For the next couple of weeks, I threw myself into my physical therapy. I slowly started gaining control of my legs again, but it was a very slow process. The day came for Blake and I to return to school, and I was more then a little nervous.

            “I don’t know if I can do this,” I said as we sat in Jared’s truck outside of the school.

            “Yes you can,” Jared said. “You’ve never let what people think stop you before and you’re not going to let them now.”

            I made a face. “Sometimes it’s a pain when people have so much confidence in you,” I replied.

            “Look on the bright side, Hales. If people piss you off, you can run over their toes with your wheelchair,” Blake said helpfully.

            “I’m not as mean as you,” I said. “Although that does sound like a good idea,” I added.

            Blake opened his door. “Come on, we’ll be late if we don’t get our butts in gear.”

            Jared got out and grabbed my wheelchair from the back of the truck. He unfolded it while Blake got out and then carefully picked me up. With my guidance, he set me in my chair gently. I strapped myself in and he moved around to grab the handles.

            “I’ll pick you two up after school,” Jared said. “Have fun.”

            “Oh yeah, this is going to be a laugh a minute,” I said dryly.

            “Well, at least you still have your sarcasm intact,” Jared muttered as he climbed back into his truck. “See you later.”

            I watched as he drove off and then gave a resigned sigh. “Okay, let’s get this over with. I’ll steer so we don’t run into anyone. You just hold onto the handles, okay?” I asked as I turned my head to look at Blake.

            He pouted a little. “You ruin all my fun,” he complained.

            I grinned and shook my head at him. “If you weren’t so sadistic, I wouldn’t ruin anything,” I retorted, starting to wheel myself forward up the path to the front doors.

            Blake walked behind me, hanging onto the handles. “Can we at least run over one persons toes?” he asked.

            “Maybe if you’re really good,” I replied.

            He seemed satisfied with that and continued to follow along behind me. When we got to the doors, he went ahead of me to open them and I pushed myself through. Then he grabbed the handles again and we went down the hallway.

            People did turn to look at us, but to my surprise, they were all smiling. A few people even called out greetings, which I definitely hadn’t expected. When we got to my locker, my eyes nearly popped out of my head. “Whoa,” I said.

            “What?”

            We stopped in front of the locker and I looked at it in amazement. “There’s a huge paper attached to the locker door and people have written messages on it.” I leaned a little closer. “Give me your hand.”

            Blake did as I asked and I put his hand on a certain spot of the paper. I saw his mouth drop open in shock. “There’s Braille on here as well?”

            “Yeah, it looks like it’s in a few spots. All the messages pretty much say get better soon or something along those lines.” I sat back again, a little overwhelmed. “I can’t believe people did this,” I murmured.

            Blake put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it gently. “Apparently people actually like you here.”

            “Some of them must like you too, because it couldn’t have been easy to get Braille onto this paper.”

            He ran his other hand over the paper, finding the few messages that were written in Braille. “I guess that’s true. Maybe my status as an asshole is slowly fading. I might have to do something to get it back.”

            I smacked him in the stomach lightly. “No, you can lose that status. I like it better when you’re nice.”

            “I’d still be nice to you,” he assured me.

            I rolled my eyes. “That’s not what I meant. We should probably get going to our first class.”

            We started going down the hallway, but stopped when we heard our names being called. Rachel came hurrying up to us and she was almost vibrating in excitement. “That video of you two is so amazing!” she squealed.

            “Uh, what video?” I asked.

            Her excitement dimmed a tiny bit. “You mean you don’t know about it?”

            “No?”

            She whipped out her phone and fiddled with it for a moment and then handed it to me. I looked down at the screen and my jaw dropped when I saw myself and Blake in the music room at my place. The video showed us playing around for a moment and then we started actually playing the song and singing.

            Blake leaned over my shoulder a little. “Why can I hear our voices coming from your hands?”

            “Rachel handed me her cell phone,” I replied. “Apparently a little birdie was taping us after my first day of physical therapy, when we were in the music room. Three guesses who it was.”

            “I only need one. I’m going to kill Sophie,” he grumbled.

            “Why?” Rachel asked in shock. “Everybody loves the video! Everyone has been talking about it since it got posted. It’s had over half a million hits already.”

            My eyes widened. “Seriously?”

            “Yeah, and you should read what some of the comments say. I think you’ve inspired a lot of people.”

            I looked up at Blake. “Maybe we shouldn’t kill her. If we’ve helped even one person in some way, then the video was worth it.”

            He sighed. “Fine,” he agreed reluctantly. “But you have to promise to try and get a video of her doing something embarrassing.”

            “I can try to do that. We really need to get to class right now though. We’ll see you at lunch, okay?” I said to Rachel, handing her the phone back.

            “Okay. I need to go find David anyways, I seem to have lost him somewhere along the way.”

            I chuckled as I watched her scurry away. “That girl really has too much energy sometimes. I don’t think she ever actually just walks anywhere.”

            “I never would have thought David would date a girl like her. He was always so calm and laidback about everything.”

            We started heading towards our classroom again. “Well, they say opposites attract. I mean, we’re opposites when it comes to our personalities, and yet we fit together really well.”

            “That’s true,” he agreed.

            We reached our classroom and I guided both of us to some empty seats near the back. Blake moved a chair out of my way and then took his place right beside me. “What class is this again?” he asked.

            “Geography. We have Music next and then History after lunch. Our spare is last period, which is great because it means we get to leave school an hour early.”

            He reached over to play with my hair lightly. “I was thinking that since it’s actually a nice day out, did you want to just walk home? The fresh air will do us both some good I think.”

            “Well, you can walk, I’ll just go along for the ride,” I replied with a small laugh.

            He grinned and shook his head. “Smart ass.”

            I shrugged. “Can’t argue with the truth.”

            The morning went by quickly. Music was a lot of fun and I quickly realized that everyone in the school had already seen the video. A lot of people stopped to talk to us wherever we went. It was definitely different then being given funny looks and then ignored.

            At lunch, we sat at our usual table with Rachel and David. Again, a lot of people came over to talk to us and ask me how I was doing. By the time the day ended for us, I was a little overwhelmed. I think Blake was as well, but he didn’t say anything about it as we started home. I had already called Jared to let him know we didn’t need a ride.

            “That was an interesting day,” I mused.

            “Was it as bad as you thought it was going to be?”

            “No, it definitely wasn’t. I still can’t believe how many people came up to talk to us because of that video. I wonder why Sophie decided to make it?”

            “We’ll ask her later. I don’t know where she was at lunch.”

            “Probably hiding because she knew what your initial reaction to the video would have been.”

            He chuckled. “You’re probably right. Maybe I’ll have some fun with her before I let her know we aren’t mad at her.”

            I rolled my eyes. “You can be so cruel sometimes, did you know that?”

            “Hey, I gotta have my fun where I can.”

            I laughed and reached over to pat one of his hands that were on the handle of my chair. “Don’t worry, I’m sure we can think of other things to do that are fun.”

            “Hmm, you’re probably right. But I still like tormenting her. She’s like my little sister, so it’s my job as her ‘big brother’ to annoy her by any means possible.”

            “I want to say that it’s not your job, but I have Jake as a brother so I know that it kind of is.”

            We continued walking along, chatting about random things. When the house came into view, I frowned a little. “There’s someone at the house,” I said, eyeing the unfamiliar car in the driveway.

            “Probably someone who works with Liam.” Blake didn’t pause as he continued to push me forward.

            “You’re probably right. So what do you want to do for dinner tonight?”

            “Do you want to go out? I could call Jack and see if he’s free to drive us tonight.”

            Jack had been driving us around a bit since my surgery. It was nice to still have the freedom to go places without Jared or Liam having to come with us. “Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Maybe we can go…” my voice trailed off as I spotted the person leaning against the car in the driveway. “Marcus?”

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Wow, had a case of the WORST writers block ever. I couldn't write anything at all. I have about eight or nine stories on the go, most of them just for fun, and I couldn't write anything on ANY of them. Bleh, that was a horrible feeling. Really hope it gets better now though :-).

This chapter is short and unedited and likely really bad, but I wanted to get something up for you guys. Sorry for the cliffy, hopefully I can get the next (and final) chapter up. There will be an epilogue after that and then it's done! Well, this version will be done anyways. The version I'll be sending to the editors will take another few weeks to finish up. I'll let you know what that version will have after I finish the epilogue.

Anyways, to those of you who have wished me luck with my new horse, thanks for the support :-). He's a 7 year- old QH cross gelding, red roan in colour. He's slowly learning that we aren't evil people and it doesn't usually take as long to catch him now. He's still very nervous of people and you can't make any quick or big movements around him, but he also knows which pocket I keep the treats in now, which is a good thing. With time I think he'll learn to trust us on the ground. He's really good to ride, very surefooted and not spooky at all. Feels like riding a coiled spring though, he has TONS of energy lol.

As always, comment to let me know what you think! Try to be kind even though this chapter was horribly written lol.