I woke up in the middle of the night cause I remembered that I have unanswered texts from George. I told myself that I'll text back before bed, but got too caught up in my own feelings and totally forgot.

Opening my eyes slowly I rolled away from Clay and grabbed my phone to read the texts.

The summary of them was all over the place. From what I could see, Nick didn't say anything to George about what happened. George was still confused, still asking questions and still not getting the answers he needed.

I sent a few texts back to him. All of them had little or no context in them, but I think I'm not the one who should explain what happened.

I tried to go back to sleep but I couldn't for a while. I had already slept for 6 hours and that's how much sleep I get usually. And even though it was 5 a.m., and still pitch dark outside, I decided to keep myself busy with something until the sun would rise.

And it sounded like Patches woke up early too, as I heard some noise coming from the living-room. At first they sounded a lot like the sounds Patches would make when she tried to move around in the darkness.

But then the noises became more and more human-like. They resembled foot steps which were coming closer and closer to the bedroom.

I was fucking terrified because we left the door open in case Nick would come back. But we forgot that we're in Florida, and the chances of the visitor not being Nick were really high.

I quickly got up from the bed and opened Clay's drawer where I knew he kept a nicely sharpened butterfly knife. I remember one time using it to slice an apple and pissing him off, cause he thought the acidity of the fruit would affect the shine of the blade negatively.

Flicking the knife open, I slowly moved towards the door. And the rest of it was pretty anticlimactic cause I saw Nick entering the bathroom from the crack of the door.

I sighed, both annoyed and relieved, but the second one dominated I guess. And using a half-mastered trick I closed the knife and almost got rid of a few fingers. Fortunately, almost.

"That was hot." Clay's voice was pretty rough, and I could tell that he had just opened his eyes.

"You're seeing things, go back to sleep." I put the knife back in its place and moments after Clay was breathing in a pattern that I knew meant he was asleep.

I thought about confronting Nick and at least seeing if he was okay or not, but something told me that ignoring him would be better. However, when he came out of the bathroom and I still hadn't lied down, I decided to take that as a sign and open the door.

"What are you doing here?" Nick was taken aback by my presence.

"I'm not gonna piss in the bed, am I?" I slightly pushed him with my shoulder when walking past him and entered the bathroom.

My goal at first was to talk to him, but from his reaction I had to improvise and ended up infront of the bathroom mirror, thinking about my next step.

Even under the little bit of light there was in the hallway I could see his badly bruised cheekbone and busted lip.

I really felt sympathy towards him at that moment. To think that he'd been out the whole day, quite a bit injured with no one being there to take care of him made me come out of the bathroom and make my way to the living-room where he slept.

I could see his eyes following my steps which considering the last turn of events kind of made me uncomfortable. I dug in the medicine box and found the ointment I was looking for. The one we used on Clay's bruises to cool down the skin and quicken the recovery process.

"Here," I gently threw the tube, seeing him catch it perfectly, "apply on the bruises and try to sleep on your back."

If it was any other time with any other circumstances I'd consider rubbing the ointment on his cheek myself. But I was weirded out by it now, I even felt uncomfortable getting closer to him and handing the tube, so I chose to throw it.

"How's Clay?" He put the medication aside, as if he wasn't interested in it at all.

"He'll be okay." I didn't want to lie and say that he was good, but I also wasn't cold-hearted enough to say the truth and make him feel like shit.

"Did you take him to the hospital? I came back and the door was locked.." The guilt in Nick's voice was getting unbearable for me to deal with.

"Yeah. He needs rest." I was trying my best to not be too harsh with my words but still hint towards the fact that everything wasn't great at all.

"I see.." Nick nodded, pausing for a little bit before continuing, "do you think I can talk to him in the morning by any chance?"

As much as I wanted them to talk everything out, I still was aware of the dangers of it going downhill again, or getting a little too intense for Clay's concussed brain. I had to act cold again.

"He really needs rest. I'm afraid a conversation like that will be too much."

Nick supposedly understood that everything was way more serious than he hoped it would be. He nodded and hung his head, which made his eyes land on my band-aided legs.

"What's that?" He pointed at them, furrowing his brows.

"Nothing crazy. Just a little injury." I shook it off, but he wasn't done with the topic.

"Did I do it? I'm sorry, I remember pushing you-"

"Nick, it's literally okay. You have nothing to do with these, I just accidentally knelt on broken glass."

I was starting to feel bad about how small and lost he looked. I knew I was easily influenced by things like this, yet dragged myself into it.

"I'm sorry." Nick finally spoke.

"Don't forget to put it on before you sleep," I pointed at the tube of medication, "and try to sleep for a bit, you need it."

With a final goodnight I went back to the room where Clay was still deep asleep. Safe to say I didn't get to sleep that night.