Beep

Beep

Beep

The first thing I heard when I woke up was the continuous beeping of my alarm.

I extended my arm to the side to shut it down, but my hand was met with air and nothing solid.

I frowned before peaking with one eye, only to be met with a white ceiling.

White ceiling?

I don't have a white ceiling.

I don't have any white walls in my room in fact.

Where am I?

"A hospital."

My head snapped in the direction that the voice came from, startling me. My wide eyes were met with Ryder's, sitting on a chair next to the bed I laid on.

"You're in a hospital." He repeated, with a foreign expression on his face.

I looked around and sure enough, I was in a hospital room and the beeping sound came from the heart rate monitor on my left.

I frowned, turning to him. "What am-" I stopped myself from asking the very obvious question as the memories from, before I fell unconscious, flooded in.

My eyes widened as I looked at Ryder.

"So, you remember." He stated, with a sigh of relief.

"Yeah." I mumbled, looking down at my right hand which, I had just noticed, was enveloped by his hands.

With all the chaos, the realisation of what I had said to him flooded in, making me shut my eyes as I internally winced.

I knew I had to tell them the truth someday, but it happened in the least expected and the most chaotic way possible.

I raised my head to look at Ryder only to see him already staring at me.

Our gaze met and for that moment I felt like we were having a really deep conversation with no words exchanged, physically. Our eyes spoke.

Our eyes revealed how vulnerable we actually felt and brought out our raw emotions.

His eyes showed pain and my heart clenched at that.

He didn't deserve to be blamed for something he wasn't responsible for and the way I yelled the truth in his face, it sounded like an accusation in every way.

"Ryder I-"

He suddenly got up from the chair in panic, cutting me off. "Doctor. I need to get a doctor." He rushed out of the room, making me blink in surprise.

I sighed, running a hand through my hair. I checked for any bumps on my head from when I fell unconscious but couldn't find any, which means Ryder must've caught me before I fell on the pavement.

I heard the sound of a door opening and looked up to see a middle aged man, walking in, followed by a worried Ryder. He was bouncing slightly on his toes, a nervous habit of his, that hasn't changed over the years.

I smiled at that, slightly, before the doctor reached my side and started running tests and asking questions about how I was feeling.

He concluded that what I had experienced was a panic attack and he wrote down a prescription and handed it to Ryder who took it with his head bowed in shame.

I frowned at that.

"Uh... when can I go home, doctor?" I asked.

"We just need to run a few tests in a few hours so you can be discharged first thing in the morning." He smiled, writing something down on a paper.

"Make sure you don't overwork yourself or do anything that makes you feel overwhelmed." He continued, making me nod.

I watched his back as he walked out of the room and then turned to look at Ryder, who was looking down, rocking on his feet.

"Ryder..." I started, with no clue what to say next.

"The others... uh... The girls went home to freshen up and the guys went to get something to eat." He said, motioning towards the door. "They'll be back soon."

I nodded. "What about you? Have you eaten anything since I was out? How long was I out anyway?"

"A few hours." He said, as I noticed that it was dark outside.

"That's not all I asked." I raised my eyebrows.

He ran a hand down his face, making me notice that the skin from some of his fingers were nibbled on.

I sighed again. "Ryd-"

I was cut off by strong arms wrapping around my waist and hoisting me up into a warm embrace, very carefully.

My arms automatically went around his neck as I naturally gravitated towards him. It's almost like my body reacted on its own whenever I was around him.

"I'm sorry. Oh God, I'm so sorry." He breathed out, in the crook of my neck, while I held on to him as he rocked us back and forth slowly, muttering apologies. "I'm such an idiot. I'm so sorry."

I tightened my arms around him with nothing to say in return. I couldn't say that 'it's okay', because we both knew that it wasn't.

I pulled back, just enough to look at him and he cupped my cheeks with his huge hands. It was then that I noticed a layer of moisture in his eyes. "I didn't know." He whispered.

"I know." I said, looking down.

"H- how?" He asked, simply, as if he couldn't form the right words.

I looked at him and tried to find the right way to narrate this, since I've never really said it out loud.

"Ethan- um..." I choked, before clearing my throat. "You remember how Ethan always wanted a bike of his own?" I asked with a small smile.

He nodded, looking at me, cautiously.

"Well, our parents finally decided to gift him exactly that, one day, but since he wasn't old enough to drive, he couldn't really ride it for sometime and that made him furious." I said, with a smile constant on my face. "I remember, he used to go around stomping in the house because he was mad about not being able to ride it."

Ryder's hold tightened around my waist as he scanned my face. He was sitting beside me on the hospital bed, facing me because he was holding me and to be honest, I was grateful for that.

I was grateful that he was here. I was grateful that I could finally open up to someone about this. I was grateful that he was here for me.

"Even making fun of him and teasing him about it got boring after a while so we decided to take it for a test run one day when our parents weren't home." I said, tensing up as chills ran down my spine and goosebumps erupted on my skin, making me shiver.

Ryder's hand was going up and down my arm in a soothing motion as he noticed my hesitation.

"Miles you don't have to..." He said, slowly, tucking my hair behind my ear.

"No. I want to..." I looked at him, with a pleading look. "Please let me. I haven't had the chance to open up to anyone about it." I said, ducking my head, feeling quite pathetic about myself.

I hate being like this. I hate showing vulnerability. I hate showing my weakness, but right here, right now, it didn't feel so wrong.

He grabbed my chin softly, making me raise my head to look at him and scanned my face with a pained expression on his own.

"You know, I'm here. You can talk to me about anything." He said soothingly.

I nodded, with a small smile before continuing. "So, naturally, we didn't tell Alec about it because he wouldn't have allowed us to do it, and man, I wish he was there that day to whoop our asses." I chuckled softly.

I had grabbed his hand that was on my cheek and held it down between us, playing with his fingers unconsciously.

"He obviously didn't know how to control the bike, we were just two dumb kids who just didn't think of the consequences very well. He lost balance of the bake, toppled over and almost fell down a cliff." I said, and shut my eyes as the images of his bloody face from under the white sheet, flashed before my eyes.

"He hit his head on rocks several times and died on the spot." I finished, slowly looking up at Ryder who was looking at me intently. "You get why I hate your bike so much, now?"

I let out a low chuckle before he pulled me into his embrace again, with a sort of urgency that only we could understand right now.

"Oh God, why didn't you tell me?" He breathed out. "I never would've played a prank like this if I knew Miles, I swear. I never would intentionally hurt you but I keep doing that somehow and I hate myself for that. God I'm such an idiot."

He rambled on making a small smile grow on my face. "Yeah, you are." I said patting his back.

He pulled away. "If I could take back every single thing that I did that hurt you in any way, I would. I would take all of that back." He said, frantically, cupping my face.

If it weren't such a serious situation, I would've laughed at the fact that a guy who's 6'3 or more and built like a fucking truck was whimpering like a puppy in my arms.

My heart clenched at that as I realised that I hadn't been completely honest with him yet. He knows about Ethan and he might think that that's it, but that's not true.

He deserves to know.

'But have you forgiven him yet?'

It doesn't matter.

'Even if you manage to forgive him, will you be able to forget what happened?'

I don't know...

'Will you be able to trust him again, like you did?'

...

"You know that right?" His voice pulled me out of my trance, as I realised that I hadn't noticed that he was speaking to me.

"What..." I trailed off, absentmindedly.

"That I would never hurt you intentionally." He said, making me feel my heart get heavier as I looked into his eyes that made him look so vulnerable.

I opened and closed my mouth as I couldn't find the right words to say what was making me feel so nervous all of a sudden.

I gulped and gathered all the courage I could muster up and opened my mouth. "Ryder, actually there's something else that-"

I was cut off yet again by loud commotion right outside my room.

I frowned as I heard a voice yelling and heard closely to realise that it sounded very familiar.

I looked at Ryder and just as my eyes widened in realisation, the door of my room burst open, making Ryder jump off the bed and on his feet.

Oh no.

At the door stood, a very disheveled Alec, who's eyes landed on me and he did a quick scan.

His eyes then snapped to the only other person present in the room, naturally and his gaze hardened, such that if looks could kill, Ryder would be 6 feet under by now.

A nurse rushed into the room, frantically looking at Alec.

"It's okay. He's my brother." I quickly said, before Alec can cause more of a scene.

The nurse nodded and gave Alec a weird look before walking out of the room.

I sighed in relief but I guess I did that too soon as, not even a second later, I sensed movement and my eyes snapped in Alec's direction, only to see him rushing towards Ryder with rage clear in his eyes.

"YOU! AS IF YOU HAVEN'T DONE ENOUGH!" He yelled reaching Ryder and grabbing him by his collar.

"ALEC!" I yelled, as I sat up straight on the bed. "What are you doing?!"

"Em, you stay out of this." He glanced at me from over his shoulder, before turning back to glaring at a wide-eyed Ryder. "I'm doing what needs to be done."

"What..." I trailed off, exasperated.

"You stay away from my little sister." He seethed, pushing Ryder against a wall, with quite some force. "I don't even want you breathing in her direction anymore."

"ALEC!" I yelled. "Stop it!"

"I think you've misunderstood the situation man, I never intended to hurt her." Ryder said, trying to loosen Alec's grip.

"Yet, you always end up doing just that!"

"ALEC!" I yelled, again but in vain, as neither of them flinched even an inch.

Ryder frowned. "I know the prank was out of the line man and if I had known about Ethan I wou-"

"Oh great, so you know about that huh?" Alec said, as a menacing smile grew on his face. "How can you even be in the same room as her after knowing what you've done?"

"Alec! I'm serious, shut the fuck up!" I yelled swinging my legs to the side of the bed, as a wave of dizziness hit me, because of the sudden movement.

"What do you mean?" Ryder asked slowly, as he stopped struggling and let Alec strangle him.

"What? You said, if you knew about Ethan things would've been different?" Alec asked.

I rushed towards them and laid my hands on Alec's, that was now on Ryder's throat. "ALEC STOP!" I looked at my brother with pleasing eyes.

He didn't budge, and kept glaring at Ryder. "So you're telling me, you wouldn't have left her to pass out in the snow on the sidewalk that night huh?!"

I shut my eyes as silence settled in the room after all the yelling, with the only sound in the room being all of our ragged breathing.

I could hear my own heartbeat because of how fast it was beating.

"What..." Ryder whispered, making me snap my eyes open and towards him.

But he wasn't looking at me. He was looking at Alec for an answer and I hated that he had to hear about this from my brother, instead of me.

"She left the hospital that night to go meet her best friend." Alec started with distaste in his voice when he said 'best friend'. "Only for me to find her two hours later passed out in snow on a sidewalk, all alone."

"Alec please..." I pleaded, pulling his hand away from Ryder's throat, this time successfully.

He wasn't strangling him with his hands anyway, he was doing that, just fine, with his words.

He took a step back from Ryder but continued glaring at him. Ryder stood there limp and if he wasn't leaning against the wall his knees would've buckled, taking him down.

"I don't want to be the unreasonable adult here okay?" Alec continued. "But what do you expect me to do when I hear that my little sister is in a hospital because of you, again?!"

"Ryder..." I trailed off, making no movement.

His eyes met mine. "Is this true?"

"Ryder I-"

"Emily. Please, the truth. Now." He cut me off, with weary eyes. "You said you were in an accident that day. What does this mean?"

Alec ran a hand down his face in frustration, and took a step back, away from us.

I blinked and took a deep breath as I realise how this situation can't be mended.

What's done is done.

I mustered a blank look on my face that I've grown accustomed to and raised my head to look at him. "It's true." I said, making his shoulders slump.

"And I was in an accident. It was the same one, in fact." I said, making Ryder frown slightly. "I was on that bike with Ethan. He just made me jump from the bike and took the fall for the both of us."

My face was void of any emotions as it has been for the last three years and this is something that I've dreaded.

The part where I come face to face with my past again. The only difference is that I didn't think I'd have to face it like this, in such a chaos.

Ryder and I stared at each other again, but it was somehow very different now than a few minutes ago. There were a lot more emotions yet none at the same time.

My vision started to get blurry again but I tried to fight it.

But that war didn't last long, as another wave of dizziness hit me, making the world turn.

I was yet again caught right before I could touch the floor.

The last thing I heard was a soft whisper filled with sorrow in my ear. "I'm so sorry, Miles."

A drop of, what I assume, was a tear, landed on my cheek and then I was out.

*Author's note*