18 Days ➳ Riley McDonough/ Before You Exit Fanfic

14.

a/n: SOMETHING REALLY BIG IS GONNA HAPPEN IN THIS CHAPTER AND IM SO EXCITED FOR U GUYS TO READ WHAT IM TALKING ABOUT LIKE I LITERALLY CANT BREATHE JUST THINKING ABOUT IT OK IMMA STOP NOW I HOPE Y'ALL ENJOY THIS CHAPTER MWAH

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March 15th // 7th day

R I L E Y

I was on the way to the hospital to pick up Jade because apparently they were releasing her today.

Don't get me wrong, I was overjoyed that she was allowed to go home now, but I wished that they'd done it a little bit later in the day when I was actually alive and not a walking zombie. 8 AM was a pretty okay hour, but not when I literally slept for barely two hours. I wasn't ready to be outside.

The streets were fairly full as people rushed to work and such, and the Orlando sun never failed to make an appearance and burn everyone's eyeballs out. I had sunglasses on because, one, it was bright out and my poor eyes needed protection and two, they hid my unnaturally huge eyebags which was lovely.

I slammed on the brakes when the car in front of me stopped suddenly and my hand automatically hit the steering wheel, making a honking noise to let the driver of the car know I was annoyed. Morning drives sucked when there were other people driving down the streets. And I was very prone to road rage.

"Stupid," I muttered under my breath as I decided to go around the car and overtake it because, if I didn't, I probably would've been stuck behind it the whole day. "I hate driving."

My grumpiness was real, but could you blame me? Two hours of sleep definitely wasn't a lot. I needed more than that. I needed one whole day of pure sleep. Either that or a dozen fixes of black coffee to wake me up.

Once I finally arrived at the hospital, I parked my car under the shade of some random tree before jogging into the air conditioned lobby, spinning my car keys around my index finger. The AC was up really high today and I couldn't blame them. It was probably around eighty-five degrees outside which was rather high for March. Usually we'd get to that level of heat in mid-April or May.

I was making my way to the front desk to ask if I could see Jade and all that stuff, but two arms wrapped themselves around my neck and nearly suffocated me before I even got the chance to take three steps forward.

"Riley!" Jade squealed excitedly, her voice ringing in my ear as I bent my knees a bit and spun her around on my back. "I missed you so much!"

"But we were only separated for a day," I replied, putting her down so that I could talk to her face-to-face. Gosh, she was so beautiful.

"I know." Her smile suddenly disappeared and her eyes went to stare at the floor as she shuffled her feet, making a slightly irritating squeak echo throughout the lobby. "It's day seven. I don't know if you've been counting, but I have."

I pressed my lips into a thin line before I took the bag she was holding and threw it over my shoulder. Why did she have to bring it up? "I've been counting too."

The walk back to the car was dead silent as I tried my best not to look at her because I knew she was sad and I didn't want to see that. I never wanted to see my girl sad.

"Uh, Ri, do you think we could stop by the mall for a bit?" she asked, sounding slightly nervous and unsure for a reason that I wasn't sure of. Maybe she was just worried that I would say no, but I didn't have the heart to do that to her. Especially not now. "Grab a bite or something? Hospital food is the suckiest."

"Suckiest isn't exactly a word," I pointed out as we got into my car and I started driving down the street with the sun burning my eyes, despite the fact that I had sunglasses on. Of course the sun decided to shine on my side of the car. Like, sure, blind the driver. Jade's side, on the other hand, was under the cool shade and she was just scrolling through her phone without a care in the world.