Fixing Broken Hearts

52

Warnings:
-Brief mentions panic attack

Clay's POV

~ A Few Weeks Later ~

It was my first school day after months of recovery from the severe injuries I suffered from. I hated it that all my classmates stared at me as if I was a completely different person who did something bad or anything, knowing they heard a vague story about why I went to the hospital.

'Hey, is it true that you got stabbed?' I heard a girl behind me ask, which I slowly nodded to as I looked at George and Sapnap, who rolled their eyes. 'Can I see it?'

'No, piss off,' Sapnap scoffed as he pulled me away from her with a loud sigh. 'What is wrong with these people, bro?'

'It's alright,' I replied quietly, struggling a lot with the cast around my arm. 'I didn't struggle much with this cast at home, but now it's hell. It's my writing arm, but the cast won't be taken off for a while.'

'I'll help you write everything down,' George promised with a smile growing on his face. 'I like make notes so I have everything together and organised.'

I swallowed and felt tears in my eyes when I looked at them. 'Guys, I'm so sorry for not contacting you in weeks. I truly appreciate you both so much, but everything was a lot and... it's not a good reason, I'm sorry.'

'Clay, that's all good,' Sapnap said, wrapping his arm around my shoulders. 'We have patiently waited for you, we knew you're loyal and would come back. How is Elliot? And Tris?'

'Elliot is still at the clinic, but he goes to his therapist's home every weekend, where Tristan and I often stay to hang out with him. He doing better, just very slowly.'

'Are you allowed to talk about what they are working on right now? I haven't really understood why he is there,' George asked carefully, which I nodded to because Elliot gave me permission to speak about it.

'Bulimia nervosa, substance abuse, complex PTSD, major depression, anxiety disorder related to trauma, selective mutism, addiction, severe anger, psychosis and self harm... Crap, that's quite a list.'

'I'm honestly so sorry for him. I really hope he's doing the best he can right now...'

'Yeah, he truly is. He thinks he beat his substance addiction and hasn't used in months, he is very far in his other addictions too, his medication seems to be working well and he hasn't had anger outbursts, psychosis and no self harming behaviour!'

'Is he still struggling with bulimia?' George questioned, causing me to nod.

'He thought it was something quite small, but when he was home once, he binged again and purged. From then, the cycle started to continue, but for what I heard, he hasn't binged and purged in a week and a few days.'

'I really hope this trauma therapy will work for him,' Sapnap admitted. 'He deserves to be happy as well...'

'His therapist is so amazing to him. Did I tell you Elliot was diagnosed with autism?' I asked as I looked at both of them shaking their heads. 'Anyway, he's diagnosed with autism due to the lack of development, social skills and the severe will to hold on to things due to the fear of change and losing control.'

'Does he feel understood by that diagnosis?' George replied with a questioning tone in his voice.

I nodded right away and sat down on a chair because I was getting really tired. 'We never really thought about it, but he was also very late to start speaking and walking, which doesn't have to be a sign, but for him it is. It's really hard for him to let go of his behaviour because he hates change and seeks control when his brain isn't in control.'

They both smiled as I proudly spoke about my brother. I rested my head forward on the table and felt Sapnap's hand on my back, softly running his fingers over my shirt.

'Are you sure you're able to go to school? You need a lot of time to recover,' he asked as I felt my eyes slowly starting to shut.

'I've noticed I'm very breathless because I broke my ribs and had a collapsed lung. It takes time to be normal again, but lets go to class.'

We started walking to our classroom, the faces pointed at me slowly driving me insane. I scoffed and when I saw a boy pointing a camera at me, I walked up to him and pushed his phone against his chest.

'Can you stop? Am I the first person who ever suffered from some injuries? Just stop, dude, you're being annoying.'

'I heard Elliot killed your dad,' he said with sense of triumph in his voice.

I stepped back and stared at him in silence, but then rage overtook me. 'He did not kill our father, asshole. Maybe you should look into the details more before judging!'

'I'm sure your dad didn't accept his queerness and he decided to kill him.' The pride in his voice made me boil with rage, trying to find a way how he knew about our father and Elliot's sexuality.

'Can you firstly look into the whole story before you open your filthy mouth? My father was trying to kill me, that's why I was gone from school for weeks because I was almost DEAD. Elliot saved me and his own life by hitting our father, who died from brain injury.'

Everyone around us turned quiet as I sat down. Sapnap sat down next to me right away and wrapped his arm around me. 'Are you okay? We can leave if you want.'

'I'm fine...' I lied, but the tears were burning in my eyes as for the first time, flashbacks of that day started to repeat in my head.

I recalled my father stabbing me, turning around to end Elliot's life. I saw him raise the baseball bat he managed to grab and slam it down on his head. His body got numb, blood filling the floor as Elliot ran to me to stop the bleeding.

I honestly hadn't remembered these moments since I was put in a coma. I thought it was just because I was forgetful, but slowly started to realise I blocked the memory because I was awfully scared to think about it.

I jumped up after gently pushing Sapnap's arm away and ran to the door. I slammed it behind me and walked straight to the bathroom, where I began to cry almost immediately. I grabbed my phone and clicked Elliot's phone number, waiting for him to pick up.

'Clay? Wait, are you crying?'

'Some p-people were mean a-and I remembered the d-day our dad s-stabbed me for the first time. I c-can't breathe, I feel l-like I'm dying.'

'Try to go outside to the front of the school, my therapist allowed me to go to you and I'll be there in ten minutes or so. I'll stay on the phone with you, you won't die, you're having a panic attack.'

'Why d-did you even s-save me? I'm n-not worth it...'

'Clay, I never want you to say that again. No matter how traumatic it was, I would have done it a million times again if I had to. You're worth everything to me and I would give my life to save yours.'

'I want to h-hug you...'

'I'll be there as quick as I can, I promise.'

1257 words