Apartment 6F

nineteen; cigarettes and phone calls

I stood in the room, waves of doctors swarming around me. All shouting and crying and gossiping about how it was a miracle. He wasn't supposed to ever wake up according to them. But there he was, alive and well in that bed, being prodded and examined by the millions of medical professionals. Through a small opening, I saw his face. He made an annoyed face and ended with a smirk, which made me smile immediately. He always seemed to make the best out of situations. Man, had I missed him...

I was calm, I was happy. All the weight and worry that had been sitting on my shoulders the whole time was finally lifted. The doctors all eventually cleared out, leaving me with a now sleeping Casey. I squeezed his hand one last time before leaving the room with a smile. The darkness on the drive home was comforting knowing I could finally sleep tonight. I pulled into the parking lot with shaking hands. I had told him I loved him. The thought finally said in my mind. He had said it back though. That's all that matters, right? Questions with no answers were flying throughout my head. I had to talk to Rachel.

I hadn't bothered to text her probably because she never did either. I waved hello to Bill at the front desk before trudging up the cement stairs. I dropped my backpack and homework off in my apartment then proceeded to knock on Rachel's door across the hall. A voice echoed from the other side saying coming in, which I figured was her. I turned the handle and pressed open the door. Inside wasn't what I had expected. There was a girl on the weathered couch smoking a cigarette. Thankfully it wasn't Rachel. She whipped her head around and after puffing out her smoke, said,"Who the hell are you?" The girl had a pale face, dark eyeshadow and black clothes, and the same brown hair as Rachel. Pretty much a polar opposite of my best friend. "I'm Rachel's friend.. Who are you?" Right then, my missing friend popped out of the back door. "Kassel! How many times have I told you not to smoke those things in here!" She marched over and plucked the cigarette out from between the girl, Kassel's fingers. Rachel glanced up and saw me. "Oh my god, Noah! I didn't know you were coming over..." I gave her a weak smile and replied,"I needed to talk to you." She nodded her head and grabbed me by the wrist and out into the hallway. As soon as were outside, Rachel said,"That's why I never invited you over, in case you were wondering."

"Is she your roommate?" I asked.

"Try twin sister," She replied.

"No way..."

"Sadly, yes. But what did you need to talk to me about? Forgot Kassel, my druggie doppelganger." I twisted a piece of my red hair around my finger and said,"Casey woke up today. I said I loved him and now i don't know what to do."Rachel's hand flew up to her mouth before it dropped and she replied,"I'm taking you to see Sleeping Beauty, right now." I shook my head. "Rachel, I was just there but he fell asleep so I came home." She rolled her eyes. "Fine, but my best advice for you is to let it work itself out. If it's meant to be, it will be."

The next day, I brewed myself a cup of coffee, finished some left over take-out from the fridge, and headed out to my classes. Three hours into the day, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I fished it out and answered. "Noah?" A familiar boy's voice rang through the speaker. "Yeah. Casey? What's up? How are you doing?" A laugh echoed over. "Slow down, Einstein. Just come and visit me. There's some stuff you need to know," he replied. The line went dead after that. I texted the number, have two more hours of classes, then I'll come. unless it's urgent. After the call, I couldn't focus on my studies. I couldn't stop thinking about "what I needed to know". What would he say? We'd practically confessed or love to each other, but he could've been pumped full of drugs and totally delusional for all I knew. My last professor dismissed us for the day and I shoved my stuff into my bag and practically ran out of the room towards my car. Okay that might of been an exaggeration, but I didn't waste time, to say the least. It was a rather warm day out today and my car seat burned my skin when I sat down in my jean shorts.The whole way to the hospital, I thought of Casey and me.

"Noah, I'm paralyzed from the hip down," he said.The doctors had mentioned it when he was still in a coma but I had thought that maybe just maybe, it wouldn't actually happen. In fact, I had forgotten the entire memory of them saying it for so long, that it seemed like suh a distant memory. I never had thought thatmaybe the coma wouldn't be the worst part of this while thing. At least then he could imagine himself walking and running, or whatever happened while you were in comas. "It's only temporary though. If I work hard in physical therapy, I should be able to walk again soon," Casey replied to probably the look of horror on my face. "Why does it have to be like this?" I asked and collapsed in the chair next to him. He held a solid face but I could see all sorts of pain in his light green eyes. He reached his arm out, which luckily worked perfectly fine and grabbed my hand. I held onto it tight. "I'm sorry, Casey. I got out fine and you're stuck with all this," I said. He gave me a weak smile and brushed back his dark hair with his free hand. His eyes closed for a long while, before he lifted his face to mine I saw a tear drip down his face and he said,"Crappy things happen to crappy people, Noah."