ATTENTION: 

 Here is a little treat to you all, and partially from request - scenes from the "In 27 Days" world! These won't take me very long to write, so I figured it would only be fair to post these as I plug my way on with finishing "Face Your Fears," which hopefully I can finish soon with the grace of God. Think of these as background information, things you've wanted to know about the characters, and a bit of a "tide-over" until I can post for FYF. And I really hope you like these, because they're super fun to write so far. :D 

So, happy reading, maybe even vote if you'd like, and leave a comment with your thoughts, please and thanks! :) 

         _____________________________________________________________

     “Archer. You should go home. Get some rest.”

“Not tired.”

“You haven’t moved from that chair in almost three hours.”

“New personal record.”

Mom heaved an exasperated sigh as she edged into the cramped hospital room, quietly shutting the door behind her.

 I had spent the better part of two days in this hospital room.

I had memorized every crack in the ceiling, every chip in the paint on the walls, the loud groan the chair would make if I moved too far to the left. I knew that the third channel on the TV set was just static, and that the seventh channel only played reruns of Cheers 24/7.

This hospital room had become my own personal Hell. Previously, I had thought that my life was bad enough, what with everything that had happened over the years. Surely that was enough to top somebody’s list of most miserable existence ever.

  I was wrong, though.

After Chris had been killed I had been consumed with overwhelming guilt, possessed with the thought that there was something I could have done to save him from meeting such a terrible end. But, invariably I had come to the conclusion that it hadn’t been my fault. I was only eleven.    What could I have done?

 But this? This was my fault.

If I hadn’t run off so suddenly, if I hadn’t said such terrible things…

Mom sank into the chair beside me, reached out to squeeze my arm.

I shook my arm out of her grasp, not able to look into her eyes and see the pity and sympathy there. I couldn’t handle that. Not right now.

“Archer.” Mom sucked in a breath, about to begin what I assumed was going to be a well prepared speech. “This isn’t healthy. You haven’t slept in days and you haven’t eaten anything in just as long. Honey, I know you’re upset, but running yourself down isn’t going to make Hadley – “

“Shut up, Mom. Just…just shut up, okay?”

Mom didn’t flinch or recoil. She continued to stare at me with the same unwavering stare. If anything, that was just worse.

 She didn’t say anything for several moments.

I returned my attention to Hadley, and felt my heart constrict in my chest again.

She looked…awful. Her pretty face was covered in black and purple bruises and several deep cuts. Her right arm was bound in a cast. When she had come out of surgery after having her appendix removed, I’d cornered the doctor and demanded that he tell me just how exactly Hadley had been injured. The doctor had been frank; a bruised face and a broken arm was one thing, but broken ribs, extensive internal bleeding and with damage to vital organs, Hadley’s chances were rather bleak. That wasn’t even mentioning the cerebral hemorrhaging.

“What’s so different about Hadley, huh? I know she’s a sweet girl, but why has she gotten under your skin like this?” Mom asked me curiously, head tilted to the side.

 I dug my teeth into my lip to keep from barking out a laugh.

There was no point in denying that.

 Hadley had gotten under my skin. Despite the precautions I had always taken to make sure that I never got close enough to someone to care, Hadley had got to me. I had only known her for barely a month. I was always going to hate her for that.

 She wasn’t just different. She was an annoyance, a pain in my ass, a klutz who couldn’t mind her own damn business. Yet the sad thing was, those were probably some of the reasons I had become so attracted to her. She cared. For whatever reason, Hadley Jamison cared about me.

Me, the selfish asshole who was never going to change and never going to be her knight-in-shining-armor.

 “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I bluffed. “Hadley’s just…a friend.”

Mom snorted out a laugh.

 “Friends? Uh huh. More like she’s your girlfriend. Friends don’t just randomly make out. I thought you said you were dating?”

 “Dating doesn’t mean she’s my girlfriend.”

Another fat lie.

 I rarely ever conformed to society’s norms, if at all, but for some reason unbeknownst to me, I wanted Hadley to be my girlfriend. I’d said what I said because it seemed like the easy way out, but I was wrong. I wanted people to know she was mine and not anybody else’s. Even though there was no way on this Earth I was ever going to deserve her.

 I slunk down in my chair and covered my face with my hands, groaning loudly.

I needed to stop thinking about this, about her. It wasn’t going to change anything. It definitely wasn’t going to make anything better.

“Look, tesoro. I’m not stupid.” Mom turned in her chair to direct her full attention on me. I wanted to squirm under the intensity of her gaze. “I have eyes, you know. I’ve seen the way you look at her.”

“God, what is your point, Mother?” I snapped. “Are you my therapist?”

“You are just as stubborn as my mother,” Mom muttered, shaking her head. “Never owning up to anything.”

 “What do you want from me, huh? Do you want me to spill my heart out right here and now? Tell you about how Hadley is the only girl I’ve ever cared about and how I would do anything for her? Is that want you want?

 “Only if you want to tell me,” Mom said with a shrug. “It’d do you some good.”

“Bullshit. It’s…I’m not…it doesn’t mean anything.”

 Lies, lies, lies.

 It meant everything.

But it wasn’t as if I could admit it. Admitting it would make it true, and there was still apart of myself that was in denial. How could I not be in denial?

 “You know, when I first met Chris, I was scared out of my mind that I was falling in love with him so quickly.”

 I stiffened, my hands clenching into fists on my thighs. Why did she have to bring Chris into this now?

 “Okay,” I said flatly.

“I was worried that he was too good for me, that somebody like him would never want to be with a battered single mother.” Mom spoke with a calm confidence I had never seen her possess before. Her eyes weren’t shimmering with tears like they normally did whenever Chris was mentioned. “But then I realized something, even though I was so scared.”

Silence, then.

Mom was waiting for me to answer.

“What?” I said. “What did you realize?”

Mom sighed, resting her chin in her hand as she propped her elbow up on the arm of her chair.

“I realized…it didn’t matter. None of it mattered. So what if we came from two different worlds? Who cared what other people thought about us? He made me happy, and I wanted to be with him.”

Mom reached out suddenly and gripped my chin, forcing me to look her in the eye.

“Being with someone you care about doesn’t define who you are, Archer. You are who you are, and that person only brings out the best in you.”

I knew there was absolute truth in her words. I wanted to believe what she said. I wanted desperately to know that it was all right for me to want to be with Hadley, to have the same desires everyone else did when it came to the person they cared about.

There was just one problem.

I was the problem.

I was…scared.

 “This is so fucked up.”

Mom let out a laugh.

“Honey, that’s the way it is with life,” she said. “You better get used to it. But, look. Just think about what I’ve said, okay?”

She stood and leaned over to place a kiss on the top of my head.

“I’m going to go back to your grandmother’s room. Vito and Anna said they were coming in a bit.”

Then she left.

I sat back and ran my fingers through my hair, letting out a frustrated groan.

Why did this have to be so damn complicated?

I knew the answer to that question the second after I had thought it.

I was making this way more complicated than it needed to be.

I might have known from the first moment I had met Hadley that she had feelings for me. She constantly blushed, tripped over her words, always gave me this look that made it seem like she was trying her hardest to figure me out, like there was something about me that she didn’t quite understand that she desperately wanted to know.

 And then, over time, she had become confident with herself around me, not afraid to put me in my place or tell me what she was really thinking. Hell, she hadn’t been afraid to stand up for me in front of her vapid, annoying best friend. I didn’t think she would’ve kissed me in the middle of a crowded hallway at school had she not been confident I would reciprocate.

 Of course I had reciprocated.

How could I have not?

How could I have not just gotten over my damn insecurities and told Hadley how I really felt about her? I should have just manned up and told her everything while I had the chance.

Now, I might never get the chance.

“Oh, hell.”

I let out a loud groan again and rubbed my eyes with the heels of my palms.

The answers to all of my burning questions should have just been handed to me on a damn silver platter. That would make everything so much easier.

I dropped my hands, my eyes moving to Hadley.

It was unnatural, how still she was.

Occasionally I thought I saw her eyes move beneath her lids or her fingers twitch against the bed sheets, but that might have just been wishful thinking on my part. Except for the steady beeping of the several machines she was hooked up to, Hadley was dead to the world. Dead even to me.

 I slid forward in my chair and gently brushed my fingers against hers, flinching at how frigidly cold her skin was.

  “Hadley…” I sucked in a sharp breath. Better to just get the words out now while they were still fresh in my mind. “Look. I’m not good with words. I’m not good with a lot of things, really, but I think you already know that.” My heart was pounding erratically and I thought I was going to have one hell of a panic attack. “But I just wanted to say that…that you were right about me. About everything. I put on a stupid façade and act tough because I don’t want people to get close to me. I’m afraid that if I start caring about someone, they’ll be taken away just as horribly as Chris was.”

I felt ridiculous, speaking aloud in an empty room, but the words wouldn’t stop flowing now that the flood gate had been opened.

“And the thing is…I’m not sure whether I should be thankful or pissed as hell at you. Because I’m not a good person. I really am not. And I don’t think I’m ever going to be a good person. And I know you think that’s not true, but maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do. You deserve to be with someone who can give you everything you need. Somewhere deep down I think you know I care for you, but…but I’m not that person. I don’t know if I can be with you the way you need me to. And I’m sorry. Really, truly sorry. You don’t know how badly I want to be that person. Because I want you. I think maybe you know that, too. At least I hope you do. I just don’t…I don’t think I can.”

 The door swung open.

I just about toppled out of my chair in my haste to get to my feet as Hadley’s parents walked in, Michaela and Kenneth. It was all I could do to keep from gasping.

Far from the sleek and put-together lawyer and businesswoman I had met the other day, they looked…well, like trash.

 Michaela’s hair was a rat’s nest, her eyes rimmed red and bloodshot, and she was dressed in sweat pants and a t-shirt that said “Miami’s the Place to Be!” with lots of dolphins on it.

 Kenneth just looked like Lurch from The Addams Family.

“Oh.” Michaela stared at me with a blank expression. “You’re still here.”

I quickly took that as a sign that I was not welcome any longer in Hadley’s room.

“Sorry, I’ll just leave now, shall I?” I made my way for the door. “I’ve got to go, anyways, see my grandma and everything.”

 “You can stay, if you want.”

I stopped in the doorway and stared at Kenneth. “What?”

Kenneth shrugged, shifting the fast food bags in his arms. “You could stay, you know. If you want.”

“Kenneth, let the boy go,” Michaela said. “He obviously wants to.”

Something about the way he said he obviously wants to made a surge of anger blossom through me.

 Was Michaela Jamison as absolutely idiotic as she looked?

As much as I hated this damn hospital room, the last thing I wanted was to leave.

What if Hadley miraculously opened her eyes and I wasn’t there? I had to be there.

“I’ll be back,” I said, more to Michaela than Kenneth. “But I should be with my family right now.”

Michaela nodded her head, as if this was the answer to all of our problems. Kenneth looked at me, rather…forlorn?

 “Right,” he said awkwardly. “Okay.”

I just nodded, and since I had no idea what I could possibly say now, made my way out onto the ICU floor. I’d only made it a few steps past the check-in desk surrounded by nurses and doctors when a voice was calling me back.

“Archer, wait! Hang on a second!”

I glanced over my shoulder and saw Kenneth making his way towards me swiftly.

God, what now?

“Yeah,” I said, forcing myself to keep his gaze.

“You are going to come back, aren’t you?” Kenneth asked as he came to a stop in front of me.

I wanted to say that’s what I just said, didn’t I?

“As soon as I can,” I assured him stiffly.

Kenneth nodded, looking a little relieved. “Good. It’s just...well, I think…”

“You think…”

He blew out a heavy sigh, his shoulders slumped as he ran a hand through his graying hair. “I just think Hadley would want you here. With her. I know she cares about you a lot.”

 Yeah, I know she cares about me, too, I thought dismally.

“Right,” I said. “Well…”

 I gave another nod and turned to continue on my trek through the ICU. My grandmother had been moved out of the ICU the other night and was now comfortably resting in Bellevue’s Cardio ward, which was a good sign. She was up and functioning, however minimally. The doctor believed she would make a full recover, yet had decreed she stop smoking if she wanted to live another year.

 “And Archer?”

I stopped walking again, but didn’t turn around for fear I would find some duct tape and tape the poor man’s mouth shut. “Yeah.”

 “Thank you. For looking after Hadley. I appreciate it.”

I didn’t do it for you. I did it for her.

“With all due respect, Mr. Jamison?” I said as I began walking again. “I think she’s been looking after me more than I have for her.”