Breaking The Bad Boy (Completed)

Chapter 63: She's Broken, So Broken

[A/N: Not proofread. I'm too much of a lazy twat, sorry guys. Songs for the chapter:
- Maroon 5 // She Will Be Loved
- Gabrielle Aplin // Evaporate]

I didn't seem to land but when the feeling of falling ceased to be, I coughed and spluttered. Hands were squeezing my throat and forcing every inch of air out of my lungs until I noticed there was a tube inside my mouth, narrowing my airways and restricting my breathing.

My eyelids were clamped shut as if they had been drilled to stay that way. After an immense amount of effort, I willed them to open but they only let a sliver of light through. However, it was enough for my eyes to adjust to my surrounding which were white like my dream. Except there were shadows from the machines that surrounded me, lots of them, leering at me with daunting postures. They were stiff; some letting out monotonous beeps and others feeding my arms long tubes filled with red liquid.

A feeble groan escaped my lips which were chapped and broken. The rest of my skin was dry too, parched like sandpaper. My eyes flickered everywhere, desperately looking for anything familiar but the room itself was as foreign as a hospital bedroom.

Hospital!

My eyelids widened as much as they possibly could, stretching open like a mouth welcoming a yawn, although they were still only letting in a sliver of light. Then I realised that it was dark in the room and the only source of light was coming from the corridor outside and the machines surrounding me.

A soft snore broke the constant beeps resonating around me and my gaze slid to the left. A slumped figure lay slumped on a plastic chair that was drawn closely to my bed, their flat, greasy hair sticking up in all directions. My gaze trailed down their arm - the one that wasn't in a cast - along their hand which was tightly clasped around mine. I wasn't sure where my fingers started and where theirs ended because my vision was blurred, but a familiar flutter filled my chest.

Feebly, I attempted to detach myself from Tyler's vice grip but the only movement I could conjure up was to lift both our hands from his lap. The movement caused him to stir slightly and his eyelids flickered but it wasn't until I wriggled my fingers to manoeuvre them out of their interlinked state that one of his eyes cracked open a fraction.

"Mom, I told you I'm not leaving until she wakes up," He mumbled sleepily before closing his eyes.

I bit back a chuckle when his snores began again. What was it with guys and their ability to fall asleep in seconds? The attempt to laugh burned my throat so I lay still and continued to pull my fingers out of his slender ones.

"Stop touching me...I don't care if you think she's never going to wakes up. I'm not leaving her," Tyler lifted our hands to swat the air lazily. "I said stop touching me!"

Suddenly, the silent response made his entire body stiffen. In a nanosecond, his eyes flung open, wide and alert.

"Mom?" His voice was a mere echo that was drowned out by the consistent beeping sound.

In response, instead of retracting my hand from his, I wove my fingers between his and twitched them because squeezing required energy I just didn't have. Sea-green eyes scanned my impassive mask, drinking in my lifeless features which I willed to move but I couldn't summon the energy to muster a smile, so I used whatever strength I still had and concentrated on lifting my eyelids further up.

"Ash?" Tyler sounded terrified and rubbed his eyes with his forearm like the scene before him was too surreal. "Ashley?"

He leaned forward, barely hanging onto the edge of his seat and scanned my bewildered eyes with an expression that sent me reeling back.