Chloe
I was ready to leave the hospital about an hour after I woke up so by now I was going insane. All I wanted to do was to get home and put the accident behind me.
Logan squeezed my hand. Since first thing this morning he’d only left my side to go to the bathroom. It took a lot of convincing to get him to go get a coffee from downstairs and take another five minutes to breathe. He’d literally taken five minutes before he came back and he still looked a little stressed.
“I’m okay,” I said.
He was having a hard time with that. Physically he knew I was okay but Logan worried about the people he loved excessively. He’d be stressing over my injuries and just about anything else his mind would conjure.
“Yeah,” he replied, rubbing his eyes with the hand that hadn’t been attached to mine since I woke up, before that too, probably.
“Why don’t you go get some sleep? My parents will be back soon so I won’t be alone.”
He was already shaking his head before I’d finished. “I’m staying.”
If I wanted him to go I was going to have to call security. Trouble was, I didn’t really want him to leave.
“She’s right, Logan,” Jace said. “Me and Cass are leaving when Mum and Dad get here. Why don’t you come with us and get a decent night’s sleep. I’ll bring you back here first thing.”
“Look, I appreciate your concern, all of you, but I am not leaving this room. That’s the end of it.”
Sighing, I resigned myself to the knowledge that he was absolutely not going anywhere. Maybe I could get him to sleep in the bed with me tonight or he could have a camp bed in here.
“I can’t wait to go home,” I said, trying to change the subject from Logan’s lack of personal wellbeing.
“Hopefully tomorrow, sweetheart,” Logan said.
It had better be tomorrow.
“Logan, Cass, do you think you could give me and Jace a few minutes, please?” I asked.
Looking at me confused for a second, Logan released my hand. “Yeah, sure.”
“I’ll take Logan to the café and try holding him there for longer than five seconds. You want me to bring you anything?”
“No, thanks. Just make sure that one gets some fresh air,” I replied, nodding towards Logan.
Jace stayed where he was by the window, until they’d left. As the door closed he walked over and sat on the bed. “Is everything okay?” he asked.
“That’s what I want to talk about. I’m hoping that after everything that’s happened we could find a way of being friends. It’s kind of driving me crazy not having you in my life. I miss you, Jace. I thought you were dead and you’re not and I want to be able to dance for joy and spend time with you but…”
“But I’m making it impossible.”
Well, yeah, he was. Me and Logan hadn’t helped but nothing that happened we could have foreseen or controlled so there was no point in beating ourselves up about it.
“I am, too. When I put myself in your position it hurts so much and hurting you is the last thing I want.”
“It’s hard, Chloe. We were supposed to be for life.”
“Jace, we were. I was with you and only you until the day I was made to believe you were dead. Everything changed that day. If I hadn’t fallen in love with Logan we still wouldn’t be together. There’s too much that I couldn’t forgive to go back to how it used to be.”
He looked up to the ceiling. “The thought of being reunited with you was one of the things that kept me going. I almost called so many times but the fear of something happening to you or anyone else I love stopped me. When all I wanted to do was go home to you I pictured getting back together, sitting around the table with my family and holding your hand again.”
“I wanted that, too, for a long time.”
“So I was screwed either way. I could refuse to testify and maybe two terrorists would get off or go through with it and lose you.”
“It’s a shitty situation, Jace, but you’re here now. Sometimes you have to sacrifice something you love in order to protect it. I’ll never forget that the choice you made was to keep me and others safe. That matters.”
“Where do we go from here? I don’t know how to be your friend.”
I smiled. “It’s been a while, huh. We were good at it before we got together.” Now I knew it wasn’t going to be that easy, especially when there were feelings and a brother involved but I wasn’t prepared to lose Jace again. “Can you do it? I don’t want to hurt you more.”
He took my hand, biting his lip. “I can do it. Like you said, we were friends before.”
Easy as that…
“So what have you been up to while you were away?” I asked.
“Ah, you know, studying to be a brain surgeon.”
Smiling, I replied, “Yeah? How’s that going?”
“Good. Saved my fiftieth patient last month.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You played Xbox the entire time, didn’t you?”
“Not the entire time. We had to live normal lives so we went to college. I’m working on my architectural degree.”
“That’s awesome, Jace.” God, I was so happy to hear that. “You’re transferring here?”
“Already have. I’m a year behind where I should be but it took a while to get back into… life.”
That sounded familiar. “I’m applying for jobs in a few places in town, we could meet up on campus maybe?”
“Of fucking course we will.” He frowned and laughed. “That was a very Logan thing to say.”
“Yes. He does like that word. His best is five fuckings in one sentence.”
“You keep count?”
“Me and Cassie might have a little wager going.”
He laughed and it took me right back a few years. It was so good to hear that laugh again. “Of course you two do.”
Fifty pounds to whoever counted the most in one sentence by the end of the year.
“Are you okay about me and Logan?”
“After…” He pointed to the spot on my stomach where I’d been operated on, not able to say the words. “I’m a lot better with it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still…”
“Yeah, I understand.”
He nodded once. “But I love you and I love him. He’s changed.”
You should’ve seen him after he thought you’d died then.
“He has changed.”
“I was honestly concerned he’d die alone. I thought he was overly picky and looking for some kind of perfection that didn’t exist. Makes sense now, though. His idea of perfect, and mine, is you. Can’t blame him for that.”
What do I say to that? One second all was great with Jace and the next he made me feel like a huge bitch again. He hadn’t done it on purpose though, and there was going to be some awkwardness as we figured out a way to make a friendship work.
“Sorry,” he said, “I didn’t mean to make it weird.”
“I know.”
“Logan’s happy. I want to be able to hate him, hate you both, but I can’t. This won’t be easy, Chloe, and there will be times we have conversations that are hard, but necessary, but I’m more than willing to go through all that shit if it means we can be in each others lives.”
“Done. I’m so ready to have you back, Jace, no matter what we have to go through to get it.” He leant forwards and kissed my cheek. “So tell me about the girl you lived with.”
Frowning, he replied, “It wasn’t like that.”
“I know, but she was a big part of your life for over three years. I’d quite like to know more about her. Maybe meet her?” She was going to think I was a bitch for sure.
“Alyssa’s cool. You’d like her.”
“She’s cool? That’s all you have to say about her?”
With a smirk, he added, “She’s tall, got dark red hair, brown eyes, and a small scar on her eyebrow where a piercing ripped out. She loves helping people and is training to be a nurse. When she got home the first thing she did was announce that she’s gay, literally those were her first words. Apparently, her parents screamed, but because she was alive not because she’s a lesbian, that they don’t care about. When she told me she also said she was going back to Alyssa so I wasn’t to call her April anymore, I’ve slipped up a few times so she’s now taken to hitting me in the balls when I do.”
I laughed, wincing as the morphine was beginning to wear off. “I think I will like her.”
“You will. I might have to do damage control, though.”
“You’ve been slagging me off to her? Arse!” I slapped his arm. There wasn’t much room for me to be angry with him, though. He had a right to under the circumstances.
“It’s cool, she’ll understand.”
I wasn’t quite sure why it meant that much to me to get along with her. She’d been Jace’s friend and the one person he could really lean on and talk to. It must have been so lonely for him so I was grateful for her.
Logan had clearly decided to take my ‘can I have a few minutes with Jace’ literally because he walked back into the room with Cass having given us less than a quarter of an hour.
“Everything okay?” he asked, handing me and Jace a coffee even though we’d said we were fine. He was always looking out for everyone else.
For the first time since Jace came back I felt like everything was okay. Or going to be anyway.
“Yeah, it is,” Jace said, giving me the little smile I loved.