Can You Keep A Secret?

Chapter Ninety-One

-Mikey's POV-

There was a certain anxiety that came along with waiting in an A&E room – Even if it wasn't for you, the general feeling that things weren't going to end well hung about the room. This feeling was only intensified by the knowledge that it was Liv that we were uncertain about.

When Andy had called, I was struck with the same feeling as when Blair had told us about the shooting. It was fear mixed in with the adrenaline that I had to get there and be with her right this instant. We'd gotten here more easily than Slough Station, only to be told that we had to wait.

Jack had been the first of us to get overwhelmed by simply sitting there – He was probably thinking about Rosie again. He'd up and left the room, opting to have a cigarette outside instead. Rye had called Blair, but he was still a good five or so hours away. Rye and Brooklyn were the next to leave – I could see Rye gradually getting more and more bothered by the memories that A&E rooms brought him, but he kept glancing over at me, wanting to offer support. I finally told him to get out and breathe if he needed to. In typical Brooklyn fashion, he had needed to take a wee, and that left me alone.

I sat statue still, staring at the doors and pondering every single instance where I had gone wrong. The only thing that could possibly be worse than losing Liv was losing Liv while she was still so mad at me, while she didn't quite realize just how much I loved her. I wanted to sprint through the doors and find her, to apologize while I still had the time. I wanted to go back in time and make her speak to me in the first place. I wanted to skip my shower that morning. Something, anything, to avoid this.

I passed the time by imagining what I would say to her if I could. I would tell her that I did trust her, that I was just afraid. Afraid that she would leave me – For Andy, for university, or for nothing. Simply because things weren't the way that they used to be.

I wanted her to know that she was worth fighting for – That I loved her, even when she was mad at me, even when I was mad at her. I wanted to tell her that I wished I could take back everything I'd said the other day, that it was simply easier to be angry than to be vulnerable and afraid.

We all sort of dealt with what had happened in different ways, and I had clearly chosen the wrong way. I couldn't be like Rye, the patient and understanding hero, or like Brooklyn, who could slap a plaster on the wound and then move right along again. I didn't want to sleep or drink through everything like Jack and Andy. I'd chosen to act as if nothing had happened – As if I didn't almost lose my best friends and my girlfriend. As if it wasn't hard for me to breathe at night because my chest clenched up at the thought of losing Liv. As if I didn't watch Rye slowly deteriorate, or scream from nightmares in the middle of the night, or nearly pass out from the pain in his shoulder. As if my heart didn't break to see Jack lose Rosie, and Brooklyn lose Stacey, or how I couldn't picture where my future was heading at all when we thought that Jack was never coming back. As if it wasn't impossible for me to wrap my head around why Andy would want to kill himself, and as if I wasn't angry at him for never telling us. For trying to leave us without ever letting us try to help him. As if I didn't know that everything I've chosen to do has only made things worse.

I was the unscathed one here – The only one of us whose life hadn't been altered in some major way. I was only burned by proxy, so I bottled it all up inside. But that's just the thing – Just like when you shook a full Coke can and the soda went spraying out, I exploded.

My eyes were blurry with tears, and, for the first time since we'd gotten here, I took my eyes off of the doors. I buried my head in my hands and allowed myself to lose it – Snot and red eyes and a mucus-y throat and all. Crying was never as pretty as they made it out to be in books and movies.

I cried for Liv, who was sick for a reason that I didn't know, who I hurt unintentionally, whose love I may have lost. I cried for Jack, who chose to give up being with his family in order to be with us. I cried because I missed my own family. I cried for Brooklyn, who had his heart broken, and who would no longer be quite as innocent and naïve. I cried for Rye, who was ashamed to tell his family what had happened, who never felt safe from the shooter, who had gotten the courage to tell the whole damn world his story. I cried for Andy, who didn't know his own worth, and who I never told that I did. That I wanted, needed him to be here. I cried for myself, because I was scared and lonely and afraid and I didn't know how to make things right – Not for myself. Not for anyone.

It was in the middle of the sobfest, when I was choking on my tears, that I felt a hand resting on my shoulder. I expected it to be Rye or Jack or Brooklyn coming back in, and I wiped my eyes and tried to get my shit together. But, it wasn't any of them – It was Andy. He looked tired, and a little nervous that I would slap him again, but also sympathetic – He understood. That set me off again, but I stood up, and we hugged.

For just that moment there, whilst we held each other and I cried onto his shoulder and his hands rested on the back of my head, both of our mistakes were erased. We weren't Mikey and Andy, or even a boyfriend and a best friend. We were just two people who had been through a whole lot of shit, but right then, in that moment, we had each other, and that was enough. That was enough.