Can You Keep A Secret?

Chapter Twenty-One

-Rye's POV-

It had been another restless night, even though my body felt laden with exhaustion. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the shooter's face. The reckless abandon in his eyes. Him raising the gun. The sound of the gunshot rang in my ears, and it wouldn't go away. Even though the room was silent, the sound was still deafening.

I couldn't even sleep on my side like I wanted to, because every time the bandage shifted, another wave of pain coursed through me. So instead, I stared up at the ceiling for hours, afraid to keep my eyes shut and be transported back to that moment. Eventually, it started to play out on the blank ceiling even with my eyes open, so I shifted and watched the boys sleeping instead – Hey, maybe I would never sleep again and join the cast of Twilight.

I kept imagining one of the spaces being empty, of me losing one of them in the blink of an eye. It bothered me that I couldn't see Mikey, so I crawled out of bed, trying to ignore the screaming pain that moving my arm sparked.

I sat quietly on the floor, noting how Liv was sleeping with Andy instead – I was happy for him, happy that it seemed like they had, or least were on their way to, working things out, and happy that Liv could finally get some rest. Brooklyn and Jack slept together, and Mikey held a giant teddy bear against his chest. I almost drifted off myself a few times, only to be jerked back awake mere seconds later, my heart pounding, sweat beading on my forehead, the echo of the gunshot becoming clearer and clearer time and again until I gave up on sleeping entirely.

I took out my phone, planning to fuck around on that for a few hours, but it seemed like everywhere I went, the shooting was as well, so I gave up on that, too, his picture fresh in my mind again.

The darkness seemed to turn sinister and forbidding, and I spent the hours until sunrise paranoid and afraid – But when the boys finally rolled out of bed, which seemed to take 10x longer than usual, I went right back to pretending that everything was A-OK. I convinced myself that I had just been overreacting anyways, and that, within a day, the whole thing will have blown over.

Liv had tried to resume our conversation from last night, but I wasn't ready to try voicing my feelings again, especially not with everyone else around – Once was enough for me. I kept saying that I was perfectly fine and she needed to stop fussing until she reluctantly gave up. And when Blair asked if I'd taken my pain meds yet, I lied and said yes – I'm not quite sure why.

Now it was me and Mikey alone in the flat – Andy and Liv were out shopping because, despite the effort I'd gone through to retrieve her it, she'd still ended up leaving her bags at the station – Although, maybe it was for the best. I knew that she had her wallet and stuff with her, so I suspected she kept it there on purpose just so that she wouldn't constantly have to be reminded of what had happened. I hoped that she and Andy would really get to talk things out, as well – I hadn't been able to really speak to him in a while, so I didn't know how he was feeling about everything.

Blair was out doing who-knows-what, and Brooklyn and Jack were out playing footy and hanging with the fans that were outside to try and maintain some appearance of normalcy. I had wanted to join them as well, but Mikey had forced me to stay inside, telling me that Blair had given him strict instructions to make sure I didn't overwork myself. I tried to argue that kicking a ball around wasn't overworking anything, but he was persistent, and my shoulder did ache.

Now, the dirt and filth of not having showered in over a day was starting to sink in. The original plan was to try and sneak into the shower without Mikey noticing, but as it turns out, it was even harder to get the shirt off than it had been to get it on, and I remembered that I was instructed not to get the bandage wet, so taking a shower wasn't an option, anyways.

I ended up on the floor, legs splayed out in front of me, staring at the toilet and feeling grimmer than ever.

That's when Mikey called out to me – "Rye? You good? You've been in there for a while." I was struggling between whether I should say that I was fine, or if I should admit that I needed help, when he peeked his head in.

"Oh," he said when he saw me there, coming all of the way in. "You should've just told me that you needed help." I couldn't even shrug in response, I just swallowed, hard. I felt myself burning with embarrassment down to my toes.

Mikey didn't say much after that, just helped me finish getting undressed. I felt strange and vulnerable as I needed his assistance to wash his hair and to fucking sponge wash my body, as if I was still an infant. Once I was finally clean and dressed again, my shoulder was still screaming with pain, and I was screaming with shame.

My throat felt dry as I said, "Thank you..." and then, "Is it possible...Do you think that you could, like, not tell anyone else about this?" My heart was thumping hard against my chest.

"I wouldn't dream of telling anyone," he replied. "Your secret's safe with me."