Mia's eyelids fluttered open to a familiar room. As she looked around the room she began noticing certain things such as bookshelves and a large T.V.

"You are so stupid," she heard a voice tell her.

Mia looked to her right groggily and saw Blake with large purple rings under his eyes. "What happened to you?" she asked.

"Are you kidding me? You're asking what happened to me while lying in a bed because you almost died. I was so scared, you idiot," he told me.

"I'm sorry," Mia told him before getting over her fears. "What exactly happened after I passed out?" she asked hesitantly.

Blake sighed before responding. "I saw you looking really stressed out and overwhelmed before you passed out. You fell to the ground and the fire dude tried to kill you. Luckily, the police got there quick enough and were able to extinguish you."

"Wait. Did you just say extinguish?"

Blake nodded weakly. "Mia, you were burned pretty badly back there. It's not going to be an easy recovery," he told her softly.

"What?" she asked, unable to believe her ears.

"It's going to take a while for you to get back to normal. I'm so sorry, Mia," he apologized.

She felt her world collapse around her before she was able to form a coherent sentence and even that was a small one. "How long?" she asked, trying to gulp down her fears.

"What?"

"How long until I can do things normally again?"

"I don't know. I'll get the doctor," he told her, standing up.

"Wait," she told him. "I just..." Mia took a deep breath. "I'm sorry for scaring you. I just wanted to help people. I guess I've learned my lesson. Gosh, I'm such an idiot! I can't even do one thing right!" she yelled. Suddenly, another thought popped into her head. "Blake?" He looked at her with sadness and concern. "Did anyone die or get injured because of me?" she asked hesitantly.

"Nobody died," he told her. "But..."

She tried to stay strong but it was so hard. She was able to hold back her tears for a good three seconds before they all came pouring down. That's when she realized the severity of her burns. Even just the movement of crying was more painful than she could've imagined. If she was in this much pain, what were the victims dealing with? What have I done!? she wondered as the guilt ate away at her. She threw her hands up to her eyes to try and calm the tears. It didn't work but she kept the hands there. For some reason, they were kind of comforting. They didn't do much but a little bit.

"I... I'm the w-worst... p-person e-e-ever," she stuttered.

"No, you're not. This isn't even your fault," he comforted, or at least tried to. She could tell that he wanted to hug her but was containing himself due to her burns. She was thankful. If crying was that painful she could not deal with touch.

"It i-is, though. P-people are i-in pain b-because of me. Gosh, I h-hate myself. I can't do a-anything right." Blake lightly pulled her hands away from her eyes to get her to look at him.

"Mia, I'm going to tell you this one more time. This is not your fault. You can't let yourself think that," he told her sternly.

She knew that it would take a while for her to believe that but if she could make him think that she agreed with him, maybe he would leave her alone about it. "I k-know," she lied, her voice still a little wobbly.

He relaxed a bit. "I'm going to get the doctor and tell him that you're awake," he told her, standing up again. This time, she let him leave, watching as the door shut behind him.

She was still in that same guest room she had been in for the past week. Under normal circumstance she would have been in the hospital but Blake and Mr. Payson decided to keep her in their home along with a private doctor. Dr. Clarkson had told her that she would get to return to school in about two weeks but that even then she shouldn't exert herself and that she would even get a pass from P.E.

She had seen her family a few times. They were happy that she was there rather than a hospital and had come to know that she had become close with the Paysons and that they were "just being kind." Apparently, they also thought that she was just there when it happened and got caught up in the lightning created by someone else entirely. She let them believe it. It was a far better version of the story than the truth.

"You ready to get your bandages replaced, Miss Patterson?" Dr. Clarkson asked.

"Yep," Mia responded. She wasn't happy or excited that she was getting her bandages replaced because most of the time it hurt. A lot. But Dr. Clarkson was just too sweet and cheerful for anyone to ever be upset when she was around.

"Let's get right to it," Dr. Clarkson said with a bright smile.

"Okay," Mia responded with a smile. It was small but at least she was smiling.

The next few minutes were torture. She tried not to show too much pain for Dr. Clarkson's sake but a few whimpers and grunts of pain managed to slip out. When she was done, Mia let out a sigh of relief that it was over.

She realized that she was already tired and went to rest her head against the pillow once more. Although her injuries were mostly just burns she did manage to get a concussion as well. Basically, she was just one big mess.

When she got into her bed she grabbed a book, intending to read until she was able to fall asleep. For some reason, although exhausted physically, she had been unable to sleep for the past few days and even when she could her nights were flooded with nightmares. The only thing that could comfort her, it seemed, was Blake.

It was starting to get late when Blake opened her door. He peeked his head inside rather than just coming all the way in.

"Seriously, Blake," she told him with a small chuckle. "You can come in."

"I'm just making sure," he told her, opening the door wider and walking in fully. He walked over to her bed and crawled in beside her as he had done the past few nights. Ever since Blake heard her screams the first night he had been staying with her to help her get past the nightmares.

At first she had protested.

"What about your sleep?" she had asked.

"I couldn't sleep knowing you were having nightmares anyway," he told her.

She tried again. "You can't do this for me. These dreams are mine and I should be the one to deal with them!"

"You are my best friend, don't tell Bella or Drew that I said that, and I'm not going to let you deal with this on your own, no matter how hard you protest."

She normally would've continued fighting for a while, her stubbornness holding tight onto her beliefs but she was too exhausted so she let him comfort her to sleep.

So now, here she was, curled up in the arms of her best friend. It might have been weird but at this point, the two were so close that very few things were strange to either of them.

She rested her head on his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart before her world went dark.

Bright lights. Screams of pain. Destruction. No relief. Mia was stuck. She watched as people got struck by lightning, her lightning. She watched as they fell to the ground, limp and lifeless. She tried to shut her eyes, to close out everything that she had caused. Even through her eyelids, however, she was able to see the devastation.

Then, she watched the fire man walk towards her with a look of utter hatred on his face. She felt herself tense up and ran. She ran as fast as she could for as long as she could.

She was inches away from her safe haven, inches away from falling off the bridge, inches away from death, when he caught her. He grabbed her wrist tightly, his ginormous, calloused hand dwarfing her wrist in comparison.

He spun her around roughly, forcing her to face him. His face was ablaze and he seemed to be a part of the fire. She had never seen anything like it but it was terrifying.

She felt her breathing quicken as she tried to choke down screams but to no avail. Although she tried to stay calm, her fear got the best of her and screams of terror, guilt, and shame flooded through her.

Hands gripped her shoulders tightly, shaking her awake. She grimaced at the pain. Although she was now able to deal with slight movements, being shaken like that was still incredibly painful.

When he saw that she was awake he stopped shaking her. He was smart enough not to hug her but he did lie back down so she could put her head on his chest.

When she did, he started combing his fingers through her hair gently. "I'm sorry for waking you," she apologized gently. Blake laughed at that.

"Seriously, Mia? You just had one of your worst nightmares ever and you are 'sorry for waking me'?" he asked.

She just stayed silent.

She tried not to cry but flashes of her dream kept flaring across her vision. Bolts of lightning striking someone down. A limp body hitting the pavement of the bridge. That monster attacking. Realizing that death would be better than what she would face if she stayed alive.

Blake let her cry into his shirt, slowly brushing through her hair with his fingers. It was comforting to have him there and she could feel herself calming down. Her breathing steadied slightly, her eyes began shedding tears at a slower pace, and the visions had disappeared.

She stayed cuddled into Blakes side, wishing she could stay awake forever. She peeked at the clock and saw that it was 2:00 A.M.

"Go to sleep, Mia. It's okay. Just sleep," he told her. She wanted to protest but her eyelids were already closing.

Mia woke up the next morning cradled in Blake's arms. She hadn't had any more nightmares and she knew that the only reason was because of Blake.

Mia didn't want to wake him by moving so she just stayed as she was, listening to his heartbeat. Sitting there, snuggled against him with her head on his chest, she realized something. She liked him.

She felt her eyes grow wide at her realization. Her body became as still as a rock as she thought about it. Her mind was racing at one hundred miles an hour.

She was able to regain control of herself thanks to Blake, yet again. His heartbeat, steady, firm, and controlled, was able to calm her frantic nerves.

She stayed there for a while, just watching him sleep. Sure, it was probably extremely creepy but he looked so peaceful and cute when he slept, she couldn't tear her eyes away.

Blakes eyelids fluttered open at around 9:00 a.m. which made Mia wonder when she actually woke up because it felt like she had been awake for hours.

"Hey," he said once his eyes had landed on her face.

"Good morning, Sunshine," she replied.

"What time is it?"

"It's around 10:00."

"We should probably get out of bed soon, then."

"I guess, but you're really warm," she told him, the words slipping out of his mouth. She tried to make it playful by adding a light chuckle and it seemed to work.

Blake moved on. "Do you smell that?" he asked.

"No. What am I supposed to be smelling?"

"Coffee." He sniffed. "Pancakes." He sniffed again, his face morphing into longing. "And bacon."

She smelled the air and when she was searching for them the smell was radiant. It wafted through the air as if trying to force her out of bed with it's incredibleness. But then she thought about what would happen that day.

Mia was going to begin walking around again.

For the past few days of being there, she had been using a wheelchair to get around, but today, she would have to walk for the first time since her injuries and she was not excited.

A/N Okay, so a few things. 1) I know that I put nightmares in my books a lot but I'm really good at writing them (at least I think so), they are a lot of fun, and I feel like they help convey emotion. 2) I know that it is Thursday and not Wednesday and I'm sorry but at least I got it out. I'm going to be writing more frequently do to the fact that my last day of school is tomorrow so you can be expecting me to actually fulfil my promises of one chapter a week. 

If you are a judge of a contest I entered and are confused as to the fact that there are eight chapters rather than ten then that is because I rewrote the first three chapters and made them one chapter so rather than ten chapters, I have eight. Sorry if that was confusing.

Bye beauties

Xoxo - Abby