How To Save A Life

How to Save a Life (25)

Guys this is like the seventh day in a row I've updated I rock

I woke up to someone kissing me, and opened my eyes. Emily was waiting there, smiling at me. Light shone around her face, streaming in through the window, catching the gold in her hair and sending it into more prominence than usual. I reached up, my arm like lead, and touched the perfect ridge of her collarbone, tracing my finger down it before closing my eyes again.

~*~

A flicker of hot water, then nothing.

~*~

Laughter, and the chatter of voices. I was moving, but my legs weren't. I didn't care. I closed my eyes.

~*~

I opened my eyes, confused as to where I was. Emily was there, her back pressed to my chest and her headphones in, eyes closed, so it couldn't be bad. Max was on my other side, staring out the window and pulling his fingers through Zoe's hair in a steady rhythm. They were sharing headphones, like the usually did, but only on long car rides and plane rides.

I looked around, blinking the sleep out of my eyes, and saw the we were in a car, but there weren't the cobblestone roads of our small Irish town underneath us anymore. Instead, we were on a stretch of road I recognized from many long days of getting frustrated with my father and driving away, or taking Caleb out for the day and teaching him how to drive on an abandoned strip of road.

"What are we doing here?" I asked, quietly as to not disturb Emily. Justin jumped, seemingly a bit surprised that I was awake. "Oh, hey," he said. "Good sleep?"

"Yeah. Where are we?"

His lips twitched up into a grin. "Where do you think?"

I grinned. "Ok, why are we here?"

"It's the twins' Sweet 16. You guys aren't missing it." He motioned to Ryder, who was in the same position as me with Addie on his lap. "Ryder told Kasey that we wouldn't be able to make it home because we got called in for an interview. It'll make her life when she sees us, because we're doing a surprise concert."

I felt my lips turn up. "You guys are the best."

"We know," Max agreed, laughing a bit. "We didn't tell Emily, though. Let you deal with the whole, 'You're meeting my dad and whoever else from my family is there, all at once' speech."

I winced. "Addie, is she going to hurt me?"

She thought for a moment, then laughed. "Absolutely."

"Aw, crap."

Emily stirred a bit, and I smiled at her. "We went to bed late," I explained her tiredness. Max snorted. "We know. Do you not remember this morning?"

"What happened this morning?"

He laughed. "We walk into the living room to see you conked out on the couch, and Emily woke you up, only for you to pass out again. Five minutes later, we woke you up again and you managed to make it to the shower, where you fell asleep and fell over and I had to come rescue you." Justin laughed at his wording as my cheeks steadily went darker pink. "By the time Jayden had packed all of your stuff up, I had managed to get you to get dressed, only to have you fall asleep again when Emily was trying to get you to eat something. You were so out of it, man, it was hilarious! Anyways, I had to carry you to the car, where you slept all the way to the airport, then had to walk you through everything so you didn't kill yourself passing out in the middle of the airport. The airport almost didn't let us through because they asked you a question and you stared at them like you had watched them kill someone in front of you. AJ actually slapped you into waking up a bit to get through customs, and then twice more for good luck."