US

+ p a r t s e v e n: 32 +

I got discharged the next day.

It wasn't that I was fine, or better. Yes, I had bruises and my bones hurt when I moved too much but I wasn't exactly keen on staying idle.

Before I left, I stayed over at Penny's room. They said that they needed to keep her under strict supervision because even though they saw nothing wrong with her, anything could have happened.

That was alright. I wanted her staying behind anyway. Let her see that Doctors weren't angels when they held an injection in their hands.

It was night and I was walking home. I had on a leather jacket and pants, a cigarette on my lips for the first time in years.

A car parked right next to me "Need a lift?"

It was Doctor Angel.

Actually, his name was Abel, but it didn't matter cause I didn't exactly care at the time. It was okay anyway, I didn't want to return to my apartment so I asked him if we could go for a drink instead.

"A Doctor taking his patient for a drink after she got discharged?"

"Ex patient" I corrected "Besides,if you do me this one favour, I might be nice enough not to report that you flirted with a patient of yours"

"Ex patient" He was grinning "And who said I was flirting?"

"The first flirting rule on the handbook, Angel"

He laughed.

We drove over to a bar of his and drank. After a while I was tipsy and we were laughing about him.

Abel was gay and Spanish actually, which is still some sort of problem in a part of the world but his parents were cool with it. He had five siblings and he pretty much had a simple life.

"I wished there had been a little more of fight in it" He was chuckling "I'm supposed to be Macho but I can't exactly say I've fought for anything or gone through anything that had toughened me up"

I laughed and said I wished I was him.

I told him about Agnes and the nightmares after that. I told him about Yasmin and the fact that I did love her because she was my peace, but that was what Jamie was too at first and she didn't want to be a shadow of what I once was. She wanted to be first.

I told him about my book "Us is basically about a girl who likes someone but doesn't say anything. She could but she doesn't. We see the way she loves him from her eyes, or perhaps the way she sees him. It's easy to love him because we don't even know who the person is, until eventually they get to close her and we start seeing red flags here and there.

"My boss says that most books have characters you hate at first, the move, but you rarely find characters you love then hate" I was twirling my glass "I think that was his whole vision. Trying to make people realize that the thing our heart makes us ache for, might not even be for us, and we wouldn't know until we speak. Until we realize that we never really loved them. That our heart was just playing tricks on us"

"That's a little bit scary" He said "The heart"

"The heart's a funny thing" I was looking at him. At his eyes "Olly used to be afraid of ever fallong in love"

"The one I look like?"

I nodded "Was it weird? That after the accident, I saw Olly? Is that a normal thing?"

"What happened when you saw him?"

"Well, there was this hill we used to go to when things were really shitty at home. So I was there, and he was there, but there was a swing set and he was inviting me to join him. I knew he was dead, he looked dead even and I was worried Penny was dead too but he told me I wasn't, not yet.

"He asked me many questions… He said that he was surprised Vin came back home, my elder brother, that I even became writer. Most especially, he was very surprised I had a daughter.

"Olly said he wished he'd met her. That if he hadn't— He also said that he loved me. That he missed me. He asked if I was happy, that he wanted that. I asked why he was there. He said he just couldn't leave for some reason, like something was tethering him down. Like he knew that he had to see me one more time"

I looked at Abel "Kinda sucks cause I feel like it was my fault he was there. He sat on a swing for ten whole years, alone because I hated him all that time and he felt that and he just didn't want to leave until I forgave him"

"Did you?"

"Of course I did. I loved him" I sighed and chuckled "We swung together for a while before I woke up. It was like before. Fuck, I was a shitty person. Olly deserved more than being a secret. I should have told everyone how sweet he was even though we both knew he liked to clog the toilet when he could just so he could have an adrenaline rush even though for a second. I should have talked about him every chance I got"

"Well you are now" Abel said.

"Right" I was nodding "Feels fucking weird to actually say how I feel. I mean, it's free, but you know what I mean"

"It suits you" Abel said.

We looked at one another for a while, and I told him he was he was cute. He said the same thing "I'm attracted to you. From the first moment I saw you in that stance you were in so you could see Penny, I was"

"But I'm not a boy"

He laughed "You're not"

"Sucks" I said "You might have been my soulmate. In another version of the world I suppose"

"And you're married"

My eyes moved to the wedding band on my finger "And the winner for most obvious statements go to the Angel of Obviousness, Abel"

We laughed. We were drunk. And later we kissed, it was brief, it was short.

But it signified my freedom, and that felt great.