When the World Hurts

Chapter 8 - The Pact

I woke up in Noah's bed to a loud beeping noise. I groaned and then pushed my arm out to turn off Noah's alarm clock. Why does he have his alarm clock on during summer????

I found the thing I was looking for and click the button on the alarm clock and it stopped. I let my head fall back down on the pillow and then at up and looked down beside me and saw Noah in a sleeping bag passed out, unmoved. Seems like he doesn't even need that alarm clock anyway.

He always lets me take his bed when I spend the night, because I am a woman. Why did I say woman the way Tomminnit does? I mentally slap myself for that.

I cautiously move the covers over my legs so not to wake up Noah, oh who am I kidding that alarm clock didn't wake him up I won't be moving a blanket.

I get up and walk over to my bag then go into the bathroom connected to his room, aka his bathroom. I brush my teeth quickly, get a quick bath, brush my hair out, then get my dirty clothes and stuff them in my bag. I look at myself in the mirror, I look down to my shoulder only to see scars all over my body. Not just from my dad...but from....other things. I run my fingers down my arm, grazing my past scars.

I hear a thud and that pulls me out of my thoughts by a gasp. I turn my head quickly and then grab my bag then look out the doorway and see Noah had turned over but is still snoring.

I roll my eyes at Noah and smile a little at the sight of my best friend. He's so cute when he's asleep. Relaxed more like. I walk back into the room and slowly put down my bag in the place it was prior.

I sat back down on his bed and then got on my phone looking through messages and YouTube. I watched a few short videos making sure they weren't too loud, waiting until Noah woke up.

About 30 minutes later Noah woke up and got went downstairs to get us some food. He knows I'm picky and knows what I like. I didn't even realize how hungry I was until I started eating. He came back with a s'mores pop tart for me and a toasted Oreo pop tart for him.

We quickly ate our food while just looking at stuff on our phones and occasionally showing things to each other.

Time passes and we soon get bored. "Hey Liz?" I hear Noah ask. "Yeah?"

"Do you ever think Adam will get better?" He asks me like he's spacing out. "What?" "What do you mean?!" I almost yell.

"I mean like-" "ugh never mind" he stutters. "No, what do you mean?" I perpetuate. "I mean like, it's been two years. Two fucking years!" He yells "He's went through rounds of chemo and chemo therapy and he's still not getting any fucking better!" Noah gets up, his face red from being angry. His face gets red from being angry because his blood pressure goes up.

I get up and cup his face with my hands. "Hey listen" I say trying to get him to look me in the eyes only to fail miserably. "Look at me" I speak firmly. He snaps up his head so I'm looking him in his emerald green eyes. His gaze is curious to the sudden firmness of my voice. He looks like he's on the verge of tears. He's so much more worked up about this then what I expected he was.

I've been thinking about only how I feel about this situation not even realizing how much it must've hurt the others. Including my best friend, closest friend, longest friend.

"Look, I know it's hard."

"It's been hard on all of us. But I know Adam, he's a fighter. He's been fighting this for two years. He's not just gonna fight for nothing. He will get better I promise you. Even if it doesn't seem like it sometimes, it will." I speak truthfully.

"But what if he doesn't?" He asks me, letting a tear slowly fall down his cheek. I wipe the tear away with my thumb. "If he does so happen to not get any better, we will still have each other." I say smiling softly at him. "We have to put up with each other." I chuckle softly and he finally smiles.

"We're in this together okay?" I ask him holding up my pinky finger as to pinky promise. "Okay." He replies back holding up his pinky and wrapping it around mine.

"Today we make a pact." He says. "Okay...what exactly is that pact?" I ask laughing a bit. "A pact that we will always be in anything together no matter what it is, even if we're angry at each other, even if we are across the world from each other, no matter what we stick together and will always be there for each other someway." He says, his eyes glistening from the tears still prickling at his eyes.

"Deal?"

"Deal."

~~~~~

I pick up my stuff getting ready to leave Noah's house and his mom offers to drive me home. She's done it before, many times so I, of course, said yes.

When I got in the car his mother gave me that warm smile she always did. His family was always like my own. They treated me as such as well.

His mother I always called her "Mrs. Hiatt" but she always enjoyed it when people called her "Mrs. Jezabell" which was her first name. "Thank you for driving me home Mrs. Jezabell" I told her smiling and shutting the door.

"Oh, it's no problem. Y'know I've always liked you. You're a good friend to my son." Her eyes had bags under them but she covered her tiredness with a bright smile as if nothing was wrong.

I smiled and thanked her for the compliments. Soon later she started playing music on the radio. She was shameless for her enjoyment of rock music which I enjoyed as well. She immediately turned it to FM on station 100.5, which is a rock station.

But this time I got a bit of a headache from the music which I did not bring attention to.

His mother looked at me and could tell something was wrong. "Are you alright?" She asked me. I turned my head and looked at her then smiled softly, "yeah, I just have a bit of a headache."

"Well why didn't you say so?" She turned the music down a bit trying to help. "No it's fine really, I'm okay"

After that we finally pulled up into the driveway of my home. I thanked her once more then got out and went inside. When I went inside I didn't smell any food cooking or the tv so I assumed my mother must still be asleep.

I smiled subtly at the idea of being at home. I decided I would double check she was really asleep so I creeped down the hall into her and my dads master bedroom.

She was out cold, she must've been really tired. I smiled at her and shut the door. After finding out she was still asleep I decided to check the time only come to find out it was almost 8 in the morning.

I decided to text my friends and ask if we could hang out until I got a text message,

Saying that Adam was in the hospital.