- John -

I woke up the next morning to the familiar sounds of frantic writing and soft sun shining in my face. Alex was sitting at the little desk next to the bed, writing as usual. I looked over to see the time and realized it was still pretty early. The sun was barely risen.

"Alexander, come back to sleep." I mumbled, stretching on the bed and reaching my arms out to him. He jumped a little at the sound of my voice and turned around to sign to me.

I've been awake for a while. You can sleep if you want to, I'm alright for now. He signed. I shook my head and continued to encourage him to come lay down with me.

"If I would've been up 5 minutes ago, it would still be dark outside. We went to bed late last night, you could use the rest." I told him. He nodded and stopped writing again.

I know. I just need to write something down. He signed. I nodded and he wrote for a few more minutes while I struggled to keep myself from falling back asleep, before he tumbled back into my arms and buried his head on my chest. His hair tickled my bare skin just a little bit, but it felt good to have him here in my arms, so I didn't mind.

I drifted in and out of dreams for a few hours, hoping that Alex was also asleep for at least some of that time.

Before I knew it, I was waking up for the second time to Alex moving in my arms, probably getting up so he could start getting ready. I wasn't sure what we had planned today or if we had anything planned at all. Vanessa called last night after we left the hospital and said that the doctors needed to do more to help Usnavi and no one was able to visit him for a little while.

I know how much this whole situation stresses Alex out. He's already upset about Usnavi being in the hospital and now, he can't even go in and see him. The only thing I can really do is try to be here for him. I wish I could make some magic cure and have Usnavi be alright.

I opened my eyes and heard Alex turning on the shower. The bathroom was connected to our room, and he didn't bother closing the door all the way. I knew now wasn't a great time, but I had quite the urge to join him in there. No, John. Not right now.

I held myself back from walking into the bathroom, waiting while I sat on the bed and scrolled through all my social medias. Maybe today we could go and visit some of our friends, or go on a date or something.

To try to distract my brain from the thoughts of walking into the bathroom with my boyfriend, I check the weather and try to figure out something for us to do today. It's warmer than I expected it to be for this time of year, the temperature climbing into the mid 70's despite it being late winter. A little bit of a heat wave, I guess.

Maybe Alex and I can go hang out at the beach or something. Folly Beach isn't too far from here, and even though the water is definitely freezing still, the sand will be warm and it's supposed to be sunny all day. We could have a cute little picnic on the beach, walk around and visit the shops down there. I'll bring the idea up to him once he gets out of the shower.

Finally, he emerges from the bathroom, steam filling the air and making it warm and humid in the room. His hair is still wet, dripping just a little onto his bare shoulders, a towel wrapped around his waist. He looked frail, so skinny, and it made me afraid for a moment. The times he let me see his body lately were few and far between. I hadn't failed to notice him choosing oversized clothing to hide himself in.

He's so perfect. He's always been so perfect, before we dated and now, before he got so skinny and now. He was small before this whole eating disorder thing, but now... he was practically a skeleton.

He waved to me a little as he entered the room and I smiled at him, pushing my worries about him to the side for now. I could tell he was trying to scramble for his clothes, cover himself back up because he didn't like how he looked. I got up off the bed before he could grab his clothes and opened my arms.

He hesitantly came into my arms and I held him in a hug, droplets of water from his bare skin transferring on to mine. I easily wrapped my arms around his body, feeling his bony figure as I hugged him.

"Alex, you're a skeleton." I whispered. He looked up at me with an unreadable expression in his eyes.

Don't worry about me, John. Please. He signed after pulling back from our hug a little bit.

"It's hard for me not to worry, even with treatment. It's scary sometimes for me, seeing you so small. It's like... you're a piece of glass, and if I move to quickly or bump into you or anything, you'll just shatter into pieces." I said softly. He nodded and signed an apology, which I waved off. He didn't need to apologize. I gave him a kiss on the head before letting him go.

"Oh wait, before you get dressed," I began, just so he wouldn't put on a sweatshirt or pants when we were going to be in the sun all day. He looked up at me again and I continued, "I thought we could go hang out at Folly today, have a picnic and visit some places. It's like 75 out, too cold to swim but still pretty warm." He nodded and moved some things around in his suitcase. I could hear paper fluttering every once in a while as he dug through it, and I got myself ready for a shower.

The hot water poured over my body and soaked into my hair, and I let out a deep sigh, leaning against the side of the shower. I'm still tired, a little thrown off by all the recent events and still feeling like I need to catch up with what's going on. My brain feels like it's dragging behind a little bit.

Similar to the story I told Alex last night about praying for Usnavi at Peggy's kitchen table, I find myself with my hands together once again, my head against the cold glass door of the shower as the water pelts my back.

I haven't told Alex a whole lot about my mom, but lately, I've been thinking about her a lot. Obviously, after last night, she's on my mind a lot more. As I begin to pray for Usnavi, I try to keep my mind from drifting to thoughts of my mother in her last moments.

I miss her so much, sometimes it's hard to handle. I had a lot of rough times when she had died, things I hadn't told Alex about. I was young when she died, but the pain carried through for years. There's a lot from those years that I regret.

To add to it all, my little sister dying from the same cancer my mother had... really hurt. It stung a little differently than my mother's death had. The combination of those two losses somewhat close to each other sent me over the edge for a while. I was drifting off into uncharted territory, fading so fast and feeling like I was in so deep, it was easier to just swim down.

It was all I could do to just pray for Usnavi. Whether there really is a higher power - a God up there, something or someone who knows and has more control than I do - or not, I feel like I owe it to Usnavi to send my thoughts somewhere. To do something to try to help. Even if it didn't help at all. It put my mind at ease a little bit.

The thoughts of Mom and Mary stayed with me while I finished off my shower, drying off quickly before going to get dressed. Alex was once again writing, but stopped when I entered the room. I was always curious as to what he was constantly writing about, but I didn't push it. I knew he didn't want me to know for now.

I got dressed and we went downstairs together to get together some food to take to the beach. Alex didn't help a lot with picking out the things he wanted me to bring, which didn't surprise me. I knew he would probably pick at a couple of things and I'd have to convince him to eat more. But as long as he ate something, that was okay with me.

Peggy gave me a cute little picnic basket and the typical red and white checkered blanket to sit on. It felt both cliché and cute. I didn't mind cliché, though. I just wanted to have a good time with Alex and hopefully get his mind off some of the recent events we'd dealt with.

Before we knew it, we were in the car with the windows down and our basket in the back seat, taking our little drive to the beach. I honestly missed being by the water and the sand. New York was great, a great change from my hometown, but the beach was my happy place. Nothing could really change that.

I carried our picnic to the sand while Alex held my free hand. I instantly felt a wave of calmness crash over me when I heard the real waves crashing on the shore.

We sat far away from any other people in the soft sad, our blanket cushioning us but still letting us sink in to the divets and bumps of the sand. I took my shoes off to put my feet in the warm sand and Alex did the same.

I couldn't help but smile as I set up the picnic, watching him bask in the sun. He had been looking so pale recently, probably partially due to the lack of sun in NYC and lack of eating. He was wearing a plain white t-shirt that hung off of his skinny figure but fit him better than a lot of the other clothing he'd been wearing lately. He had on a pair of black shorts, and he looked great. His hair was tied in a little springy ponytail and he looked tired, but there was joy in his eyes.

I handed him a little sandwich and he took it, signing a quick thank you before I urged him to eat at least a little. I tried to encourage him by taking a couple bites of my own food while looking out to the water, watching far-out boats sailing and people walking to the boardwalk way down the beach.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him hesitantly take a bite. My heart flipped in my chest as he took another, and I smiled to myself as he slowly but surely ate more and more of the tiny sandwich.

Once we finished our little picnic, I packed up our basket and put it in the car, but came back to the blanket where Alex had waited for me. When I arrived back to him, he was laying down, his sunglasses over his eyes, and he didn't answer me softly saying his name. I quickly realized that he was asleep. He must not have slept well last night again.

I laid down next to him and put my sunglasses over my eyes as well. I wasn't tired, and I was afraid of both of us falling asleep. I wanted to keep a lookout incase anything happened to go wrong or someone came over here. I didn't want to risk something possibly happening if both of us weren't up and ready to deal with a problem that could arise.

We laid there in the sun for a while before Alex woke with a start, a small gasp choking out of his throat. He looked around for a moment, clearly confused, before realizing where we were and why. He let himself fall into my arms and I hugged him for a moment. He signed that he had had a nightmare but it wasn't a big deal. I knew not to push, especially when it came to his nightmares, so I simply kissed him gently and we got up to go for a little walk.

Hand in hand, we walked along the edge of the water, letting the frigid waves touch our feet here and there. We got down to the boardwalk and went into some of the stereotypical beach merchandise stores just for fun. I suggested we stop for ice cream and he froze up for a moment.

"You don't have to get a lot, you don't have to eat it all, I just think it would be fun. And come on, you've gotta admit, it sounds pretty good right now." I told him as we walked to a nearby ice cream parlor. He shrugged.

I'm nervous about it. I already don't like ordering places but now I'm going to have to order something I'm afraid of eating. I'll try a little bit, though. For you. He signed outside of the shop before I opened the door.

"Thank you, my love. I promise, it'll be worth it. And I can order for you, as usual." I told him. He nodded and I squeezed his hand once it was back in mine.

Minutes later, we were sitting on a bench near the sand again while we ate our treat. I had ordered some chocolate ice cream with brownies and caramel and all sorts of stuff in it, while Alex stuck to a simple strawberry ice cream in a little cup.

His face lit up as soon as the cold cream hit his lips. He giggled just a little bit, one of my absolute favorite sounds in the entire world. When you have a boyfriend who doesn't talk, hearing his laugh is about as close as you can get. I've fallen in love with his laugh, just the way I've called in love with everything else about him.

He didn't finish all of the ice cream, but he made a pretty solid dent in the cup. It was half melted by the time we decided to head back to the car, so we didn't bother to try to save it. I was just glad he had eaten any of it. Now, we just had to hope he wouldn't get sick once we got home, whether it be on purpose or from eating a lot at once.

We sat together on the Schuyler's front porch for a long while together, him signing stories and things to me while I listened and talked back to him. Things felt so right like this, so good. It almost felt like everything that was happening right now, wasn't happening. Like we were in our own little world.

Of course, that was all until my phone began ringing.

a/n: a lil bit of a longer chapter here, sorry for the lack of updates lately!!