Past, Present, and Future.

Chapter 21

Victoria's eyes flew to the figure standing in the doorway of her room. Her eyes widened at the angry look growing in his brown eyes. She went to pull away from Chad, but he held her in place.

"Where have you been dude?" Chad asked still with his arm on her waist. "Its been like a full day almost. You know she's getting out today, right?"

Dallas's angry gaze shifted to Chad. Victoria flinched from the murderous look in his eyes, but Chad didn't move. "Its none of your business, Richards." Chad visibly tensed at the use of his last name, no one ever uses it. "What I do with my time is my business." Dallas continued with a harsh tone.

"A-Alright man. What ever you say, dude." Chad said looking extremely uncomfortable. He had this thing where people didn't use his last name unless he was in extreme trouble. Not even the football coach used his last name, and that man used everyone's last names.

Dallas's vision turned to rest on Victoria then. His eyes shown with complete anger, nothing else. She some what expected to see hurt or betrayal, but nothing besides anger. "What do you think you are doing?" Anger seeped from every word, and Victoria fought the urge to flinch.

"Laying here." She managed to find her voice, and to her surprise she sounded confident and not scared at all,which was the opposite of how she felt. She knew how it looked, basically cuddling with her ex boyfriend in her hospital bed, while her current boyfriend was away for the short time being. But its not like she expected this to happen. Like she would ever have expected to have Chad this close enough to her.

Dallas raised one eyebrow in a sort of questioning way. "Okay, I see that. But why is Chad in the bed too. And it looks to me like you guys were, actually still are, cuddling. Am I wrong?"

 The two in the bed were stunned into silence. They both were wondering the same thing: were they cuddling? Yet neither of them made a move to pull apart from each other, that looked bad too. The room filled with a silence that was extremely uncomfortable, only the machines and breathing making any sound. Dallas's facial expression seemed to grow harder by the minute, indicating that he was getting angrier and angrier. But he made no movement to speak or enter further in the room.

Victoria knew that she should pull away from Chad and make Dallas understand that there was nothing happening here, that it was just a misunderstanding. But something inside her wouldn't let her pull away, telling her to stay where she was and that it was somehow the right decision. She didn't understand why she felt like it was a good idea, but she went with her gut and stayed put.

Dallas seemed to know that internally Victoria had made a decision. "Okay, if that's how it is then I will leave. We.." He made a hand motion between himself and Victoria. "...are over. You want to be with him then fine. You made a bad decision." With that he left.

Victoria panicked on the inside. Dallas had just broken up with her? Just because she didn't answer his question and stayed where she was with Chad? She shook her head and stayed silent, deciding not to voice her questions.

"So.... that was awkward." Chad spoke up. She bobbed her head up and down, motioning that she agreed. "On the bright side your single." He attempted again to cheer her up. Did he think that she was upset? Victoria didn't know how to feel, the two of them hadn't been dating all that long. It wasn't like when Chad broke up with her where she cried for hours on end.

"I'm not sad." She finally spoke after moments of silence. "If anything I don't know how to feel." Chad nodded his head in understanding, and the two fell into yet another silence. This one lasted longer than all the rest, and something was in the air, some sort of tension.

Chad opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again once he decided not to say anything. Victoria knew better than to rush him with something like this, so she waited patiently. If he wanted to tell her, then he will, on his own time.

After a few more moments of silence he finally decided to talk. "So I've been thinking for awhile now." She hummed some form of response when she realized he wanted her to acknowledge that she was listening to what he was thinking. "And I know the way I treated you in the end was wrong." He grabbed her hand and made her look at him. "I was scared, Victoria, as any guy my age would be when he is told he got a girl knocked up.

"And I reacted badly. Hell I treated you badly. And i wanted to say I'm sorry. I skipped out on you at the worst time I possibly could. Your mother wasn't supportive, and I should have been, and I wasn't. And I am so terribly sorry. Nothing I could ever do will make that up to you, and I know that. I'm sorry Victoria. Can you ever forgive me?"

The room filled with silence. What was she supposed to say to that? How was she supposed to react?

Just as she was starting to make a thought about the situation, Chad's voice broke the silence once again.

"Do you think we could be friends?"