Addicted To You .L.S.

Eleven.

Three and a half years ago
(Fourteen years old)

The morphine has warn off. The pain is all over, a sharp edge that relentlessly carves through me.

"Push," I say between cracked lips. I move my hand, the unbroken one, trying to find the button for the morphine drip.
"Here." Warm fingers close over mine, placing the pump in my palm. I push the button and wait.
Slowly, the pain retreats. For now.

"Your dad went to get coffee," Gem says. She's in the chair next to my bed, her hand still covering mine. "Want me to find him?"
  I shake my head. "You're here." The morphine makes my brain fuzzy. Sometimes I say stupid stuff, I forget things, but I'm almost positive she hasn't visited before.
"I'm here," she says.
"Harry?" I breath.
"Is at school. I got out early, wanted to see you."
"You okay?" I ask. There's a fading bruise on her temple. She's sitting in a weird position, her legs straightened out like it's in a cast. But I can't prop myself up enough to see how bad she's hurt. Harry has a cut on his arm, I remember suddenly. The nurses and my mum had forced him to leave last night; he hadn't wanted to go.

"I'm fine." She strokes my fingers. They're pretty much the only part of me that isn't bruised or broken or stitched together.  "I'm sorry," she cries. "Louis, I'm so sorry."
She buries her heat in the sheets next to me, and I don't have the strength to lift my hand to touch her.
"S'okay," I whisper. My eyes drop as the morphine kicks in further. "Not your fault."

   Later, they'll tell me that it was her fault. That she ran a stop sign and we got hit by a truck going about twenty miles over the limit. The doctors will explain that I flatlined on the operating table for almost two minutes before they got my heart started again. That my right leg was crushed and I now have titanium rods screwed into what little bone remains. That I'll have to spend almost a year walking with a cane. That I'll have months of physical therapy, handfuls of pills I have to take.
That I'll have permanent pain in walking and my back will cause me problems for the rest of my life.
  
Later, I'll finally have enough and cross that line. I'll crush up four pills and snort them with a straw, floating away in the temporary numbness.
  
But right now, I don't know what's ahead for us, her and Harry and I. So I try to comfort her. I fight against the numbness instead of drowning in it. And she says my name, over and over, begging for the forgiveness I've already given.