoys me as a roommate but if we weren't roommates and met in class would could possibly be better friends than what we are." Mason nodded along as I talked. "Ellie's a good person and deserves to be happy. She could also probably use a drink about now, she's studying." He smiled.
"Okay, thanks." He slapped my leg and left. Did I just set up Mason and Ellie? I shook my head a little and turned back to Luke. He smiled softly at me.
"What?"
"That was really nice of you." I shrugged my shoulders.
"I don't really know if I consider Ellie a friend but I've been wrong about friends before." I smiled a little at him. He just nodded a little. I grabbed the remote from the end table between us. "Alright, what are we watching?" I turned on the TV.
"You don't have to stay." I shrugged my shoulders.
"Eh, what else do I have to do today?" Luke laughed and readjust his attention to the TV.